The wife decided she wants to attempt a 33 Trucking jack-o'-lantern. If she's successful (she usually is) I'll share the results.
I seriously hate OSU fans. Went to a birthday party today for one of my daughters friends. Dad is a big OSU fan. His perception is they are kings of the world after beating PSU. Their loss to OU means nothing because it was early. Our 3 wins vs top 25 teams by 20+ means nothing.
Claypool is rising in the favorite player power rankings. His love of tweeting stuff like this is pretty great. He also appears to love smoking dudes when they know it's coming.
That first highlight where he hurdles the kid, it legit looks like they are playing a pee wee team. wtf
Competition isn't great but kid moves very well for a 6'4 230 lb player. I'd take him anyday though. Bama and Clemson had offers out to him. Those are guys I like
Big week for scoreboard watching for ND fans starting Tuesday with #MACtion Miami @ Ohio- must win to keep Miami's MAC title dreams alive Navy @ Temple - need Navy to win the next two weeks Wisconsin @ IU - Auburn @ TAMU - The more losses the better for Auburn, helps take away Clemson's best win USC @ Georgia Stanford @ Wash State (huge game for ND SOS) Clemson @ NC State (obvious) Penn State @ Mich State (feel like this one will be ugly) OSU @ Iowa Oklahoma at Okie State Texas @ TCU LSU @ BAMA AZ @ USC VaTech @ Miami (Must win for ND, Miami needs to be undefeated when ND comes in) JUST A Monster week in CFB
I very much enjoy monster weekends of College Football where we have a pretty easy match-up. Just need Miami to win.
In past years Wake would be terrifying. This year, Unless all of our heads fall off we will run right thru them.
i'm worried (but kind of excited) about what khalil tate is going to do against USC. I think AZ is winning the Pac12, and i'll be interested in seeing what he can do against USC this week. hopefully USC pulls this one out
USC, Stanford, Miami, NC State, and MSU all losing would be catastrophic to our playoff hopes. We can afford the likely losses, but not all of them.
until i see someone come close to even slowing him down, i won't believe it's going to happen. that guy is the most exciting cfb player I've seen this year. definitely hope I'm wrong since he hasn't faced great competition to this point
I think if we keep winning by 20+ that and our brand would get us in the playoff. While the SOS would suffer with those losses, it's still a good schedule and we have been obliterating it. The closes game has been 20 points against MSU where Adams sat out the second half.
just a few points i want to make for some reason: 1 It appears that were getting stronger. Yeah the team was sloppy at times during the game against NC state but honestly the team seems to take the wear and tear of the season incredibly well thusfar. If thats the new S&C staff those guys need to be locked up for a decade. 2 If you use ELO we still play 3 top30 teams, which (if they dont drop out) would give us 7 top 30 opponents. Last year not a single team had 7 top30 opponents before the bowl season started (and that includes CCG). Wake could drop out but BC is also on the edge of a top30 team so even 8 is possible. 3 Not sure if someone can find it but I dont think many teams have ever had a 6 game winning streak with just > 20 point wins. To have that include 3 ranked teams is just insane 4 A >300 yard rushing yards/game season is actually becoming realistic with the remaining schedule. If you consider that both sparty and uga are top10 rushing defenses, NC state was as well until Adams broke that big run and weve kinda been force feeding wimbush just to get his passing confidence up 5 If the team keeps playing like this, winning and gets left out of the playoff i will be mad (unless osu, clemson, bama all win out and uga loses really close to bama in the seccg) 6 Not gonna do a damn thing saturday but watch football and go to the gym before the start of it. Gonna be glorious
Kelly actually made the comment that we’re seeing weight room gains as the season progresses. The opposite is usually true. And it’s generally drastic.
by the way, just to further help the analysis. I played around a bit with the 538 model to see what our most important games are. - If ND wins out, according to that model, ND has a 53% chance to be in - If NC State and Miami win thats all the way up to 70% (with the NC state being the more important of the 2) - An okie lite win over Oklahoma would do virtually nothing for us. (which I believe to be wrong as I think a 1 loss OU is in over us due to their win over OSU and a 1 loss Okie lite is not due to crappy schedule OOC) - A Penn State loss to Sparty would do nothing for us (again surprising as a B1G champ Sparty would again become possible, at the very least id knock out the 2 B1G team scenario) basically i think the model is crap when you use it in such a specific way. Still love me some WolfCanes this weekend.
