North Carolina 29, Notre Dame 24
So if last season was one of those cringe-worthy "rebuilding years," I guess you could call this season a..."growing year." Particularly in yesterday's game, we saw flashes of both how good this team is going to be and how young they still are.
The first half of the game was straight-up domination. North Carolina didn't score a single touchdown. Notre Dame won the time of possession battle. We made a field goal. We had a little bit of running going on.
The second half of the game was like one giant hiccup. We surrendered a lot of our momentum to Carolina with that pick-six, and even though we scored right away to answer, we never got back our control. We started making mistakes. Carolina got a couple more turnovers, and we let the game get away from us.
North Carolina's a pretty good team, but so are we, and I think that was pretty apparent yesterday. We could easily have jumped into the rankings this week if we'd made our second half as solid as our first half.
But like I said, I think it's really a matter of growing pains. Jimmy threw two interceptions. We failed to get two fourth-down conversions. In the fourth quarter, our team just couldn't hold on.
In that agonizing and somewhat controversial last drive of the game, we saw flashes of the threat our team can be in a close, fourth-quarter situation. Jimmy's got his head wrapped around that two-minute drill pretty nicely, and we got so close to making it into the endzone in the final seconds of the game.
But we didn't.
These are the kinds of things we're going to have to overcome to be a truly good team. (And that are crucial if, you know, we ever want to win a bowl game again.) We are on the edge of being on the verge of being on the cusp of being a totally BALLER football team, but there are quite a few things that just aren't there yet. But this team is so darn young that unless something goes horribly wrong in the next couple years, we WILL be that baller football team.
So, first things first...my favorite person ever
I've decided I'm going to stop badmouthing Jimmy in these posts. No, really. You all know how I feel. In the future, I will attempt to be as objective as possible. It's of no more use to keep sucker-punching that little cussmouth with insults. As enjoyable as that is, it's not...really...useful. Instead I will pretend that he is just in uniform all the time, because that is the only time I truly support him.
*ahem* So..speaking as an objective third party with absolutely no personal interest in the matter, yesterday Jimmy (much like the team itself) showed us flashes of how good he's going to be at quarterback, and of how much he still has to learn at quarterback. He's really taking the offense into his hands these days. He's really good at pointing his fingers, calling some choice audibles, and throwing some pretty passes. Some of the stuff he tried to do last year is actually working this year -- for example, running away from the defenders who break through our line and then actually completing a pass instead of getting sacked. That was pretty nifty. There were also some really nice pass plays, especially on that final drive of the game. It was reminiscent of Brady Quinn-era fourth quarter drives, even, except that we didn't come away with the TD. (Although don't think I'm comparing Jimmy to Brady Quinn. I'm just saying...the coaches are employing a similar style of offense in a similar situation.)
It's all about the underclassman these days
Which we already knew, of course, but I still have to give the shout-out to Golden Tate and Michael Floyd for continuing to play like the beasts that they are, and for bringing in two of ND's three touchdowns on the day.
After a pass-heavy first quarter, Armando Allen found a little room to run, and James Aldridge had success in a few short-yardage situations, including a 2-yard TD run.
Robert Blanton -- who, much like Michael Floyd, I can hardly believe is a freshman -- had some huge tackles and one almost fumble recovery. (Sadly, the ball carrier was ruled down.) This kid showed us in the Purdue game that he's a playmaker (remember that interception?), and he's definitely someone to keep an eye on for the next few games and--happily--years.
Pass-happy day
Although Allen and Aldridge had some big scampers that led to a TD, our run game still isn't consistent enough to be the anchor of our offense; we tacked up 89 yards on the ground compared to 383 passing yards. Granted, our game plan in the first half seemed to be more anchored on passing than rushing, but I feel like that has more to do with our O-line's weakness in blocking for runners than Carolina's defense. The Tarheels lead the nation in interceptions, so the pass-happy offense we ran against them in the first half seemed like more of a risk than usual.
Of course, we didn't get picked off in the first half, so I guess I really can't knock the game plan-- it was the execution in the second half that killed us. Clausen was having a pretty good day (65% completion rate) until he threw those interceptions. The pick-six we recovered from...but not that second one.
Defense, get tough
They were pretty stout in the first half, holding Carolina to three field goals. I'm sure they were all cursing profusely when our offense gave NC their first touchdown of the game. The bad stuff started seeping in when Carolina wore our defense down a bit in the third quarter on a 13-play, five-and-a-half minute scoring drive.
As previously mentioned, Robert Blanton had a couple big solo tackles and the one near-fumble recovery, but the anchors of our defense also had pretty solid days--and on this side of the ball, the flashy players are our upperclassmen. David Bruton led the team in tackles yesterday with seven solo and one assist; Junior Raeshon McNeil was right behind him with five solo tackles and one assist. Pat Kuntz had a huge sack. Mo Crum had four solo tackles and one near-interception. (Oh, if only. If ONLY.)
But it wasn't enough to slow down Carolina once they did what they've been doing all season -- making killer plays on defense and special teams. That last interception really took the game out of our hands, though the defense did all they could to give our offense one last chance to score.
Big Heartbreaker
In the end, it was a game ND had every right to win, and we lost it.
We were playing against NC's backup QB. Their best WR (coincidentally also named Tate) got knocked out of the game with an injury. We contained their other big threat at kick returner. We didn't let them block any of our punts. We made an actual field goal. We were ahead almost the entire game, and when they pick-sixed us, we answered right away to stay in the lead.
And in the fourth quarter, we...just...lost it.
This is the difference between being a pretty good team and a good team. This is the difference between being a team that makes it to bowl games and a team that wins bowl games. When push comes to shove...we need to push back harder. When the pressure's on, we can't split wide open.
