Tag: irish

Big Ten’s return shakes up ESPN’s Bowl Projections, Irish going where?

With the impending return of the Big Ten, there was some change in ESPN’s Bowl Projections.

The Irish are riding high after a very impressive win against South Florida yesterday, blanking the Bulls 52-0. Even with the dominant performance it wasn’t enough for two ESPN analysts to project the Irish into the College Football Playoff.

Mark Schlabach and Kyle Bonagura have Alabama, Clemson, Oklahoma and Ohio State in different orders, but all playing for a championship. Both of them also have a Alabama and Clemson battling it out once again for the crown.

Now for the Irish, it’s not exactly where they want to be. The return of the Big Ten makes the margin for error razor thin and it seems like Schlabach and Bonagura don’t have faith the Irish can make it past Clemson.

The both agree on Notre Dame’ bowl destination, the Orange Bowl against Florida. Yes, it’s a New Years Six game, but it’s not the one the Irish want to play in. It’s a very good consolation prize, but not the grand prize. If the Irish can beat Clemson, they’d have a great chance at crashing the CFP party.

Chirp, chirp. The best Notre Dame tweets through halftime vs USF

See the best Notre Dame tweets from today through halftime against South Florida.

Here are some of the best tweets from pregame all the way through halftime against USF. The Irish lead the Bulls, 35-0 and look to finish them off in the second half.

 

Watch: Freshman Tyree scores his first Notre Dame touchdown

The lead extends to two scores as freshman running back Chris Tyree find the endzone for the first time in his Irish career.

The hype for Chris Tyree was real. He has been a big part of Notre Dame’s special teams and getting touches on offense. Today he finished off the Irish’s second drive, with a 1-yard touchdown, the first of his career.

The offense looks lights years better than in week 1, as they are now two for two today, both scoring being touchdowns.

Notre Dame 14 USF 0

Weather watch: What to expect in South Bend today

It should be a great afternoon in South Bend today.

Fall is upon us and today will be a fantastic day for Notre Dame football, weather wise. There should be plenty of sun, while the temperature won’t change much over the course of the game.

It will range from 61 degrees Fahrenheit at kickoff to 64 degrees around the final whistle. It shouldn’t rain at all. A perfect day for Irish football. #BeatBulls

Williams grabs ACC conference honor

Notre Dame running back Kyren Williams is the first Irish football player ever to earn an ACC weekly award.

Notre Dame’s sophomore running back Kyren William’s introduced himself to the ACC on Saturday and his efforts were recognized as he was named the conference’s running back of the week.

Balling out was an understatement for Williams as he accounted for 205 total yards with 2 touchdowns in his first Irish start. He showed that he could grind out hard yards and then find a crease and explode like this:

The fourth-and-1 run was huge, as the Irish clung onto a 10-6 before Williams’ defining moment of the game. The Irish wouldn’t look back after that, as they would finish off Duke 27-13. Williams had 112 yards on 19 carries while he caught 2 passes for 93 yards. The 75-yard screen pass was a thing of beauty.

It was a breakout performance that was needed out of the Irish offense. Williams was exceptional all afternoon.

Congrats to Kyren Williams on earning Notre Dame’s first ACC honor.

Irish drop in ESPN Power Rankings but how far?

After the first week of “Power Five” games, there was some movement inside ESPN week 2 College Football Power Rankings.

Heading into their opener against Duke, Notre Dame was fifth in ESPN’s Power Rankings. After a lackluster performance against the Blue Devils where the offense was slugging to get going, the Irish dropped down two spots to seventh.

Honestly this shouldn’t come as a surprise. It was Oklahoma and Texas jumping the Irish after both their quarterbacks had impressive debuts. For the Longhorns it was Sam Ehlinger, who has seemingly been there forever, torching UTEP for 426 yards and 5 touchdowns with no picks.

The Sooners had a first-year starter at quarterback in Spencer Rattler, who unlike his 3 predecessors, will actually start more than just one year for Lincoln Riley. Rattler was very impressive as he was 14/17 for 290 yards and 4 touchdowns, no picks, in just a half of work.

Chris Low pointed out the star of the Irish offense yesterday, Kyren Williams, saying “the Irish will be looking for additional impact players on offense, and sophomore running back Kyren Williams has all the tools to be one of those guys.” It certainly was nice to see Williams make noise but the offense needs to find other options as well. The offense can not get one-dimensional.

If the Irish offense looked a bit mome competent, they probably wouldn’t have been jumped by both teams, but that wasn’t the case. Ian Book struggled early, but find a decent groove in the second half. There is still a lot to be desired from the 3rd year starter.

The good news is that the season is young and the Irish won’t be challenged much until the face Clemson on October 24, the eighth game of the season. It would have been nice to be viewed better but the talent is there. The Irish just need to translate it over from the practice field to Saturday’s.

Notre Dame Beats Duke: Staff Game Balls

Notre Dame starts the year 1-0. Now see who the FIW staff chose are their game ball recipients for the socially distanced week one victory!

