differences between them.

"

Quote:

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Update: About an hour after this story was posted, we heard back from another coach on one of the staffs who faced both teams. This one, an offensive analyst, read this piece and was a bit surprised by some of the other coaches' comments.

"Fascinating so many people thought Notre Dame was better," he said Friday morning. "We thought playing Miami was a four-hour dental procedure, but we'd be willing to go against the Irish again."

The coach who has spent around a decade in the ACC said he could only speak on the defenses of both teams.

"Miami was more talented and more physical," he said. "Their line is one of the best I've ever seen (I thought on par with 2016 Clemson). Losing (nickel Keionte Scott) hurt them. They blitz a lot more than Notre Dame, and so if you could catch it right, you could crease them some (we did not).

"Notre Dame was very stagnant and didn't try to create as many negative plays. We weren't built right to beat them (you need a more physical back than we had), but you absolutely can run the ball on them because they're so consistent in alignment. They're better at linebacker than Miami, but blocking them on third down was a lot easier. Moore is elite at what they do, almost like a college Richard Sherman. Didn't feel like Miami had as good of DBs. Both teams' field corners were average at best, and Miami losing Scott means their nickel is on par with ND's. But a motivated Miami team can beat anyone in America. I'm not sure you could say the same about ND if you have multiple 215-220-pound RBs."

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Full article. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6863703/2025/12/05/notre-dame-miami-who-is-better-analysis/

Coaches in the ACC don't know squat. Why does he think he deviated from everyone elses thinking?

Moss will be back and will ROLLLLL!

Miami ealy in the year when Tat boy was on fire, was flat out good; this game will not be easy.

The common opponents between them are NC State, Syracuse, Pittsburg, and Stanford.

I'm guessing this is Stanford because they did better offensively against ND than Miami. But ND hasn't been trying to stomp on throats to make the "common opponent" argument

Jbob04 said:

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Hopefully our pas rush shows up. It didn't against sip and it hurt us

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Believe it or not, without 5 or 6 this Dline is average at best.

So look at Notre Dame's schedule. Here are the non Miami ACC teams they played + those scores (ND won all of them)

NC State: 36-7
@Boston College: 25-10
@Pitt: 37-15
Syracuse: 70-7

This coach with his "we'd be willing to go against the Irish again" line seems FOS. Notre Dame cruised against the ACC teams it played

oneeyedag said:

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Jbob04 said:

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Hopefully our pas rush shows up. It didn't against sip and it hurt us

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Believe it or not, without 5 or 6 this Dline is average at best.

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So without our star players, we are average…I guess the game is over since we are making statements like this.

We better be ready to stop the run……. I hope Miami decides to get cute and not commit to sticking with the run.

antman8504 said:

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Heineken-Ashi said:

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Get pressure on Beck and he's an interception machine. Let him sit in the pocket and he will torch us. It's that simple.

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Sounds familiar. Elko decided to not blitz much against Arch and we got picked apart

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Arch wouldn't have been able to do that without the scramble, something Beck doesn't do well.

ND is clearly the better team. Miami has some bad losses

Beck though is good, he's just behind Carr in QBR and passer rating and ahead of Reed.

It's gonna be a tough game but we can beat them. Remember it took a blocked punt TD for ND to have us on the ropes

Miami has a better defense than Notre Dame. Notre Dame has a better offense than Miami. Overall, they are very similar, ranked one apart.

It doesn't matter anymore. Miami is the opponent.

I don't believe Beck is much of a threat with his legs. That should make our pass rush significantly better than it was against tu. After Arch took off several times, I felt like it stunted our pass rush because we were trying to contain him.

Heineken-Ashi said:

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Get pressure on Beck and he's an interception machine. Let him sit in the pocket and he will torch us. It's that simple.

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So rush 3 DL and drop #9 back into coverage like we did against Archibald? Got it.

Tergdor said:

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The common opponents between them are NC State, Syracuse, Pittsburg, and Stanford.

I'm guessing this is Stanford because they did better offensively against ND than Miami. But ND hasn't been trying to stomp on throats to make the "common opponent" argument

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Around a decade in the ACC. Not Stanford unless they hired him from somewhere else.

Pitt coach:

Since you brought up what other coaches are saying. This is Narduzzi who played both ND and Miami most recently pic.twitter.com/GxCOr2Ebmu

— Rob Faraj (@robfaraj) December 6, 2025

Heineken-Ashi said:

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Get pressure on Beck and he's an interception machine. Let him sit in the pocket and he will torch us. It's that simple.

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Soooo, do the opposite of what we did to Arch?

Heineken-Ashi said:

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Get pressure on Beck and he's an interception machine. Let him sit in the pocket and he will torch us. It's that simple.

