Samuels Ready For The Irish
Jaylen Samuels watched some of Notre Dame’s last game. He saw all he needed to see long before the dust settled.
“Once it got to the fourth quarter I stopped watching,” Samuels conceded when asked about the Irish’s blowout home win over USC.
“They are a great team. It is a great atmosphere. We know that it is going to be a good, physical game. We have just got to come out prepared.”
The Wolfpack will travel to South Bend looking for its seventh straight victory and the kind of marquee win that could propel NC State closer to a top-10 spot.
While Notre Dame put on a show against the Trojans last week, Samuels had a pretty good idea what the Irish are about before kickoff.
He respects Notre Dame but is also remaining calm.
“We know that they are a good team,” Samuels said. “They are coming out fast and jumping on their opponents pretty fast. I think to take the energy out of the stadium we need to start fast, to come out in the first half and execute, use the techniques that we have and everything should be okay.”
As for last season’s famous win over the Irish at Carter-Finley Stadium during Hurricane Matthew, it is not helping the Wolfpack in terms of film preparation but likely has a tangible benefit to Notre Dame this season. Samuels expects to face a motivated team Saturday.
To counter that, the Wolfpack has to start better than it did in its last game at Pittsburgh.
“It shouldn’t be hard,” Samuels said of finding motivation to play. “I feel like you should come out ready to play every Saturday. They are definitely going to be fired up. Their coach is probably going to get them fired up after what happened last year. We have got to come out and be fired up too. We can’t come out sluggish like we did at Pitt.
“We haven’t really looked back at last year’s game ever since that happened. It was kind of ugly.”
The Irish defense does have Samuels’ attention.
While the elements will be different in the matchup this season, the path to victory is remarkably similar.
“They are big,” Samuels said. “They are big and the fly to the ball. They play with a lot of effort. Great defense, great players and great coaches.
“We have just got to go out there and execute.”