Rakes Report #257: What kinda God would ever keep a girl from getting what she needs?
Notre Dame dominates Michigan to advance to the Sweet Sixteen. Plus, a whole lot of quarterback talk and walking through the football schedule.
~optional musical accompaniment~
Since we last spoke, it has been quite the journey for the Notre Dame women’s basketball team. After reaching No. 1 in the nation, the Irish suffered a totally understandable loss, falling in double overtime on the road at NC State, a team coming off a Final Four run that has a legitimate chance to get back there. Then it was less good: A home loss to Florida State on senior night, a solid effort against Louisville, a barely acceptable one against Cal and then a dispiriting close loss to Duke in the ACC Tournament semifinals. The result was clunking all the way from the highest ranked team in the nation to a 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
These weren’t just losses but a stretch of poor performance that was nothing like the beautiful brand of basketball we’d seen for much of the season when they were defeating the Trojans and going on the 19-game winning streak that followed shortly thereafter. There was a lack of attention to detail on defense, missed shots on offense (including an inability to make a layup) and a general loss of the joy that had carried them to the highest highs.
How was Niele Ivey going to react? In interviews leading up to the tournament, her players hammered their focus on defense and asserted if that went right the rest would flow. The stakes going into the opening weekend were extremely high, with a massive roster turnover awaiting the program that added even more urgency to the need to make a deep run or at the very least not fall flat against a 14 seed or Michigan on their home floor.
Credit to Ivey and everyone involved with her program because Notre Dame was spectacular in their first two games. Maybe it was simply a need to get some rest and time to refocus on the task at hand because they blitzed an overmatched Stephen F. Austin team and then did the same to a Michigan squad that had spent much of the season ranked and given stiff tests to a few of the nation’s top teams.
Couple fun stats from Sunday’s evisceration: In a game where the Irish led by as many as 35 and won by 21, they had four fast-break points and were a respectable-but-not-dominant 6-of-18 from three. They hammered the paint with cuts, hard drives and gorgeous interior passing. Sonia Citron* was brilliant in her final game on the floor in which she accomplished so much, while Hannah Hidalgo put up another elite tournament performance. After a terrifying tweaked ankle in the first round, Olivia Miles responded with a gutsy effort, totalling 13 assists over the opening weekend. Liatu King was perfect from the floor and line in putting up 18 points and 15 rebounds, freed from the mask and displaying chemistry with both All-American guards.
* It was Citron who continually attended the postgame press conferences after losses to face the scrutiny. It’s impossible to overstate what she has meant to this university, one of the best Notre Dame has ever had.
Fun Ivey stat: In the four second round games she’s coached, her team has had double-digit leads after the first quarter in three of them, including by 20 (against Michigan) and 23 (in Norman in her first tournament in 2022). She still hasn’t been beyond the Sweet Sixteen (plenty of extenuating circumstances involved with that, and a tall task upcoming, but that’s what the record says) but there are some quality March data points.
Because of the fizzle at the end of the season, Notre Dame gave themselves an incredibly difficult path to win this thing. Barring Texas losing or a literally unprecedented series of upsets on the other side of the bracket, they’ll have to defeat four top ten teams in a row to secure the crown. It’s a heavy lift but I’m happy this team at least returned to creating a masterpiece on the hardwood.
The lull in play was disappointing not just because of the losses but in that it was a waste of artistic talent. Like a director on a streak of indie hits who sees a project studio noted to mediocrity or a beloved musician opting to make a concept album that falls flat before getting back to what makes them great, Notre Dame returned to form. Do it four more times and they get their name etched in history. Very excited to see this revitalized version of them try.
Regarding the men’s basketball team, a monster offseason upcoming not just for Micah Shrewsberry but also the administration, which needs to decide what kind of priority they’re placing on the program. For much more on this, I will refer to you the discussion with the Three-Point Jesus podcast’s Sam Werner from the audio version of the Report last week.
☘️ Spring football practice started up last week and there are few things more relaxing than following along with updates from a team that won 14 games the prior season and returns most of its coaching staff and roster. When we get a little closer to the season the pressure and angst will crank up, obviously, but I like that we are clear of existential questions for an offseason.
The fun wrinkle is for the first time in quite a while we have a tried and true QB race with three legit candidates. Let’s run through them in alphabetical order. All Gino Guidugli quotes are from his Friday press conference here.
Steve Angeli: Played really well in his lone start in the Sun Bowl, consistently threw a pretty ball in all his garbage time appearances and came through with one of the single most important drives of the season in the Orange Bowl when he set up a field goal despite coming in cold and having offensive linemen falling down all around him. Not a pure runner but can move around, and don’t forget his walk-off rushing score in the 2022 spring game. Has two years of eligibility remaining.
