Rakes Report #243: Glitter, glisten, gloss, floss, catch a beat running like Randy Moss (The Georgia Tech Review)
Notre Dame relied on a nasty defensive performance and passing game heater to win in Atlanta for their fifth straight.
~optional musical accompaniment~
1) On another chaotic Saturday in college football, there’s no shame in Notre Dame recovering from a slow start to score 31 straight and notch a relatively comfortable win away from home. (99.6% postgame win expectancy.) It also ended up being great practice for Saturday, with two teams that could potentially swap uniforms in a first half where there were a lot of long drives and very few possessions played in a far-from-capacity NFL Stadium. Considering the broadcast seemed like it was designed as a psychological experiment to torture everyone watching you might have to question whether it was worth it but will take the victory and formal bowl eligibility.
2) Three beautiful touchdown drives and a couple of solid ones that fizzled but overall a middling effort from the offense. Riley Leonard was again a monster in the red zone running the ball* and had a few throws that really stood out, including the back shoulder to Jaden Greathouse, the slant game staying strong and the calm third-down toss to Aneyas Williams with pressure in his face. The interception was a combination of a poor read, poor throw and poor route from Beaux Collins. Leonard on what he saw: "More like what I didn’t see. I didn’t see pretty much anything. Bad read. Can’t just throw the ball up like that." Not ideal, but if you’re going to throw a pick, complete your next dozen throws in a row like Leonard did.
* Marcus Freeman postgame quote on Leonard leaping, emphasis mine: ”You don’t love to see your quarterback without at least one foot on the ground. He’s a competitor and that’s what makes him special. He makes plays with his legs. He’s an improviser. He’s a tough, tough dude.”
Jeremiyah Love was a badass as a rusher, receiver and blocker, while Jadarian Price averaged nearly nine yards a pop on his carries. Williams showed good balance and power on the aforementioned third-down reception. Mitchell Evans had his season high on catches, but it was only four and only went for 26 yards, which was sort of the story of the game with not quite enough explosives. Collins ended up leading the team in receptions and yardage, with lots of receivers getting touches and looking good doing so but the reality is there doesn’t appear to be a true top guy in this rotation.
Some similar second-half offensive lulls in this one as there were against Louisville. My working theory is the offensive line isn’t good enough to just lean on people, and if the staff decides they don’t want to run Leonard too much with a decent-but-not-insurmountable lead you end up with some fits and starts. Don’t love it and could catch up to the Irish in the final five games but if our main problem is “The offense could be better when up two scores in the second half” that’s a burden we will have to bear.
3) Before we get into the defensive performance: The loss of Benjamin Morrison for the season (and potentially his Irish career) is such a horrific bummer. Playing corner at a high level is akin to magic to me — the fastest guy on the other team is going to try and run away from you and knows where he’s going, and you have to keep up with him — and Morrison made it look so easy. From his first snaps coming in Columbus to the Clemson game, where he was putting on an incredible show even before two interceptions that included a 96-yard pick six. Mike Mickens has constructed one helluva room but losing one of the best players in the country is tough to overcome.
(With zero knowledge of the injury specifics or how NFL teams will view it, I could see any result from “Morrison’s stock remains high and he enters draft as anticipated” to “There are some concerns from front offices about his hip and Notre Dame puts together an NIL package that makes coming back and attempting to boost his draft stock seem reasonable.” Whatever is best for Morrison and his family, I love him and he rocks.)
The early goings of the game had all the trademarks of a Poor Al Golden Performance — getting gummed to death in the run game, no havoc, unable to get off the field on third downs — but eventually things reverted to what the norm should have been against a backup quarterback. Georgia Tech’s previously productive run game was stymied, as they were hurt by Haynes King’s absence and a nasty front seven attempting to commit unspeakable acts against them.
