:: Notre Dame Football: Irish Game Day ::
Hyundai Sun Bowl Preview: Notre Dame vs. Miami (Fla.)
Leprechaun Express: Notre Dame Football Intel Update Dec. 30, 2010
Notre Dame Fighting Irish (7-5) vs. Miami (Fla.) Hurricanes (7-5)
Sun Bowl Stadium, El Paso, Texas
Friday, Dec. 31, 2010, 2:00 PM ET (12 PM MT/local time) - CBS
Notre Dame, on a three-game winning streak with wins over Utah, Army and Southern Cal, takes on Miami of Florida in the 2010 Hyundai Sun Bowl, on the afternoon of New Year's Eve, 2 PM ET on CBS. It is the 77th Sun Bowl, and the 24th meeting between Notre Dame and Miami of Florida, but the first meeting between the two teams since 1990.
The Fighting Irish play the Hurricanes for the first time since 1990, as Head Coach Brian Kelly looks to cap off his inaugural Notre Dame season with a win in the Hyundai Sun Bowl in El Paso. The CBS national telecast starts at 2 PM ET, New Year's Eve afternoon.
Notre Dame 8-win season, winning streaks on the line
An Irish win would mean an 8-win season for a Notre Dame team that played the nation's toughest schedule in the regular season. A victory would also mean a four-game winning streak to close 2010, and two bowl wins in a row (the Irish sat out the bowls last year, after winning the Hawai'i Bowl in 2008).
Tough Miami Defense
Miami brings the #2 passing defense in college football, #6 in sacks and #1 in tackles-for-loss, against a Notre Dame team with a freshman quarterback and depleted receiver corps.
But one traditional mission of a rookie quarterback, stepping into the breach, is to not throw the game away, to run the operation, and to make ad hoc contributions to his abilities, within the broader team effort.
Kelly already has indicated he will not be looking to have Rees try to win the game for them.
Overall, Miami has a top-15 defense, although they are the #81 rushing defense, giving up 170 yards per game on the ground versus 146 through the air.
Throwback to Rivalry in Lou Holtz Era? Defense, Offensive Line, Running Game, Mistake-Free Football, Special Teams Key
The net effect of Miami's defense forcing a tight, low-scoring chess match, could be Notre Dame's own defense tipping the balance, and the offensive line and big running backs being challenged to take over the game man-against-man.
Add in the significance of special teams, turnover margin, and avoiding penalties, and the resulting mix could truly be a throw-back to the heyday of the rivalry during the Lou Holtz era.
One suspects that, even with the wildcard of Miami being in a coaching transition, albeit with the new coach watching and taking notes on players, this could end up being an athletically intense battle. And we could see some of the kind of big-muscle, in-your-face poetry in motion that characterized that final scoring drive against Southern Cal.
Add to that the factor that, as Notre Dame calls on the offensive line and running game to step up, those forces have been developing through the year, and Kelly apparently has shown some flexibility to reincorporate some alternative tweaks to his BK Spread. For example, the big guards apparently are being allowed to revert back to a three-point stance later in the year, and have been more effective. And Kelly has mentioned that, with big fullback Robert Hughes stepping in at running back, the offense is reverting more to a traditional set as it is. Apparently when Cierre Wood is the running back, they run more out of the spread.
Especially if Notre Dame wins, which is likely, this game could help set the stage nicely for a return to the regular season match-ups between the schools.
Kelly Head Coaching Experience and Creativity Should Pay Dividends
Time will tell whether Notre Dame will reach the scenario, as it did in parts of the Holtz era, of being a juggernaut putting on a clinic steamrolling opponents. And in 2010, Notre Dame has excelled at times against the nation's toughest schedule, perhaps closer to a major bowl than had been realized.
But in their best games in 2010, Notre Dame did not simply go out an execute, or overwhelm anybody. They have had there moments where they played well, but with respect to competing within the flow of a game, with what seemed like opportunistic game plans with timely surges. And Notre Dame, in individual games as well as the season as a whole, has shown the ability to bring things home and close the loop, with attitude and conditioning and competitive fire.
