BK’s Sunday Presser - Texas Week

As we all know the Irish suffered, yet again another heart breaking road loss at the hands of Texas last night. Some questionable and controversial decisions happened last night and as one could expect Brian Kelly was asked about them Monday during his teleconference. Normally we’ll be giving you this recap every Sunday, but since the game was played on Sunday this week we’re giving it to you Monday.

In his post game press conference on Sunday Kelly said that he hasn’t made a decision on his quarterback situation going forward. On Monday Kelly was singing the same tune and it’s hard to believe that he doesn’t know. He has to know that DeShone Kizer is his man. Most likely he just wants the opportunity to sit down with both Kizer and Malik Zaire. Kizer showed yet again on Sunday that he is the answer at quarterback for the Irish. His ability to read defenses, pre and post snap gives the Irish something that Zaire doesn’t provide. Not to mention Kizer never seems to get rattled, while Zaire kind of had that deer in the headlights look at times last night.

One of the positives from last night, and something Kelly wanted and needed to see was that one of these guys took stranglehold of the QB position. Going forward it should make Kelly’s decision a rather easy one.

The logical thing to do would be to start Kizer next week and let him play the whole game, but Kelly might try and be smarter than everyone else and play both again. If we do see that, Irish fans will be screaming bloody murder.

Kelly is trying his best Aaron Rodgers R-E-L-A-X impersonation here, but the Irish defense really has gotten to the point where panicking isn’t the wrong thing to do. There has been not one slight sign of progress over the first two seasons under Brian VanGorder and if Sunday night is any indication things are actually getting worse in year three. Kelly can say last year was last year all he wants, but the fact of the matter is it wasn’t just last year that was bad, the year before that wasn’t very good either. Changes in the coaching staff are probably needed, but I wouldn’t hold my breath on that.

We’ll have more analysis and opinion for you on the BVG and defense situation this week.

Let me say this first, the no-call on the Torii Hunter Jr. play in the end zone is NOT the reason Notre Dame lost last night. Did it have an impact on the game? Of course, but still not the reason they lost. That play didn’t make the defense look like swiss cheese. That play didn’t make Kelly play Zaire when it was clear Kizer was the way to go. But theres no doubt about it, that play had a huge impact on the game.

The Irish were down 31-28, but had all the momentum and were driving on the Longhorns defense. If the refs throw the flag there, ND gets a new set of downs and a really good shot of putting some points on the board. They didn’t and Justin Yoon’s field goal attempt gets blocked and the Irish come away with nothing.

What was even bigger is that the Irish defense forced a three and out the following Texas possession and then responded with a TD to make it 35-31. Now say if the flag was thrown for targeting and the Irish get a TD, and the same following events happened. The Irish would have had a 42-31 lead and the game and they would have been in a way better position to win the game.

What makes this no-call even more frustrating is that the replay officials didn’t even bother to review it. Nevertheless, if Notre Dame would have showed up on defense this play probably would have been a footnote.

Make sure to keep up with us here at OFD as the week progresses, because God knows the Irish have given us plenty to talk about until the next game.