Did You Expect Something Different? Notre Dame Gets Rolled

If you were expecting the Orange bowl matchup between Clemson and Norte Dame or the Cotton Bowl game between Alabama and Oklahoma to be similar to the National Championship last year, well, sorry.

I want to take this opportunity to talk about the Cotton Bowl specifically since the Bama-OU game had a little bit of late intrigue to it. Norte Dame and Clemson was a mismatch on all fronts. In the history of the CFP, that’s tended to be the case for semi final games.

History repeats itself

Boring, one-sided semi final games are nothing new to the CFP. Since it’s inception there’s really only been two captivating game and that was last year when Baker “Danger” Mayfield led the sooners up against the Georgia Bulldogs and their stable of future NFL backs. The other being the game where Zeke Elliot ran wild over Alabama. Other than that, these games are always blowouts. But last night’s Cotton Bowl seemed different.

Norte Dame has done this before……

Once again Norte Dame went on the national stage and got shellacked. If you’re an avid college football guy like me, you expected this from Notre Dame. All season they were probably one of the least impressive teams to go 12-0 in a while.

They do everything well as a team but nothing great. The one thing they don’t have that all the other playoff teams do, a difference maker at quarterback. Ian Book is simply just a guy that won’t make a bad play but he doesn’t have an “it” factor to him.

He’s a game manager. Oh yeah, and they don’t have a genius head coach like the other schools. Nick Saban is the Bill Belichick of college. Dabo Sweeney is one of the best guys in college football and his players would die for him, and he for them. Lincoln Riley is a certified offensive genius who’s going to bring what Andy Reid is doing with the Chiefs and put it on steroids when he gets an NFL job. So what about Brian Kelly? Well…..

That’s right folks, Norte Dame has a tomato as a coach. No but in all seriousness, Brian Kelly…….awful big game coach.

Give credit where credit is due

Let’s give Clemson some props for their role in that massacre last night. Poor ol’ Clemson was missing a 1st round talent in defensive lineman Dexter Lawrence. I guess having three other 1st round worthy guys on the d-line was enough to control the line of scrimmage the whole game. Freshman quarterback Trevor Lawrence continued to be the stud he is and was slinging the ball all over the field with his monster arm. Clemson was just simply the better team top to bottom, there’s really not much else to say.

I’m not saying Norte Dame didn’t belong in the College Football Playoff, they were 12-0 and had an unbelievable season. However, it was clear who the weakest link was and they were exposed for being just that.

But hey, look on the bright side…… Clemson covered the spread and that bought me drinks at the bar for the second snoozematch of the night, so Go Tigers!

-Dillon Leary