Rakes Report #227: It don't matter at all where you've played before, California's a brand-new game (The Stanford Review)
Dominant nights from Audric Estime and the defensive front finished off the 2023 season in style.
~optional musical accompaniment~
1) If there’s one thing you can say about the Marcus Freeman Era as its second regular season concludes, his teams have been pretty good at bouncing back from adversity in both the micro and macro. Now, again, I’d prefer there to generally just be less adversity to bounce back from but after being loose with the football and finding themselves trailing a bad Stanford team late into the second quarter (another poor start on the road), nobody panicked, leaning on the massive advantages in the trenches to stretch out the lead before the half and then put it well without of reach following the break.
Weird game to cap off a weird season. We’ll try to process the big picture below but I’m really glad that everyone playing their final game for the Irish got a celebratory sendoff like this, a comfortable blowout in an evil place that brings the Legends Trophy back home after last year’s serious misstep. The page is going to immediately turn to the transfer portal and NFL decisions and eventually a bowl, but let’s spend a little bit of time reflecting on the final regular season contest. As always, cannot believe it’s over so fast – feels like we were just in Dublin.
2) Audric Estime. The poor Cardinal back seven, which had to contend with their defensive line being blown to hell, leaving them trying to tackle a runaway bank safe with ballerina feet in space. If that was Estime’s final game in blue and gold, he ends his career setting the single-season rushing touchdown record with 18. I would have very much liked to see Estime get one more series, which would have potentially broken Julius Jones’ single-game record (he finished 24 yards short of tying it) and pushed him into the top 10 on the all-time career rushing list (he finished 20 yards back of George Gipp, which is such a funny thing to write. We’ve been at this for a while, huh?). I also would have liked to have seen him in at the end of the first half when the ball was almost fumbled at the goal line, but let’s focus on celebrating a stellar game, a stellar season and a stellar career from the big guy. Credit to the line, tight ends and receivers for doing such a stellar job blocking.
How lucky are we to have just spent four seasons with Estime and Kyren Williams as the lead backs? There are numerous exciting guys on this roster and in the recruiting pipeline who will end up doing great work but a blessing to see these two backs with different styles and different skillsets flourish.
The game plan was pretty much Hand The Ball To Estime, which isn’t a complaint but did leave few touches to go around elsewhere. Both of Chris Tyree’s catches were awesome and I really hope the staff can convince him to come back next year. Tobias Merriweather made a tough third down conversion while Jaden Greathouse and Jordan Faison had fun touchdowns (both off play action, for whatever that is worth at this point). Sam Hartman did not have a clean game — the fumble, the pick and another almost pick in the second quarter — but did enough, particularly on the throw to Greathouse, which brought things full circle to the opener.
Check-plus for going for it on 4th and 1 from the Stanford 38 in the second quarter, particularly after the Cardinal had hit a 56-yarder. The Irish scored on that drive to take a 21-16 lead they would not relinquish.
3) I was annoyed when Stanford hired Troy Taylor because he’s an innovative coach who won a ton at Sacramento State, and you could see flashes of why when he manufactured a few big plays that when combined with Irish errors kept his squad in the game for longer than it should have based on pure talent level. Eventually the lack of horses caught up with him and the Irish front seven terrorized all four quarterbacks who took snaps, totaling nine tackles for loss and 4.5 sacks.
The hyphenated duo at strongside defensive end showed out, with Nana Osafa-Mensah and Javonte Jean-Baptiste making a living in the backfield, while Rylie Mills and Howard Cross continued their recent run of terror. Marist Liufau was active again and J.D. Bertrand had a tackle for loss as well, in addition to the hurry that forced the bad throw on his compatriot Jack Kiser’s interception that flipped the game with Stanford in Irish territory down only five. Jaylen Sneed annihilated a guy for a forced fumble. If memory serves, Thomas Harper tackled a guy by dragging him down by his arms, which was very cool.
Elic Ayomanor was the biggest threat on the Stanford offense, after putting up nearly 300 yards receiving during their USC Eve comeback against Colorado and performing well against both Oregon State and Washington. The Cardinal targeted him 16 times, but he came down with just seven completions for 58 yards, the lid kept on and the efficiency kept low.
While technically a special teams play, Jean-Baptiste’s blocked field goal return was a wonderful cherry on his season, the joy of his teammates celebrating reminding me of MTA’s fumble return against Georgia Tech two years ago. Jean-Baptiste is such a big dude and we had a great angle for his footwork along the sideline, which was really astonishing athleticism, as well as the nasty stiff arm that sent the valiant holder into another universe. It’s sad we only got this one year of him and Harper and we can only pray the portal hit rate on defenders is as good as it was this year going forward because they were such crucial parts of this defense.
4) I would say the crowd breakdown in the first quarter was around the 55/45 mark tilted toward Notre Dame. By the middle of the third, many of the Cardinal faithful had departed, leaving it closer to 80/20 or 85/15 as we celebrated Estime and the blocked kick return. My loathing for that stupid marching band knows no limit, but overall there wasn’t much to note about the in-stadium experience. They did play Limp Bizkit’s “Rollin’” at one point, and there was a fun video segment where players tried to blindly guess which Thanksgiving items were in a box.
