NIU Upsets Top 5 Notre Dame: Notre Dame vs Northern Illinois Reaction & Analysis

last week Notre Dame beat Texas A&M 23-13 in Kyle Field Kyle Field has a 100,000 plus fan capacity it's one of the best and loudest environments in the SEC consequentially college football and A&M has a great defense or at least great talent on the defensive side of the ball and potential on offense we'll see if A&M utilizes this offensive potential because their offense didn't look good against Notre Dame but Notre Dame's defense was impressive in that game and their offense did just enough to escape with the win an impressive win in Kyle Field and I thought they would be a lock or close to a lock to reach the college football playoff but guarantees don't exist in college football and today's an example of that because Northern Illinois didn't just beat Notre Dame they game controlled Notre Dame Northern Illinois had let me read this for you off of my beautiful Alienware laptop 34 minutes and 38 seconds of possession they had 388 total yards they had no turnovers Notre Dame had 102 less yards they had nearly 10 fewer minutes of possession and they had two additional turnovers with one first down Northern Illinois in part won this game because of an antario Brown 83 yard pass from Ethan Hampton where Notre Dame's defensive backs got confused in coverage nearly ran into each other and antario brown caught the pass perfectly placed by Ethan Hampton took it 83 yards to the house but Notre Dame couldn't get the ball moving and Northern Illinois did a great job on defense stying Riley Leonard holding Notre Dame to 4.4 yards per carry and that's factoring in a long run by Jeremiah Love of 34 yards if you want to say the Ontario Brown 83 yard reception for a touchdown was a fluke given how Notre Dame's offense performed Jeremiah Love's 34 yard run to a certain degree was a fluke and you never want to rely on your kicker making a 60 y to win a game especially when you are ranked number five in the country and when you have a schedule as easy as A&M on the road and maybe USC on the road to close the year looks like your toughest game not a single team that as of this current moment is top 10 certainly no team on the schedule that's top five and Notre Dame loses at home they fall to 0 and one at home against a Max School Northern Illinois we'll talk more about this game here but before I dive even deeper and get to the takeaway for Northern Illinois uh the pretty stomach aching in or stomach ache inducing is probably the more proper term the gut wrenching takeaway for Notre Dame I want you to like the video to subscribe to the channel share this video around to other college football fans join the Discord server you can click the link and just join it it's free it's engaging you can find that link via the link in the description or down below in the pin comment and hit the notification Bell so that you can get notified when we release new college football content here on college football with Sam again like subscribe click the notification Bell join the Discord comment your thoughts down below what's your reaction to this game with Michigan getting annihilated at home by Texas Notre Dame falling to Northern Illinois at this current moment Alabama is struggling with South Florida uh Houston's only down8 to Oklahoma at the half LSU is struggling with Nicholls I mean there is a lot of chaos that's happen so far and we're not even finished with week two it's insane um this is a down year in football I've had plenty of incorrect takes so far like Florida State winning the ACC they're 0 and two in conference they look terrible uh like Michigan reaching the college football playoff that's still in play but Michigan needs to fix a lot if they want to follow through on that something that I think through two weeks that a take of mine that I've aged well on or that is aged well is probably the fact that this is a down year in college football relative to there being multiple Elite teams you saw this last year where Michigan uh Georgia Oregon Washington Ohio State you Texas maybe Alabama but probably not I just think they were better coached than most of those six teams that I mentioned because of Nick Sabin you had so many teams with high octane capability with the potential to be a 15-0 one of the better teams in college football history type dominance Michigan was that Georgia could have been that Ohio State could have been that um Penn State if they had Andy cotal Nikki last year maybe could have been that Oregon Washington Washington wasn't Uber dominant but they they were very impressive to watch if you watched a lot of their games last year there aren't teams like that this year outside of Georgia and maybe Texas maybe Ohio State maybe Alabama and Alabama is struggling right now and Ohio State hasn't played anybody yet so Notre Dame I think looking at this game just blew a massive opportunity and it's not just in this game but it's with their schedule losing this game means that your playoff appearance especially given that Notre Dame isn't in a conference and therefore they're not eligible for that first run buy is in Jeopardy I mean this Notre Dame team capable of winning the rest of their games on their schedule with Louisville with USC with Georgia Tech I mean the concern with Notre Dame here is they let Northern Illinois run the ball 45 times and only passed it 20 times and they allowed 190 yards rushing 4.2 yards per carry that's with Riley Mills and Howard cross II third two NFL defensive tackles Notre Dame didn't get a single sack they only had three tfls Northern Illinois had two sacks and four tfls they ran the ball better than Notre Dame did and they game controlled Notre Dame with far less Talent far fewer resources you know everyone loves to talk about recruiting recruiting how are you recruiting um did you sign that five-star it doesn't matter if you can't beat a Max school it doesn't it doesn't matter if you can't put your players in a position to win the reason Texas d destroyed Michigan today is because they were better coached and they were better developed this preseason give credit to the coaching staff for what they do on the field and off the field in the waight room not just what players they sign the reason why Northern Illinois beat Notre Dame today is Thomas hammock coached a better game than Marcus Freeman did the reason Nebraska right now is blowing out Colorado in some part is due to recruiting but Colorado has more flashy players and I would say on an average basis because shadur Sanders and Travis Hunter bring up the average but maybe even on a median basis has more talented players than Nebraska relative to recruiting and yet nebras has done a much better job game planning and coaching recruiting it's so important and I don't want to act like it's not but it has become so overrated and I think games like this and if you watch big games like Texas vers Michigan or you're watching Nebraska Colorado right now I think you see