Rakes Report #155: And I never wanted anything from you...except everything you had, and what was left after that, too (Oh) (The Clemson Review)
~mandatory musical accompaniment~
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1) I am not sure when I will be able to fully process what happened on Saturday night. It was the conclusion of a draining week amid a draining year and I will openly admit my hope waned in the second half as I resigned myself to this being another one that got away. There was so much swirling between the election and COVID (ten games canceled or postponed this past weekend, as cases and hospitalizations set records in many areas) that the idea of the Irish being able to break through and get this one — against Dabo and the Tigers on the biggest stage with GameDay there and the whole nation watching — was difficult to keep steady in my foggy brain. But thankfully, I didn’t have to conceive it, because the Notre Dame Fighting Irish went out and did the damn thing to win their 13th consecutive game, toppling a top-ranked team for the first time in nearly three decades in a stone-cold classic and announcing to the college football world what many of us already knew: They’re a really good team.
It wasn’t just that they beat Clemson, but they beat up Clemson. Tiger players were peeled off the turf with regularity. Did you know the Irish only trailed for a total of three minutes and 11 seconds this game, in addition to four plays in overtime? That they averaged more yards per play than their guests? A total team effort and it is such a relief and a validation to finally — finally — get one of these, and do so not by luck or gimmicks but by a consistent expression of joyous, disciplined violence. Longest winning streak in the nation. Second longest home winning streak. Ending a number of Clemson’s impressive runs (36 regular-season games, 28 ACC games, 14 road games). Winning is hard, to be sure, but it’s also really, really fun.
2) It begins and ends with Ian Book, who is now 27-3 as a starter and has added “One of the most bad-ass drives in Notre Dame history” to his resume after going 91 yards in 86 seconds against the No. 1 team, which employs the best defensive coordinator in the country. On the move, deep shots, picking up yards with his legs, clutch on third downs and perhaps most impressively having a heartbreaking goal line fumble (immediately preceded by Kyren Williams tripping on a sure touchdown) and bouncing right back. The red zone was an issue until it wasn’t, with the Irish scoring on their final three trips to pull out the victory.
Book has been doing great stuff his whole career but unfortunately the focus has generally not been on his guts and sense of the moment but missed reads and occasionally sporadic pocket preference. When Notre Dame needed late drives to take the lead against Pitt and Virginia Tech, he came through. When they needed him to pad the score late against Southern Cal so we could breathe, he did, twice. He blew out a Top 10 Stanford team, a Top 15 Syracuse team, an Iowa State team some picked to beat the Irish in the bowl and more than a dozen additional opponents but if none of those count for whatever reason then this one always will. Book will never have to buy another drink in South Bend for as long as he lives and that fact makes me quite happy.
3) The quarterback deservedly got the game ball but the co-MVP of the game might have been Williams, who went 65 yards on his first touch to immediately breathe life into the proceedings, a la Cierre Wood in Norman and Dexter Williams against Stanford. Averaging six yards per carry and scoring three touchdowns is impressive, sure, but Williams was a rock in pass blocking, repeatedly giving Book time to go downfield. The beautiful receptions by Javon McKinley (are you kidding me with that diving tip back to himself) and Avery Davis (two critical plays to tie the game at the end of regulation) are not possible without Williams doing the dirty work. Shoutout Michael Mayer (who atoned for two costly early mistakes with five-star plays in the second half) and Tommy Tremble who remain exceptional in both the receiving and blocking game. Interesting how after a pretty healthy rotation most games Saturday night was just all Williams, which shows what the staff thinks of him.
4) Who put Book in such a great position to succeed by not asking him to do anything of which he wasn’t capable, mixing up formations while sprinkling in enough deep shots and designed runs to keep the Tigers honest? Tommy Rees. The big complaint/question when Rees was hired was how was he going to do against Brent Venables and the answer is “Pretty fucking good.” Rees averaged 6.6 yards per play without Kevin Austin and Braden Lenzy, relying on a receiving corps that consisted of a graduate student we weren’t even sure was going to be back, a converted running back who had previously converted from quarterback and a Northwestern transfer. Clemson was missing three critical players, which is fair to note, and the Irish were stuck on three second-half points for a while but I don’t know how you come out of that being anything but impressed.
Driving the run game toward their 200 yards rushing at a five per carry rate was the offensive line, who did exactly what everyone has wanted them to do in a big game and pushed Clemson around, including for two overtime touchdowns. Can you imagine how good this offensive line would be if Kelly had just hired someone other than Jeff Quinn? I’m kidding, of course: Quinn is good at his job, has been for some time now and the reaction to his hire from some of our fellow Irish fans remains a darkly comic embarrassment I cherish. Next year the offense is going to look a lot different with Book and most of the large gentlemen in front of him gone, but I am really enjoying the week-in and week-out destruction this group is powering.
