Take Five: Talking Notre Dame Quarterback Issues, Drew White, Cincinnati Loss

On Drew Pyne and Jack Coan and Brian Kelly’s quarterback dilemma, the defense and Drew White’s take on the Cincinnati loss

On Drew Pyne and Jack Coan and Brian Kelly’s quarterback dilemma, the defense and Drew White’s take on the Cincinnati loss

1. I’d like to say I told you so regarding Drew Pyne. I wrote a column on Friday that said Pyne should be the starter, but Notre Dame has gone from having three quality quarterbacks to three question marks. Pyne was the most effective of the bunch in Notre Dame’s 24-13 loss to Cincinnati on Saturday. He led them to their two touchdowns, but it was still an uneven performance. His timing was way off on two throws to Braden Lenzy and his accuracy was just average. The 32-yard touchdown pass to Lenzy was electric. Also, the drop by Kevin Austin in the second half over the middle was just brutal. Pyne finished 9 of 22 for 143 yards with one touchdown.

2. Despite what Kelly said about everything being on the table for next week, there should be zero doubt about who should start. It has to be Pyne. He deserves the full force a game plan that’s implemented with him taking the reps as a starter.

And yet, clearly, Kelly isn’t convinced.

He dissed Pyne perhaps inadvertently when he said that Pyne “didn’t impress me that much or he would have started. We are trying to figure it out and we have a guy we really like in Jack Coan. He looked really good at times. It’s hard to put much on Jack other than the interception. He’s dealing with pressure in the pocket too.” Really? I mean, how impressive was Coan? Zero points on five drives and one interception. Is it all his fault? Nope, but the bottom line is the offense was better with Pyne in the game in the second half. The message there is that Kelly really wants to find a way to have Coan start.

3. There is a thin line between success and failure and having your confidence shattered. Coan never got his swagger back after his first drive where he was 6-7 for 49 yards passing. That included a 20-yard pass to Michael Mayer on 4th-and-10 that kept the drive alive. Coan threw an interception when ND was on the six. He was pressured and he threw the ball to Ahmad Gardner on 2nd-and-6. It was a bad mistake. He could’ve easily thrown it away, or taken a sack. The problem is that on the next drive, the play calling got conservative, and then Tyler Buchner came in on the next drive. So, the dual-quarterback plan failed miserably. Blame the coaches for that.

4. The defense wasn’t great but it was good enough. Giving up 24 points to a really good offense led by Desmond Ridder, one of the best quarterbacks in the American Athletic Conference, isn’t terrible. Ten of those points came off turnovers. One was the Buchner interception and the other was the Chris Tyree fumble on the kickoff. Bottom line: The offense has to carry its fair share of the load. It’s not happening.

5. Finally, leave it to team captain Drew White to get to the heart of the matter. The Notre Dame linebacker said “Really, at the end of the day, I think Notre Dame beat Notre Dame today. We made too many mistakes and we didn’t execute well.”

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