Navy 23, Notre Ame 21 (final)

[ulukinatme]

ulukinatme, I admit I have a vested interest based on fantasy football, but what happened to Kyle Rudolph? Early on he was a focal point of the offense, with screen passes and lots of looks over the middle. He seems to have disappeared, even while Floyd was out.
That was small potatoes compared to some of the private bridges he's torched. Great coach, no chance at UM while Lloyd is around.

Not sure, to be honest. TE's have done well since Weis came to ND, but this year they haven't utilized Rudolph like they did last year. They've been trying to develop some of the younger WRs it seems, throwing a lot of different guys into the mix when Floyd was out. John Goodman, Duvall Kamara, Shaq Evans saw playing time, and Robby Parris filled the gap mostly. Yesterdeay Rudolph got hurt I guess, Weis said it was another collar bone, but I guess they think he'll be fine for Pitt. The backup TE, Mike Ragone, had a couple nice receptions. He was supposed to be a decent TE recruit as well, but I think he took a year off and Rudolph stepped in as a result.

Anyway, was at the game yesterday, the team seemed flat from the get go. Never really got the running game going, seemed like we had to play catch up after we were down 2 scores early. Only had 4 possessions the first half, we were lucky to be down only 2 scores at halftime. It just felt like the team had no sense of urgency until the 4th quarter, which pretty much sums up a lot of the way this season has been. Looks like it bit them in the ass again. Worst red zone scoring I've seen in years. Navy deserves some credit, but we shot ourselves in the foot more than once with stupid turnovers like the miscommunication with Floyd that lead to the INT. A lot of things went pretty bad yesterday, even the kicking was no good. Tausch had become one heck of a kicker this season, hadn't missed any kicks since his first, then he missed two, either of which would have saved the game.

It was complete failure across the board for the most part, but for the first time this season I feel like the offense was mostly at fault and not the defense. The defense gave up a ton of yards, but you have to expect our offense will score more than 21 points a game even against Navy's defense. USC's defense is a bit better and they scored more on them and without Floyd. The biggest fault with the defense was not accounting for the Fullback, even then they only gave up one more score the 2nd half, the offense just wasn't together for 3 1/2 quarters.

The alumni seem to be pretty [censored]ed about dropping a 2nd game to Navy now, not looking good for Chuck. Maybe the university can retain him for recruiting purposes and leave the coaching to a better individual Amusing enough, the combination of the turnovers, the low possessions due to Navy's running, and the 1 or 2 possessions they went for it on 4th, ND didn't have a punt all day.