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This matchup for us is remarkably similar to Texas.

AozorAg said:

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Heineken-Ashi said:

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Get pressure on Beck and he's an interception machine. Let him sit in the pocket and he will torch us. It's that simple.

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This matchup for us is remarkably similar to Texas.

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No it's not. Beck can't run.

And even if it is, we have no excuse then to not be prepared.

Heineken-Ashi said:

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AozorAg said:

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Heineken-Ashi said:

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Get pressure on Beck and he's an interception machine. Let him sit in the pocket and he will torch us. It's that simple.

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This matchup for us is remarkably similar to Texas.

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No it's not. Beck can't run.

And even if it is, we have no excuse then to not be prepared.

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Yeah it is. Very similar team strengths, and similar quarterbacks from a throwing standpoint. Beck's limited mobility might be the only major difference between those two teams.

ND beat the **** out of almost every team they played after the first 2 games.

Miami did win their final 4 games by an average of 27 points, vs 36 points margins for ND.

From the same article:

Quote:

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"Hands down, Notre Dame is better," the coach said. "They're one of the most complete teams in the country. Physically, when you look at them, they are so impressive. They're a bigger, stronger and they're a faster team than Miami. I know Miami won that game earlier in the year, but I think where Notre Dame is now, their confidence is through the roof. They made us look like a JV team out there. We were able to hang in there for like a half against Miami. We didn't stand a chance against Notre Dame from the time we got off the bus.

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Quote:

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"It's the length of their corners, the size of their safeties. Their linebackers and defensive ends were so physical. They were much bigger in person than we actually thought. We got there and were like whoa, this is a good-lookin' team. You know that about their O-line but to see that from their secondary, really stood out. I didn't feel that way about Miami. They're just not as physically impressive."

A second assistant, this one a running backs coach, also said that Notre Dame is better.

"Notre Dame impressed me more when we played against them," he said. "When we played those dudes, those guys were ready to go. They were locked and dialed. They were more complete, at least when we played them. I didn't feel like there was any true weaknesses.

"Miami was better up front defensively but Notre Dame was always in the right spot. I felt like we had to play a near-perfect game to beat them. They've always had athletic and physical linebackers. They have really good depth; they don't get out of gaps in the run game and they don't miss many tackles."

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Quote:

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"Notre Dame is better this year than they were last year," said the ACC head coach. "The difference is the quarterback because he can throw a pass. I didn't think (Riley Leonard) really could. Carr is probably a better quarterback than Beck, who's a little weird to me. We thought we could get in his head, but we really didn't."

Miami's consistency, especially Beck's, came up a few times with rival coaches.

"Miami is hit or miss offensively. When Beck's on, he's really good but their run game struggles a bit," said the WR coach. "That's where I think Notre Dame has the advantage. I don't think Miami could run the ball on Notre Dame and they're just trying to feed (wide receiver Malachi) Toney the ball a lot."

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StinkyPinky said:

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Heineken-Ashi said:

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Get pressure on Beck and he's an interception machine. Let him sit in the pocket and he will torch us. It's that simple.

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Thats the key, get pressure unlike what we did vs sip

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Gap integrity though. Those chunk run plays were killers. Wisner averaged over 8 yds a carry. We got upfield too fast and left big lanes unaccounted for.

Since we have had consistent issues of misfitting runs and not setting edges, not sure how that will improve if we didn't get it right for 12 games (issues don't magically cure themselves if it hasn't already).

tu showed how to handle Howell...just double him on passing downs as we really don't have other edge rushers that can get home on their own (i.e., need Howell to create havoc for the others to get to the QB). Apparently the tu OT graded out extremely high and caught the eye of NFL scouts as he controlled Howell.

antman8504 said:

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Heineken-Ashi said:

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Get pressure on Beck and he's an interception machine. Let him sit in the pocket and he will torch us. It's that simple.

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Sounds familiar. Elko decided to not blitz much against Arch and we got picked apart

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What game did you watch? Arch did not pick apart our defense by throwing. He actually had a poor performance in terms of completion %.

It was his legs that ended us. And that's been a problem all year including last year for Elkos defenses.

Sterling82 said:

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I don't believe Beck is much of a threat with his legs. That should make our pass rush significantly better than it was against tu. After Arch took off several times, I felt like it stunted our pass rush because we were trying to contain him.

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Beck is no threat running. He has 38 carries for 39 yards this year. I'd imagine most of those were avoiding sacks where he barely crossed the LOS.

I guess it's good we don't have to talk about this crap anymore but the argument for ND fans is Miami lost to SMU and Louisville. Miami's argument is that they beat ND. Miami has a more compelling argument. If the committee had not dangled the promise in front of ND for weeks this wouldn't have been a controversy.