Watched ND vs Michigan and Stanford,

TIDE-HSV

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Oct 13, 1999
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Sorry, but I am not understanding the adulation for Johnny Manziel vis-a-vis Everett Golson.

I would offer a friendly reminder that Manziel's three(!) interceptions after Texas A&M had a 12-point lead at home over LSU cost A&M the game. LSU scored 14 points (and missed a field goal) off of those three turnovers. A&M lost to LSU by only five points.


If A&M had finished 11-1 with a win over Alabama at Alabama, they would probably have been ranked No. 2 or No. 3 at the end of the regular season, and they would likely have played Georgia in the SECCG for a chance to face Notre Dame in the national title game.


But Manziel fell apart, and Texas A&M is not even in the BCS because of it.

Meanwhile, if Golson had ever have thrown three interceptions on the road against USC, or on the road against Oklahoma, or in the monsoon against Stanford, Notre Dame would have failed to advance to the national championship game. But Golson never fell apart, and never cost his team a game.
The Heisman voters disagree with you... :D
 

CrimsonForce

Hall of Fame
Dec 20, 2012
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I just don't think ND has enough athletes to score on our defense. Eifert is the only one that concerns me. I think he's their only offensive player that would start for bama or georgia. I'm not saying they can't beat us, but I don't think they can score enough points on us straight up, without something fluky happening.
 

Nolan

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Sorry, but I am not understanding the adulation for Johnny Manziel vis-a-vis Everett Golson.

I would offer a friendly reminder that Manziel's three(!) interceptions after Texas A&M had a 12-point lead at home over LSU cost A&M the game. LSU scored 14 points (and missed a field goal) off of those three turnovers. A&M lost to LSU by only five points.


If A&M had finished 11-1 with a win over Alabama at Alabama, they would probably have been ranked No. 2 or No. 3 at the end of the regular season, and they would likely have played Georgia in the SECCG for a chance to face Notre Dame in the national title game.


But Manziel fell apart against LSU, and Texas A&M is not even in the BCS because of it.

Meanwhile, if Golson had ever have thrown three interceptions on the road against USC, or on the road against Oklahoma, or in the monsoon against Stanford, Notre Dame would have failed to advance to the national championship game. But Golson never fell apart, and never cost his team a game.
A lot of "ifs."

Sure, Golson hasn't lost you a game, which is great. Yet.
 

Nolan

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To win, ND needs OUTSTANDING quarterback play.

Alabama needs to execute. Nothing fantastic. Just good ole execution.
 

selmaborntidefan

TideFans Legend
Mar 31, 2000
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Sorry, but I am not understanding the adulation for Johnny Manziel vis-a-vis Everett Golson.

I would offer a friendly reminder that Manziel's three(!) interceptions after Texas A&M had a 12-point lead at home over LSU cost A&M the game. LSU scored 14 points (and missed a field goal) off of those three turnovers. A&M lost to LSU by only five points.


If A&M had finished 11-1 with a win over Alabama at Alabama, they would probably have been ranked No. 2 or No. 3 at the end of the regular season, and they would likely have played Georgia in the SECCG for a chance to face Notre Dame in the national title game.


But Manziel fell apart against LSU, and Texas A&M is not even in the BCS because of it.

Meanwhile, if Golson had ever have thrown three interceptions on the road against USC, or on the road against Oklahoma, or in the monsoon against Stanford, Notre Dame would have failed to advance to the national championship game. But Golson never fell apart, and never cost his team a game.
Did Manziel get pulled and replaced by a backup?
 

dadleyblane5

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Apr 19, 2011
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In mho...Georgia's D was tougher than ND's is.....I say by mid 3rd qtr that we will have them dragging their butts up and down the field. I see another 300 yd rushing game for Lacy and Yeldon. I may be wrong. As far as our D against their O,..can they handle the speed and size of our D. we might get burned earlier in the game, but I don't really see ND having their way with us. Golson's a good QB, and they have some skill people on their side of the ball, but I believe our D contains him like we did Robinson. Also the Irish just don't have the depth on D like we do. Once again, I may be wrong.
 