Agreed that the model is fun to play with but ultimately seems flawed. Considering the dominance of the team lately, if they win out and continue to display the dominance they've shown (minus maybe one close game against Miami or Stanford), I just don't see ND being left out. With that said, if the initial rankings that come out tomorrow have us at like 6 or 7, then we have a long road ahead and essentially don't control our own destiny.
I still can’t come to terms that we aren’t lucky and we are just good. Every time I rewatch the games I think damn that was a hell of a break - we get so many though that it can’t be chalked up to luck
Kiper has us as #3 in his playoff ballot and McShay #4. Here's what Kiper wrote about Nelson: Prospect on the rise Kiper: Quenton Nelson, G, Notre Dame Nelson was ranked No. 11 in my updated Big Board, but he's going to jump a couple more spots. He dominated NC State. He's a rare talent. Guards rarely go in the top 10 of the draft, but the 6-foot-5, 330-pound Nelson has a chance to do it. As of now, he's going to have one of the best grades for a guard that I've given out in my 35 years of doing this. He has tremendous agility and quickness, can pull on the move and is incredibly physical. Nelson is like a brick wall. And with 31 career starts, Nelson has experience. He's just an outstanding football player.
My biggest take from the NC St game is how well the DBs took away the under routes. That was about the best defensively called and executed game that I have seen for a long time here. Better than anything Diaco put out there. I cannot wait to see how Elko does against Navy (I will be at that game btw)
I couldn’t sleep last night and did a half eye open rewatch. This did stand out. There were not many balls they didn’t get a hand on. Elko is a hell of a coach and is revealing the talent we actually have. Also stop by, we have a new tv and flag pole coming this week so we should be lined out and easy to find by Navy.
I will, my brother has a tailgate in the Joyce lot for every game. I forget the name of that street behind Joyce but he is always in that grass area there and hangs a Chicago and ND flag. He has a big screen up and early games going.
Recruiting Intel Spoiler On Alontae Taylor. Heard the visit went well. He's a definite ND kid. Nice kid. Fit in well with the team. Heard he's an early enrollee, however, and he couldn't bring his parents on the trip with him. That might give some some pause for concern. Would he flip to a school who his parents haven't ever visited? That's a bit of a ? right now. Obviously ND doesn't have a long-standing relationship with him, so it's hard to say how interested in he is. I think this week will be important. Does he continue to communicate? Heard he plans to check out Ohio State on an official. Will probably visit Tennessee and potentially Wake Forest. Heard he has a family member who is at Wake or going to Wake, so they may be a player. On Noah Boykin. Same situation. Visit went great. He really liked hanging out with the players and liked the opportunity to play early. Just not a long-standing relationship to really know how things sit. He's another good kid who would fit in well. Again, I think the communication this week will be important. As we know, Geordon Porter will announce on Wednesday. ND has seemed to be the lead dog in this, and I think they still are, but it's just a guess at this point. I don't believe ND really knows for sure where he's going. Have to wait and see what happens as the day nears. There has been some buzz on some sites that ASU is making a push here. I guess we will see. I did some digging on Chase Cota, and I think he plans to take a number of visits yet. He does plan to enroll early, but he wants to take his visit. Might even take an unofficial to Oregon. ND still in the race, but not much to know until he takes these visits and then gets close to deciding. Not much has changed with Julius Irvin lately. ND still in good position here, but again, no date scheduled to announce. ND still remains in good contact with Solomon Tulliaupupu, which is what I always look for, so that's a good sign, although this one will likely go down to the end. On Payton Wilson, as of now, heard he is scheduled. I am sure North Carolina will try to persuade him not to visit, but we will see. Heard he is from a rural area, so he may be more comfortable with familiar surroundings, but anything can change on a visit. Sounds like CB Joe Wilkins, Jr. will be the only official visitors this weekend. As we said, Lawrence Keys will visit for Navy. ND loves him as a player. Not sure he's fully qualified for ND yet. As a player, he's definitely a take from what I hear.