The concern with Angeli is his pocket presence. He hung onto the ball too long in the Sun Bowl and was sacked in some of his relief efforts, including getting taken down three times at Purdue. (Penn State sacked him twice but I don’t hold those against him in any way, a combination of “Could you please chill, Abdul Carter?” and an offensive line that was in turmoil.) If he can clean that part of his game up — and ideally, he won’t be facing much pressure in the fall behind what should be a top-notch offensive line — then he seems like a slight favorite to start in Miami.
Guidugli said that Angeli is treating it like it’s his job to lose and the Orange Bowl performance meant a lot, saying of it, “In any industry, I think if you’ve got a guy that’s been in there and done it and had success, that speaks to the people around you. There’s a little bit more credibility that comes with it, and those who haven’t kind of still gotta go out and prove it. You can do great things in seven-on-seven or great things throwing one-on-ones, but until you do it in that stadium with 80,000 people screaming at you and people coming after the ball, trying to slam you into the ground, it matters.”
C.J. Carr: The Prince That Was Promised. Generally, the top quarterback prospects who are major hits are doing that hitting by the end of their sophomore years, although there are obvious exceptions to this including the giant Arch Manning-sized one in Austin. The dream path for Notre Dame fans is Carr establishes himself as the undeniable must-start option, wins a bunch this year and draws in a bunch of receivers around him in the offseason. Has all four years of eligibility remaining, but the best case is he’s too good to bother using all of them.
Carr isn’t Leonard but he’s a good runner, meaning the offense wouldn’t have to be a wholesale overhaul. Potential downside is he was injured for a chunk of last season so he missed some practice reps/development time, but I’m inclined to think when you consider he was an extra-early enrollee last December and will be fully healthy for both spring and August camp that won’t matter much if at all. Carr says all the right things and has all the right things said about him, but the question is his readiness to have the first meaningful action of his career come on the road against the Hurricanes.
Guidugli praised the rising sophomore’s arm talent and called him a natural leader. When asked about the biggest part of Carr’s growth, Guidugli said, ”Just experience in the offense, command of the offense, being in the second year of the offense. Just full understanding of what we’re trying to accomplish on offense, run game and pass game. He’s done a good job of jumping into that, and then to build on that, once you kind of master the offense, you’re not thinking about that anymore. Your ability to process the defense pre-snap, I think he’s come a long way there.”
Kenny Minchey: Minchey only has one season with Mike Denbrock but he’s entering his third year with Guidugli. He is likely the best runner of the group, and when you look at where Denbrock has had success over the last decade — DeShone Kizer, Desmond Ridder, Jayden Daniels, Riley Leonard — and how prominent the run game will be again this fall then it seems unwise to ignore this. He has three years of eligibility remaining.
But Minchey isn’t only a runner. He has a live arm, earned positive reviews when compared to the other top quarterbacks in his class at Elite 11 and was called “really accurate” by Guidugli. I get the impression many view this as an Angeli-Carr race but I think there’s a clear path for Minchey (establishing himself clearly as the best rushing threat while still hitting more deep shots than we saw last year, Carr being a step or two behind in development, Angeli unable to improve sack rate).
“I feel like Kenny’s kind of — even though he doesn’t have that game experience, he’s kind of ahead of the curve, because that true freshman season, he got a bunch of reps that true freshmen really don’t ever receive,” Guidugli said, adding, “We do a script review every practice in our meeting before we walk out. Kenny’s the guy who’s gonna come in and when the coach is making a mistake on the script, he’s gonna be the first one to say, ‘Hey, on Play 12, is that supposed to be —’ ‘No, Kenny, you’re right. That was supposed to be this.’”
It would make no sense for Marcus Freeman to name a starter this spring, as his goal will be to have all three players on his roster come the fall. (This may be difficult to attain, but that’s what we thought about having all three of them plus Leonard on the roster last year.) We also shouldn’t rule out the idea of a more experienced player opening the season with the two toughest games front loaded and then the reins being passed to a younger option in an attempt to increase the team’s December (and January) upside. This will also be a good test for Freeman, who’s never really had to juggle quarterbacks before in any meaningful way and failed the pop quiz against Northern Illinois.
I expect whoever ends up starting is going to do a fine job, but one of my limited concerns about the transition into the new season is how much “Hey Riley, go run around and do stuff” papered over problems and won advantages at the margins. The 2025 offense should feature an improved line and receiving corps in addition to potentially the best running back room in the entire nation so ideally more success is accomplished within the regular structure. But that’s only the hope at this point and we’re sure gonna miss that guy. (Shoutout to the Notre Dame media team for putting together this awesome six-minute reel of Leonard highlights. Jesus Bless.)