When Jimmy's got the ball in his hands this week, I hope he's not thinking about that interception. I hope he thinks about it when he's watching film, when he's going over plays, when he's thinking about the game, but I hope when he's out there on the field making decisions, it doesn't cloud his mind. It seems like he's gotten pretty good at putting those things behind him (having all that practice last season and all), and that last drive he--and the receivers--really did come out strong. It was so close--SO CLOSE--to being a miracle.
I think we've got it all. We've got what we need. We know what we need to do. We just need to...do it. We can't come out strong and then let ourselves get flat. We can't fall behind and then play catch-up all the time. We just need to figure out the median and play solid, keep shoving it at the other team relentlessly until they're too tired to think straight. We've got the talent. We've got the skillz. We've got the team. We just need a little more time, a little more push, a little more experience maybe, and we'll be right where we need to be.
A much-needed rest
So this game leads us into our bye week, and as infuriating as the game was to watch, I don't think it's necessarily a bad game for the players to have on their minds as we head into two weeks of practice and a week-long break from school.
It's not the kind of loss that's going to have our team feeling miserable and defeated and completely violated. It's the kind of loss that's going to leave them pissed off for the next couple weeks--mostly at themselves. That kind of anger, when channeled into physical aggression, can be way more helpful than harmful, I think, at least as far as football's concerned. When you fail to do something you know you can do, all you want is another chance go out there and prove you can do it.
And now this feeling's got two weeks to fester. Obviously I don't expect the football team to be walking around for the next couple weeks in a blind rage, but I do feel like they're going to want to go out against Washington andprove something. I'm hoping they jank up the score to fifty. I hope they're pissed off enough to take the lead and keep pounding the ball into the end zone until the other team can't think straight.
I think we should be 5-1 right now, and that 5-1 should have bumped us up into the top 25. (Because I'm sorry, I don't care if they kicked the crap out of Kent State and Toledo and Akron, WE ARE NOT WORSE THAN EFFING BALL STATE.) We did still get one vote this week in the AP poll, but then again so did Cincinnati, so I guess that's not saying much.
At any rate, if we want to take out some aggression, it shouldn't be too hard to do against the 0-5 Huskies (probably 0-6 after they face Oregon State next week, but I guess you never know)--though I do feel sorry for Washington. We've totally been there in the last couple years, both with the terrible season and with Ty Willingham controversy. Trust me, Huskies, I know how you feel.
But that doesn't mean I don't want our team to go out there and straight-up dominate, because we really NEED another game this season where there are no question marks, no second-half surges from our opponent, no "HOW DID WE LET THAT HAPPEN" moments.
I don't really like making score predictions, but I will say that if the Huskies do make a late, fourth-quarter surge for points, it better be because they're so far behind they have no hope of catching up, and our defense is just sitting on its heels trying not to get injured.
Happy Bye Week, everyone. Good luck on midterms and enjoy fall break.
And after that's over...
GO IRISH BEAT HUSKIES!
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
What now, Cardinal?
Notre Dame 28, Stanford 21
Praise be the Lord...I finally have enough free time to write this note. I wanted to write it on Sunday. I can't tell you how much I wanted to write it on Sunday. I also can't tell you HOW MUCH FUN it was to spend all of Sunday reading and reading and reading....and reading...and writing some papers...and finally taking responsibility for all the work I've let myself get behind it. It was the greatest joy of my existence.
Well, besides Notre Dame Football of course.
Pat Kuntz's Revenge
So if you attended the pep rally on Friday or, you know, follow Notre Dame football at all, you are probably aware that one of Stanford's tackles, Chris Marinelli, was talking some serious smack about us before the game. He insulted not only our players, but our stadium, our school, and our fans.
As I'm sure you can imagine, this ticked some people off.
Kuntz's speech at the pep rally ended up being absurdly long and involved him ripping his suit off to reveal a wife beater and jeans (for reasons I'm still not entirely clear on), but the general message was that ND was not going to take that kind of crap from Stanford, and Kuntz's plan was to go out there and rip Marinelli's head off.
Although Marinelli seems to have escaped with his head intact, Kuntz recorded two sacks, an interception, and one fumble recovery late in the 4th that clinched the game for ND. So thank YOU, Stanford, for adding fuel to that fire.
I'm willing to bet Marinelli still doesn't have any warm fuzzy feelings for Notre Dame Stadium.
I suppose I wouldn't, either, if my team hadn't won a game there since 1992.
It's a bird! It's a plane! No...it's Jimmy Clausen's ego!
...and I'm sure it's just soaring through the air this week thinking about Jimmy's 347 passing yards, 3 touchdown passes, 0 interceptions, and 72% completion rate.
Look, it's not that I don't want Jimmy to succeed. Every time Jimmy succeeds, the team succeeds.
It's just that...he's such an ass already. If last season didn't manage to crush the ego out of him, nothing will. And now that we've started to do well, his ego's just going to get bigger...and bigger...and bigger... until it's the size of the actual grotto in Lourdes. Or possibly something bigger and less holy, like the entire West Coast.
Quarterbacks should have confidence, obviously. But they shouldn't strut up to podiums during pep rallies chewing gum and showing off their new haircut like the most pus-ridden pustule on earth and then regard the student body as though they are a bunch of plebeians. Don't look at me like that, Jimmy, or I will shove my Dean's List GPA right up that snarky little ass of yours.
Okay, on to the actual offense
On a less biased note, it is good to see our spiky-headed gunslinger making better decisions from week to week. He's really starting to keep his options open as far as passing goes, and he's no longer quite as fixated on his favorite receivers or even throwing the ball downfield. Coach Weis even mentioned it in his presser: “I think it’s a major step when the quarterback doesn’t force balls down the field and is willing to throw to his flair control.”