The combination of Drayk Bowen (leading tackler with nine, so violent he pops off the screen), Jaiden Ausberry (who had a picture-perfect tackle for loss after the Jackets’ longest play of the game) and Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa (lethal both rushing the passer and in coverage) is the sort of young linebacker combination you dream about building around, and the fact they’re just getting better and better helps to mitigate some of the injury attrition. Rylie Mills and Howard Cross kept their post-bye dominance going, with Mills especially destroying the Yellow Jacket line. Bryce Young kindly pitched in a field goal block after the second comically bad long snap.
Leonard Moore had a missed tackle on the longest Yellow Jackets completion but otherwise did great work (seven tackles, one for loss, and two pass breakups). It wasn’t Christian Gray’s best game and Jordan Clark had a dropped pick but even with some blown coverages and mistakes there was only one reception over 25 yards, the 60-yarder to a guy who had a single catch coming into the game. (Quite the long con from Buster Faulkner and the Tech offense waiting to spring that in mid-October.) It helps to have cool safeties, with both Xavier Watts and Adon Shuler getting picks, the latter being returned for a score to formally ice things.
4) Good fourth down decisions from Freeman, first going for it on fourth-and-one from midfield in a scoreless game on the play before the interception. The Irish went for it and failed early in the fourth when it was 21-7, but 4th and five at the opponent’s 39 is about as no man’s land as it gets and it’s the right idea. The two special teams trick plays were really fun, with the comically elaborate fake punt and Tyler Buchner making his first impact on the 2024 season on the faux field goal. James Rendell’s lone punt being bad again is not a trend I love. Congrats to Zac Yoakam on his first career field goal but rooting for Mitch Jeter to heal up fast. Dominant Middle 8, with two touchdowns and two stops in that span.
That broadcast was as bad as I’ve seen, Bob Wischusen and the graphic department’s infatuation with discussing the playoff serving as a parody of what people complain about with ESPN’s handling of the sport. Every time I thought they had hit a crescendo, there would be a new wrinkle, like talking about the mock committee or flashing up LSU’s odds because they happened to be playing in the next game. Setting aside the fact no one knows how the committee is going to do this, you can’t have an objective metric (that is nonsense anyway, but let’s pretend for a moment) but then also say style points matter when those are subjective. It was a genuinely embarrassing effort from a crew that’s usually good and you have to think word came down from on high to try that because there’s no way it’s fun to call a game in that fashion.
Brent Key leaving his quarterback out there to get mauled on play after play while calling timeouts with the game completely out of reach was negligent behavior. It’s totally cool for teams to run their offense and actually try with the reserves in garbage time but if you’re already on your backup I’d maybe not try to get him killed for no reason. Georgia Tech needs one more win to make a bowl and they close with at Va Tech, Miami, NC State and at Georgia.
5) Winning Is Hard Round Up: No. 1 Texas had zero points and 38 yards of offense in the first half, a hole too big to climb out of against the visiting Georgia Bulldogs. The Longhorns go from the top of the polls to a resume that’s looking a little light (best wins were Michigan and Oklahoma – more on them later, I promise) and they still have road games with Vanderbilt and Texas A&M. Alabama had a couple of leads on Rocky Top but gave up a late touchdown drive and then threw a screen on 4th and 22. It did not work. Also, Tennessee was shut out in the first half yet again so if you have concerns about Notre Dame’s starts on offense imagine how the Volunteers feel.
Missouri needed a late rally to not lose at home to Auburn. Texas A&M struggled at Mississippi State but held on. Miami gave up 45 points at Louisville but that’s okay if you score 52. You’ll remember we flagged the Cardinals’ tricky schedule and they’re a late score in Charlottesville away from a four-game losing streak. Next up: Friday night at Boston College (gross). BYU and Iowa State both stayed undefeated after scoring in the final minute at home against unranked teams (Oklahoma State and Central Florida, respectively). If they can keep this up the Big 12 might not be a one-bid league.