it and and maybe I'm wrong there maybe I'm out of touch but this is a game that just shows that recruiting is again it's important but Notre Dame is a top 10 recruiting class right now Marcus Freeman's been recruiting better than Brian Kelly but he has not shown that he is as good of a coach as Brian Kelly is this is a bad loss you've seen a loss to Marshall in 2022 and now this two losses to group of five teams at home after what looked to be an impressive week one performance that were impressive week one performances and now Notre Dame season is in complete freefall you got to go back to the drawing board Riley Leonard was 20 of 32 for 163 yards and two interceptions he had a quarterback efficiency rating of 26 after today he is going to be rated as one of the worst quarterbacks in all of the Power four he had a 92.8 passer rating after a 104 passer rating against Texas A&M the prior week Notre Dames QB situation and and this is coming from a Michigan fan it it it literally right now how is it any different you have the more proven player if you're Notre Dame but the results are are the exact same thing terrible terrible passing uh no Elite receivers to rely on um they they're getting Mitchell Evans involved but because of how bad the passing game is he he's only going to have like what 22 receiving yards or 25 or something like 26 pardon me with two receptions through two games it's insane the coaching is just Marcus Freeman's been questioned for game management now for it's going to go on three years in a row and they have to go back to the drawing board and with a loss as bad as this they have to win out if they want to go to the playoff unless the chaos just extends to literally everyone a 10 and two Notre Dame with a loss to a good team and then a loss to this Northern Illinois team is not going to be looked upon favorably in the college football playoffs especially since their strength of schedule is not the strongest and they're not inside of a power four conference we talk about Winners first typically on college football with Sam not winners first but we save the best for last we talk about losers first get the worst out of the way let the pus flow from the wound and then we clean out the wound and let it heal Northern Illinois with a top five win on the road against a brand like Notre Dame could they be a college football playoff Contender from the group of five they're 2-0 1 and0 away they crushed Western Illinois in a similar fashion that Indiana did and if you placed Indiana in the Mac they'd have a pretty good chance to win the Mac if Northern Illinois can win the Mac May the only maybe only sustain a loss or two at the most with that big win you can't tell me that there isn't some kind of chance that they could get in as that 12 seed as the auto bid for for the group of five conferences what an impressive win for Thomas hammock in that Northern Illinois program what a job Ethan Hampton 10 of 19 for 198 yards 10.4 yards per pass attempt and a touchdown he also had 21 rushing yards antario Brown who had that reception earlier two receptions for under 26 yards one touchdown 20 carries for 99 yards five yards per carry he was one of my contenders for the player of the game he was because of I mean look had over 200 200 total yards absolutely crazy and say what you want to say whether it was a fluke or not uh I don't think there was much of a fluke here given that Northern Illinois outgain Notre Dame won the turnover battle won the top battle but it doesn't matter game's over it's done 16 to 14 is the final score and my player for the game here is kicker Canon woodill one of one an extra points three of four on field goals made the game-winning field goal despite missing one earlier with it being blocked by Notre Dame and Notre Dame the refs I rarely say this the refs they they tried to give Notre Dame an edge they did that was clearly a first down on that third and two they spotted him easily a yard if not two short and hammock could have I don't know could have challenged it they reviewed it it still went to Notre Dame's favor it was fourth and one fourth in inches hammock could have went for it some might have said that was an ego play but with how they were running on Notre Dame they probably would have converted it if they went for it on Fourth and two instead he relies on Canon woodill his kicker and he kicks the game-winning field goal with all the noise affecting him heading his way drills a 35 yard field goal it's time to panic if you're Notre Dame because Northern Illinois while probably better than preseason experts thought they travel to Purdue next week and Purdue has a buy and Purdue looks better than they were last year they play Louisville September 28th and Louisville's look dominant in their games you know yes against scrubs but they've looked dominant nonetheless they host Georgia Tech October 19th and Georgia Tech is a team who can run the ball and whose defense has improved and USC I don't think USC is this elite team and some people think that they could be but USC on the road to close out the year with the improvements they've made on defense and the fact that they are going to be passing the ball everywhere with at least one of their receivers open most of the time that's going to be a challenge so Notre Dame's schedule with this loss went from looking easy for the Irish to now you could see 9 and3 don't lie to me 10-2 is probably the most likely scenario if not 9 and three heck you could see eight and four with how this team performed and the fact that they escaped A&M that was a very close game it was and they won that game and Northern Illinois versus Notre Dame was a close game that went Northern Illinois way one and one and a schedule that was very opportunistic and beneficial for the Irish now looks like it could present some challenges and not making the playoff this season for Notre Dame would be a massive disappointment as Joe de Leon has told me on his show when I had him on it looks like that's a possibility here so that's just my brief analysis on this game I can't even believe that happened I mean wow that was not on my bingo card Notre Dame losing at home to Northern Illinois after beating a very talented and well- coached A&M team on the road thank you guys so much for watching this video remember to like subscribe hit the notification Bell and comment your thoughts on this video down below also check out my Discord server join it please VI the link in the description or down below in the pin comment thanks to my patreon members crash 2488 and brascar Rascal for being Heisman members and sponsoring this video in Channel thanks to Chris Lane con little o ismar and Tyler NY for being all American members and sponsoring this video and channel thanks to John Lynn roaming gome Matthew S Austin Christmas and Janai shakro for sponsoring this video and channel as all conference members if you do want to get merchandise free and 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