Amen to that. We saw a lot more short passes on Saturday, a lot more dump-offs. If your receivers can keep their feet under them, you're going to get a lot more yards that way then if you hang out in the pocket too long waiting for those deep routes to get open.
While we're talking about passing, I'd just like to say that I can't believe Michael Floyd is a freshman. Not that he and Golden Tate aren't fabulous already, but it looks like by the time Jim-may is a senior, Floyd and Tate are going to be unstoppable aerial beasts. (BEASTS I TELL YOU, BEASTS!) We already know Coach Weis's recruiting has been killer the last three years, but it's nice to see that talent starting to come into its own.
As long as we're at it, it would be unfair to leave Armando Allen out of the discussion. He had seven catches on the day for 66 yards--including one 3-yard grab he converted into a 28-yard TD run--but only 33 rushing yards. Although his numbers on the ground come nowhere near the totals from last week, he still racked up nearly 100 offensive yards (and more than that in all-purpose yards with his returns).
Our lack of yardage on the ground is once again lamentable (83 net yards), as is our inability to properly utilize the smash-bang-boom talents of Robert Hughes. Our offensive line is obviously much improved from last season, but we've still got some hiccups, and they're not likely to disappear in the coming weeks as we face some of our tougher opponents (and no, I am not referring to Syracuse).
I do believe that our O-line will continue to get better as the season progresses, but obviously our opponent's teams are going to be improving from week to week as well, and as long as our opponents are aware that we've struggled and downright failed to convert 3rd-and-1 and 4th-and-inches, our short-yardage run game is going to continue to be a struggle for us long down the road.
So I guess it's a good thing our defense keeps stepping up to spark us on to victory
Once again, I'm thrilled to say, this game was won with a team effort. The offense managed to score of its own volition, but it also got a huge boost from the defense's first interception, giving ND its first score of the day. As already detailed, Pat Kuntz had a monster day, but the defense as a whole played pretty well--until the fourth quarter, that is, when we allowed Stanford to score twice before stuffing their last drive.
In the first half, our defense ended half of Stanford's drives by intercepting the ball. Stanford had to fight tooth-and-nail for their only score in the first half, chewing up 7 minutes of clock time on 95 yards and 14 plays. This is both good and bad for our defense; it meant they weren't giving up huge plays, but it also meant they weren't stopping the short first-down plays and they tired themselves out a little. Nevertheless, the defense held Stanford to only one real scoring chance in the first half, and it was to our chagrin that the Cardinal players took it.
In the second half, things went swimmingly until those back-to-back scoring drives Stanford had in the 4th. In the 3rd quarter, our D ended two Stanford drives on punts and forced them to kick a field goal on a drive that began on the Notre Dame thirty--a field goal which they happily missed. After those two head-scratching touchdown drives, the D tightened up again and forced Stanford to turn the ball over on downs, then forced a fumble on Stanford's last drive when our own offense choked the ball up on downs.
If anyone was watching the game from an angle other than from the corner of the endzone (or even if you remember the game better than I do) and has some insight on what happened to our D during those two Stanford scoring drives, feel free to expound your thoughts.
Things are gettin' sticky
...as the team heads to North Carolina this week to face the Tarheels. NC is in the rankings now, at #22, making them officially the toughest opponent we've faced all season. It will be the first game of the season at which the band is not present (I imagine the entire band is excited for the respite), so the team won't have our boisterous support. However, I've heard that tickets for the NC game were the hardest win in the Alumni Association lottery this year, so this indicates that a strong Notre Dame presence will be felt, even without the band's bright and shining instruments.
And speaking of rankings...this is the first time in history that the Fighting Irish have gone 4-1 and NOT been ranked in any of the polls. Apparently we got six votes this week (holla), but I have to say that, perhaps also for the first time in history, I agree with the pollsters that we should not yet be ranked. (Though I can't say I actually agree with the pollsters about the rest of the poll.) If we come through and beat North Carolina this weekend--then hell yeah, we should be ranked.
But for right now, there are still too many questions. We've still only made one field goal this year. We've let teams creep back up on us at the last minute. We've failed to bump the score up over thirty or forty points when we had every opportunity and every right to. We haven't yet garnered a solid victory over a solid opponent.
This weekend, we have a chance to erase some questions, and if we go out and play as a team once again, I can't see any reason why we shouldn't bring home another W.
GO IRISH BEAT TARHEELS!
Praise be the Lord...I finally have enough free time to write this note. I wanted to write it on Sunday. I can't tell you how much I wanted to write it on Sunday. I also can't tell you HOW MUCH FUN it was to spend all of Sunday reading and reading and reading....and reading...and writing some papers...and finally taking responsibility for all the work I've let myself get behind it. It was the greatest joy of my existence.
Well, besides Notre Dame Football of course.
Pat Kuntz's Revenge
So if you attended the pep rally on Friday or, you know, follow Notre Dame football at all, you are probably aware that one of Stanford's tackles, Chris Marinelli, was talking some serious smack about us before the game. He insulted not only our players, but our stadium, our school, and our fans.
As I'm sure you can imagine, this ticked some people off.
Kuntz's speech at the pep rally ended up being absurdly long and involved him ripping his suit off to reveal a wife beater and jeans (for reasons I'm still not entirely clear on), but the general message was that ND was not going to take that kind of crap from Stanford, and Kuntz's plan was to go out there and rip Marinelli's head off.
Although Marinelli seems to have escaped with his head intact, Kuntz recorded two sacks, an interception, and one fumble recovery late in the 4th that clinched the game for ND. So thank YOU, Stanford, for adding fuel to that fire.