📈 Here’s a nifty little tool you can have some fun playing around with to Remember Some Quarterbacks. Plug in any season from the last decade and it’ll churn out a chart with where a quarterback ranks in a bunch of different stats. 100th percentile is the edge of the radar/spider chart, so the more space covered the better. For example, here’s what it looks like when you win the national title and Heisman in addition to becoming the No. 1 pick in the draft and perhaps perfecting offensive football.
This is what it looks like when the season doesn’t go quite as well.
It’s fun to see how the charts often reflects what you might expect. Riley Leonard is as good as you can get at running the ball with minimal big play upside through the air. 2014 Everett Golson was a big play expert, but that was inversely proportional to the damage done to his own team via turnovers. It’s interesting to watch the evolution of Ian Book, who couldn’t match the aerial explosiveness of 2018 the rest of his career but made up for it by becoming lethal on the ground.
If you’re wondering whether this all might be some kind of preamble to affirming some priors about Tommy Rees, congrats for understanding exactly who you’re reading here. Look at these early down and explosive play rates and appreciate what the offensive coordinator was able to put together in 2022 with Michael Mayer, some young tailbacks and a patched-together wide receiving crew:
Drew Pyne didn’t have enough snaps in 2024 to qualify for a chart, but we can compare his raw stats from 2022 to last season when he was playing on a team with great wide receivers and a head coach who was formerly an offensive coordinator: 64.6 completion rate, 8 yards per attempt and 155.3 QBR vs. 59.8%, 4.8 YPA and 104.6 QBR. Join my prayer circle of “Kevin Stefanski is relieved of his duties and we get Interim Cleveland Browns Head Coach Tommy Rees” sometime by the end of the NFL season.
☘️ While we’re stealing stuff from smarter football minds, our friend Michael Bryan at the Spreadsheets and Tailgates newsletter plugged in the latest SP+ projections and generated this chart with the fall’s schedule and way too early guesses at how competitive those games might be.
I have meant to dive into the schedule at length both here and on the podcast numerous times since it became final and we’re going to fail that again today but some quick thoughts:
To make the playoff again, the path is probably something like “Split the first two, then one mulligan the rest of the way.” 10-2 would in no way be a guarantee with a blah slate, but between getting to wave away the early loss as breaking in a new quarterback and the potential goodwill/benefit of the doubt afforded by the most recent postseason there’s a shot. If Notre Dame can sweep those first two, whew baby.
I’m about the 300th person to point this out, but Miami’s high rating is based on being projected as the number one offense, which is a little confusing. They are replacing top NFL draft pick and Heisman finalist Cam Ward with Carson Beck, a guy whose arm may or may not work. They’re also doing a complete overhaul of their receiving corps, including attempting to live without Xavier Restrepo (155 catches and more than 2,100 yards the last two years). Maybe some of that offensive dip is mitigated by an improved defense, but we’ll see and that’s a lot of change to have squared away for their first game.
That stretch from Arkansas to Southern Cal is going to be tricky, especially as it’ll be the end of six straight games between byes and include a trip to what will be a madhouse in Fayetteville. It also seems probable one of those teams jumps up a tier or two, although attempting to predict who that might be is tough.
It’s unlikely there will be a marquee win available in November unless someone (Syracuse, I guess? Unless you want to count on a Narduzzi renaissance? This is some squinting) really surprises, but I’ll take a bunch of blowouts to convince the committee any early season woes have been erased.
Reminder that Notre Dame being projected to win every game does not mean they’re projected to go 12-0, as that 10.15 comes from adding up all the win probabilities. (The opener gives you .59 of an expected win, the finale .94.) Further example: If you’re playing a ten game schedule and are a 60% favorite in each game, you’ll be projected to win 6.0 and lose 4.0.
So many things will happen between now and when the games are actually played between transfers, injuries and players being way better or worse than projected, but the projections and chart are a nice baseline.
☘️ Okay, that’s it - thank you for reading. If Notre Dame wins four more basketball games, there will definitely be another edition before the Blue-Gold Game review. If they don’t, there might still be one or else it’ll get folded into a mega edition then depending on what else is going on out there.
There’s a new link for merch, but the available designs and apparel remain the same. Keep your eye on the podcast feed as there are some fun guests lined up and we might be doing some bonus TV Club sections. Until then, take care of yourselves and each other. Things seem to be going Not Great overall at the moment so thankful for all of you as well as the fun and nasty teams put together by Freeman and Ivey.