Instant Reaction: Virginia Tech 34 - Notre Dame 31

No need for a lede on this one. Same story. Just a different day.

– Notre Dame has not won back to back games all season. Think about that. How does that happen? How does that happen with this schedule? It’s so insane because they had all the makings of being a good team. Yet, they could never be consistent enough to follow up a good performance with another good one.

Want to know what the craziest thing is about Notre Dame’s seven losses? They either had the lead or were tied in the 4th quarter in six of the seven games. The only game they didn’t was Michigan State and they jumped out to a 7-0 lead in that one. Michigan State now has eight losses after today.

The most frustrating thing about watching this team was that they have played well enough for people to believe in them, but could never finish. They always made critical mistakes when the games got tighter. And that is so maddening when you see them come out and score on the first drive of the game like they did today.

They have averaged 10.6 points per game in the 1st quarter this season (13th). That’s even better than the 9.5 in the 1st quarter they averaged last season (13th). But 4-7 compared to 10-1. The script of this game was all too familiar.

It’s been a recurring nightmare for all of those involved with Notre Dame football. Notre Dame was spotted a 17-0 lead and it didn’t matter.

– It’s not the only reason they lost the game. Okay, I said it. There’s the disclaimer.

But how incompetent can the refs be? It wasn’t great on the other side with an offside that was called a false start against Virginia Tech, but the missed or incorrect calls against Notre Dame were embarrassing. It happens all over college football, but this was maybe the worst game I’ve seen from a crew in a very long time.

The pass interference call on Cole Luke in the 4th quarter was terrible. It was great coverage and it frankly didn’t even look close. Following that up with a missed offensive pass interference call seemed appropriate on the touchdown catch immediately after.

The missed targeting calls on DeShone Kizer were baffling. I understand that sometimes the game moves fast. It’s humans making the calls and they can make mistakes. Kizer was hit in the head twice on scrambles and it was never reviewed. They were blatant missed calls directly in front of the refs and that was bad enough. For them to not call down from the booth to review those plays shows what a farce the targeting rule is.

It’s supposed to protect the players. The guys upstairs tasked to do that job failed miserably in this game.

– Kizer started 6-7 (with one drop) and ran the football well. His first half was about as good as we’ve seen from him.

He finished 10-27 after that hot start. It wasn’t really the pressure. I’ll have to go back and watch it, but receivers just weren’t getting open. He had threw the ball way more times in this game than almost any other game I can remember.

The 1st down offense was fantastic in the first half. The second half Notre Dame was constantly in 2nd and long. The offense became predictable.

– I guess many would say it has always been predictable. Just when you think Notre Dame was going to win a game by running the football, the coaches decide to say, “Nah, we’re good”.

After a big conversion on 3rd and 2 for the Irish, Josh Adams burst through the line for a 66 yard touchdown. That got the lead back to 10 near the end of the 3rd quarter. After the Hokies had a twelve play drive where they settled for a field goal, everything set up for the Irish to eat a lot of clock and finish the game.

A 3 and out with an incomplete pass to start the next drive was almost expected and it went exactly that way. Going against the wind, Notre Dame elected to throw on 1st down and had to punt. The punt died in the air and the Hokies had a short field to work with. And like that, tie game.

Notre Dame came out had a gain of six from Adams on 1st down on the next drive. Two straight incompletions and it was another punt. Then the Hokies scored to take the lead and never looked back.

– The defense didn’t get any help from the offense in the second half other than that Adams run, but no one really stepped up to stop the bleeding either. Nyles Morgan really didn’t have a strong game. He had a chance to tackle Jerod Evans on a big 3rd down and Evans ran right through him. Good games from James Onwualu and Te’Von Coney will be forgotten because of the end result, unfortunately.

Virginia Tech had them off balance. When they loaded up the box, Evans found the matchup outside that worked whether it was 6’7″ Bucky Hodges on Julian Love or that jitterbug wide receiver 25 matched up with Drue Tranquill. CJ Caroll is not someone who takes too many slants for 62 yards, but he beat Tranquill clean.

– There were a bunch of other little observations that I was planning on mentioning, but I honestly chucked them out because of how the second half went. Those things can be saved for the film review. I just can’t stop thinking about the big picture.

I wrote earlier in the week that Brian Kelly will keep his job unless there was an epic collapse these final two games. Someone asked me to define “epic collapse” and I said lose convincingly to Virginia Tech and then get blown out by USC. This wasn’t a convincing loss, but losing this way (again) is obviously a horrible look for Kelly and the coaching staff. And it has to be crushing for the players on Senior Day.

When they lost on Senior Day in similar fashion in 2014, they went out to Los Angeles and were embarrassed. Is that going to happen again? I think it very well could because of how good USC is and how Notre Dame is who they are this season.

What is it going to mean for Kelly? What does it mean for the rest of the staff? I think there was a chance that, as much as no one wanted it, it could have been mostly status quo heading into 2017. The defense has shown improvement and if they someone got this to a bowl game, then the changes would be minimal. I can’t imagine that being the case now under any circumstances.

Only one more game before this season is over and the coaches go on the road to recruit immediately after. There is going to be a lot of uncertainty heading into December.

10-1 to 4-7. I shouldn’t still be surprised, but I am.