5) Winning Is Hard Round Up: We take no pleasure in Michigan success but after Ryan Day’s antics surrounding the Notre Dame game earlier this year it’s nice to know he’s in hell following the Buckeyes’ third straight defeat against the Wolverines. Speaking of brutal rivalry losses, Auburn managed to give up a touchdown on a 4th and goal from the 31 to allow Alabama to escape another Iron Bowl on the plains. And Louisville, with an outside shot at the playoff still in front of them, lost at home to a Kentucky team that had been recently leaking oil.
Florida State and Washington both struggled mightily against their in-state foes before prevailing late, while Georgia Tech hung around with the Dawgs all game long in a commendable effort. Oklahoma State needed (another) massive comeback at home against BYU to make the Big 12 title game. North Carolina was 6-0 and ranked No. 10 in the nation but lost four of their last five against FBS teams, getting handled by the 9-3, Top 25 NC State Wolfpack (!!). Kansas State lost a snowy home contest against Iowa State as a touchdown-plus favorite. Indiana blew a fourth quarter lead to Purdue and Tom Allen got fired.
Nebraska intercepted Iowa in a tie game with 31 seconds left and lost in regulation – do you know how hard that is? The Huskers were 5-3 and needed one more win to get to a bowl but lost out. Pitt lost at Duke to finish 3-9. Baylor lost at home to (8-4!) West Virginia to finish 3-9. One week after laying out the Trojans, UCLA got blown out at home by Cal in the final PAC-12 regular season game.
6) We’ve got plenty of time to reflect on the season and the bowl result will add some color to how we feel about it, but I’m a bit flummoxed on how to process what went down. Every win total projection had Notre Dame right around nine, which they hit, but every loss was so annoying and painful, although at least they all came to good teams and there was nothing even approaching the Marshall or Stanford results from last year, a marked improvement. Of the nine wins, only one was close late — the coaching staff should remain very thankful Estime bailed them out of a kick attempt in Durham, because if that had sailed wide it would have raised serious questions — and only two were within a score going into the fourth quarter (Duke and N.C. State).
Was this defense wasted? I lean no, but I’d listen to the argument. The latest SP+ has it as 11th in the nation, so quite good but not the elite of the elite. How many players off of it will be taken before the third day of the coming NFL Draft in April? Any?* (Benjamin Morrison obviously a big exception down the road.) While Al Golden did a good job scheming up cumulative pressure, there was not an elite edge rusher that you tend to find on the best defenses, nor a switchblade linebacker. It was a very good unit that had lapses at tough times (the final drive against Ohio State and in the early going against Clemson), did quite well against good passing games and dominated inferior opponents. I don’t know if it will go down in the history books like we debated earlier this year but it was a delight to watch most of the time.
* I don’t know how accurate this mock draft composite is and obviously things can change via the combine and workouts, but it has Cam Hart going in the fourth as the highest defender.
The offense has moved up to 17th in SP+, which is impressive considering the various issues that have plagued it. With better receiver health, you could make the case it might have approached elite status, but when you combine the injuries on the outside with Hartman’s difficulties on the road and the overall line play being a level below where we thought it might hit, that's a lot of weaknesses to overcome. Would a more experienced offensive coordinator have been able to scheme around those and help elevate Hartman? I think so, and combined with some game management question marks you potentially steal back at least one if not two or all three of the losses, but like the defense this is not a unit dripping with obvious high-round picks outside of the left tackle.
Overall, I would mark the 2023 campaign as a minor disappointment and slightly missed opportunity that had plenty of fun, entertaining high notes along the way. Not anything approaching a disaster, but if you played this season out a hundred times this probably clocks in as a result right around the median or a little below it. As far as Freeman long-term, he’s going to need to iron out whatever issues led to the slow starts on the road and figure out what he wants to do at offensive coordinator, because a poor effort on the road at College Station with a new starting quarterback is going to put the entire 2024 season behind the eight ball.
Curious how you all feel about this particular 9-3. Looking forward to discussing this over the coming weeks as we see just how much roster turnover there is going to be and who the Irish will be facing in a bowl. Really appreciate you all reading over the course of the season.
Next up: Christmas Giving. For those who have subscribed this year, I’ll give you the full explainer in a week. On December 1, I’ll put Bridget’s Christmas shirt designs up on the TeePublic store if you wanted to get ahead on gift purchasing. As usual, the December commission deposit will get transferred to the Center for the Homeless in South Bend.
This season both feels about what I expected, but also with the feeling of missing a chance to make a run. There are no super teams out there - - Ohio State was there for the taking, and this defense could keep us in the contest against anyone out there. If we could have figured it out on offense - - specifically, leaning on Estime more in big spots, running more play action, and getting the interior line up to snuff - - I would have liked our chances against almost anyone. Anxious to see what comes next in year 3 of the Freeman era.
Two things
1. From 1994-2014 ND had 2 10 win seasons and from 2015-Present we have 6 with a shot at a 7th in the bowl game. Really fun stuff
2. Something I realized during the early onset of the game I had a thought about how as a fan I've only experienced 1 win in Palo Alto (2019) and that for the most part the team that has given the younger generation of ND fans the most fandom trauma/ptsd is Stanford which made me laugh a lil considering how most other ND fans treat the "rivalry"