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MBA_99

1st Team
Jan 11, 2010
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Seems to me the officials in all BCS games have done a pretty good job of not interrupting game flow for the sake of just getting a flag toss in
I agree. I'm not sure what was meant by "flag happy PAC 12 officials" in the first place. I've always thought they let a lot more celebration, OB hits, PIs, etc go than SEC refs. I think they hold on to the flags for the most part.

One thing's for sure, if I'm a PAC 12 ref, I'm not overly impressed by the great tradition of Notre Dame.

Come to think of it, is ANY referee employed by a conference impressed by the one major team that refuses to play in a conference?
 

rgw

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I don't think Georgia was as well built to play with us as Notre Dame.

Georgia may be running the same scheme as Notre Dame and Alabama, but their personnel are all more tilted towards making big plays over consistent plays. They're aggressive in the secondary for ball separation, their front seven folks like to "stand-up-n-strip" over bringing a guy to the ground upon contact, and they like to get to the quarterback. If we didn't spend most of the first half playing a tempo pass-first spread offense, I feel we could have exploited their defense earlier in the SECCG.

It's not like we were passing to setup the run. We opened up with a lot of 3 and 4 WR multiples that we basically abandoned midway through the 2nd quarter. Once we went into the twin-tight singleback/pistol, they didn't stop us with any consistency the rest of the game. There was no setup for running in the twin-tight looks by opening with passes out of it. We started out playing a lot of shotgun spread with tempo, abandoned it, then went to running out of base personnel.

Notre Dame is probably better equipped to handle a gameplan like what we did against UGA the rest of the game than most give them credit. We're going to need better balance and we're going to need it out of the gate. Personally, I think Nussmeier's plan to start in our three biggest games have left a lot to be desired. Little balance, the defense anticipating a pass-focused attack, and a disregard for building the run game into the early script. The LSU and UGA games stick out to me because neither were committing a safety to the box to open the game and we insisted on passing the ball regardless. We had to run for 200 yards in the 3rd quarter to even get UGA to bring their safety into the equation. In the LSU and TAMU games, we controlled the second quarters of each by getting the run involved and abandoned it in the second half.

Nussmeier so far has struck me as a clear upgrade at QB coach but his gameplans have been head scratching at times in year one. A quality gameplan here can go a long way for my opinion of him. :D
 

MBA_99

1st Team
Jan 11, 2010
913
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Are you saying Golson is better than Manziel?

You don't really mean that.
Good Lord, man. Manziel has carried his team. He escapes six defenders and then throws or runs for a TD. Even if he fumbles, he regains composure and throws a TD. Any serviceable QB can be taught to not throw picks and run if pressured. Not even Cam or Tebow could be taught to do what Manziel was doing by the end of this, his Freshman season.
 

rgw

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I agree. I'm not sure what was meant by "flag happy PAC 12 officials" in the first place. I've always thought they let a lot more celebration, OB hits, PIs, etc go than SEC refs. I think they hold on to the flags for the most part.

One thing's for sure, if I'm a PAC 12 ref, I'm not overly impressed by the great tradition of Notre Dame.

Come to think of it, is ANY referee employed by a conference impressed by the one major team that refuses to play in a conference?
The Pac-12 has had an officiating problem for a while and they have fired a lot of officials over the last year. It's one thing when a few teams in a conference are heavily penalized, it's another thing when the whole conference is heavily penalized. They only have one team in the top half of the FBS in terms of penalties/game. That is absurd. Sure, some teams may have a "Georgia problem" but 11 out 12 teams are 65 or lower!
 

