welcome in Irish fans it is Sunday September 8th and after a fairly disappointing showing yesterday we get to talk about everything Notre Dame football from this past weekend I'm not excited about it you probably aren't either but let's get right into it uh you know I always make it a goal not to say anything bad about players as I play this game uh as they play this game and as I I guess as I play this game as a as a podcaster and that's going to be a little tough to do today but we're going to strive to continue to achieve that goal uh all I will say about the overall quarterback performance yesterday is that I think it's time to move on now I don't know if this is a coaching thing where our starter is being told not to air the ball out downfield it sounds like that might be the case or if it's an athletic ability thing where we have a quarterback with a track record of not completing a lot of passes more than 20 yards what I do know is that yesterday niu's defense showed absolutely no safety help for most of the game and continued to DARE us to throw the ball overhead which is not something that we did terribly well saw two pass attempts for more than 20 yards one fell incomplete out of the hands of Jaden GRE house and the other one was intercepted 10 yards short of its mark now I think that says a lot about the overall quarterback play and I did say in my podcast on Monday that I don't think that Riley Leonard is the best quarterback on our team I think he's the best athlete that plays quarterback in this particular case and after yesterday's showing there's not a lot that we're going to be able to do if we can't throw the ball downfield now I know Notre Dames are running team that's that's our blood that's our DNA that's what we do and what we do best but when the other team is selling out on the run and only giving three to five yards of cushion for the wide receivers which should allow them ample opportunity to get open with no safety help downfield we have to air the ball out there were a number of times yesterday where we had an open receiver that was ready to take care of business for us and for whatever reason the ball just didn't get there so my take on all of this is that I don't care how well a certain player or any player for that matter is doing in practice if they can't show up and do it in the game it's time to look at another option and give somebody else an opportunity to go and play in what honestly should not have been a high pressure situation certainly not a higher pressure situation than what we ended up with being on the road in College Station at Texas A&M this is our home opener this was supposed to be at least something of a walk in the park but you still have to play come out and play with some fire and some grit and that was something that Notre Dame did not demonstrate on the offensive side of the ball after the first drive yesterday that where where we scored a touchdown two interceptions 10 points off of turnovers that's the difference in the ball game by almost the entire scoring margin it made certainly the entire difference in the actual game if we don't throw an interception late in the fourth quarter and allow them to continue to run the ball down the field and kick the game-winning field goal we still win a ball game now it's not pretty and certainly we would have deserved to have fallen much further in the ranking Kings than I think we we actually than we did I honestly believe that if we had won that game by two points yesterday we we would have deserved to have fallen out of the top 10 that's that's the reality of this the defense played well yesterday overall you know I've I've gone back I've watched the highlights again um I had a had a great view of the the game from where I was sitting and and you know the defense has its struggles uh there were certainly some sacks that we had some opportunities to to make and we missed the secondary performed just about lights out which is exactly what we expected they didn't give up very many plays uh aside from that one big touchdown pass which I'm I don't really want to go back and watch that again but uh it looked like we made a play on the ball instead of on the player and missed and and anytime you do that and you don't have safety help overhead over the top you're going to run into that situation Xavier Watts made a great attempt at a turnover catching the ball in the air knowing that he was going to fall out of bounds and trying to get the ball back inside uh you know where where it could be caught for an interception uh back in bounds so you know I I love to see what the defense is doing the defens is continue to play Scrappy they got pushed around a little bit on the Run which uh that should be of of concern uh you know and and there are times when some of the players out there had the opportunity to go and make a play in the back field uh missed a tackle I mean that's something that the coaches are going to have to go back and evaluate this week and take a look and just really make some honest decisions about is is the you know is it the same player over and over again or is it multiple players they need to figure that out and if it's the same player over and over again again we you know the coaches need to make the hard decision I don't care how much ni money's on the table I don't care you know what is backing the decision off of the field off of Saturday Saturday is where you go and play and where it counts so if you can't perform on Saturday you could be Superman in practice knocking everybody over you know and Bing touchdowns on your own or picking everything off and you know uh causing 16 fumbles and great you you played hard through the week but if you don't come out and do the same thing on Saturday doesn't matter how well you played Monday through Friday and that's something the coaches really need to think about now I said on Monday that we needed to air the ball out and we needed to get the ball downfield and that was something that we just didn't do um you know say it's not in our DNA whatever say whatever you want to if you're if you're not making big plays like that big flashy plays there's a reason we can't recruit wide receivers right now because that's what wide receivers want to do they want to make big plays and that's what quarterbacks want to do they want to make big plays downfield so we need to make a decision at the quarterback position I think the offensive line played fairly well I don't like the fact that we were getting blown off the ball a little bit on the offensive side but that's going to happen when you've got five six seven guys in the Box again just like we did against A&M last week and uh you know not in press coverage but there there was really no Running Room there was never any safety help over the overhead for most of the game until we got into those obvious throwing situations and then they put one or two safeties deep so that's something that we need to consider and and as we move forward you know we we need to give the quarterback the option to make a read adjustment and throw the ball over the top and we need the right quarterback in there to do it and I don't care if it's Steve Angeli or CJ Carr or Kenny minchie or who it is but we need to figure out who the number two guy is right now and make that guy the number one guy because I I think we need the best quarterback on the field for the rest of the season if we're going to do anything to even have a chance to salvage this season you know we we fall lot of the top 15 that only makes sense makes a ton of sense so we you know we lose at home again maybe the worst loss Notre Dame's ever had you got to do something to you know Salvage your season and I've been saying the same thing about Florida State losing its first two games and making a move at quarterback I'd be an absolute hypocrite to say anything different about Notre Dame after two weeks of performance and not not even putting 40 total points on the board in two weeks when one of the two teams we played was a Max School Riley Leonard got the job done against A&M with his feet NIU looked at that and said well this guy likes to get it done with his feet let's make sure he can't and the designed quarterback run and the lack of use of Jeremiah Love and the lack of use of Daran price and our very talented running back core and then just the inability to get the ball downfield over the top you know I I know I know there's plenty of pass interference and things like that going on but there were not very many plays where we didn't have somebody substantially open and the inability to make the read on the those plays and hit the open receiver is a real problem and it's one that can only be addressed by making either making a change in the quarterback room or making a change in with quarterback coaching now I put this loss on the whole team I put this loss on everybody it is it's a you know it's a team game it's a team effort I would have liked to have seen some more support from the fans at the game I would have liked to have seen the stadium get just a little bit louder on third down to try to help these kids out because it's an emotional game too and when your fan base starts dying on you in the middle of a game and not supporting that's a problem as well we got Purdue next week uh I'll be covering that game later in this week uh so expect that podcast to go up Thursday or Friday honestly that's all I've got to say about the the entire situation um you know if if uh if you want to go out and watch a podcast it's going to blast a you know 18 to 24 year old there's plenty of those out there but that's just what we we try not to do that here so um I love you all keep looking up go Irish beat boiler makers and let's make some changes this week