Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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6 NOV. 19, 2022 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED FAN FORUM TOO SOON TO PASS JUDGMENT I couldn't disagree more with the let- ter from Mr. McGrath in last week's Blue & Gold Illustrated. He said most successful coaches have a touch of sadistic/masochistic tenden- cies, and their players have to fear them to get the best results. He said Coach Freeman has to get tough with his play- ers, be nastier. There are many leadership styles, and some lead by intimidation, with mixed results. Others lead by teaching, hold- ing people accountable, rewarding good performance, and building team morale and confidence. Marcus Freeman seems to lean towards that latter style. It is early to pass judgment on Coach Freeman's style. He inherited a young team and had to replace many coaches. It takes time to build a team in such cir- cumstances. But the results of the last two games against ranked opponents, after early season defeats, seem to indicate an im- proving trend. It's a work in progress and time will tell, but ND doesn't need a tyrant as coach, it needs a leader who teaches adolescents how to grow into respon- sible adults and contribute to a winning team. Let's wait a bit before passing judg- ment on a new coach. Hopefully we have found a rising star in the Coaching Universe! Tim O'Reilly (ND '61). BE HEARD! Send your letters to: Letters Blue & Gold Illustrated P. O. Box 1007 Notre Dame, IN 46556 or e-mail to: sdowney@comanpub.com Notre Dame's 35-14 victory over then-No. 4 Clemson Nov. 5 marked the first time an unranked Fighting Irish squad knocked off a top-five opponent since defeating quarterback Dan Marino and Pittsburgh 31-16 in 1982. After celebrating the victory, Irish fans debated the notion that this Clem- son team wasn't as good as the ones that made six straight appearances in the College Football Playoff from 2015-20. Here is a snippet of that conversa- tion from BlueandGold.com's message board. Koreasam: Ian Book would have lit them up. Those runs Pyne had would have been there all night. Rockne1988: And if we had just an "above average " QB and didn't miss a fairly easy FG we win 48-14. atrain78255: Was just thinking the same thing … they are "daggum 8-1" as Dabo would say and winning is hard. We beat a very good team on Saturday night … not a vintage national championship-caliber Clemson of years past, but a damn good team nonetheless. PreTill: The Clemson team wasn't as good as the 2020 team, and it isn't even close. They lack the playmakers outside and the OL is not as good. In '20, DJ threw many of the same passes as he did this year, i.e., short passes, but the difference is they had playmakers who turned those 3-yard passes into 15 yards, and ND DBs are really strong this year. I bet many of you recall those short WRs dancing their way to a 10-yard gain on a little WR screen. On D, their DL was good this year, but it was even better in '18 and '20. Bresee's off the field problems have hurt them. Their LBs are very young this year. I bet they lose at least one more game. Louisville, Miami and SCjr (South Carolina) are all capable of beating this Clemson team. When they end up with 3 losses, no one will be talking about this being a better win than 2020 — one more regular-season game and maybe a bowl game if they play anyone decent. This is a Clemson team that is scoring less and giving up more points than 2020. Here is a fact, compared to this year, ND was more of a dog in '20 and much more of a dog in '18. You can't just look at it on a first level and say, "Yeah we weren't as good either," as if that automatically means both teams were equally worse. I don't think they are close to a "damn good team" this year. Which is one of the reasons I have been saying since Marshall that with either Buchner or Pyne ND can beat Clemson this year. Very overrated team up to the ND game. They are a top 15-25 type team. Chicirish: They aren't right. We all knew that going in, or at least suspected it. We didn't beat Clemson at the height of their power, but we aren't at the heights we aspire to be at either. Johnnyh: I think we all could see this wasn't a vintage Clemson team. I am surprised they beat FSU quite honestly. They lack playmakers for sure. I didn't particularly care for the game plan they had vs. ND. I also think that Dabo's coordinators are not what they once were. Anytime you can beat a team completing 9 passes for 85 yards and not have a passing first down in a game, tells you your opponent was not a top-5 team in this day and age. That is to take nothing away from the team. This was a huge win for Coach Freeman and his program. Fans celebrated Notre Dame's 35-14 victory over then-No. 4 Clemson Nov. 5 by storming the field. PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER FROM THE WEBSITE .com .com JOIN THE CONVERSATION AT BLUEANDGOLD.COM! ONLY $10 FOR ACCESS UNTIL 8-31-23