Notre Dame Reacts: Irish Fans Only A Little Concerned About Catchless WRs

Confidence in the football program’s direction is at a season high.

By ndjrs@ndjrs Sep 15, 2023, 7:17pm EDT

Aer Lingus College Football Classic - Notre Dame v Navy

Welcome back to Notre Dame Reacts, where we asked four questions regarding the Fighting Irish football program.

As always, we start with our baseline question about your confidence in the Irish football program at present.

Here’s where we’ve gone so far:

Preseason: 48 percent very confident, 47 percent somewhat confident, 4 percent somewhat doubtful, 1 percent not confident at all.
Post-Navy: 58 percent very confident, 40 percent somewhat confident, 2 somewhat doubtful
Post-TSU: 57 percent very confident, 39 percent somewhat confident, 3 somewhat doubtful, 1 percent not confident at all

And now, post-North Carolina State — arguably the first real test of the season — the confidence level has jumped up significantly.

The 2023 Irish football season will soon be 33 percent over, and...it feels like our favorite team has played one (perhaps decent) opponent? Is it hard to get “fired up” about a game against a Group 5 opponent where the Irish are favored by more than 4 scores? More than three-quarters of you said you love every game, regardless of the opponent. Four percent still have PTSD from a close call against Toledo in 2021 and a loss to Marshall in 2022.

If you read Tuesday’s post, you know that Central Michigan head coach Jim McElwain has a storied past. I was pleased to see more than half of you were similarly moved by the McElwains’ generosity to the family of two disabled children upon their cloudy exit from Gainesville.

Finally, we asked about your concern that Deion Colzie and Jayden Thomas went catchless during the North Carolina State game. For Thomas, his zero catches on four targets looks to be an outlier. For Colzie, it may be the harbinger of a frustrating season.

About half of you said you were “a little concerned” but were willing to let to see how it played out for the remaining nine games.