Rakes Report: A Notre Dame podcast

Jessica Smetana and the Spreadsheets & Tailgates newsletter's Michael Bryan join to discuss lingering frustrations out of the bye week, what the advanced stats and eye test say about the Fighting Irish football team, the apparent difficulty of mid-drive substitutions and confidence in Notre Dame's ability to close out the regular season. Plus a check in (41:30) on how a whole bunch of teams around the country are performing relative to preseason expectations.

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Jessica Smetana joins to recap another bloody Saturday in college football, with nearly half of the AP poll's top 16 teams going down. Plus: A lot of lingering thoughts on Irish/Cougars, a check-in on the Lincoln Riley Era and much more.

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Irish Sports Daily's Jamie Uyeyama joins to talk through what went awry for the Fighting Irish in Provo and what might be done to fix it. Topics include scrutiny of Mike Denbrock and C.J. Carr, roster rotations, Dog in Him discourse, lingering defensive trauma from the national title game and levels of hope for the future.

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Jessica Smetana joins to discuss the Fighting Irish's 16-game winning streak coming to an end in Provo following poor performances from pretty much everybody involved. Cheery and very lightly edited one. (Some of the defensive PFF stats mentioned at the end are not accurate, they were still updating.)

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NBC Sports' Nicole Auerbach joins to explain why the Fighting Irish were her preseason championship pick, how she feels about that choice six games in, how Marcus Freeman's program is performing and how the other national title contenders are stacking up thus far.

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Jessica Smetana joins to discuss the Fighting Irish rolling to an easy win over the Cardinal. Running back rotation, wide receiver discourse, Boubacar Traore, Andrew Luck's whole deal, a look ahead to BYU, a look back at an awesome Saturday (Kenny Minchey!) and a whole lot more.

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Jessica Smetana joins to discuss the soggy Fighting Irish win in Chapel Hill.

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Jessica Smetana joins for a deep dive into how Bill Belichick arrived as North Carolina's football coach and what's gone down there since he arrived in Chapel Hill. The dueling coaching searches, rifts between Tar Heel power brokers, an inexperienced staff, a nightmare start to his first season, Mike Lombardi's presence, resignations and so much more.

ESPN: How North Carolina football landed a coaching legend in Bill Belichick

The Athletic: Bill Belichick pledged an NFL approach at North Carolina. Program insiders call it dysfunctional

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Jessica Smetana joins to discuss the Fighting Irish dominating their first true road game of the season. The incredible defense, C.J. Carr's performance, what does it mean to be RB1 and a whole lot on a very fun and funny day of college football.

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Jessica Smetana joins to recap the Fighting Irish's soggy win over Sparty. A dominant defensive performance, continued rushing offense concerns, The Micah Gilbert Game, questionable fourth down decisions, an extremely fun weekend of football and a whole lot more.

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