
Another day at Culver Academy for the 2016 Notre Dame Fighting Irish and another practice video from the team at WatchND. Let’s dive right in.
- At the 0;17 mark, Deshone Kizer throws another beautiful pass and Kevin Stepherson makes a great catch on the sideline. In the limited video out of camp, Kizer’s passes look text book. We know he throws a hell of a deep ball too.
- At 0;25, Jay Hayes is seen working on his pass rush moves. If Notre Dame can get any sort of pass rush out of Hayes, the Notre Dame defensive line can be great as we discussed on Monday.
- Max Redfield vs. CJ Sanders in the corner of the endzone is a real mismatch, but still good to see Redfield track the ball and break up the pass. Sanders, at his size will not win many of those battles.
- At 0;53 Malik Zaire does what he does best – improvise when the pocket breaks down. If he wins the QB derby this year, it’ll be in large part because of those skills.
- Nice little inside run by Tony Jones Jr at 1:05. Brian Kelly gave Jones some high praise after the first day of practice over the weekend and he looked good here for a back his size.
- Nice pass break up by Nyles Morgan on the last clip although if that pass isn’t behind the intended receiver it’s probably an easy catch.
It was surely the game of the year, and many have said it was the college football game of the century
@Ray: I agree with you, except your second statement. What I see in the video is that the player did catch the pass, and Morgan stripped it. You’ll notice that the receiver had to turn to his right and catch the ball in close to his body. Meaning, Morgan was able to get to it because it was thrown a bit behind the receiver. If Zaire had thrown the ball a couple of feet to the right it’s probably an easy catch, and in any case Morgan would have had no chance at it.
The improvisation by Zaire is what sets in apart and would be the difference making type plays in close games. Also pass should have been easily caught by player on Morgan breakup. Crossing patterns most difficult pass to defend but also most difficult to throw perfectly in stride. It should have been caught. Impressive action blocking by Smythe.