I'm willing to bet Marinelli still doesn't have any warm fuzzy feelings for Notre Dame Stadium.
I suppose I wouldn't, either, if my team hadn't won a game there since 1992.
It's a bird! It's a plane! No...it's Jimmy Clausen's ego!
...and I'm sure it's just soaring through the air this week thinking about Jimmy's 347 passing yards, 3 touchdown passes, 0 interceptions, and 72% completion rate.
Look, it's not that I don't want Jimmy to succeed. Every time Jimmy succeeds, the team succeeds.
It's just that...he's such an ass already. If last season didn't manage to crush the ego out of him, nothing will. And now that we've started to do well, his ego's just going to get bigger...and bigger...and bigger... until it's the size of the actual grotto in Lourdes. Or possibly something bigger and less holy, like the entire West Coast.
Quarterbacks should have confidence, obviously. But they shouldn't strut up to podiums during pep rallies chewing gum and showing off their new haircut like the most pus-ridden pustule on earth and then regard the student body as though they are a bunch of plebeians. Don't look at me like that, Jimmy, or I will shove my Dean's List GPA right up that snarky little ass of yours.
Okay, on to the actual offense
On a less biased note, it is good to see our spiky-headed gunslinger making better decisions from week to week. He's really starting to keep his options open as far as passing goes, and he's no longer quite as fixated on his favorite receivers or even throwing the ball downfield. Coach Weis even mentioned it in his presser: “I think it’s a major step when the quarterback doesn’t force balls down the field and is willing to throw to his flair control.”
Amen to that. We saw a lot more short passes on Saturday, a lot more dump-offs. If your receivers can keep their feet under them, you're going to get a lot more yards that way then if you hang out in the pocket too long waiting for those deep routes to get open.
While we're talking about passing, I'd just like to say that I can't believe Michael Floyd is a freshman. Not that he and Golden Tate aren't fabulous already, but it looks like by the time Jim-may is a senior, Floyd and Tate are going to be unstoppable aerial beasts. (BEASTS I TELL YOU, BEASTS!) We already know Coach Weis's recruiting has been killer the last three years, but it's nice to see that talent starting to come into its own.
As long as we're at it, it would be unfair to leave Armando Allen out of the discussion. He had seven catches on the day for 66 yards--including one 3-yard grab he converted into a 28-yard TD run--but only 33 rushing yards. Although his numbers on the ground come nowhere near the totals from last week, he still racked up nearly 100 offensive yards (and more than that in all-purpose yards with his returns).
Our lack of yardage on the ground is once again lamentable (83 net yards), as is our inability to properly utilize the smash-bang-boom talents of Robert Hughes. Our offensive line is obviously much improved from last season, but we've still got some hiccups, and they're not likely to disappear in the coming weeks as we face some of our tougher opponents (and no, I am not referring to Syracuse).
I do believe that our O-line will continue to get better as the season progresses, but obviously our opponent's teams are going to be improving from week to week as well, and as long as our opponents are aware that we've struggled and downright failed to convert 3rd-and-1 and 4th-and-inches, our short-yardage run game is going to continue to be a struggle for us long down the road.
So I guess it's a good thing our defense keeps stepping up to spark us on to victory
Once again, I'm thrilled to say, this game was won with a team effort. The offense managed to score of its own volition, but it also got a huge boost from the defense's first interception, giving ND its first score of the day. As already detailed, Pat Kuntz had a monster day, but the defense as a whole played pretty well--until the fourth quarter, that is, when we allowed Stanford to score twice before stuffing their last drive.
In the first half, our defense ended half of Stanford's drives by intercepting the ball. Stanford had to fight tooth-and-nail for their only score in the first half, chewing up 7 minutes of clock time on 95 yards and 14 plays. This is both good and bad for our defense; it meant they weren't giving up huge plays, but it also meant they weren't stopping the short first-down plays and they tired themselves out a little. Nevertheless, the defense held Stanford to only one real scoring chance in the first half, and it was to our chagrin that the Cardinal players took it.
In the second half, things went swimmingly until those back-to-back scoring drives Stanford had in the 4th. In the 3rd quarter, our D ended two Stanford drives on punts and forced them to kick a field goal on a drive that began on the Notre Dame thirty--a field goal which they happily missed. After those two head-scratching touchdown drives, the D tightened up again and forced Stanford to turn the ball over on downs, then forced a fumble on Stanford's last drive when our own offense choked the ball up on downs.
If anyone was watching the game from an angle other than from the corner of the endzone (or even if you remember the game better than I do) and has some insight on what happened to our D during those two Stanford scoring drives, feel free to expound your thoughts.
Things are gettin' sticky
...as the team heads to North Carolina this week to face the Tarheels. NC is in the rankings now, at #22, making them officially the toughest opponent we've faced all season. It will be the first game of the season at which the band is not present (I imagine the entire band is excited for the respite), so the team won't have our boisterous support. However, I've heard that tickets for the NC game were the hardest win in the Alumni Association lottery this year, so this indicates that a strong Notre Dame presence will be felt, even without the band's bright and shining instruments.
And speaking of rankings...this is the first time in history that the Fighting Irish have gone 4-1 and NOT been ranked in any of the polls. Apparently we got six votes this week (holla), but I have to say that, perhaps also for the first time in history, I agree with the pollsters that we should not yet be ranked. (Though I can't say I actually agree with the pollsters about the rest of the poll.) If we come through and beat North Carolina this weekend--then hell yeah, we should be ranked.
But for right now, there are still too many questions. We've still only made one field goal this year. We've let teams creep back up on us at the last minute. We've failed to bump the score up over thirty or forty points when we had every opportunity and every right to. We haven't yet garnered a solid victory over a solid opponent.
