Decisively beaten by a clearly superior team. Hard to watch – they never had a chance. They did their best but they were overmatched.

Very disappointing and disheartening game. The team worked too hard to end the season like this. The defense played well through the first quarter, but the offense never gave them any hope. If the offense would have scored early on and scored at least a couple of touchdowns in the game, this could have been a completely different ball game. Ian Book did not look very good today and missed Boykin for a sure score in the second quarter, which could have changed the momentum of the game. They just needed some kind of spark and could never get it. The defense was on the field way too long, and they just got gassed by a few big plays when you look back on it. I thought they could have blitzed more as Lawrence had way too much time to throw on the big pass plays they did convert. At the start of the second half, the defense made some stops early on, but again, the offense sputtered, and the team just quit, including the coaches. When you are down by 3 scores midway through the 3rd quarter, and you have a 4 and 9 from the Clemson 37, why wouldn’t you go for it at that point? You are in the college football playoff and you desperately need a score. Go for it! This was one of a number of calls where Brian Kelly did not seem to have his head in the game and neither did the team. The team looked woefully unprepared for the big stage yet again. I actually think Brian Kelly is a good coach, especially compared to the 3 previous coaches, but he is not a great a coach. Great coaches help their teams rise up to meet these challenges, which Kelly has never done. It’s clear he is not going to take the team to the next level. They should have been able to compete better than that. It’s not like they are devoid of talent, although that could change soon after a performance like this. What would lead you to believe the future is going to be any different under Kelly? This is as good as it gets!

The stat on Julian Love was uncanny

Scoring only a field goal was pathetic. Pitt coach Narduzzi was right when he said Clemson was much better than ND and that there was “no comparison”. No, ND still isn’t ready and if they aren’t ready after nine years with Brian Kelly they never will be.

I was fine with a loss going in as long as ND battled and made it respectable but ND looked like like Furman after the first quarter. Both Chip Long and Clark Lea lost the chest matches against their more experienced adversaries at Clemson.

It’s pretty pathetic that by losing one player in the secondary (Julian Love) their whole defensive game plan goes up in smoke and they allow three quick passing touchdowns. If they’re still that paper thin at CB and a few positions then they need a new recruiting philosophy.

Anyone who says ND didn’t belong in the playoffs would be right. At least Oklahoma battled back against Alabama to make the final score respectable. ND, as we’ve seen too many times against top 5 teams, barely registered a pulse while a wide eyed and star struck Brian Kelly and his coaching staff had few, if any, answers.

This loss will haunt ND for a long time. It almost insures that the Irish will have to go undefeated in the future to have any chance of getting into a four team playoff. A one loss ND will almost surely be left out. Having said that, this year the old BCS formula would have been fine. Clearly Alabama and Clemson are the only two championship caliber teams in the fold this year.

Embarrassed again! You wonder about future years weather an independent Irish team can get into the playoff. Maybe if they expand the number of teams. ND has consistently shown that they cannot compete with the best teams. That is the truth and is it is not even close. The only scored 3 points!

Yeah, everything fell apart with 5 min in second quarter when shut down corner went down. Was surprised at ineptitude on offense. Clemson has great Defense, but thought ND took too many shots on 2nd and short. You have to just get the first and pretend it’s third down. Totally believe they could play with them, but when that first drive had an offsides and dropped pass, could tell they weren’t quite there with what it takes to beat a great team. Minimal margins for error.

If you’d told me that we would end the first quarter having outgained Clemson, particularly on the ground, but we’d be blown out by halftime because Ian Book couldn’t get the ball out of his hands quickly and accurately, I would have thought you were crazy.

Then again, I think we all felt this coming, or should have. We made plenty of excuses for their poor play in November, but poor play down the stretch is simply trademark Brian Kelly football.

Neither whole teams nor individual players grow under Kelly. What natural ability they bring with them to ND is systematically obliterated by hammering a square peg into a round hole.

I don’t know if it is arrogance or stupidity, but we threw away 2017 trying to turn Wimbush into Book, and we threw away 2018 trying to turn Book into Wimbush.

Sloppy, undisciplined play and a failure to make adjustments. I feel bad for our players. They must be tired of being outcoached every week.

In an attempt to look at this as a building block for the future, I think it’s apparent you need a stud at QB which we don’t. The other three teams have NFL caliber QBs as well as OSU and Georgia. I would like to think Kelly has to know Book isn’t physically gifted enough to compete against those teams. To my eye, he was most overwhelmed. Yes they dropped a few passes and lack elite speed at wideout, yes the D gave up a handful of big plays without Love and the replay crew burned us with overturning the fumble but Book can’t win that type of game. Let’s hope #15 is the real deal because the only way to compete with the SEC and Clemson dominance is have a difference making QB.

Thanks for the coverage this year. My monologue going into this thing was that I wanted ND to beat Clemson so we could have the honor of being slaughtered by Alabama. Now I am thinking I picked the wrong team and Clemson may slaughter the Crimson Tide. When you give Dabo a month to review tape I’m pretty sure he knew that when Love went down it was time to go over our heads and boy did he take advantage.
Now that it’s over I think this team actually DOES have a lot in common with the 2012 team. Defense brought us to the playoff — the offense was much better under Book but rarely dominant. Very unlucky yesterday.
(I imagine a merger of the Sooner O with our D could have had a chance.)
Going forward we needn’t worry about precedent about playoffs and such because there is no way the Big 10 and Pac 12 are going to stand being shut out of the all SEC party for long. An eight game playoff (bye bye Conference Champion week) would allow ND and UCF and the like to have a chance to prove themselves. And at the end of the day it would still be Bama and Clemson because those NFL rich programs have all the tools needed to dominate the Beauty Pageant that is College Football. There is no way our program is going to compromise academic standards enough to match them so we’re always going to need a bit o’ luck.
It was a good run. Go Irish!