Good points CH! My takeaway on the offensive side of the football, confirms that CJB is not utilizing our 3 TEs as I expected, and as Jeff himself predicted in preseason.

ND is not now, nor were they ever a legitimate candidate to win the NC his season, or for that matter deserving to be in the conversation. However, their defense, and specifically their secondary may be as good as any team in the country. Leonard is as advertised when running their offense, but his limitations in the passing game keeps the Irish as a top 10-15 team.

The reason the right side of our OL’s performance was so poor, had a lot to do with a combination of the Irish defensive scheme and their talented personnel.

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CardsDan said:

Pete Nygra's PFF grade was a 14.3! Oline has to be better.

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I think everybody has to be better top to bottom to overcome what's getting incessantly strange with the blatant bias against us newbies. Hey, we ain't the newbie this week so we should get every call,right?😉😅

Also, those two will quit playing G5 schools because heaven forbid they lose to one of them.

The older I get the less I care. I’m a very casual pro sports fan. I watch a few NFL, very little MLB until playoffs, and absolutely no NBA.

The ride from 1985 to the ACC was a fun one. Lot of great trips and big wins!

But now we’re here and have to live with paid players and a stacked deck.

I’m afraid the next 20 years will be ho-hum, status quo, take what they give us FB, and not nearly as fun.

I hope I’m wrong.

And so it begins. Sounds like what they really want is a 2 conference invitational tournament and call it a championship playoff.

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I think the win for the Cards vanished on that INT that Brooks juggled. He may have scored on that play or at least got to the red zone.

I believe if ND had to come from behind or match the Cards scores, they wouldn't succeed. Same thing on that double pass interference BS. Cards would have had 1st and goal.

Had those two plays went our way, I believe we would have won. Of course anything can happen like fumbling at the goal line, but I think we would have been leading going into the 4th quarter.

One mistake which was a fluke with the ball bouncing right into the defenders hands. The other a horrible call by the refs that everyone I've seen says they have never seen before.

Everything else about these two teams still apply but it was these two plays I believe is what determined the outcome. It sucks we couldn't overcome it and we almost did until that mysterious last series.

What I got most out of now watching this game twice is Louisville's potential on offense with Lacy has no ceiling. We have to remember Louisville has only played two real games. That early bye week has really put us behind most teams. I would have loved to have played the Irish two weeks from now.

I think this SMU game will say a lot. We should be able to score 40+ against their defense.

FK Pitino !!

Officiating most definitely played a huge role. In the course of a game there are a lot of holding calls missed and the spot of the ball is questionable in the flow of the game. The double PI on Lacy alone was a game changer. If it is called only DPI we have the ball inside the 5 and most likely score, it also flips momentum. But, instead of 1st and goal inside the 5 our drive stalls out. You can't even argue that..

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I think Louisville created/had more opportunities but just didn’t make plays. Why? That is a mixed bag.

1. Officials—-the spots forced 4th downs against a really good defense. They won. The pass interference was ridiculous hurts momentum. Who the hell knows what targeting is. Legit 2 starters could or should of been ejected. Those decisions matter.

2.Coaching—-can’t go into half with all your time outs. You have to force the TV/officials to replay the spot on 3rd down. Bell’s spot was awful. The one on the last drive looks to be close but neither play was replayed on the broadcast. Call a damn timeout lose your mind.

The defense can’t keep completely blowing simple coverages. The offense can’t drop balls, have penalties and turnovers.

That is coaching.

3.Players—-this is the tricky part with leaning on the portal. Learning system, communication, and actual fit takes time. You don’t know if players will thrive in the system until they actual play. It is a crap shoot on how quick teams absorb all the above. The results are all over the place from it working, being OK and sucking.

SMU isn’t going to be easy. The line tells you it is a 1 play game. They don’t clean things up they could lose.

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the artist FKA zipp said:

I was in a large, noisy room with the Peacock broadcast on, but I'm pretty sure that a majority of their talking heads picked U of L in this game. Zero evidence of "disrespect" that I heard.

And it looks like "Vegas" had this one pegged pretty well FWIW. Doesn't matter that we and the officials were primarily responsible...

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Vegas factors in the home whistle too. They are very smart. They also knew it was our first road game with a team of transfers and some key injuries trying to get it all figured out. It wasn't that they thought we were bad, but the situation favored the Irish

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Cards and fans needed this one. It was so much more satisfying that the 2nd and 3rd were close and that we put in an 8 point run to come from behind in 2nd. Crowd was IN IT.

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