The message boards are on a witch hunt and they’ve found their witch. Over the past few weeks, the criticisms of last year’s MVP and 2015 captain Joe Schmidt have become increasingly loud. There’s no doubt that Schmidt hasn’t looked as good as he did last year. However, much of the criticism tends to be based on a relatively small sample size. Snapshots of single plays, isolated from the context of the defensive scheme.
I want to be clear, I am not singling out any one in the OFD community, this criticism exists across the Notre Dame universe and beyond.