This weekend, we have a chance to erase some questions, and if we go out and play as a team once again, I can't see any reason why we shouldn't bring home another W.
GO IRISH BEAT TARHEELS!
Sunday, September 28, 2008
I'm so glad Jimmy cut his hair
Notre Dame 38, Purdue 21
Okay, so obviously yesterday's game was exhilarating in many ways, but there's just one thing I have to bitch about before I talk football:
Stupid freshmen and their stupid wave
...not to mention the first-down chop, which is also stupid and should be stopped immediately, even if it means chopping off the arms of all the freshmen.
There are some things that should never happen inside Notre Dame Stadium.
For example, the Stanford band should never perform.
The students should never leave before they've sung the alma mater.
And the crowd should never do the wave.
Props to the senior section for their solidarity in resisting. Booo to the crowd for taking their attention off the football game to do a stupid non-cheer that, in Notre Dame Stadium, mostly just looks retarded.
Anyway, moving on....
The Irish went 3-1 yesterday
And I'm not just talking about our football team's record. I'm talking about the team, the band, the cheerleaders, and the fans.
The team won! Irish: 1 Purdue: 0
Purdue's band didn't show. That's an automatic forfeit. ND Band: 1 Purdue Band: -scratch-
The cheerleader battle. In case you somehow missed this, our cheerleaders had a showdown with Purdue's cheerleaders in front of our student section. Each male cheerleader held up a female cheerleader with one hand, and Purdue and ND duked it out to see who could stay up the longest.
We won. ND Cheerleaders: 1 Purdue Cheerleaders: 0
And also the senior section lost the battle against the wave. ND Seniors: 0 Stupid freshmen: 1
(Also, in Quidditch news, Gryffindor beat Slytherin 170-60. This was on the scoreboard several times yesterday, in case you missed it.)
So there you have it--a true home effort for the Irish.
And now on to the important stuff....
What an offensive offense! I'm soooo glad they're no longer so offensive.
If last week's "pound the ball" effort was an example of how not to execute your run game, then this week's effort was an excellent display of how much of a beast Armando Allen is. Finally showing off his speed, agility, and some fancy footwork, Allen churned up over 130 yards of turf, had more long breakout runs than we've seen all season (and possibly all of last season as well), and--also finally--helped the offense finally gain something they've been grasping for all season: ball control.
Granted, Purdue's run defense is ranked 90th in the country, so this is not quite as promising as it would be if he'd had his breakout day against Michigan or MSU, but it's still something to get excited about. It's one thing to know what you're capable of. It's another thing entirely to perform to your highest level when the pressure's on. Even if the adrenaline gets your body moving, in football you still have to keep your head about you to know what you're doing and make smart decisions. (Or...so I imagine.) The team buckled under pressure last season, but now they're rising to the challenge. It's good to see.
The real cause for concern going into next...well, okay not so much next week, but certainly the next few games / rest of the season / our perpetual season-long preparation for USC that the players probably shouldn't be thinking about right now but that the coaches should definitely have on their radar...is the 35% of our run game yesterday that did not involve Armando Allen.
Robert Hughes and James Aldridge ran for a combined total of around 70 yards, and neither of them had long breakout runs or even the kind of consistent short yardage that makes for a truly commanding run game. We've all seen Huuuuughes have good games, but yesterday was not the best, and the mystery (for me, anyway, caused by my poor depth perception and angle on the field) remains as to whether he's not hitting the holes or there just aren't any holes. It's nice for Armando Allen to be able to dance around people and sprint for the first down, but it's bad for our depth chart for our freight-train style running back to be stuffed for two-yard carries on practically every play.
So hopefully next week against Stanford, the O-line will have a little more room to flex its muscles and open up some holes for Hughes, who hasn't had much room to breathe since we faced Michigan....which seems wrong, because wasn't Michigan supposed to be the team with the really good run defense?
But enough about ground, let's talk about air. (We had so many deliveries on both counts, we're practically UPS!)
Jimmy's head seems to have cooled since he got that haircut--his decision-making yesterday was the best we've seen yet. He managed not to throw any interceptions (though there were a couple plays when he just got damn lucky the ball wasn't intercepted), and the one sack Purdue recorded against us came straight from his blind side, so it's not like he could have done much to evade it. There were several other plays when he managed to avoid the sack and (God be praised) throw the ball away, which is still my favorite new skill of his, considering he never did it last season.
It's good to see David Grimes back in action. He definitely has the best hands on the team and a serious eye for the ball--on a play late in the game when Jimmy was clearly throwing the ball away, Grimes ran halfway back across the field and nearly made it in time for a diving catch (but not quite--the ball was just out of bounds by the time he got there). Grimes's 30-yard TD reception was also one of the highlights of the game. It was right in front of the student section, so as soon as everyone realized what was happening, there was a collective intake of breath and a moment of half-exploded stillness in which at least ten thousand people already had screams half-formed in their throats. And then the perfect pass, the perfect catch, the eruption of the cheering thousands, the mad scramble to play the Victory Clog in time. So beautiful.
Freshman WR Michael Floyd also had a breakout day, with more grabs than Grimes or Tate for an even 100 yards. This reflects just as well on Clausen as it does on Floyd--all three top receivers were nearly even on number of catches, and three more players (Kyle Rudolph, Duval Kamara, and Armando Allen) had grabs of their own. Clausen's gotten a lot better at reading the plays as they unfold and tossing the ball to the open man instead of just sticking on his favorite (usually Golden Tate) all day.
Most importantly, after struggling in the first half to put points on the board, the offense went into halftime, made the necessary adjustments, and brought their A-game for the second half. I'd much rather see them do that than see them strike fast and then stumble. Of all the things that have improved this season, I think mental toughness is the most important. I think if we can keep that same mental toughness if we're down after halftime instead of tied, it'll go a long way towards helping us win that bowl game our cupcake schedule has us destined for.