Notre Dame defeated Duke 27-13 to start the 2020 season as a member of the ACC for the first time in program history.  It was far from perfect but it was a win.  Here at Fighting Irish Wire we’ll give out game balls for the best players on both the offense and defense each and every week, here is what we came up with from Saturday’s victory.

First from Geoffrey Clark:

Offensive: Kyren Williams
The Irish have a lot of faith in this kid, and he showed why against Duke. Scoring twice and gaining 205 all-purpose yards, including 112 on the ground, was enough to sway at least some people who might have had any doubts about him. He was the only offensive player to look consistent from start to finish on a day when most of the unit took time to wake up. While he can’t be the Irish’s only weapon if they’re going to succeed, there’s no question he’ll be a big one.
Defensive: Isaiah Foskey
Duke threatened to take control of the game when it got to Notre Dame’s 2-yard line in the second quarter.  Instead, Foskey blitzed and was ruled to have sacked Chase Brice for a 10-yard loss after a replay review.  The Irish’s lead never felt seriously threatened after that because the offense started to get it going.  Foskey also recorded two quarterback hits and 1.5 tackles for loss, which cost the Blue Devils 11 yards.
Next:  Mike Chen’s Game Balls
Pages: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3

A change in philosophy has the Irish close to elite football status

When Brian Kelly suffered his worst season as Notre Dame head coach, he made changes immediately. They have really paid off

As the Irish step into their first, and most likely only, ACC conference season, there are plenty of questions along the way as to how Notre Dame will fare. Chip Patterson of CBS Sports tried to tackle how Brian Kelly will guide the Irish through this odd season.

Before Patterson got in-depth on how the Irish would do in conference play, still weird to say that, he looked at how they got to this point. Patterson singled out Kelly’s change in player development and recruiting since going 4-8 in 2016. The head coach addressed those issues and “the results were immediate, with Notre Dame going 33-5 over the last three seasons with three top-12 poll finishes and an appearance in the 2018 College Football Playoff.”

You can say that Kelly has really excelled with the change, not hoping the players improve, but instead putting an emphasis on drastic improvements. Patterson singled out linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah and Kyren Williams as two players who have benefitted from new priorities. This led Patterson to come to the conclusion that “Notre Dame is uniquely built to overcome whatever obstacles are ahead in the 2020 season.”

That main obstacle being the Clemson Tigers, who pretty much own the ACC right now. Patterson knows that as “Clemson is still the odds-on favorite to win the league, but Notre Dame is too strong to think we can pencil in those two matchups as ‘win, win’ for the Tigers.”

Former Irish commit Colzie sets commitment date, possible recommitment?

One-time Notre Dame commit Deion Colzie has set a date to make his second commitment. Could lightening strike twice for the Irish?

Last October, Brian Kelly scored a huge win when Georgia wide receiver Deion Colzie committed to the Irish. Notre Dame held on to Colzie’s commitment until March 20, when he reopened his recruitment. Colzie now has set a date to commit for the second time.

Taking a look at where some of the experts think Colzie is headed is not very encouraging. At 247Sports, there have been 6 “crystal ball” picks, each one of them favoring instate Georgia. The other pick was made for the Irish, but it was made the day Colzie previously committed to the Irish. It’s noteable that Irish Illustrated insider Tom Loy has picked Georgia.

Rivals sees it the same way, but with an asterisk. Their Notre Dame insider Mike Singer picked the Irish in their FutureCast, after another one of their insiders picked Colzie to recommit as well. So you’re saying there’s a chance?

Right now it tough to tell what Colzie’s intentions are. No doubt, Kelly and wide receivers coach Del Alexander would love for Colzie to rejoin the Irish 2021 recruiting class. Right now, Lorenzo Styles Jr. is the lone commit at the position. We will continue to monitor the situation, as the countdown to September 28 has begun.

ESPN updates Power Poll, Irish sitting pretty

Notre Dame is in a much more advantageous position in ESPN’s final preseason Power Poll than either of the other polls.

The season is finally upon us, we can officially say it’s game week. The Irish start their season on Saturday, hosting Duke at 2:30pm EST. The excitement for 2020 is at it’s peak and ESPN just put more gas on the Notre Dame hype machine heading into the regular season.

The world wide leader updated their Power Poll prior  to major conference play and Brian Kelly’s Irish squad ranked 5th overall according to the experts at ESPN. Chris Low, who compiled the rankings had some very encouraging things to say about the Irish: “Finally, Notre Dame has joined a conference, at least for this season. This Irish will play 10 ACC games and be eligible to play in the conference championship in December. They have the pieces in place to get there, too, from veteran quarterback Ian Book to one of the top offensive lines in the country to budding superstars on defense in linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah and safety Kyle Hamilton. This is a team primed to win 10 or more games for the fourth straight season.”

That’s high praise from Low, who is very high on what the Irish can accomplish this season. In a surprise, Low actually doesn’t have Clemson, they’re number two, as his top overall team like both polls do, it’s Alabama. Looking at other Notre Dame opponents for his coming season and you’ll find North Carolina at 15, Louisville at 22 and Florida State at 23.

The season is here and we are extremely excited for what lies ahead in what could be the only season the Irish could qualify for an ACC title. Hell, might as well go win it since we can.