Tag: tar heels

Watch it: Notre Dame star Kyle Hamilton ejected for targeting

Star Notre Dame safety Kyle Hamilton has been ejected for the rest of the North Carolina game for targeting. Watch the play right now.

Notre Dame’s best player in the secondary and one of the best safeties in all of college football is Kyle Hamilton, who earned pre-season All-American honors by various outlets.

Despite not yet having an interception in 2020 his impact has been huge in Notre Dame entering Friday’s game at North Carolina 8-0.

Hamilton made a few huge plays early to stop North Carolina drives and keep the Tar Heels from putting even more points up early.

However, on a third and 20 late in the second quarter, Hamilton came crashing down to make a stop, but couldn’t slow himself up enough to avoid a targeting call that got him ejected.  Watch it below.

North Carolina would go on to kick a field goal to take a 17-14 lead that possession.

Notre Dame would respond quickly getting downfield and getting a 32-yard field goal from Jonathan Doerer to tie things up at 17 before halftime.

CFN’s Notre Dame-North Carolina Preview/Pick

What happens in mere hours in Chapel Hill? CFN has taken their best guess at the Notre Dame-North Carolina contest on Black Friday.

As we’re awaiting kickoff now in just over an hour as I sit to type this out and before I go finishing putting up more Christmas decorations, why not take a look at the Notre Dame-North Carolina preview at College Football News?

Pete Fiutak always does a good job knowing the world of college football and even in 2020, that’s been no different.

You can read his entire preview for Notre Dame and North Carolina by clicking here.  But if you just want the cliff notes version, check out some notes below.

  • Cites the Notre Dame run defense as the number one reason Notre Dame will win
  • Mentions North Carolina’s great statistical offense but does question what great defense they’ve played so far as Clemson, Miami and Pitt, the three best defenses other than Notre Dame in the ACC, have been avoided by Carolina.
  • Points out besides Clemson, who scored 33 regulation points, Notre Dame hasn’t played a second really good offense.
  • Says North Carolina doesn’t know how to play a complete game but for 23 minutes or so can be as good as anyone in the nation.
  • Fiutak calls for a Notre Dame win by less than a touchdown and says the Irish offense will barrel it’s way to nearly 500 total yards.

Fiutak’s prediction:  Notre Dame 40, North Carolina 34.

He also ranks the must-watch level of this game to Thanksgiving dinner items which is worth checking out on it’s own.

OK, back to hanging decorations I go to avoid stress-eating before kickoff.

Notre Dame at North Carolina: FIW Staff Predictions

Staff picks are up for Notre Dame vs. North Carolina. Will the Irish return to South Bend 9-0 or fall on the road? Expect a thriller…

A very happy Thanksgiving weekend to all of you out there as we exit the actual holiday and now plow ahead with what is likely to be a very non-traditional Black Friday.

Non-traditional not only because the doors at countless retails shops won’t be nearly as full this year but also because No. 2 Notre Dame is playing a regular season game on a Friday which never happens and they’re spending Thanksgiving on the east coast instead of southern California or the Bay Area out west.

Notre Dame looks to remain perfect on the year but the task ahead of them is anything but easy as they’re in North Carolina. Don’t let the two losses fool you by any stretch, this Tar Heels team can score points with the best of teams and no lead has been too big for them to not get back into a game this year.

So what happens Friday afternoon?  Do the Irish stay unbeaten?  Or does North Carolina put an end to the dreams of a perfect season and make the Irish path to the College Football Playoff that much more difficult?

Here is what the Fighting Irish Wire staff thinks, starting with Geoffrey Clark.

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Notre Dame football: kickoff time set for North Carolina game

It may be Notre Dame’s toughest remaining game this regular season and it takes place on a strange day for the Irish. Details here…

Notre Dame doesn’t play football on weekdays very often, most recently doing so in the regular season on Labor Day 2019 when they opened the season with a 35-17 win at Louisville.

Previous to that you have to go all the way back to 1996 when the Irish opened the season with an impressive 14-7 victory on a Thursday night at Vanderbilt.

Notre Dame will be playing at North Carolina on Friday, Nov. 27 and we now know what time we’ll be glued to our television sets as kickoff was officially announced for 3:30 p.m. ET that day.

On paper this game against North Carolina and Mack Brown appears to be Notre Dame’s tallest remaining hurdle ahead of the potential ACC Championship Game.

The game will be broadcast on ABC and will be Notre Dame’s eighth trip all-time to Chapel Hill.  The Irish are 5-2 in those match-ups and 18-2 all-time against the Tar Heels.

Is Notre Dame the third best team in the ACC?

ACC Network analyst Eric Mac Lain ranked Notre Dame third in his conference power rankings. Find out why he’s off base.

