He called the game last night! ESPN's Sean McDonough joins! Could Notre Dame win it all?

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He called the game last night! ESPN's Sean McDonough joins! Could Notre Dame win it all? #NCAA Is Carter a potential pick for Patriots?

Transcript

00:00All right

00:01Taking time out of his busy schedule this morning, and I really appreciate it

00:06It is the man who had an extraordinary call of that game last night ESPN's Sean McDonough. Hey, Sean

00:13Hi, Greg. How are you? How you doing?

00:17I'm doing all right

00:19Really enjoyed the conversation about the scheme sounds like a great trip is is your finger up for it has

00:26Has that thing repaired what's the current situation? I'm just not a good skier

00:31You know I tried it a couple times never really got the bug

00:35Golf is yeah golf is your game. Yeah, it's too much effort, right?

00:40You got to put the outfit on the skis on go up and down the hill and then most of the time I'm doing it

00:45I'm thinking I'm going too fast for my ability to stop or I'm about to run

00:49somebody over somebody's about to run me over or

00:53Yeah, it's just not I don't turn very well, so you can start going down the mountain a little too fast

00:58But yeah, it's just I've tried, but it's not my thing well. That was a good for my finger is fine

01:05Thank you. Thank you for asking my pipe

01:07How's the condo eight weeks in the cast 11 weeks after surgery it didn't work, so my finger is permanently damaged

01:14But you know what we power through how's the condo Sean as it's old still looking for a renter, maybe

01:20No it isn't I think I'm staying now. You know Greg convinced me that the neighborhood is great and

01:26And it is great. You know I love the seaport and

01:29yeah, so I think we're going to ride it out at least for a while and

01:34Rename remain neighbors with with Greg although this time of the year were in Arizona so have not been around there for a while

01:41Well, that was a great game last night

01:44awesome

01:46So when when you look at that game last night and being there

01:52Do you think that?

01:54Notre Dame can win the whole thing because I think the one area where they where they do struggle is their inability to

02:01Throw the ball especially outside the numbers to the wide receiver. I know the kid

02:06Greathouse had a nice catch, but for most part of the game

02:10They struggled with that and they're gonna play either an Ohio State team or a Texas team

02:15You know that can really make some plays in the passing game

02:19Yeah, I do think that they're one obvious weakness, and you know it's been a problem all year and the play you mentioned wiggy was

02:27Made really because the defender fell down for Penn State and great house wound up being wide open so

02:33You know but that's been a problem for them all year, and they've always managed to overcome it

02:36You know they don't look pretty doing it, but you know we were saying on SportsCenter after the game

02:40They really are just a team right I'm sure as a football guy you can appreciate that you know it's all three phases

02:47It's excellent coaching

02:49There's really a vibe there

02:50And you know in this day and age now with the transfer portal and people go in and out a lot of these

02:56football programs feel like bus stops where people are just passing by and you know they they really have a

03:02Vibe there in a culture, and I think it starts with Marcus Freeman, and he has an excellent staff

03:08You know it's just I wouldn't put it past them. They don't look pretty doing it, but you know they keep winning

03:13They've won. What is it 13 games in a row now, so I wouldn't bet against them

03:18You know it just kind of feels like it's their season

03:20Wiggy and chime have their heart set on Abdul Carter

03:25At number four for the New England Patriots is he even available at that spot at this point

03:31I don't know you know Mel Piper has him as number two on his big board any position number two overall behind

03:39Travis Hunter, so you know I haven't that was my first time. I've seen him play this year in person

03:45We don't have the big ten anymore at ESPN

03:48We had a relationship with them for 40 years, but it ended a couple years ago, so I've only seen him on TV

03:54I was impressed last night because it was clear that his shoulder is still pretty messed up. You know he was basically

04:01Winning at the line of scrimmage and creating a pressure all night long playing with one arm. You know so

04:07It was impressive the way he gutted that out, and you know he was a huge factor early

04:12You know I know you guys watch the game

04:14It was just surprising to me

04:16The way it turned because when it was 10 to nothing and it looked like they were knocking Notre Dame off the line of scrimmage

04:21On both sides of the ball. I thought you know Penn State's clearly the best team and you know the thing that can't be

04:28Underestimated is the job that the backup quarterback for Notre Dame did

04:31You know when he came in the game late in the half

04:33And they hadn't done anything and he marched him down the field got a field goal gave him a little momentum going into the

04:38Locker room you know that was that was big Sean speaking of field goals

04:42You had a great call on that final one watching it on TV

04:45It was kind of a weird kick the way in which the ball moved it looked like it was almost going out

04:50Then it swooped back in at the last minute for you in the moment calling something like that

04:55How fun is it or how difficult is it while watching

04:59Yeah, it's true right

05:01I mean it looked like as a golfer you'd say it's slicing and usually when the ball slicing it keeps slicing and

05:06You know maybe it was touchdown of Jesus up there redirecting the ball through the uprights

05:11But you know it did I mean it was it was fading and then it got hooked so

05:16As I said it just kind of feels like their season and that was another example of it because you don't usually see a ball

05:22That travels on that plate path, and yeah, I was happy for the kid

05:27You know Mitch Jeter is really good kicker, and he struggled the second half of the year because he he pulled his groin

05:33About halfway through the year kicking off against Stanford

05:35And they were the worst field goal kicking team in the country which makes what's happened in the playoff

