The Most Frustrating Notre Dame Game Ever

Saturday's disappointing opener against South Florida was, in one word, frustrating. It was frustrating for three reasons. The first was the weather delays. I never remember having to wait so long for the second half to start. Then they had another delay in the fourth quarter that took another half hour. This game literally took about six hours.

It seemed to take even longer than that because of how Notre Dame played. The second thing that was so frustrating was all the turnovers and mistakes. Realistically, the Irish dominated this game. They out gained the Bulls by more than 200 yards. The difference was that South Florida didn't make the mistakes and they capitalized on Notre Dame's.

Three times Notre Dame has the ball deep in the red zone. They looked as if they would score. That was only to turn it over. On another occasion, David Ruffer who was Mr. Dependable last year missed a very makeable field goal. On top of all that, the Irish had many dropped passes, some missed throws, and bad penalties. That is how you lose a game that you dominate on the field.

Head Coach Brian Kelly said after the game that in order to start winning they need to get rid of the losing habits. I couldn't agree more. The third thing about this game that was frustrating to me was the mistakes Kelly made.

Kelly is one of the best coaches in college football, but even he made a couple of mistakes that cost the team. On the first drive, Cierre Wood was running hard and was a big reason why the Irish were able to get to the Bulls' 3-yard line. Kelly takes Wood out and puts in Jonas Gray who fumbled and the rest is history. I hated that move before the fumble.

One person is tearing it up for you, don't take him out. Let him rest after he scores. That was only one critical mistake Kelly made.

The second one was the fact that he started the wrong person at quarterback. This will go down in the record books as a 23-20 defeat to South Florida. That is not how I see it at all though. I see two different games and two different Notre Dame teams. The first game was a 16-0 defeat. The second started two hours later and was a 20-7 victory.

The team opened the second half with way more intensity than they had in the first half. Tommy Rees' first drive went almost identical to that of Dayne Crist's. He drove the ball deep only to turn the ball over because of a bad mistake by TJ Jones who let the ball bounce off his shoulder pads and into the defenders arms.

Here is the difference though between Rees and Crist. Crist went three and out on his next drive. Rees drove the team down the field again and this time found Michael Floyd in the end zone.

Another difference between Crist and Rees was that both were put into third and long on a few occasions because of mistakes by teammates. The difference was that Crist made bad throws and Rees consistently made plays on third and long.

Rees did have a couple of bad mistakes. He overthrew Floyd on the two-point conversion and then threw a costly interception, but he responded to that with another long scoring drive. That kept the Irish alive with the hopes of getting an onside kick. Unfortunately, that failed.

Despite the frustrating day, there were some positives in this game. I thought the defense did a phenomenal job all day with the exception of the one touchdown drive in the second half.

Floyd and Wood both had very good days. Rees threw for almost three hundred yards in the second half.

Notre Dame can fix this and still have a great season. However, it is clear that they have to go forward with Rees. I have nothing against Crist it is just that the team is better with Rees in. That was made so clear on Saturday that I am not sure Crist's mother could make a case for him to start.