All right, Brian, I'm part two of today's show here on the Irish Breakdown podcast brought to you by Fandall.

We're going to be talking some Notre Dame defense versus some.

A quick reminder, folks, make sure you get those mailback questions in because after we're done with the defensive section,

we're going to do a mailbag.

So go ahead and start getting those mailback questions going in.

But Trev, keep introducing us into this defensive breakdown because this is the one that's clearly the message, as the chat has shown,

this is the side of the ball that they've been one to talk about this entire game, which again is my frustration.

It's like, guys, this is an elite offense that you're watching the last two weeks for Notre Dame.

Like, let's enjoy that for five minutes before we start talking about the struggling

defense because we're, you know, if you focus on the negative part, then you're missing

something pretty, pretty impressive going on right now.

Like a buddy of mine asked me today, and I shouldn't say this publicly because I'll, you know,

don't want to jinx somebody's like

you know who do you compare CJ Carr to and I said he's an athletic Jimmy Claussen

with a stronger arm like that you know there you go smart pinpoint accuracy he's still young he's

going to have some ups and downs but

let's enjoy that a little bit too but of course now that we're here in the defensive section

now we're in the part that everybody wants to talk about and this is going to be the matchup

that's going to help dictate how this game goes at the end of the day because we've watched

games we've watched the game already this year where the offense has played well enough to win. And unfortunately, the defense couldn't get it done in crucial moments. Now, I was thinking about this, you know, before we dive into, you know, the strengths and and who does what well and the players that have to shine in this matchup, you know, the parody's crazy, you know, between last year and this year. It's just on a different side of the ball. Last year, we were talking, look, it's unrealistic the defense can hold every team to 15 points. And this is a Notre Dame offense. I can't throw the ball. What happened to Riley Leonard and yada, yada, yada. And as the weeks went on, they got better. I'm not naive to the fact that this Notre Dame defense could get better. I get frustrated because it's not what we thought that it was going to. And I'm not going to sit here and stake my claim that the Notre Dame defense is going to get back to looking what it looked like. But in a similar light to what we talked about last year with the offense, this defense doesn't have to get back to holding teams to 14, 15 points a game.

I'm not going to be upset if that happens for obvious reasons, but the improvements that they have

to make in my eyes are marginal. And it's one of those that I think that this game gives you

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