D Fence

Yeah - tonight could not have gone any better for the Irish with all those recruits at the game.

I believe Roch is coming as a baseball visitor and is a complete stud in baseball (like first round pick projected). Would likely be a PWO for football and would not be the only QB the staff is chasing in 2023

You might be referring to the other team on that night, but Saline does play in Michigan's Division 1. They play Ann Arbor Pioneer in the first round. Pioneer has been good at times but I do think they are really weak this year. Skyline (Daelin Hayes) is in that conference as well. If I read the bracket correctly, they would play Belleville in the second round. That would be a great game to see Carr battle Bryce Underwood.

Looks like that kid is Chris Tarek from my hometown. 6'6" 295 OL committed to Wisconsin. Kid is massive. I haven't seen him play this year yet, but remember thinking last year his feet might be too slow to be an OT at a P5 school. He could probably play OG ad he's more of a mauler as a run blocker.

Sorry, I had this in the wrong thread. I meant to put it in the Jacob Lacey thread.

Other than the 4th and 1 stuff, I was disappointed in our DL. We got the safety on a blitz, and it seemed we only got good pressure when we blitzed. I watched Tennessee right before and their DL was stunting and causing problems all day against LSU and a pretty athletic QB. Maybe we really missed Howard Cross that much, but our guys kept getting stood up and locked and weren't penetrating upfield. Their long TD pass was when we blitzed Joseph and left the middle of the field wide open. I think Freeman actually showed some good growth. He called a few key TOs to avoid confusion and potential disaster at key points. On short yardage, I would have liked to have seen Davis Sherwood in as a fullback, particularly on our 4th and goal that got stuffed. Their LBs were waiting in the hole for us, but later in the game when Sherwood was in, he sprung a really nice run by Diggs.

Dang, I guess bad news like this unfortunately isn't confined to the off-season anymore

I traveled to this game and it was quite a treat. I agree Rees called a great game and the fans around me were screaming at Chizik all game. Michael Mayer is a total beast, but we knew that. Besides that, 2 plays summed up what we are still lacking: the first was when Lenzy was on a post ND the UNC jumped over him to knock the ball down. Both the CB and safety were right there and they made the play on the ball. Second, we looked to be in man coverage a lot, and the freshman CBs were in 1x1s out wide. Their WRs ran past our corners on several plays, and when their QB had time he hit them on long TD passes. Our corners really can't get beat that often.

I thought Rees actually called a pretty good game against Cal with what he was dealt with. The design on that TD play to Tyree was a thing of beauty. Against OSU and in a few other games, he tried to get tricky too many times. I thought Freeman should have called a TO when that interception got overturned just to settle the team down and regroup. He looked like a fan on the sidelines getting caught up in the moment. I'm hoping that now that he has his first W he settles in a bit. It felt like coming out in the Marshall game he was nervous and more soaking in the moment vs having the team prepared to execute.

Karson Hobbs, 2024 Safety from Moeller HS in Cincinnati

OL and Buchner have to get better. That offensive PI killed us, then Rees decided to run the same jet sweep to Tyree he did 2 plays earlier.

That would be huge

Agree with all the comments here. Fascinating yet sad story. Yes, the description that Deadspin used "hoax" did seem to imply Manti was involved and set everything off against him. Shame on the media for turning against him like they did. I remember the Katie Couric interview and she was horrible (being nice here) and derogatory the whole interview like she was making a name for herself. Agree this showed Manti's amazing character and I will continue rooting for that guy. I thought the same thing about the real girl, too. How could it have been that neither she nor any friend say "hey, your photos are all over the news"?

I don't have inside information, but I heard that Keeley wanted to take some officials. This situation feels like him clearing the deck to allow him to visit OSU for our game, Bama and maybe Florida. Agree that some insiders feel he's long gone but others say ND will continue to push. One consistent I've read is this is not related to anything ND did, so hopefully we can still pursue him. We will probably hear more in a few weeks about how much the staff is still in contact with him, which will be telling.

Did Hanafin take his officials yet?

Boom! I live this guy's film. With D. Bowen and Zinter, this is 2 incredible LB classes stacked together.

Looks like Loy and Wilfong just put in CBs for PA OL Peter Jones today.

Sounds like Novosad is sticking with Baylor.

Minich reportedly runs a 10.7, which is blazing fast for a safety. It you watch his film, he really flies to the ball. Looks like a really good prospect likely as a strong safety.

He did an interview a few months ago. Said he still talks to other schools just to keep in touch, sort of a "you never know" type of situation. In the same interview, he said he's locked in with ND as well. I think he's probably been told and seen how coaches change, schollies get pulled, etc. and feels this is needed. It seems there is another recent article where he raves about Freeman.

Very excited about this pickup. He's a bit smaller yet probably more fluid, but he reminds me of Claypool. Our WR room is going to be crazy good in a year and can't wait to see these kids in action.

Agree it will be good to move on. I'm interested to see what the staff does now for 2023. We are in kind of a tough spot but still have time to work out a solution for the class.

I'd love for them to take a 5th WR but they likely won't do that. They will probably look to wait for 2024 and land a few WR more studs, which I respect.

Ironically we don't do too well with DeMatha in hoops either, and Brey is from there. But different topic for another thread. It sounds like the other guys we pursue at DL will be in '24. But also M'Pemba can play a number of positions, including Vyper, so if we could land him that may be our guy.

This is a few days old, but for those wondering about the Baylor QB commit who's interested in ND pushing for him, below is an article. It will be interesting to see if we push depending on what happens with Dante. https://fightingirishwire.usatoday.com/2022/06/28/report-baylor-2023-quarterback-commit-is-interested-in-notre-dame/