From The Cheap Seats
*Cheeseburgers taste great during the bye week if your team is in the national conversation.
*It's USC Week!!!! If both teams were 0-6, I would still be pumped for this game while each school filtered through rumors of who the next coach would be. As it is, I am just ecstatic for this week's game. This is a must-win for reasons too obvious/numerous to mention, but the main one is that the opposing team is USC. And as Mike Frank would say for Brian Kelly, if not now, when? Not so much as it pertains to USC, but as it pertains to a huge game on the national stage post-Oklahoma 2012. I hate myself for saying this, but I would not be at all displeased if the lads came out in the green uniforms.
*Did anybody catch the run that A.J Dillon had for the BC Eagles this past weekend whereby he physically dismissed a would-be tackler in a tremendous show of raw strength and then turned on the jets to show he is thunder and lightning in one uniform? That was impressive. Seeing Louisville drawing straws in the defensive huddle after that as to who would tackle him was amusing. The Cardinals didn't seem like willing tacklers in the second half of that game.
*I have no clue if Lamar Jackson has a bright future as an NFL QB, but he is insanely fun to watch on the college football field. For very different reasons, he reminds me of Tommy Frazier in his Nebraska prime. He just always seems better than the players he goes against, and by a large margin. The speed and moves in the open field are unique to him right now across college football but he also is becoming adept at reading complex coverages. His team's lack of success will likely keep him from winning the Heisman again this year, but some pundits would wax poetic that putting up 42 points against Boston College might be good enough for a win.
*If an Irish player is to get into the Heisman discussion this year, it will happen this Saturday night as a result of Josh Adams going for 150-plus against USC with a couple of scores in an Irish victory, Michigan's stout defense bottling up Saquon Barkley and unfortunately, Stanford's Bryce Love being gimpy for a little while longer. I think that Barkley will come back to the pack as the competition heats up, but a healthy Love will...wait for it...run away with the trophy. If he is gimpy for a few weeks, then the Saturday after Thanksgiving at Stanford could be a Heisman head-to-head elimination game between Adams and Love.
*I still think that Quenton Nelson might be the best player in the country, and I am now advocating for no apparent reason that whichever player comes out having played better between Nelson and NC State's Bradley Chubb in two weeks becomes the non-skill-player-for-Heisman candidate. I invent categories sometimes.
*In looking back to my feelings prior to the start of the season, I never figured that the biggest unknown/x-factor for the USC-Notre Dame tilt will be the QB position. USC's Sam Darnold is playing below his own lofty standards and Brandon Wimbush has begun his career with poor mechanics that led to a crisis in confidence. Whichever QB rights his ship to the greater extent might be the key to the game. Wimbush obviously has further to go as an individual, but he has the clear advantage in the matchup of offensive lines.
*Second-guessing has become an art form these days, and I am no Picasso, but I think that after USC called the timeout to set there defense after Utah scored the late TD to pull within one point, Kyle Whittingham should have brought out the kicking team and go for the tie. He had a trick play in his mind, presumably, and USC on its toes. The timeout ended the element of surprise factor, and Whittingham changed personnel, so obviously also changed the play. The QB missed a wide open receiver, so the play theoretically worked, but USC still left with the victory.
*USC did have some play-makers show up in the second half of that game. That concerns me.
*Lincoln Riley undoubtedly has a bright coaching future, but he is starting to show a few chinks in the armor. The loss to Iowa State not only happens to OU seemingly every year, but happens to almost every team every year or so, so I can give him a pass on that even though his team played uninspired the week before at Baylor as well. During the Red River Pillow Fight or whatever PC name the game now carries, Texas was out of timeouts and completed a pass for a first down in bounds with 30 seconds or so to play. Texas was sprinting to the line of scrimmage to spike the ball. Riley calls timeout. Huh? He needed to set his "clocking the ball" defense? Texas was left with all four downs instead of three which could have come back to bite the Sooners. It didn't, of course, and OU survived, but that is a case of a young head coach not being comfortable in the moment.
*With the Syracuse prediction from last week being somewhat correct (I predicted a close game until the end but a Clemson win) I am now declaring myself 1-1 on the season in predictions. I am now predicting that the Sophomore Sultans of Sack (Daelin Hayes, Julian Okwara and Khalid Kareem) will combine for no fewer than 4 QB sacks on Saturday night.
*DeShaun Watson throwing to a wide receiver with Will Fuller-speed has been a blast to follow to this point. I don't generally watch the NFL because I watch every game I can on Saturdays, but I have been following this combo. Three games. Five TD's. Nice
*I am afraid that the Irish might need to rely heavily on a second back this week, and I hope that either Dexter Williams or Tony Jones, Jr., can go. However, if he is healthy, this is a week I might consider giving Adams 25 carries or even a few more. He is tough as nails and is playing through pain, so I worry that he can make it through the whole game.
*Temple is killing me.
*I just love watching every game on Saturday's that possibly have any slight connection to ND's strength of schedule or perception thereof. That is one of the things that makes college football so awesome. I hate bye weeks because I love the entire week leading up to the ND game, but with ND still in the hunt, the bye week is far less painful.
*Go Irish!!!!!