And we'll get by with a little help from our friends...
And by "our friends," I mean our special teams, which had a breakout day of their own considering we actually made an effing field goal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Good. I hope Brandon Walker's got that monkey off his back. Because there's no reason to keep going for it on 4th-and-1 if you trust your kicker. And if your kicker is making those 41-yarders...you're in pretty good shape.
Those running backs are slippery little suckers
...or apparently they are for our defense, which spent a lot of time chasing down Kory Sheets. I mean, when we stuffed him, we stuffed him, and we didn't, it was like he had oil slicked all over his uniform. We couldn't tackle him worth crap. And once he got away, he was fast.
I don't expect us to contain good running backs on every play. But I do expect us, when we have two hands on a guy, to bring him down.
But our D played a good game yesterday, all things considered. Purdue only scored once in the second half. Number 12, Robert Blanton, came up with a huge pick-6 in the second quarter to give our team some much-needed momentum after our offense sputtered through the first quarter.
We just need some tightening before we face tougher, less forgiving foes. (And, of course, the continued assistance of our offense so that the defense doesn't have to be on the field for most of the game.)
To conclude
We're back on track. Our team should fill up on even more confidence next week as we steamroll over Stanford. I'm not saying Stanford is awful (they're 3-2 at the moment, and did in fact beat Oregon State in their season opener, which is interesting considering Oregon St. just beat USC and all)...I'm just saying it's Alumni Band weekend, their lack of mascot is unutterably lame (the tree has been removed from their logo, btw), and when's the last time we lost to STANFORD?
GO IRISH BEAT CARDINAL!
Okay, so obviously yesterday's game was exhilarating in many ways, but there's just one thing I have to bitch about before I talk football:
Stupid freshmen and their stupid wave
...not to mention the first-down chop, which is also stupid and should be stopped immediately, even if it means chopping off the arms of all the freshmen.
There are some things that should never happen inside Notre Dame Stadium.
For example, the Stanford band should never perform.
The students should never leave before they've sung the alma mater.
And the crowd should never do the wave.
Props to the senior section for their solidarity in resisting. Booo to the crowd for taking their attention off the football game to do a stupid non-cheer that, in Notre Dame Stadium, mostly just looks retarded.
Anyway, moving on....
The Irish went 3-1 yesterday
And I'm not just talking about our football team's record. I'm talking about the team, the band, the cheerleaders, and the fans.
The team won! Irish: 1 Purdue: 0
Purdue's band didn't show. That's an automatic forfeit. ND Band: 1 Purdue Band: -scratch-
The cheerleader battle. In case you somehow missed this, our cheerleaders had a showdown with Purdue's cheerleaders in front of our student section. Each male cheerleader held up a female cheerleader with one hand, and Purdue and ND duked it out to see who could stay up the longest.
We won. ND Cheerleaders: 1 Purdue Cheerleaders: 0
And also the senior section lost the battle against the wave. ND Seniors: 0 Stupid freshmen: 1
(Also, in Quidditch news, Gryffindor beat Slytherin 170-60. This was on the scoreboard several times yesterday, in case you missed it.)
So there you have it--a true home effort for the Irish.
And now on to the important stuff....
What an offensive offense! I'm soooo glad they're no longer so offensive.
If last week's "pound the ball" effort was an example of how not to execute your run game, then this week's effort was an excellent display of how much of a beast Armando Allen is. Finally showing off his speed, agility, and some fancy footwork, Allen churned up over 130 yards of turf, had more long breakout runs than we've seen all season (and possibly all of last season as well), and--also finally--helped the offense finally gain something they've been grasping for all season: ball control.
Granted, Purdue's run defense is ranked 90th in the country, so this is not quite as promising as it would be if he'd had his breakout day against Michigan or MSU, but it's still something to get excited about. It's one thing to know what you're capable of. It's another thing entirely to perform to your highest level when the pressure's on. Even if the adrenaline gets your body moving, in football you still have to keep your head about you to know what you're doing and make smart decisions. (Or...so I imagine.) The team buckled under pressure last season, but now they're rising to the challenge. It's good to see.
The real cause for concern going into next...well, okay not so much next week, but certainly the next few games / rest of the season / our perpetual season-long preparation for USC that the players probably shouldn't be thinking about right now but that the coaches should definitely have on their radar...is the 35% of our run game yesterday that did not involve Armando Allen.
Robert Hughes and James Aldridge ran for a combined total of around 70 yards, and neither of them had long breakout runs or even the kind of consistent short yardage that makes for a truly commanding run game. We've all seen Huuuuughes have good games, but yesterday was not the best, and the mystery (for me, anyway, caused by my poor depth perception and angle on the field) remains as to whether he's not hitting the holes or there just aren't any holes. It's nice for Armando Allen to be able to dance around people and sprint for the first down, but it's bad for our depth chart for our freight-train style running back to be stuffed for two-yard carries on practically every play.
So hopefully next week against Stanford, the O-line will have a little more room to flex its muscles and open up some holes for Hughes, who hasn't had much room to breathe since we faced Michigan....which seems wrong, because wasn't Michigan supposed to be the team with the really good run defense?
But enough about ground, let's talk about air. (We had so many deliveries on both counts, we're practically UPS!)
Jimmy's head seems to have cooled since he got that haircut--his decision-making yesterday was the best we've seen yet. He managed not to throw any interceptions (though there were a couple plays when he just got damn lucky the ball wasn't intercepted), and the one sack Purdue recorded against us came straight from his blind side, so it's not like he could have done much to evade it. There were several other plays when he managed to avoid the sack and (God be praised) throw the ball away, which is still my favorite new skill of his, considering he never did it last season.