5) Last week, Travis Etienne became the all-time leading rusher in the history of the Atlantic Coast Conference and this weekend he ran for 28 yards on 18 carries, good for 1.6 yards per snap. In the Brian VanGorder days we would calculate the yards per play if you just took out the three or four most egregious mistakes and we can kind of do that with Etienne because if you remove his long run of the day (13 yards) he drops under a yard per carry, which is nuts. Clemson tried to get D.J. Uiagalelei going on the ground in the second half but it wasn’t happening, although he was good at some other stuff we’ll get to in a moment.
How did this complete shutdown happen? It starts with the defensive line, where Kurt Hinish and the rest of the defensive tackle rotation played like men possessed. The linebacking crew stepped up, with Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah coming through with monster play after monster play, Drew White doing what we expected but hey also guess what Shayne Simon might be good now? Kyle Hamilton showed off his unlimited range by crashing down in support, a complete team effort by the defense to make Clemson a one-dimensional offense.
6) Unfortunately, that one dimension was almost good enough to win because my goodness was Uiagalelei as advertised. Sliding in the pocket, throwing on the run, lasering deep balls – the football got from one part of the field to another so quickly one could legitimately suspect the five-star freshman had access to some sort of Samoan teleportation technology. Trevor Lawrence probably puts a little more touch on a couple of the shorter throws his understudy fireballed, but I genuinely don’t know how much better quarterback play the Tigers could have had in this game as the Irish secondary got a workout all night. (To be noted: Shaun Crawford laying the wood on the final third down of the game to force the incompletion and keep it 4th and 24.) The folks who were concerned that this game would be viewed as illegitimate in Lawrence’s absence were correct that there will be an asterisk, but it will simply note “This was the first career road start for the number one overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft.”
But – BUT – as good as Uiagalelei was, the man came around for him in the second overtime. We already talked about the seniors delivering on offense so to see Ade Ogundeji and Daelin Hayes come through with back-to-back sacks to drive the Tiger offense into a 3rd and 24 was a true joy. If Hayes doesn’t get injured last autumn he’s playing in the NFL right now instead of serving as the leader for this team on and off the field. This defense stepped up all night but I want to point to two stops in addition to the game-ender: After Book’s fumble, it felt like things were really about to spiral, but Clark Lea’s charges immediately forced a three-and-out. And then again at the end of regulation to get the ball back one final time, they stood up, with JOK continuing his haunting of Etienne. Credit Tony Elliott for going deep into the playbook and the Clemson receivers for breaking an uncomfortable amount of tackles, but Lea eventually caught up by the end.
7) Clean, clean game from the special teams, as Jonathan Doerer was four-for-four on reasonable field goal attempts and true on all his extra points. Jay Bramblett came through with not only a booming 54-yarder when the Irish needed it but also had a key tackle on Etienne on the very unreasonable attempt Doerer was asked to try that could have gone sideways real quick. Considering all the insane athletes Clemson has scattered throughout, coverages were solid.
8) On the idea of going for two at the end of regulation or after the first overtime, I understand the idea but was fine in the moment with not going for it for a few reasons. 1) I had a very clear view from the stands of the two-point attempt in 2015, and I’m still traumatized from that. 2) Clemson is very good at defending two-point conversions, generally. 3) Going to overtime meant the Tigers, considering their rushing ineptitude, would have to conduct their offense almost entirely through the air in a condensed space. Went very easily for them the first time, much less so in round two. 4) This one is the most important: Over the course of this season, Kelly has attempted to instill into his team that they are championship level and should approach their craft with that standard. By going for two, you’re conceding you’re not on an equal level. Had Notre Dame lost this game, that framing would and should have been questioned but they didn’t, so hats off for having faith in the team.
9) I hate complaining about officiating but it was so rotten in this game – with way too many reviews and zero consistency in pass interference flags, in addition to missing a clear overtime facemask. I don’t want to belabor the point but would simply like to underline that if this is the ACC’s best then I’m glad the long-term relationship with the conference will only be a partial one because goodness gracious I did not know you could shout a ref into picking up a correctly thrown flag.
10) On the field storming: My belief is Notre Dame would likely not have football if they didn’t have students on campus and they couldn’t justify students paying full ticket on fall tuition with all the other restrictions if they didn’t at least give them football. Even though cases are rising on campus and in the surrounding area, the administration chose to allow fans to attend the game and if you allow college students to attend a game where their school could knock off the No. 1 team, well, you can’t play dumb about what might happen. Hopefully being outside and enough masks in play will stem transmission, but even if students were banned from the stadium this is a weekend where bars and parties would be giant issues because of course no duh. Playing college football during a pandemic remains a highly questionable proposition, at best, and I pray the ramifications for this weekend’s gatherings are limited and not catastrophic to the South Bend community.