This past weekend saw plenty of teams fall from the unbeaten ranks (Florida, Miami FL, and Tennessee) and others continuing their free fall (Texas and LSU). Inside the ACC obviously Clemson’s resounding win against Miami, FL was the headliner. North Carolina and Notre Dame give the conference 3 teams without a blemish.

With that in mind, former Clemson offensive lineman Eric Mac Lain ranked the conference’s teams.

Mac Lain isn’t really high on the Irish, as his week five rankings had Brian Kelly’s squad as the 4th best. With the Hurricanes losing to the Tigers, the Irish had no where but to move up. Is Mac Lain right about where he places the Irish?

Yes, the win over Florida State this weekend wasn’t as pretty as we would have liked, but what did you really expect after such a long layoff? The Seminoles have great individual talent, but as a whole they’re a mess.

As for the Tar Heels, they beat a very good Virginia Tech squad, but had to hold them off late, winning 56-45. The Irish haven’t given up that many points this season so far, just 39 total points, good for the 8th best scoring defense in the nation. North Carolina, on the other hand has given up over 24 points a game, 24th nationally.

Offensively, the Irish have the advantage as well, averaging just over 40 points a game, while the Heels are at about 37 points a game. Again, advantage Irish. Kelly squad is one of the least penalized in the nation, just 10 so far which is good for 5th nationally. UNC has almost doubled that number, they have 29 penalties on the year. Want to dig a little deeper? The Irish have a +.33 turnover margin, North Carolina has -1.

Sure, North Carolina boasts a “sexier” offense but that doesn’t tell the whole story between the two teams. In my estimation, Mac Lain is off base with his assessment of the top teams in the league, after Clemson of course.

Sporting News ACC Preview has us thinking crazy ‘what if’ for Notre Dame

So if Notre Dame and North Carolina are both unbeaten the day after Thanksgiving….

Notre Dame will make it’s debut as an official football member of the ACC on September 12 when the Irish welcome the Duke Blue Devils to South Bend.

In what has been an insane year, perhaps an even crazier college football season awaits us in under two weeks.

Today The Sporting News broke down the ACC and as a surprise to absolutely nobody, Notre Dame will be not just a major story-line all fall for the league, but a player for the conference championship.

Bill Bender is a favorite of ours for The Sporting News and wrote the ACC preview.  Here is what he said about Notre Dame, who he predicts will finish second in the league.

Here are other Notre Dame mentions from Bender in his ACC preview:

  • Calls Notre Dame joining the conference for 2020 the biggest story-line entering 2020.  That might seem obvious but remember that the consensus top team in the nation this pre-season also calls the ACC home.
  • By no means does he call him a favorite for the award but Bender lists one Notre Dame player as a Heisman Trophy contender:  Ian Book.
  • In his conference games of the year, Bender has Notre Dame hosting Clemson and their trip to North Carolina as the two biggest games of 2020 in the ACC.

If you’d like a quick glance at the entire league to become familiar we strongly recommend reading Bender’s entire piece, something you can do by clicking here.

I never thought about this until right now but walk with me for a second here.  What if Notre Dame beats Clemson on November 7 and enters the North Carolina game unbeaten and then say North Carolina is also unbeaten at that point.

You know where I’m going.

Do you perhaps, not run a full playbook and perhaps walk out of Chapel Hill with a loss that doesn’t make you that upset because it’d mean a rematch with the Tar Heels in the ACC Championship instead of a second game with Clemson?

Then again Boston College remains a week after for the Irish and we’re all aware of what they’ve done to Irish teams with championship dreams before.

Notre Dame Preseason Top 5? One Analyst Says Yes

With the strange feel around college football entering 2020, one preseason ranking now has Notre Dame in the top 5. Find out who, here.

Preseason polls have been out for sometime now as the both the AP Top 25 and Amway Coaches Poll powered by USA TODAY were released earlier this month amid the confusion of ranking teams even though they’re not playing football this fall.

Paul Myerberg of USA TODAY went ahead and ranked the 76 teams that will be playing FBS college football this season and he gave Notre Dame as much respect as any I’ve seen from any national outlet ahead of the 2020 campaign, as he ranked the Irish fifth.

Myerberg’s top ten went the following:

  1.  Clemson
  2. Alabama
  3. Georgia
  4. Oklahoma
  5. Notre Dame
  6. Florida
  7. LSU
  8. Texas
  9. UCF
  10. North Carolina

Myerberg ranked Notre Dame’s 11 opponents for the 2020 season as follows:

1.  Clemson
10.  North Carolina
24.  Pitt
25.  Louisville
28.  Florida State
41.  Duke
44.  Wake Forest
52.  Boston College
60.  South Florida
64.  Syracuse
68.  Georgia Tech

A battle of potential top ten teams the day after Thanksgiving in Chapel Hill?  North Carolina is improved but even in this strange fall to come that seems a bit strong to me.