05:40So incredible you know he they were below 50% in field goals in the regular season

05:45Which was worse out of 134 teams, and then you know he got healthy

05:49He told the story a couple times his dad's a chiropractor flew from Charlotte up to

05:53Notre Dame to help the kid get

05:56healthy

05:56And he said the only thing that it hurt him to do was kick a football you could run do a lot of other things

06:01That it didn't hurt so

06:03Yeah, it's fun. I mean you know it's it's interesting as we're at the 50-yard line to answer the other part of your question

06:09You know so it's not a great angle to call a field goal

06:13That's kind of diagonally to your left or right so you call it off the monitor because it's the

06:18Vantage point from behind so as it was about halfway there

06:21I thought this isn't going to be good, and then it was good

06:25So that's what we hope for in our business. You know it's something that comes down to the end

06:29Sean given this incredible hot stove season how much time did you spend scripting Soto home run calls that you had to scrap?

06:41Yeah

06:43Yeah, at least they made from what I understand an honest effort right I can't blame them for dropping out

06:48What's the price got to where it did at a certain point?

06:51It's ridiculous and at a certain point

06:52I think everybody knew not just the Red Sox

06:55But the other teams that you know the vets were just going to keep going until they got it done, so

07:00I guess at a certain point. You know it's like being at one of those auctions and

07:05You're bidding it up. You do run the risk of you actually get something that maybe you don't want

07:10I'm sure they wanted it, but you know the certain price

07:12You're out, so I understand what they did, but it's still exciting some of the other things that they've done and

07:18You know they should be better with the improvement in the pitching assuming everybody stays healthy, which is you know this day and age

07:25Sometimes a big assumption. What do you think tonight?

07:27I like Texas just because I think Ryan Day gets tight in these kind of games. I like Sarkeesian as a coast

07:32What do you expect tonight in the Cotton Bowl?

07:35Yeah, I think people are really jumping on the Ohio State bandwagon because of how good they've looked in the two games

07:41And they really have although you know I thought in the in the Tennessee game, Tennessee was awful

07:46you know the quarterback just had a really rough night and

07:50They just were bad

07:52What they did to Oregon was really impressive, and I think scary for the rest of the field

07:56But you know I you know the Big Ten

07:58And I said this during our Notre Dame Indiana game, and I got in trouble with the Big Ten people

08:04But you know historically over the years in bowl games

08:08And you know even in this playoff the Big Ten hasn't done very much. This is the 11th year now of this

08:13Format you know they've won two national championships in the in the first ten years so

08:19You know I have a lot of respect for the SEC have a lot of respect for the Big Ten, too

08:23But I do think maybe people are overreacting a little bit to what the Ohio State's done in these two games and perhaps forgot

08:30The Michigan game where they looked awful, so we sell Chelsea tonight

08:35But I agree with you you know there's there's still pressure on Ohio State

08:39You know it's just like last night with James Franklin

08:41You know his whole

08:42career now has become he can't win the big one and then last night it looked like he was going to win the big one

08:46And then not only did they lose, but they lost an excruciating fashion

08:50I think he's won in 18 now against top five teams so

08:54Yeah, that's it's rough, and that was particularly rough last night

08:58I'm in the Miami Airport right now, and I've been walking by a lot of Penn State fans

09:03there's a lot of glum looking people and

09:05You know that's when it's hard to be a sports fan when your team loses like that when it looks like for a lot of

09:10The night you're gonna win right and then they were the more talented team on paper Sean

09:14You've been around a lot of college football this year

09:16How great has it been for college football with the expansion of the 12 teams?

09:21And what it's been able to do for just us fans in general to be able to see what we've seen over the last several weeks

09:29Yeah, I think it's great. Don't you wiggy? I mean, I just think it's great

09:33People say well

09:33It's going to make the the end of the regular season irrelevant because these games don't mean anything because all these teams are going to

09:39Be in the playoff, and that's not true

09:41You know it made the games at the end of the season much more relevant because you know in the four-team playoff for the previous ten

09:48years

09:48You just kind of knew that when it got to the last couple weeks of the regular season there were only maybe eight teams

09:55I had a chance to be among the four and then this year there was many more times that so we did a bunch

10:01of games at the end of the regular season that you know in previous years might not have had

10:06Anywhere near as much meaning as they did this year, and it makes the conference championship games that much more meaningful

10:11Do you have teams you know like?

10:13UNLV and Clemson who are playing in these conference championship games knowing if they win they're going to be in the playoff and if they

10:19Lose they're not going to be so yeah, I think it's been great

10:22And then the games on campus we did the first game you know which was at Notre Dame which I thought was so

10:29Perfect you know to have the first-ever college football playoff game on a campus be at Notre Dame and

10:34The atmosphere there was tremendous and metric there's talk about maybe in the future trying to play more games on campus

10:40So I think it's been a huge home run you know I've Molly McGrath our sideline reporter

10:44Was just texting our group talking about how much fun

10:47This expanded playoff has been and I really think it has been in the TV reading ratings bear it out to people are watching

10:52It very interested in well Sean. Thanks for taking the time this morning safe flight

10:57And we'll see you back here when the weather gets better. I guess all right guys and girls good to talk to you

11:03And have a great day. All right that is Sean McDonough of ESPN

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