Rakes Report #254: When old memories appear, my eyes won't stay clear when I think of those happier times (The Ohio State Review)

Notre Dame's magical marathon season concludes in disappointing fashion.

~optional musical accompaniment~

1) A lot of conflicting emotions as we get into the final review of this long campaign. I am grateful for all 14 wins and such a special season that stretched nearly to February but devastated for how it ended. I’m proud of the team for not letting go of the rope and making Ohio State sweat at the end but annoyed Notre Dame was in a position where things were so bleak we’re talking moral victories. I feel good about the future of this program yet cannot let slip the thought that nothing is guaranteed and that this easily could have been the best chance for another decade.

If you told a college football fan in August that this Ohio State team — with most of its roster returning, a dual-threat quarterback who had won a Big 12 title, two luxury transfer additions from the SEC, a freshman receiver who immediately leapt into the Biletnikoff conversation and a pair of coordinators as good as any in the nation — had won the championship and each of its playoff games by double digits, I don’t think that would have been overly surprising. The story wasn’t that simple but we knew the Irish were going against a great team. Notre Dame had been a great team, too, but they didn’t play like it for a lengthy stretch of the title game and here we are having a long conversation amid much melancholy.

2) It seemed like the losses across the defensive line had finally caught up with the Irish in the first half against Penn State but they were able to gut out the Orange Bowl. Against Ohio State, the lack of elite bodies up front and Benjamin Morrison’s absence were too much to overcome. Will Howard could have kicked back in an easy chair as the Buckeye lead stretched, and stretched, and stretched. He was excellent, and Chip Kelly was cooking, especially with how Howard’s legs became part of the game plan.

Not Al Golden’s finest game. I spent a lot of the evening with my eyes on Jeremiah Smith and that was not a ton of fun on the dagger bomb to convert third and 11. I understand you’re trying to deal with a lot of things on that play, including three great receivers and a quarterback with wheels, but you can’t put reality’s protagonist on an island against a guy like Smith in that situation. Golden tried to dance with what brought him to this situation — pressure and man defense — and it failed miserably. After being so good at it all season, the playcaller had no feel for third down, getting worked over by the Howard/Kelly combo over and over and over again.

In a slight defense of Golden, if Howard was going to play like that and the Buckeye ground game was going to get tough yards, I’m not entirely sure what would have worked. Howard was way better against the blitz than he was against normal pressures but it wasn’t like he was bad in those situations, clocking in at 82% completion rate and over seven yards per attempt. Maybe you could have put up the umbrella and tried to force him to drive even more, but those first-half touchdown drives were not quick strike affairs, taking 10, 11 and 12 plays. Perhaps we needed Lina Khan to break up Ohio State’s recent monopoly on cool wide receivers that’s left the rest of the nation lacking.

I wonder how much of it was the young guys up front just wearing out by the end of this? A particular young guy in the secondary was in no way tired, as there was Leonard Moore, wrangling Smith, hitting 22 miles per hour on his chase down, making shoestring tackles at the line and generally being awesome. Xavier Watts, the legend that you are, flying all over the place one last time and being so close to an interception on the deep pass to TreVeyon Henderson that the tailback had to play defense. Drayk Bowen's forced fumble brought some welcome life into the building and Joshua Burnham again was in the mix in a positive fashion.

Wednesday night add: We are going to get into all the roster and staff moves in a coming edition when things settle but will quickly note Golden to the Bengals is official. His three years were an undeniable success but there’s some symmetry to both his first and final game as Irish defensive coordinator involving a misguided blitz leading to a backbreaking long completion to a Buckeye receiver. Count me in the “Promote Mike Mickens” camp.

3) That first offensive drive was so impressive, taking nearly 20 plays and 10 minutes and ending with Riley Leonard’s 17th rushing touchdown of the season. After spending the days leading up to the game with doubt in my heart, that made me think maybe the Irish could just service academy their way into stealing the game. But much like we talk about when Notre Dame does battle against the armed forces, that’s tough sledding because any tiny mistake puts you behind the chains against a talented defense. Mistakes could be anything, like a missed pass and a couple penalties (the second drive) or a snap bouncing off a tight end (the third drive). By the time Leonard had his fourth possession with more than 30 seconds left on the clock, it was 28-7 and that’s a tough ask.

He almost did it, though. With Jim Knowles knowing the run game was out of the equation and the Irish were going to have to turn to the air, Charles Jagusah and Aamil Wagner held up in pass protection so well, with Wagner stonewalling Buckeye standout Jack Sawyer for the whole evening. Jaden Greathouse put on his second consecutive show, mixing in some yards after catch and powering through pass interference for an incredible touchdown. Mitchell Evans had his second straight good game as well, and you wonder what this season looks like if he’s not coming off a massive injury. (Perhaps he’s in the NFL, so possibly a moot point.)

I’m going to miss Leonard a great deal. Never perfect but tough as nails and he battled to the very end. We’ll talk below about the seasons to come, but Leonard had the same sense of the moment as Ian Book and there are plenty of guys who are better passers/more likely prospective pros who can’t pull out the magic when you need it. Notre Dame ended that game 85th percentile in EPA per play, 75th in success rate and 85th in EPA per dropback. The lack of a run game crushed them, but I think you can hand wave away a lot of that with how the game unfolded, as it certainly contributed to the first touchdown drive. Sad to see Jeremiyah Love’s season end with such a paltry state line but look forward to unleashing a fully healed version in Miami.