Against Miami, Notre Dame might well be able to dominate, if they get turnovers, the defense plays the game of its life, and the offensive line starts pushing Miami around (or if misdirection sends Miami in the wrong directions). But it seems more likely that the game could have the feel of the Pitt, Boston College or Utah games. Look for Notre Dame to appear cautious, to gut it out, to get the flow going their way, build a lead, and then bring it home.
As a result, they will be depending upon Kelly bringing the whole package as a head coach. Competitive attitude, creative game plan, and game-day ingenuity all should pay off if the coaches and players bring their A-game showing respect for this contest that it deserves.
Notre Dame Defense Taking Game on Its Shoulders in Every-Down Effort
Meanwhile, while Miami has the #2 passing defense, Notre Dame's own defense is strong and surging. And the up-shot of Miami's strong defense could be a tight, low-scoring game, which was the result in Miami's final regular season game against South Florida.
So while the "Tommy Rees vs. the Hurricane defense" story sounds dramatic, and could well turn out that way, it might the Notre Dame defense that ends up having to tip the balance in a tight game.
The defense also could have more leeway to push to the limits of what they can do. Rees will be trying to play it close to the vest and run the operation. But the Irish defense, however, appears to have matured to the point where they can go out and "pin their ears back" as Keith Jackson might say, and take the game on their shoulders.
At the same time, while big plays are welcome, the bigger question will be the sheer dedication of the defense, to bring perfection and effort to every single down.
As athletic as the defense is, and as creative as the defensive coaching can get, this might turn out to be the kind of game where the excellence of the defense is in stringing together dozens and dozens of boring-looking plays, at quiet times in the game, where the defense simply stifles Miami with intensity, focus and execution.
If all goes well, there will be multiple plays that could have been big plays for Miami, but instead they just get snuffed out and look boring because the defense realized it would tip the balance in the game, has no lapses, executes, and plays mistake-free/penalty-free football on every down.
Miami does have a #31-ranked offense. Although they would have ebbed and flowed with changes in personnel, especially at the quarterback position.
The Hurricanes have been somewhat stronger with the run than the pass. Against South Florida, they ran for 165 yards on 39 carries, averaging a bit more than 4 yards per carry. More interestingly, they spread the ball around a bit, and had four ball-carriers with between 5 and 15 carries.
Do Not Count Out the Passing Game
On the one hand, Notre Dame is without Dayne Crist, potentially the best drop-back passing talent in college football, and Kyle Rudolph, the best tight-end in college football. Meanwhile, wide receiver Duval Kamara, is reportedly missing the bowl for personal reasons. Kamara was listed as a starter on the depth chart for one of the three wide receiver positions.
But Notre Dame has NFL-prospect Michael Floyd, presumably healthy, and has more quality depth at wide receiver than they did five years ago before the long rebuilding process that now has spanned two coaching tenures.
Theo Riddick is apparently healthy and ready to go, who has both receiver talent, speed and strength. T.J. Jones, Robby Toma, John Goodman and others have come on strong, and tight end Tyler Eifert has looked more like a future heir apparent for Tight End U, more than simply a solid back-up.
Meanwhile, freshman quarterback Tommy Rees, in addition to being poised and scrappy all at once, has made some tremendous throws, even while being inconsistent at other times.
And nobody really knows what kind of strides he has made across the past fifteen practices, and the past month of preparation. Being a freshman can cut both ways, in that Rees started out looking out of his element early in the year, then looked like he was ready to sling the lights out, then ebbed and flowed a bit.
Overall he has made tremendous strides.
Then there is the honeymoon period that rookies sometimes enjoy, especially while making big strides. There is the time-frame where the other team is not really clear on what to expect.
So it is not as if Notre Dame is not going to throw a pass. And do not count out some big plays from Rees and the deep receiver corps.
Will Hyundai Sun Bowl be Top Bowl This Year? Sun Bowl Deep in Tradition, One of Only a Handful of Bowls on Broadcast Television
Both teams arguably could have been dark horses for the Orange, Sugar, Fiesta or Rose Bowls, if not for key injuries and some close losses. At one time, Miami was 5-2 and nationally ranked, before losing their quarterback to injury for most of the second half of the year.