Michigan was a short road favorite at Illinois and lost 21-7. Apparently seven is the fewest points they’ve scored in a game since 2014? Trying to remember any poor offensive performances by Michigan that season, that would be crazy to see them score no points in a game. Can you even imagine what that would look like? Somehow that wasn’t the funniest loss of the weekend by an Irish rival as USC blew a 14-point fourth quarter lead at goddamn Maryland, highlighted by a blocked field goal and another failed final drive. The Trojans are now 3-4, Lincoln Riley is 5-9 in his last 14 games, LenDale White wants him left on the tarmac and we will now get an interesting social experiment in “What happens if USC hosts Rutgers for a Friday night game on a three-game losing streak the same evening Game One of the World Series is being played across town?” Excited to find out.
Oklahoma fans would be enjoying this more if they didn’t just get blown out at home by South Carolina. They now find themselves with a messy quarterback situation, a coach they signed to an extension over the offseason, an offensive coordinator fired on Sunday and a schedule that still includes Ole Miss, Missouri, Alabama and LSU. They need to win one of those (and also beat Maine) to avoid missing a bowl for the first time this century. Speaking of history, Florida State lost to Duke for the first time ever. They need to win out to make a bowl.
The Cal Golden Bears are now 0-4 in the ACC with the losses coming by a combined nine points after blowing a double-digit fourth-quarter lead at home to NC State. Iowa lost at Sparty. Rutgers lost their third straight, this one at home to UCLA in a game that kicked off at 9 a.m. PT. Arizona got blown out at home by Colorado, which is actually a pretty respectable football team. Texas Tech, previously undefeated in league play, got blown out at home by Baylor, a team that has not been respectable of late.
Vandy was tied with Ball State in the fourth quarter. Kentucky lost at Florida and now they might miss a bowl. Nebraska got blasted into space by Indiana. Utah lost at home to TCU and Andy Ludwig resigned on Sunday night because the offense is hot garbage, which is…well, choices were made, ya know? (Also last week this space read that Utah lost to Arizona State in Salt Lake City, but the game was in Tempe. The error is regretted, along with the fact the Sun Devils then lost at Cincinnati this weekend.)
SMU won at Stanford 40-10, so the Cardinal have now lost their last four games by a combined score of 160-38. I am making this note because in the game before that streak started, Stanford won at Syracuse, handing the Orange their only loss of the season thus far. The Orange then gave UNLV their only loss a couple weeks later. Weird sport! All of this to finally conclude with flagging 5-1 Syracuse at 6-0 Pitt on Thursday and 5-1 Boise State at 6-1 UNLV on Friday this week -- fun stuff that cannot be marred by a noon kickoff.
6) Sigh, well, it’s about to be a Navy game, so you know how this goes. By the time we’re a few minutes into the second quarter, we’ll usually have a great idea about whether we’re watching a comfortable-to-easy Irish win or One Of Those Games. (On occasion — 2008 sorta, definitely 2014 and 2022 — it seems like we’re going to get the former but it turns into the latter. At least they stayed wins.) Obviously a very big game for a lot of reasons: Not losing to a service academy, beating a Top 25 team (that won’t be a Top 25 team if the Irish win but so it goes), staying in the playoff race, not having a bye week that is very sad, not having the entire day of football ruined by losing a noon kickoff and so on and so forth.
The victory over Georgia Tech was Notre Dame’s fifth consecutive win, which ties the longest streak of Freeman’s career. (He’s done it twice before: Between the Stanford and USC losses his first year, and the run from the 2022 Gator Bowl to the 2023 Ohio State loss.) (It would be ten straight if not for the tiny issue of the NIU loss, which would mark the second longest win streak in the nation behind Army’s 11.) (I’m sorry for that second parenthetical but some of you were a little curious, right?) Getting to six in a row will require the third-year coach to overcome a game away from home after a run of success against a team that requires you to be locked into the details. Prevail and we get to enjoy some cheeseburgers and scoreboard watch with legitimate playoff dreams during another bye week. Lose and it will be considerably less fun.
Thanks for reading and talk to you again next week. Until then, take care of yourselves and each other.