4) The degree to which my stomach dropped when Ohio State won the toss and deferred so we didn’t get to see Mitch Jeter booming the opening kickoff. Much tougher to dominate the middle eight without the ball coming out of the half, and that held true. This wasn’t a disaster class in game management from Marcus Freeman but it just seemed like everything was a step off and often he was in a position where all options were subpar, which is what happens when you fall behind by many points.

Conceding the end of the first half was unfortunate, but consider a cold offense that had shown no big play ability to that point and also the fact two games ago Freeman watched Georgia press in a situation where they shouldn’t have been and the entire game flipped on them. (It technically happened at the end of the Orange Bowl with Christian Gray’s pick, but I think Penn State absolutely had to push there so setting that aside.) The fake punt on fourth down was unnecessary — you’re down three touchdowns and it’s fourth and two, just run Leonard — but it works with some better execution.

My initial reaction to the field goal was exasperation of attempting to cut a two-score game to a two-score game but all the advanced metrics show it was basically a toss up when it’s fourth down from the nine. The problem on that drive then becomes questionable playcalling when it got to go-to-goal, and Leonard missing an open Love on third down. My amateur newsletter writer advice to professional college football coaches would be to avoid having fourth and goal from the nine down 16 points in the final quarter of a game as much as possible.

Mercedes-Benz Stadium is an incredible venue and having reasonably priced concessions is such a game changer, particularly when you contrast it to the broadcast having approximately nine dozen three-minute commercial breaks. Some unfortunate things: It seemed like no one in Atlanta knew this game was happening? Even considering the holiday, from bars* to MARTA to reports from the airport it was a mess the entire time. Even worse, they imported the same in-game DJ who turned November’s Irish/Trojans women’s basketball showdown in Los Angeles into a nightmare experience and he had the same effect on Monday evening. DJ Mal-Ski, I am sure you are a nice man but whoever thought they needed an unending hype man FOR THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME was incorrect.

* Special shoutout to our kind and overworked bartender on Monday who repeatedly made the heart hands to us — have zero idea if she knew that was an extremely important thing for the Irish fans assembled or a strange bit of kismet — and also only charged us for about one of every four drinks ordered.

The Georgia Aquarium lived up to the hype and I want to thank the majestic whale sharks and rays for helping me heal on Tuesday.

5) I’m going to start in a dark place. The four-team playoff began in 2014 and its championship saw a higher seeded Oregon team go up 7-0 on Ohio State in the first quarter and then lose in ugly fashion. Despite playing in that inaugural title game, the Ducks second playoff appearance didn’t come until this season, an entire decade in the wilderness. You could point to many factors (Marcus Mariota heading to the NFL, Mario Cristobal wasting Justin Herbert, the magic of Michael Penix, etc.) but the Ducks are a well-funded program that’s been good for a long time and they couldn’t make it.

The 12-team playoff is a different beast but it needs to be underlined and bolded that when you have a deep run like this you have to hold it close and appreciate it even if the ending breaks your heart because there’s no guarantee on when you’re going to get another one. The ball bounces in weird ways and brackets can break against you so savor and exploit every opportunity that comes your way because the path to getting this close is never any easy one. That’s why getting this far only to offer the worst performance since September hurts so bad.

But hey, what if the next opportunity to play for the title simply comes around next season? No top team was more rocked by injuries than Notre Dame and they still made it as far as they did. The offensive line and running backs should be incredible, and you can easily talk yourself into a wide receiver room built around this elevated version of Greathouse, Jordan Faison, incoming transfer Malachi Fields and an underclassman or two popping. There’s the whole issue of “Hey, who’s gonna be the quarterback?” but I like the candidates, even if there’s no guarantee any of them will have the same je ne sais quoi as Leonard. You’d hope/assume the defensive line would be healthier and I don’t think a Freeman team is ever going to struggle on that side of the ball, but there are a ton of stalwarts we will not get to see in blue and gold again out the door. The years roll on and guys step up and step in but Xavier Watts and Jack Kiser have meant so much to this program and leave massive cleats to fill.

That game stunk and that odor is going to linger for a long time. One tipped ball or broken tackle or other Dumb College Football Thing and things could have tilted differently but here we are. It’s going to hurt for a while and it should but when things settle please don’t let it paint this entire season in a negative light. To win at the Coliseum and Kyle Field and Yankee Stadium, how great, but then to put on such a show for the first-ever on-campus FBS playoff game and to dominate it like Notre Dame did, and also to be victorious not just in a Sugar Bowl but an Orange Bowl as well in an eight-day span? Are you kidding me? Our blessings are numerous even if it might not feel that way in the aftermath of the confetti coming down on Ryan Day.

Generally when things are this somber we turn to the wisdom of the Gem Saloon’s proprietor to keep perspective and power on, but let’s go with a different 2000s masterpiece to close: “There's a time when a man needs to fight, and a time when he needs to accept that his destiny is lost, the ship has sailed and only a fool would continue. Truth is? I've always been a fool.”

Go Irish. Beat Hurricanes.