I think we all can recall in the past how Game One was either inspiringly great, or depressingly awful, and the season turned around, and around, and around. Nobody is likely quite as good, or as bad, as they seemed. ND could be an 11-1 team, as noted, we don't know, or 8-4. The win part can't be changed, OSU won, end of story. How good they looked can be changed.
(The same of course is true for UGA and everyone else except Nebraska.)
This is always the complication with an early game. We are evaluating both teams but we don't have much to go on for either one so there are a lot of guesses necessarily being made.
From Notre Dame's perspective, if the Buckeyes are truly one of the best two teams in the nation as they are ranked then this was a great performance by the Irish. They went on the road, led at the half and all the way until the final few seconds of the third quarter, and they were within one score until the last five minutes. Against a NC caliber team that is really good. Conversely, if Ohio State is more like they were last year or a step down from that then Notre Dame's performance isn't so good.
From Ohio State's perspective the same applies. If Notre Dame ends up 11-1 then this was a very nice quality win. Conversely, if Notre Dame loses at home to Clemson, on the road to USC, and in Vegas to BYU then also suffers an upset or two to finish 6-6 or 7-5 then this was a highly unimpressive win for the Buckeyes.
It has become apparent to me in this thread that I have a much lower opinion of Notre Dame's strength than most everyone else including the national poll voters and consequently I'm a little less happy with this win than I otherwise would be.
A few general thoughts:
I rewatched the game and realized that after just one play we had already seen:
- By far the biggest gain of the night for either team. After ND's 54 (69 if you include the penalty) yard gain on the first play the next longest plays of the evening were a few ~30 yard passes.
- More than a fifth of Notre Dame's total offense for the game. After the first play of 54 yards, Notre Dame gained only 199 yards on their other 47 plays.
- Most of the game's excitement. In addition to there being no gains of more than 32 yards after the first play there were also no turnovers so it was a fairly quiet evening on the highlight front.
The fact that there were no plays in excess of 32 yards after the first play is both good and bad for Ohio State. Defensively of course it is good as the Buckeyes successfully prevented Notre Dame from hitting any more long plays.
Offensively it is not so good. A lot of people are happy with Stroud's 70+% completions but I always think that completion percentage needs to be viewed in light of what the QB in question is throwing. Last year Stroud completed 72% of his passes and averaged 10.1 yards per attempt and 14.0 yards per completion. Against Notre Dame Stroud completed about the same percentage but they were much shorter passes: 6.6 per attempt and 9.3 per completion.
That said, for the time being I am cautiously optimistic on both sides of the ball.
Offensively:
IMHO it took Day way too long to realize that he appears to have a powerful rushing attack but it appears to be there. Williams and Henderson averaged just over six yards per carry with a combined 29 for 175 and those figures aren't propped up by a few long ones as their longest carries were only 15 and 16 respectively.
The passing game was nowhere near what we saw last year and in the RoseBowl but Fleming missed the whole game and JSN might as well have missed the whole game. Down two top WR's the Buckeyes were still able to complete a lot of passes and convert a lot of third downs (7 of 13) but they didn't gain many yards for the number of completions/attempts.
Defensively:
You just have to give Notre Dame generally and Buchner/Styles credit for that first play. Buchner read tOSU's corner blitz and threw the ball to the spot vacated by the blitzing corner while facing significant pressure and about to be slammed. Styles made the grab and slipped a tackle and 54 yards later Notre Dame was in FG range less than a minute into the game. After that the Buckeyes put the clamps on. Notre Dame gained only two more yards on that drive and only 199 more yards the rest of the evening.