As it is, the Sun Bowl might turn out to be one of the premier bowls of the year, and at a time when ABC has established a near-monopoly on bowl broadcasts and elected to use it to black out virtually all the bowls to nearly half the country, by switching them to its cable affiliate cluster of ESPN channels. The Hyundai Sun Bowl is on true national television with CBS, as it has been for decades.
The Sun Bowl dates back to the early 1930's, apparently the second oldest bowl game after the Rose Bowl.
Notre Dame-Miami Series a Curious One
Notre Dame leads the series with Miami 15-7-1. But the rivalry has taken curious turns.
For the first 11 years of the series, 1955 to 1965, the teams went 1-1-1.
Terry Brennan lead a top-5 Notre Dame over a top-15 Miami by 14 points in 1955. Joe Kuharich lost by 7 points in 1960. Then, in 1965, Ara Parseghian tied Miami 0-0.
(Miami would not beat Notre Dame again until the early 1980's.)
In the late 1960's, the teams started playing more often, and Notre Dame won, but not necessarily by large margins. But the latter part of the Parseghian years, across the Dan Devine years, saw Notre Dame blowing out Miami routinely, even when Notre Dame had a rebuilding year in 1979 and routed Miami in Japan.
Miami seems to have had coaches with even shorter tenures than Notre Dame's, even when they were successful.
Howard Schnellenberger lost twice to Dan Devine, then beat Gerry Faust, only to have Faust come back and beat Miami in Faust's second season. But in Faust's third season, a ranked Notre Dame team was upset by an unranked Schnellenberger Miami team, only to have Miami end up winning the national title.
In the 1980's through 1990, Faust was 1-4 against Miami, and Holtz was 2-2.
After going 1-2 against Schnellenberger, Faust lost twice to Jimmy Johnson, that second one being Faust's only major blowout loss (by at least one measure) during his tenure. In a 58-7 rout in Miami that was the final game of Faust's Notre Dame tenure, the Hurricanes were accused of deliberately running up the score, keeping the starting quarterback in later in the game than usual, having the back-up keep throwing, and blocking a punt.
The teams did not play Holtz's first year, and then Holtz went 2-2 against Miami. Meanwhile, Miami was drawing a great deal of bad publicity for various reasons, including unsportsmanlike remarks in the press about Notre Dame's Heisman winner.
In Holtz's third year, Notre Dame beat Miami 31-30 on its way to a consensus national championship. Had the "BCS" existed, it would forced a rematch, but the better bowl situation in place at the time allowed Notre Dame to play a then still-undefeated, #3-ranked West Virginia to close out Notre Dame's sweep of basically the rest of the top-6 teams.
That 1988 game was preceded by a minor brawl, and had been dubbed "Catholics vs. Convicts" due to various factors.
Miami would win the 1989 game, albeit with Notre Dame getting nearly half of the final #1 votes in one poll, after Notre Dame beat #1-ranked Colorado in its bowl game.
The series would be canceled, with the last game set for 1990. Notre Dame was victorious in a 1990 contest that included a Rocket Ismail kick-off return for a touchdown. As a result, Notre Dame has won two of the last three meetings between the schools.
Keywords: Notre Dame Football, Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Hyundai Sun Bowl, Notre Dame Offense, Notre Dame Defense, Notre Dame Special Teams, Brian Kelly, University of Notre Dame
Leprechaun Express Site Map Main Divisions
Home | Newswire | Game Day | Depth Chart | Schedule | Irish Lore | Recruiting |
© 2007-2012 All Rights Reserved
While founded and directed by a Notre Dame alumnus, this site itself has no official affiliation with, or licensure from, the University of Notre Dame du Lac. It does recommend you also visit the official Notre Dame Athletics site at www.und.com. Go Irish!
Steven C. Welsh, Editor and Contributor
Steven C. Welsh, Web Design and Graphic Design
