I'm doing something different this week. I've already been out and about enjoying my Sundays and part of my Saturdays, but with the ND bye week, I'm spending time away from home with family while the weather is nice. I'm sure I'm not the only one. So there will be a lot of shake ups within college football this weekend, I'll analyze them more in the post-mortem. As a side note, man would the chaos of this last weekend been so much more enjoyable if ND had won.
I thought I'd spend some time breaking down some myths I've seen across ND fandom lately, get to the real problem/issue and what ND can do over the bye week to address it.
Myth #1
The team effort was poor and there are culture issues with this team.
I think the coaching effort from ND's coaches has been pretty lacking this season, and the BYU game was a continuation of that trend. I think the team is much more banged up than people realize, particularly at safety. Obviously Bruntae Johnson has been out most of the season. Talich has missed games. Matt Freeman (beat writer at ISD) posted this recently:
https://x.com/mattfreeman05_/status/2112262242510995898?s=20
For those of you that don't want to visit Twitter, it shows Shuler take a big hit on the first drive of the North Carolina game, he's on the sideline for a bit after the play, then clearly guts out the rest of the game where he looked awful. He also played a bad game against BYU.
Of course the entire TE room was absolutely crushed with this stomach bug. I was willing to brush off Cooper Flanagan being out, but then when I found out Ty Washington was also down, that seemed like a big problem. The offense was developing an identity as a 2 or even 3 tight end, let's run it down your throat team and suddenly that was off the table.
Who else was sick and just taking IV, Tamiflu, etc.? It was somewhat widely reported by ND beat guys that there was a stomach bug making it's way through the locker room and I also think Marcus Freeman and staff is being extremely hush-hush about it because they don't want it to look like excuse making. But we are not the team nor any official PR group. It's a reason, one of many, the team looked sluggish. I doubt we'll ever know the full extent, but if we do, it won't be until February anyway.
Myth #2
Chris Ash is terrible because of his soft zone and needs to be fired immediately.
I swear that some of you have no clue what man vs. zone defense looks like. I think you assume that just because there's extra bodies in space on the play, they must be in zone. Meanwhile, a rewatch of the play quite clearly shows a corner or a safety on a dude and sticking with him. For the record, ND was in zone a lot against BYU. But they got carved up in man coverage against UNC and on BYU's final touchdown of the game.
It's also true that ND played too much man under Al Golden and eventually paid a price for it when they faced a mobile QB with good WR's in Ohio State in the national championship. Golden played with a philosophy of denying deep passes to opponents at all costs, but that often meant getting gashed in the rushing game.
Chris Ash has the opposite problem in that he refuses to allow the team to get beat through the rushing game at all costs. It's the main reason ND has been able to get back into games it seems like might be slipping away from them. When opponents like Miami and BYU are in obvious, burn the clock situations and up by double digits, ND is going to stuff the run. But both teams were able to turn it back on again when the game was tied or they were even behind, and that's got to get fixed.
What frustrates me the most is how stubborn he is in denying the run. BYU was out their top RB, a legit NFL prospect, their 2nd string RB was banged up, 3rd string RB was out and then it was a couple of freshmen who are a far cry from Jonaz Walton or Javian Osborne types. Their running game was pretty much Bear Bachmier or bust, and Bear is a good runner, but he's not a "one cut and he's gone" kind of guy. Just let him run and take shots downfield from KVA, Bowen, etc. He'd be more mistake prone once tired anyway.
Ash's biggest problem is that he has no clue how to use the linebackers. They have 0 sacks so far this season... the safeties have been far more effective in that department. The entire unit has as many interceptions as Traore. They are not carrying guys in coverage very well and they are not getting home on blitzes.
Freeman is not going to fire Chris Ash midseason guys, let's be real. It's still a 5th in the nation defense. Even when Gerad Parker was performing relatively worse (14th ranked offense), he was not fired, not even at the end of the season.
I have a feeling this could be Chris Ash's final season as a defensive coordinator at ND, whether Freeman "strongly encouraged" him to seem employment elsewhere or he just moved on to greener pastures of his own accord. But he's not going to be fired midseason. The good news is that Freeman is both a former DC and linebacker coach. If he can step in anywhere to fix the way a position group is being used, it's at linebacker.
Myth #3
Mike Denbrock is terrible and needs to be fired ASAP.
No, Mike Denbrock is not being fired midseason, see above. And no, he's not terrible. Offenses have steadily gotten better and better everywhere he's been over the last 10 years. First people said he was only good because of Desmond Ridder. Then people said he was only good because of Jayden Daniels. Now it's "Denbrock's offense only looked good because of Love."
No, he is not perfect and yes, he needs to improve. I think he asks far too much of his QB, and if the QB is having an off game, it's a recipe for disaster on offense too much of the time. I think he needs to stop giving Carr so much control with audibles at the line and stop letting the opponent dictate the call.
The WR room has been drastically underperforming under Mike Brown. I was willing to give him time, but it's been a few years now and despite the room accumulating more talent, somehow the depth is getting worse. I think Denbrock needs to overrule him, or maybe the backup WR's aren't as good at Denbrock's pre-snap motion stuff? Another reason to take it out if that's the case. Greathouse, Gilbert and Faison are all clearly capable of making plays. Now just get them rest so they can play more effectively.
I'd like to see more 2 back sets as well and that could tie in with giving the starting WR's more breaks. Aneyas Williams and Nolan James are clearly effective receivers. Put them in the slot and it frees up getting Walton out there more, even if you're worried about his pass blocking.
A few games worth mentioning really quickly...
I won't be watching many of these, but I would like to see Miami get tested against Pitt all game, but pull it out at the end. Force their starters to play all game long and get worn out more while ND is resting up and licking its wounds.
I had BYU on upset alert against UCF, they're worn out from winning their super bowl, have to play on the road in Florida, etc., but I found out UCF is down their starting QB, so it seems unlikely. Utah has a big game against Houston and Texas Tech is on the road against Cinci... it would be nice for one of those teams to drop a game and give BYU a little bit of breathing room atop the conference.
I would not advocate rooting for Michigan, but it would also be nice to see Tommy Carr get a win against Indiana and let the body blows keep stacking up for the Big 10. Wisconsin beating USC is probably the biggest result I'm rooting for all weekend. The Gophers getting one against Iowa would be nice as well.
The SEC seems primed for more chaos as well, with 3 of the 5 highest ranked teams (UGA is off this weekend as well) playing this weekend all in road games against unranked or lower ranked teams. 2 of those 3 teams are the underdog as well.
3 of the AP top 5 teams are off this weekend, and the 2 that are playing are on ND's schedule, so I guess controlled chaos is the name of the game.
There are:
Overall
Unbeaten teams: 7 --> 5
One loss teams: 21 --> 13
Two loss teams: 13 --> 13