For Myerberg’s entire rankings, 1-76, click here.

CBS Sports bowl projections: Florida Gators to the New Year’s Six

CBS Sports analyst Jerry Palm tried his hand at projecting the bowl season this fall, projecting UF missing the CFP but making it to the NY6

There are numerous uncertainties surrounding the college football postseason in 2020. It’s currently unclear if we will even have a season in the first place, let alone how a bowl season could be conducted given the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic.

It’s almost guaranteed that some bowls will be cut and qualifications for eligibility will be lowered as two leagues in both the Power Five and Group of Five have canceled the fall seasons.

With this in mind, CBS Sports analyst Jerry Palm tried his hand at projecting the bowl season this fall.

It remains to be seen how cancelations from the Big Ten, Pac-12 and others will impact the bowl season, but Palm’s projections help give us an idea. He has three SEC teams in New Year’s Six games, as well as two teams from the American Athletic Conference.

Palm has the Gators missing the College Football Playoff but making it to the New Year’s Six for the third time in as many seasons. He projects a return trip to the Orange Bowl in Miami, which Florida won against Virginia last season.

NEXT: Who will the Gators play?

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College Football Recruiting: Nation’s top corner picks North Carolina

North Carolina has become a hot spot if you’re one of the top recruits in college football. They again landed a big prize on Tuesday

At least in terms of recruiting I could not have been more wrong about North Carolina’s hiring of Mack Brown last off-season.

I thought Brown had been out of the game for too long and wasn’t going to be able to attract the elite kind of talent to North Carolina like he did in his best days at Texas.

Boy was I wrong.

Brown and his staff have done tremendous work on the recruiting trail as they’ve put together what’s widely seen as a top five class nationally.  Now Brown and the Tar Heels have struck again, landing a commitment from the top corner back in the 2021 class.

Tony Grimes, a five-star talent from Virginia chose North Carolina over finalists Georgia, Ohio State and Texas A&M on Tuesday.  Grimes is listed as at 6-0, 180 pounds and comes from Princess Anne High School in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Last year Brown took North Carolina from an embarrassing 2-9 to 7-6 and winners of the Military Bowl.  Now he’s taken the Tar Heels to the truly elite levels of recruiting, as 247Sports puts their current class as the third best nationally, trailing only Ohio State and Clemson.

Now can Brown get it to translate into wins, and big wins at that on the field?  In an ACC that has been Clemson or bust for the last half of a decade, it’s easy to see how they have the potential to climb so quickly and potentially start to enter the College Football Playoff contender conversation sooner rather than later.

In case you were wondering, Notre Dame’s ACC cycle includes dates with North Carolina in back-to-back years starting in South Bend in 2021.  247Sports currently ranks Notre Dame 14th in their team rankings in the 2021 recruiting class.

Ian Book Gets Very High Ranking on Top 25 Quarterback List

Notre Dame got good news when Ian Book decided to return for another season, but did they get another year of a top-five college quarterback

There is no question that the importance of having a very good, if not great quarterback in college football has only grown in recent years.  Look at the likes of Joe Burrow, Trevor Lawrence, Tua Tagovailoa and DeShaun Watson who have won the last four national championships.

There is also no question in regards to the significance of Ian Book choosing to return to Notre Dame for his final year of eligibility in 2020 as the Irish return a two-year starter to lead them at quarterback as they hope to return to a second College Football Playoff appearance in three seasons.

Bill Bender of The Sporting News released his top 25 college quarterback rankings ahead of the 2020 season today and Book checks in with a very generous ranking of fifth overall.

Bender says of Book:

Book opted to return for his senior season, and he will add to his total of 57 career touchdowns with the Irish. Book is 20-3 as a starter, a record that is underappreciated given the pressure of playing that position at Notre Dame under Brian Kelly.

Only Trevor Lawrence (Clemson), Justin Fields (Ohio State), Sam Howell (North Carolina) and Sam Ehlinger (Texas) rank above Book while last year’s freshman sensation at USC, Kedon Solvis, checks in sixth.

I like Book and Notre Dame is fortunate to have him back for a fifth season.  That said, I’m not sold on him being the fifth-best quarterback in college football right now.  The young man competes each week which is the best compliment you can give a player but still has a good amount of issues with pre-snap reads (see Michigan game), being too quick to tuck and run and overall arm strength, although I do think that particular trait gets over-analyzed too often.

If Book can improve even slightly in all three of those I think you’re looking at someone who is close to that top five, but I wouldn’t have him there just yet.

And if he does perform as a top five quarterback this season, chances are great that you’re looking at an 11-plus win team this regular season.

If he doesn’t?

You’re still looking at a team that could likely muster up nine or 10 regular season wins but one that still has an obvious gap at the quarterback position between themselves and the truly elite programs.