It's good to see David Grimes back in action. He definitely has the best hands on the team and a serious eye for the ball--on a play late in the game when Jimmy was clearly throwing the ball away, Grimes ran halfway back across the field and nearly made it in time for a diving catch (but not quite--the ball was just out of bounds by the time he got there). Grimes's 30-yard TD reception was also one of the highlights of the game. It was right in front of the student section, so as soon as everyone realized what was happening, there was a collective intake of breath and a moment of half-exploded stillness in which at least ten thousand people already had screams half-formed in their throats. And then the perfect pass, the perfect catch, the eruption of the cheering thousands, the mad scramble to play the Victory Clog in time. So beautiful.
Freshman WR Michael Floyd also had a breakout day, with more grabs than Grimes or Tate for an even 100 yards. This reflects just as well on Clausen as it does on Floyd--all three top receivers were nearly even on number of catches, and three more players (Kyle Rudolph, Duval Kamara, and Armando Allen) had grabs of their own. Clausen's gotten a lot better at reading the plays as they unfold and tossing the ball to the open man instead of just sticking on his favorite (usually Golden Tate) all day.
Most importantly, after struggling in the first half to put points on the board, the offense went into halftime, made the necessary adjustments, and brought their A-game for the second half. I'd much rather see them do that than see them strike fast and then stumble. Of all the things that have improved this season, I think mental toughness is the most important. I think if we can keep that same mental toughness if we're down after halftime instead of tied, it'll go a long way towards helping us win that bowl game our cupcake schedule has us destined for.
And we'll get by with a little help from our friends...
And by "our friends," I mean our special teams, which had a breakout day of their own considering we actually made an effing field goal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Good. I hope Brandon Walker's got that monkey off his back. Because there's no reason to keep going for it on 4th-and-1 if you trust your kicker. And if your kicker is making those 41-yarders...you're in pretty good shape.
Those running backs are slippery little suckers
...or apparently they are for our defense, which spent a lot of time chasing down Kory Sheets. I mean, when we stuffed him, we stuffed him, and we didn't, it was like he had oil slicked all over his uniform. We couldn't tackle him worth crap. And once he got away, he was fast.
I don't expect us to contain good running backs on every play. But I do expect us, when we have two hands on a guy, to bring him down.
But our D played a good game yesterday, all things considered. Purdue only scored once in the second half. Number 12, Robert Blanton, came up with a huge pick-6 in the second quarter to give our team some much-needed momentum after our offense sputtered through the first quarter.
We just need some tightening before we face tougher, less forgiving foes. (And, of course, the continued assistance of our offense so that the defense doesn't have to be on the field for most of the game.)
To conclude
We're back on track. Our team should fill up on even more confidence next week as we steamroll over Stanford. I'm not saying Stanford is awful (they're 3-2 at the moment, and did in fact beat Oregon State in their season opener, which is interesting considering Oregon St. just beat USC and all)...I'm just saying it's Alumni Band weekend, their lack of mascot is unutterably lame (the tree has been removed from their logo, btw), and when's the last time we lost to STANFORD?
GO IRISH BEAT CARDINAL!
Sunday, September 21, 2008
What is it with band away trips these days?
Michigan State 23, Notre Dame 7
This will be as brief as I can make it, considering how much I'd like to say. I've got a million things to do today, and no time for any of them.
Let me just start by saying that people who don't understand anything about the University of Notre Dame should not go on jawing about it as though their opinion matters. (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you haven't read Dan Wetzel's take on our program: http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/news;_ylt=AuZQxfQsnjIMBxor08Sq7KIcvrYF?slug=dw-weis092008&prov=yhoo&type=lgns )
I am aware that we haven't won a national championship in about twenty years, or a bowl game since 1993, and that everything has gone downhill since Lou left.
But Notre Dame doesn't feature in national media prominence every year just because the media says so. It's because we have too many fans who CARE about the program...it's because there's demand for it...it's because Notre Dame Stadium has sold out for every game since 1967 (or something like that), even during last year's devastating 3-9 collapse.
Notre Dame isn't about winning for winning's sake. It's not about hopping on the bandwagon when we're good and turning our backs when we're not.
Notre Dame is about family. It's about, as Lou Holtz, pointed out, Mary on the Dome. It's about hard work, perseverance, excellence for the sake of bettering yourself, your community, your school, your future, your world. We're not all in this because we're all crazy obsessed with football. We're all in this because these are our friends, our classmates, our dorm mates. Our family.
The three most important aspects of life at Notre Dame are religion, family, and education. I don't see football mentioned there anywhere.
So if you're trying to tell me that Notre Dame isn't the Notre Dame of old, that the mystique isn't still there--you're missing the entire point of Notre Dame.
It doesn't matter what our football record is. We still have fans who stay to the end of every game, win or lose, to sing the alma mater. We still have the best, most unique game day environment in all of college football. You know what Michigan State felt like yesterday? It felt like Penn State. All the white, the jumbotron, recorded music played over a loudspeaker. Generic College Town USA.
Notre Dame doesn't feel like that. Notre Dame feels like no other place in the country. Notre Dame isn't about the state, or the conference, or the region, or the flashy advertisements, or the name plastered all over the field. Notre Dame is first and foremost about that golden dome, about the family, about supporting each other. People forget that.
And don't even try to tell me that teams don't get excited to beat Notre Dame any more, Wetzel. Don't tell me they don't love to hate us. Don't even go there.
If that's true, then please explain to me why last year USC let themselves lose to fucking Stanford but came into Notre Dame Stadium and kicked our asses 38-0.
