Welcome back, everybody, to another edition of Irish Illustrated Insider.

I'm Tim Preacher with Tim O'Malley and Pete Samson of the Athletic.

It's Thursday, October 14th, and we have a bi-week this weekend.

And I speak on behalf of everybody in the media that we like those by weeks.

But then, you know, then you go into next week and it's like you haven't made any ground

in a week.

You still have six games left.

But anyway, looking forward to the second half of the season.

But right now we are going to talk about the first half of the season.

And let's start with you,

Tim O'Malley. Just some of your impressions, what stands out in your mind about the first six

games of 2021? Yeah, I don't think five and one is overly surprising. I did have them in the

preseason as six and no. And I guess I had them, if you go biweekly, I had them six and no because

I did have them beating Cincinnati and all the other teams.

Certainly five ones, not a shock, though.

Especially, I think it kind of crystallized for me.

Even more than the Toledo game where that was too close, you could, as a Notre Dame

writer, you've seen enough of those in September.

You kind of ride off like, yeah, it was a short week.

They didn't prepare the same way. They all kind of admitted they didn't prepare. That Purdue game starts with a run-through sack of

Jack Cone where they throw them to the ground like a rag doll. And I thought to myself,

huh, I guess this offensive line is not going to get that much better.

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