rgw

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Pac 12 referees are terrible. And this year has been worse than any I can remember. Just look at the stats. Nine conference teams are ranked 94th or worse nationally in penalties per game. It's not just the number of penalties either, it's the inconsistency of the calls. Ticky tack pass interference call on one drive and then nothing on an interception in the back of the endzone. Personal foul calls for hits above a shoulder, that weren't above a shoulder. Finally, I have no idea what constitutes holding any longer thanks to watching these junk judges. Oh, and the best part, with the new Pac 12 media deal, we're broadcasting our incompetency across the country on a weekly basis. At least in years past we only showed regionally how atrocious our refs are, but now everyone gets to experience it.
http://www.addictedtoquack.com/2012...review-the-refs-in-this-conference-are-a-joke
 

TIDE-HSV

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I agree. I'm not sure what was meant by "flag happy PAC 12 officials" in the first place. I've always thought they let a lot more celebration, OB hits, PIs, etc go than SEC refs. I think they hold on to the flags for the most part.

One thing's for sure, if I'm a PAC 12 ref, I'm not overly impressed by the great tradition of Notre Dame.

Come to think of it, is ANY referee employed by a conference impressed by the one major team that refuses to play in a conference?
rgw is correct. Their teams are the most penalized the country. It could be that the teams are less disciplined, but they don't believe that. They believe that the conference has a competence problem and the suspensions and dismissals of refs (some of which ended up being NFL scabs), seems to indicate that they have a genuine official problem. That could end up being our problem in the BCSCG...
 

rgw

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Sep 15, 2003
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I would be lying if I told you that I've watched as much Pac-12 football as their partisans but I can see their beef in my few encounters. Specifically in the Oregon v. Stanford game, there were several drive killing holding calls that just weren't holding by any officiating standard. Like "he blocked him, that's a penalty right?" type of calls. This could be a game where the play is very disjointed because each team is so exceptionally physical and puts so much on their corners in space and OL in the trenches. There are going to be some head-scratching, drive-killing or drive-aiding penalties - and no offense to our friendly Irish fans on here - I hope Notre Dame firmly gets the short end of the stick.
 

rgw

Suspended
Sep 15, 2003
20,852
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Tuscaloosa
rgw is correct. Their teams are the most penalized the country. It could be that the teams are less disciplined, but they don't believe that. They believe that the conference has a competence problem and the suspensions and dismissals of refs (some of which ended up being NFL scabs), seems to indicate that they have a genuine official problem. That could end up being our problem in the BCSCG...
Furthermore, every other conference seems like they kind of have a bell curve like distribution of teams on the penalties/game metric (a few at the top, a lot in the middle, and a few more at the bottom). The distribution for the Pac-12 is a huge right-shifted anomaly. I think things balance out over a large sample and it just doesn't make sense that every other conference can have a seemingly reasonable penalty distribution while the Pac-12 has nothing but high-infraction teams. The likelihood the whole conference is undisciplined just doesn't seem logical. The style-of-play argument doesn't hold up because the Big-12 has a similar offensive-leaning style and they too have a reasonable distribution.

The source of the anomaly seems to be within the officiating group and many Pac-12 fans highlight that it isn't because they call a consistent tight game either. Their calls and non-calls almost have a whimsical attribute to them.
 

gwilliams

1st Team
Aug 29, 2011
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However, as the A&M game proved, you don't have to be the better team, only the better team on that day.
Not to take away from aTm because they played very hard against Bama, but every bounce, and every tipped ball amazingly landed in their hands.
 

JIB

Suspended
Nov 2, 2011
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Notre Dame could well win, but I'd imagine Bama wins 8/10 times. Hopefully the 7th isn't one of those 2 times.
 

bamafaninOhiO

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May 11, 2010
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I agree. I'm not sure what was meant by "flag happy PAC 12 officials" in the first place. I've always thought they let a lot more celebration, OB hits, PIs, etc go than SEC refs. I think they hold on to the flags for the most part.

One thing's for sure, if I'm a PAC 12 ref, I'm not overly impressed by the great tradition of Notre Dame.

employed by a conference impressed by the one major team that refuses to play in a conference?
I dont think that will really factor into the game, either...
 

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