This picture is a microcosm of this game. Reggie Ball had delivered a dart to Calvin Johnson, who appeared to catch it in stride. At the exact right moment, Chinedum Ndukwe drilled Johnson, separating him from the ball. It was (incorrectly, in my opinion) ruled an incomplete pass.


This game, after a restful night and about an hour on the blogosphere, was just plain ugly. Notre Dame did just enough to pull out the win, but should never have been in that position to begin with. The officiating was sloppy, and our placekicking was atrocious.

If I read another post on NDNation that says that they were "close misses" I'm going to break something. They were misses. Misses on kicks that any decent kicker should hit convincingly about 75% of the time, and when they miss it should be an obvious error. This isn't putting, where getting it close is OK.
Gioia is more consistent because he always kicks the ball in the vicinity of the goalposts. Sometimes they go in, sometimes they don't. But whether or not they go through the uprights has nothing to do with Gioia's mechanics. He just kicks the ball up into the air in front of him, lofting it high enough so that if he gets lucky, the ball will go through the middle.
Burkhart kicks the ball all over the place. When he hits the ball correctly, it goes through the uprights every time. When he goofs, the ball goes veering wildly off course. He needs to develop his mechanics and consistency, but at least the result of his kicks is a function of whether he kicks the ball correctly. With Gioia, it is completely random, and no amount of fiddling with his mechanics will fix it.

Bench Gioia, and bring on the freshman.