In case you didn’t know, Notre Dame’s trip to the nation’s capital had nothing to do about football. Just ask athletic director Jack Swarbrick.
“In many ways the motivation for all this has virtually nothing to do with football,” Swarbrick said. “What we want to do is expose more people to Notre Dame. With two days worth of events here, this is about having a major Notre Dame presence here in the Washington, D.C., area - about serving the larger University mission.”
But for those of you who haven’t figured out this part yet either, here’s another newsflash: Brian Kelly and his football team don’t care about being brand ambassadors. They don’t care what you think about their disco-globe helmets, their green jerseys, or those gaudy leprechaun covered undershirts. They just want to play football. Play winning football.
The Irish accomplished their mission on Saturday night, absolutely dominating Maryland 45-21 in a game that the Terrapins were never really in. Mixing a smash-mouth running game by Jonas Gray and Cierre Wood and efficient passing from Tommy Rees, the Irish won their seventh game in their last eight attempts.
“We got off to a fast start,” Kelly said afterwards. “I thought it was important for us to come here and really make a statement early on and I thought we did that.”
Kelly’s team did more than that, piling up over 500 yards of offense in a game that was out of reach for most of the second half. The win pushed the Irish to 7-3 on the season, their seventh win in the last eight games.
Let’s find out what else we learned:
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With a running game the best Notre Dame’s seen since Lou Holtz, the Irish dominated this game on the ground.
Everybody in the stadium probably knew Notre Dame was going to try and do it, but the Irish ran the ball straight through the Terrapins defense, with Gray leading the way. It took the senior back until the final three games of his senior season to do it, but Jonas finally had his first 100 yard day, running for 136 yards and two touchdowns -- his seventh game in a row with a rushing score after entering the season without one.
True, the Terrapins have been terrible against the run, but the Irish helped them play up to their reputation, with Gray and Wood combining for 153 yards and two touchdowns in the first half alone, a seven-yard clip that dictated the tone of the game.
“The guys in front did a great job. The receivers did a great job blocking up field,” Gray said. “We knew we would be able to run the ball. It was starting with a physical mentality and continuing that throughout the game.”
For the second Saturday in a row, it was Gray starting in the backfield after following Wood into the game for the season’s first eight games. But Gray’s physical presence has been too much to keep off the field, and the senior’s breakthrough season was something the coaching staff had always hoped to see.
“I thought he was capable of it,” Kelly said. “We told him that his reps would be based upon his ability to play physical and you could see he doesn’t want to get off the field.”
It didn’t seem likely, but Gray’s late career renaissance will likely keep him on the field on Sundays, too.
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After a season marked by unevenness, the Irish played a complete game in all three phases tonight.
In a season that’ll likely be remembered by back-breaking mistakes and the team’s inability to play consistently, the Irish’s domination of Maryland was satisfying in that they finally got a complete performance by all three facets of the football team.
“It was a total team effort today,” Kelly said. “If you look at it, our special teams -- David Ruffer had a 52-yard field goal, Ben Turk punted the ball very, very well. Defensively we scored. Offensively we were able to play fast at times, which is a sign of a growing offense. So when we look at it, a very good victory for our football team.”
It was a breakthrough performance for the Irish specialists, with Ruffer breaking out of a season-long funk with a career long 52-yard field goal, a beautiful draw that hooked perfectly between the uprights. Turk ripped his season long punt -- a 58-yard moon ball -- and pinned the Terrapins inside their ten yard line twice.
Kelly was happy with his team’s performance and very happy that a solid week of preparation resulted in a victory.
“Our players truly understand how to win football games now, and it starts with our preparation during the week,” Kelly said. “They know that they have to be able to bring all three phases. We look to repeat that next week, and that’s the challenge to our football team.”
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Robby Toma is playing his way into the slot receiver role.
The Irish were without slot receiver Theo Riddick, who missed Saturday night’s game with a pulled hamstring. But with Riddick missing, the Irish might have found their starting slot receiver: A pineapple-sized Hawaiian named Robby Toma.
Starting in Riddick’s place, Toma had seven catches for 74 yards, making highlight reel catches and infusing a true third receiving weapon to team with wide receiver Michael Floyd and tight end Tyler Eifert.
“He really adds a dimension to our offense,” Kelly said of Toma. “You saw that tonight, especially in the quick game stuff. He’s very good with the ball in his hands, run after catch, just a smart receiver. He’s a really good football player.”
Not many people expected to get a really good football player when Toma received and accepted a scholarship offer as the high school best friend of all-world recruit Manti Te’o. But Toma brings a feel to the slot that Riddick -- a converted running back -- just doesn’t possess yet.