11) Winning is Hard/Schadenfreude Round Up: Well, Michigan lost to Indiana by 17, running for a total of 13 yards as they fall to 1-2 on the season. You might be thinking, “Well, at least the Sparty team they lost to last week didn’t lose to 0-2 Iowa by a score of 49-7,” but you’d be incorrect in thinking that because that was the final of that game. Somehow neither of those were the worst Big Ten loss of the weekend as Penn State was a 27-point home favorite against Maryland and got smoked, falling to 0-3 on the season and setting up a battle next week with winless Nebraska. All Sean Clifford/Ian Book comparisons are hereby retired.
Georgia was a small favorite against Florida in the Cocktail Party and was overwhelmed, their quarterbacks combining to go 9 for 29 with 3.9 yards per attempt and three interceptions. Tennessee had a 13-0 halftime lead at Arkansas but then they didn’t score the rest of the way while the Hogs put up 24 so now Rocky Top is 2-4 in the SEC after a promising opening five halves to the season. Tennessee's quarterbacks combined to go 11 for 21 with two interceptions, a very healthy way to play offense.
USC opened up their season by needing a series of miracles to survive at home against Arizona State. Virginia Tech lost at home to Liberty. Florida State was blown out at home by Pitt and now the UNC loss in Tallahassee is looking worse and worse.* Texas almost lost at home to West Virginia and Oklahoma State had all kinds of trouble with Kansas State but prevailed. UCLA lost at Colorado in Karl Dorrell’s first game as the Buffaloes’ head coach and Chip Kelly could be on his way out the door. Memphis almost lost to our old friends, the South Florida Bulls.
* The Tar Heels are 5-2, which seems fine until you realize their two losses are to Florida State and Virginia, two teams that are a combined 1-9 in games not played against North Carolina or the FCS. It can sometimes be boring to just consistently take care of business as a favorite but it’s far better than the alternative. I still expect they will be a motivated, tough out come Black Friday as the computers are still fans and the talent is still there.
12) We’re going to savor this game and remember the sense of community we felt in its aftermath forever, which is a nice thing to have sorted out right away. It’s an instant classic double overtime win over the No. 1 team in the country, but it will also always be tied to the historic election results that occurred earlier in the day. Replays will include Mike Tirico doing motorcade play-by-play and trying to explain which channel viewers needed to find while people with no interest in college football will have this rattling around in their brains for years to come, having caught a few minutes of it accidentally when they were just trying to watch Dave Chappelle’s monologue. It was the top team in the country going down not to some fluky upset but to a fellow Top 5 team that was, at least on this night, its equal. It was Notre Dame finally — finally — getting one of the Big Ones.
But as great as that win was, as thrilled as I am that it happened and as important as it was for how this team is perceived by so many, my thoughts on the program have not changed dramatically.* Coming into this game I had been telling you for weeks and weeks and months and months how good your favorite football team was, because even though they weren’t playing the toughest competition week-in and week-out they were mowing most opponents down. They passed the eye test, they passed advanced stats checks, we know recruiting is good (although not quite where we want it just yet), we know the team is consistently sending guys to the NFL and we know that the coaching staff is as complete as we’ve seen in some time. I am so happy for this team because of all the work they’ve put in and I’m happy for Kelly for how many of these have slipped away from him but I went into this game thinking the Irish were one of the finest football programs in the country and I exit thinking basically the same way. They’re moved up a peg, sure, and I would have been heartbroken if they fell short again but this isn’t a dramatic shift in how I view the landscape.
*A good Dan Wetzel column from the lead up the game that sums up the Kelly Era and my thoughts.
Regardless of how Saturday went, there was always going to be both plenty of opportunity remaining and an equally ample amount of work left to do. For the Irish to win the national title, they likely have to win at least two more games against the Alabama/Clemson/Ohio State triumvirate. They also have to keep their nose clean in road trips to Chestnut Hill, Winston Salem and Chapel Hill. They have to keep massaging the passing game to get more out of it while maintaining the level of physicality that’s come to define them this season while hoping for good fortune from injury and COVID. It is a lot to ask, but not impossible.
Next up is Boston College, a program designed to ruin things for others. I think it is entirely reasonable to be concerned about a hangover game following Saturday night’s festivities, but I like that this is on the road and should allow for a more business trip mentality. I am not overly concerned about this as a match up because it is, in the end, a one-dimensional offense going against Clark Lea and while Zay Flowers may slip loose once or twice, I am not sure what the team that ranks 110th in the nation in both rushing yards per game and per attempt is going to do for the 60 full minutes against waves of Irish defenders. As far as stopping Rees and Book, the Eagles are ranked between Florida State and Georgia Tech in SP+ defense, so ask yourself if moving the ball on either of those teams was a tough task. Notre Dame will be about a two touchdown-favorite and weird things happen on paper they should be able to take care of business and get to their bye week to rest.
Regardless of how these next few weekends ago, please take the time to cherish what happened Saturday. It was a special win from a special group that has put so much work in to elevate this program to the position it is in and we are lucky enough to say we are fans. 7-0. 18-2. 30-3. An excellent run of football that I, personally, would like to keep going. Go Irish, Beat Eagles.
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