Wrapping up Clemson/ND from an ND Fan

Nov 7, 2022, 9:33 PM

hey guys, sorry i am jumping on this late and i am sure you are all moving on to the next week. I was pretty active here during the Clemson/ND game weeks a few years ago, i sort of fell off of following college football the last few years as my son went through some medical concerns and really just got back into following it this year. i had a little time so i read through a lot of the threads about this game, and just felt like sharing a few thoughts. Previously, i typically kept my comments, as a guest to your board, to one thread, so ill try and cover numerous topics here. Do with them what you want, ignore, trash, praise, whatever you feel like.

1st, im glad to hear, for the most part, Clemson fans were generally treated well and enjoyed the trip. I never cared for the whole idea of treating fans of competing teams terribly when they have put up a lot of money to come here (a place not regularly traveled to outside of football season). I have only traveled to a couple other stadiums and wanted to be able to just enjoy the sites and atmosphere and not worry about being heckled. To those who seemed to have issues, sorry about that. As far as the atmosphere of the game/stadium - it is a beautiful campus. They have done well with recent upgrades. The new stadium looks great. However, in general, ND fans think that they are these great tailgaters and have this crazy in-game atmosphere and sadly, they just dont. Its fine, but nowhere near what other stadiums offer. The tailgating is fine, but pretty blah and eventhough the stadium was rocking pretty good Saturday night, i've seen stadiums do that on a Saturday afternoon for a solid match up, let alone for when a team like Clemson is there. But they like to think they are really loud and actually effect the game, so i guess more power to them. The green and lights and all that did look pretty cool.

2nd, i was blown away with how well ND played. This is not a team with many "great" athletes, just a lot of solid ones. They dont have a WR or probably RB that would start on many top 10 teams. They are a bunch of 4 star guys, who are probably at the lower end o that 4 star with an average QB. i have no issues with Pyne. He is a backup who is doing his best, limits turnovers and just doesnt have a receiver who can get open or make big plays. He does what he can and is 6-1. But this bunch of kids came together pretty impressively. I know you guys have argued extensively, and had it thrown in your face by all the analysis on TV, that you are not a top 5 team, but you are still a pretty good team. And everything just clicked for ND. The defense was locked in, tackled really well and limited mistakes. The offense ran the ball well, it was not a crazy performance on the ground, but did more then enough with the defense playing the way they did. I'm not sure if this effort is something that is sustainable or not, but on Nov. 5th, it worked. This is still a team that loss to Marshall and Stanford, so i'm not going to rule out a loss to navy or boston college, but they should go into USC at 8-3. It was an exciting game to wash. For clemson, from an outsiders point of view, who has watched exactly 1 clemson game this year, i think your team got hit in the mouth and panicked a little. Even Dabo seemed frazzled, making decisions like he was afraid he was going to lose. switching QBs for 2 plays and going back... what was the point there... just the play calling in general seemed all over the place, i could not see a gameplan for clemson. It was like they just kept trying things. But hey, that is all fixable in a week with the right approach. And i am not the biggest Dabo fan (for no real particular reason, just dont really care for him), but he is a really good coach and i think he can correct this ship by next year. Lastly, as most of you have identified, there is still a ton on the line for Clemson this year. The game against NC should be fun for the ACC championship.

So good luck, see you all next year and let me know if you all have any follow up questions/specific comments about ND that i can address, ill try and check in over the next couple of days. If not, move on from this one.

Have a good one

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So, i could go on about Kelly, but ill try to make it short. So to be blunt, Kelly is an A$$hole, always has been, always will, but he is a very good football coach. Personally, i was always pretty indifferent to him. I had zero hard feelings when he left and kept telling people he is going to win in the SEC, he may or may not win a National championship, but he is going to win a lot of games. I was a little surprised when he left, but 100 mil, with no real restrictions at a school where you can cherry pick talent, of course he would leave. From a pure football standpoint, he brought ND out of the dumpster and made them a real team again. I dont believe that he cant win the big game. In the NC and two playoffs ND Made, he ran into some seriously good teams. I mean, that 2012 bama, was crazy. And in the 2 playoffs, ND did better against Clemson and Bama then Bama and Ohio State did in the NC, for what that is worth. He averaged 10 wins a year at ND, thats pretty good. The renovations, schedule, assistant coaches, recruits, all of those went up around Kelly. But i think he had reached the end of what he could do at ND. I think the level of effort that it takes to recruit top tier kids to ND was more work than he wanted to put into it, he wants to coach and not spend 80% of his time recruiting. At i think that it was starting to catch up to the program. Like i mentioned above, this is an average group of players, with the exception of 1 or 2. Im not sure if Freeman is the longer term answer or not, there will be some speedbumps with a first time coach, but i like his energy and the way he is running things so far.

Kelly is what he is, ive always just been indifferent to him. I dont think all the criticism he received was warranted. He wasnt responsible for someones death, he did hide huge scandals and with the exception of 1 or 2 kids, generally players liked him. And i say that because with everyone who transferred form ND during his time there, only 2 ever said anything bad about him after they left and both were QBs who were upset they were not playing. He does have a QB problem - they seem to regress under him, but that could be an assistant coaching issue as well. ND wont cough up the money to keep really good assistant coaches, so he was always handcuffed there. So basically, Jerk - Yes, Really good coach - Yes, he could of stayed and i would have been, a fresh start has been nice too.

As far the dancing and the southern accent and all that stuff - thats just ridiculous and make him look stupid. I think the transfer portal will make things easier for him to succeed, especially with the start he has had.

Wrapping up Clemson/ND from an ND Fan

Clemson gifted you that game. ND didn’t do anything special

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Re: Wrapping up Clemson/ND from an ND Fan

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What was your opinion of Brian Kelly?

Re: What was your opinion of Brian Kelly?

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