To be fair… IU gave them every reason and opportunity to bash them. Or maybe put differently…what did IU do that would have drawn any sort of praise? They wanted to call a close game. I’m sure they were annoyed with the execution and overall soft play and approach too.
It was a long, cold game with little excitement generated by IU. Everyone was ready to go home once it got to 27-3.
I get it, but we really need ND to beat the snot out of GA. We are getting grilled today by everyone for that performance. A ND loss to GA only hurts us more.
Not so fast, I'll pull for ND until they meet another B1G team, then they can put it on them.
I hate Notre Dame but kind of would like to see them beat the brakes off of Georgia and blow up the narrative.
This isn't mean to be argumentative, just thinking about it out loud. I'm not sure ND handling UGA materially changes our narrative. Now that we lost everyone has moved on from us and we aren't getting much more thought from the football world. I tend to think our narrative is more or less set in stone until we beat a top team.
the margin for error is so slim
I’m convinced Rourke isn’t a big game quarterback. His actions all night displayed someone who was intimidated by the environment and couldn’t relax and focus. Bad decisions, missed reads, and overthrowing his receivers all night. Against a weaker team he usually made great decisions and had pinpoint accuracy on his throws. To me that was most of our offensive woes, because we should’ve been able to score in the 20’s, at least.
I wouldn’t say Rourke cant play well in these types of environments, but at some point last night, with NDs speed, maybe Jackson would have been a better option with him being a more mobile qb!? Rourke was flustered with the speed of ND secondary and their DL overpowering our OL! IU was just outmatched in most areas. Playcalling wasnt as normal as it has been all season too!
so let's see
Once we got into conference play, every game was a big game. UCLA was a big game until we beat the shit out of them. Nebraska was a big game until we beat the shit out of them. He performed amazingly in those games. The difference is the caliber of athlete in those games, not necessarily him. I’m probably not getting my point across very well, but I don’t think it’s a mental thing with Rourke, I think it’s more about the quality of the opponent.
I think the difference is our offensive line played well against UCLA and Nebraska, and that made Rourke look good. There are a lot of college QB's who look great when they are protected, and they also look like crap when they aren't. It's easy to wait for someone to come open when you can stand back there all day and then scramble to extend the play.
Except for the part where we wouldn't have won it, and wouldn't have made the playoff either.
