[jacketree]

und's best performances have probably been the loss to Clemson and the blow-out of Navy.

Clemson is obviously good, and after the first two Clemson drives, und really controlled the overall sense of play. The TO margin did them in.

The issue with Navy is that is is hard to judge their quality. UND is the only Power 5 team they have played, and they got whupped pretty handily there. But for und it was a pretty convincing win over a team that can be hard to play.

If Stanford can't shore up its defense and if Hogan isn't on, Stanford is too one-dimensional to beat ND, even with ND's injuries.

Clemson is really good - they get short shrift around here because people bag on the ACC and because everyone wants a two-loss Stanford to sneak into the playoffs.  (I'm not convinced Stanford looks top 4 worthy yet - they would have to demolish their next two opponents for me, honestly.)

I watched 3 ND games this year: Georgia Tech, Clemson and Navy (my kid was in the crowd with other Mids).  I gave up on SC-ND (don't remember why), but it seemed fairly similar to the Stanford-SC game. I think ND looks pretty top-tier myself, although the one thing we've learned this year: any given Saturday.  Who the heck knows how this will play out?

I disagree on categorizing the Navy game as a blow-out or whipping.  A 17 point loss is a 17 point loss, but Navy held their own other than a billion turnovers and Reynolds sat for significant time with some injuries. Navy is legit this year. That's a really good win for the Irish. Their Clemson loss is the "best loss" of the year.  Turns out Tech sucked this year (although ask the Noles about that), but at the time they didn't know it year that was an impressive beat down.

If Stanford is really playoff worthy, they would handle ND.  We'll see.

Think the following week is more important myself.

[jacketree]

und's best performances have probably been the loss to Clemson and the blow-out of Navy.

Clemson is obviously good, and after the first two Clemson drives, und really controlled the overall sense of play. The TO margin did them in.

The issue with Navy is that is is hard to judge their quality. UND is the only Power 5 team they have played, and they got whupped pretty handily there. But for und it was a pretty convincing win over a team that can be hard to play.

If Stanford can't shore up its defense and if Hogan isn't on, Stanford is too one-dimensional to beat ND, even with ND's injuries.

Clemson is really good - they get short shrift around here because people bag on the ACC and because everyone wants a two-loss Stanford to sneak into the playoffs.  (I'm not convinced Stanford looks top 4 worthy yet - they would have to demolish their next two opponents for me, honestly.)

I watched 3 ND games this year: Georgia Tech, Clemson and Navy (my kid was in the crowd with other Mids).  I gave up on SC-ND (don't remember why), but it seemed fairly similar to the Stanford-SC game. I think ND looks pretty top-tier myself, although the one thing we've learned this year: any given Saturday.  Who the heck knows how this will play out?

I disagree on categorizing the Navy game as a blow-out or whipping.  A 17 point loss is a 17 point loss, but Navy held their own other than a billion turnovers and Reynolds sat for significant time with some injuries. Navy is legit this year. That's a really good win for the Irish. Their Clemson loss is the "best loss" of the year.  Turns out Tech sucked this year (although ask the Noles about that), but at the time they didn't know it year that was an impressive beat down.

If Stanford is really playoff worthy, they would handle ND.  We'll see.

Think the following week is more important myself.