Notre Dame 27, Michigan State 10: Online Overreactions

THAT’S A MEGAPHONE!

But actually, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish keep the Megaphone Trophy in Shields Hall as they defeated the Michigan State Spartans on Saturday night. When I was unfortunately anticipating hearing about Usher 800, there was only a little rain during the game with no delays at all. The Irish seemed to have played below expectations to some of you, so let’s dive into it. Keep in mind, I was able to be in the stands for this game, so I was not following overreactions live. I found some ones to talk about, though.

This would have been right around halftime. So, I’m not trying to say everything is all good and a pie in the sky mentality, but from where I was sitting, the score was close throughout most of the game. But what I saw was a team that knew they didn’t have to score a ton to win. They controlled the game and didn’t turn the ball over. CJ Carr to Micah Gilbert was a thing of beauty. I was a touch concerned only up 7 for a while, but I guess when you never trail and I didn’t see a ton from MSU to worry about from them offensively, I was relatively eased.

10-0 in the first quarter. I wouldn’t categorize the game at this point as a “dog fight.” It was closer than we all expected, sure, but trying out a play that should have worked if the right running path was taken isn’t really a problem for me. It’s a tough spot and yardage to do this. But again, I’m not claiming this game as a dog fight because it just was never that close IMO.

The third overreaction is to what I spoke on last week about Aneyas Williams. That ended up NOT being an overreaction. Nolan James Jr. looks way more poised, patient, and confident as the RB1. He’s passing the eye test now after a few games.