If there’s a controversy, Kelly certainly isn’t acknowledging it. It’s just another step towards building a championship-level team.
“He’s been waiting for his chance, his opportunity,” Kelly said of Toma. “He’s a classic case of our next man in.”
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The evolution of Tommy Rees continues.
The Irish’s sophomore quarterback is seemingly the favorite topic of just about every Irish fan, and Tommy Rees’ evening is a case study in just how polarizing a sophomore quarterback only 13 starts into a career can be. For the first time this season, Kelly and Rees pushed the tempo of the Irish offense, and with the sophomore at the helm, the offense moved efficiently while not turning the ball over.
“Any way that we could establish a quicker tempo, allows us an opportunity to either put the ball out on the perimeter to our skill guys or run the ball inside,” Kelly explained. “Tommy did a really nice job tonight of feel. We went fast and he had to have a feel, do I give the ball out or do I put it on the perimeter and throw it. He had a nice feel for it.”
Of course, just watching Rees it’s easy to focus on what the sophomore quarterback can’t do, rather than what he did do, and it’s become a passion for some Irish fans convinced that the team’s least talented quarterback is tasked with running the offense. On Saturday night, Rees was sacked three times, going down for the first time since the Pitt game in September. It could have been a product of a hurry-up system with Mike Golic in place for injured Braxston Cave at center, but Rees also held onto the ball too long on one or two of those.
Just as obvious are Tommy’s limitations outside the pocket. The sophomore looked like he was running in quicksand when trying to scramble for yardage, a reminder that Kelly and his spread offense don’t have a quarterback that can give the running game a true zone-read option. (Not that it mattered on Saturday.)
Just the same, people complaining about Rees’ day tend to skip where he does his best work: the stat sheet. Even though he missed a few open deep throws, Rees still piled up some impressive numbers, completing 30 of 37 throws for 296 yards and two touchdowns. Consider those numbers include two drops by Michael Floyd and another by TJ Jones and Rees put together a mighty fine evening.
Will it ever be enough to stop people from complaining about him? Doubtful, because the siren song of a talented but unused quarterback is something desperate Irish fans will never be able to turn down. But with 11 wins in 13 starts, Rees’ .846 winning percentage would slot him between Tom Clements and Joe Theismann amongst the winningest quarterbacks in school history.
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With the defense swarming, the special teams solid and the offense efficient, for one Saturday, the Irish attained a complete victory.
Ss complimentary as Kelly was after Saturday night’s victory, any thought that this victory meant anything more than one good Saturday was quickly squashed by the head coach.
“It was just today,” Kelly said of his team’s win. “You know, it’s Saturday, November the 12th. We played the way we need to play in all three phases. We’ll see what happens on the 19th of November.”
And that, is the thing with the 2011 Fighting Irish. On any given Saturday, this football team can look like one of the country’s best, making it easy to wonder what might have been had the Irish not given the game away against USF or imploded defensively against Michigan. But that’s the exact reason why Kelly won’t let this team take a big picture view at this season, especially with crucial games against Boston College and Stanford left to be played.
“I think for us the process is what we do during the week because we’re not at that point where it’s habit, that we do it the right way all the time,” Kelly said. “We’re making good progress there. We really can’t fly at 35,000 feet, so to speak. We have to really focus on the day-to-day.”
Still, the Irish got plenty of what they wanted out of Saturday night’s victory. With Manti Te’o protecting a tender ankle, linebackers Dan Fox and Carlo Calabrese got plenty of snaps, and Kendall Moore gave us a promising look at what life will look like after-Te’o. With the team comfortably ahead, Austin Collinsworth, Bennett Jackson and Lo Wood got to take significant snaps, with Wood gifted a pick-six interception that’ll do nothing but build confidence.
More importantly, Kelly’s Irish have won five straight in November, almost entirely erasing the six-game skid that ended the Charlie Weis era. While this team might not yet be able to savor the experience, the win reminds me of something Bob Diaco said just as the team’s training camp was getting started.
“It was 1922 Gandhi to young India, where he talked about satisfaction being in the effort,” Diaco said back in August. “That it’s not in the attainment, but true victory is full effort... There needs to be refocusing daily on the things that need to get done today to create winning. Today. And tomorrow is tomorrow.”
For just one night, the Irish won convincingly. The rest of it -- extending the brand of Notre Dame, Inc. by playing neutral site home games, wondering about what might have been with this football team, looking ahead to the polls, bowl slotting and Stanford -- that can all wait.