But enough of that rant. On to the actual game, or as much of it as I can stand to rehash.
The Good
Defense. Once again, they prove stouter than our offense. Javon Ringer racked up 200 yards, but he spent more time fighting for inches on the three-yard line than making triumphant dashes into the end zone. He didn't get a single easy touchdown all game. He only had one real breakout run--a near-triumphant dash for the end zone--and that was late in the game when the defense was tired. Even then, they managed to catch him up and knock him out of bounds.
The Spartans had to fight tooth-and-nail for pretty much every scoring chance, and our D held them to more field goals than TDs, giving our offense every chance to make it a close game, even a victory.
Which bring us to
The Bad
We tried to pound the football this week. We really did. Over and over and over. It was a good effort, theoretically. I appreciated the commitment.
But our offensive line started to break down again. Two sacks. No holes for the runners. The longest run of the day was by Golden Tate, and he's supposed to be a wide receiver. Armando Allen had a few good dashes, but Hughes got absolutely stuffed on every try. Was it the hostile environment? Was it monstrous D by the Spartans? Was it poor decision-making by the runners?
Our short passing game seems to have emerged, but Jimmy's decision-making is often still questionable. We had a couple interceptions. We had quite a few missed opportunities. We had some horrific flashbacks to last season. We had no scoring in the first half, and only one brief success in the second.
The team looked pretty crushed after the game, but not like they did after every game last season. Not in the defeated, dejected, oh-let's-just-give-up sense. But disappointed in themselves. Angry, almost. Like they know they can do better, but something just went wrong.
MSU's really the first decent team we've faced all season, and it sent our offense spiraling backwards. But I don't think they did it in a way that's going to handicap us for the rest of the season. I think it's just going to give the team a lot to think over this week as they strap their pads back on and gear up for the Boilers. Mistakes to correct. Many things to work on.
But no reason to throw in the towel. We've got a lot more to work with this season, and we've still got a bowl game in our future if we play the rest of the season right.
We've just got to get rid of
The Ugly
HOW CAN YOU MISS TWO FIELD GOALS LIKE THAT!? THEY WEREN'T EVEN THAT FAR AWAY AND ANYWAY YOU HAD THE EFFING DISTANCE YOU JUST DIDN'T HAVE THE DIRECTION--I MEAN ISN'T THIS LIKE YOUR JOB OR SOMETHING--HOW HARD IS IT REALLY TO GET THIS ONE THING RIGHT?
Jimmy, can you please try not to be such a total tool box?
I saw you after the game, Jimmy Clausen. I saw you throw that golden helmet on the ground and scowl your way through the alma mater and barely put your finger in the air before you stalked off the field.
You'd better be careful what you do with that helmet, Jimmy. There were a lot of people who came before you who made it an honor to wear that.
And if you want your respect on the field, you might want to try showing a little respect off it.
And finally, the coach
In the immortal words of Knute Rockne, "One loss is good for the soul. Too many losses are not good for the coach."
Charlie's reached breaking point.
We've got too much talent for us to be as mediocre as we appear.
After last weekend, everyone was ready to jump on the bandwagon again. "This is not the team from last season, hurrah! See? Almost the entire Observer staff picked them to beat MSU!"
But this team still has its own fun set of problems to overcome, and like it or not, I think one of the big ones is the coach.
Next weekend we face Purdue. As far as I know, they don't have a Javon Ringer, but they do have a pretty decent senior quarterback in Curtis Painter, and they're the next real litmus test for whether this team is going to sink or swim.
...and for whether Charlie's got the answers or just a bunch of BS he backs up with four Superbowl rings and an ego larger than his waistline.
GO IRISH BEAT BOILERS!
This will be as brief as I can make it, considering how much I'd like to say. I've got a million things to do today, and no time for any of them.
Let me just start by saying that people who don't understand anything about the University of Notre Dame should not go on jawing about it as though their opinion matters. (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you haven't read Dan Wetzel's take on our program: http://rivals.yahoo.com/nc
I am aware that we haven't won a national championship in about twenty years, or a bowl game since 1993, and that everything has gone downhill since Lou left.
But Notre Dame doesn't feature in national media prominence every year just because the media says so. It's because we have too many fans who CARE about the program...it's because there's demand for it...it's because Notre Dame Stadium has sold out for every game since 1967 (or something like that), even during last year's devastating 3-9 collapse.
Notre Dame isn't about winning for winning's sake. It's not about hopping on the bandwagon when we're good and turning our backs when we're not.
Notre Dame is about family. It's about, as Lou Holtz, pointed out, Mary on the Dome. It's about hard work, perseverance, excellence for the sake of bettering yourself, your community, your school, your future, your world. We're not all in this because we're all crazy obsessed with football. We're all in this because these are our friends, our classmates, our dorm mates. Our family.
The three most important aspects of life at Notre Dame are religion, family, and education. I don't see football mentioned there anywhere.
So if you're trying to tell me that Notre Dame isn't the Notre Dame of old, that the mystique isn't still there--you're missing the entire point of Notre Dame.
It doesn't matter what our football record is. We still have fans who stay to the end of every game, win or lose, to sing the alma mater. We still have the best, most unique game day environment in all of college football. You know what Michigan State felt like yesterday? It felt like Penn State. All the white, the jumbotron, recorded music played over a loudspeaker. Generic College Town USA.
Notre Dame doesn't feel like that. Notre Dame feels like no other place in the country. Notre Dame isn't about the state, or the conference, or the region, or the flashy advertisements, or the name plastered all over the field. Notre Dame is first and foremost about that golden dome, about the family, about supporting each other. People forget that.
And don't even try to tell me that teams don't get excited to beat Notre Dame any more, Wetzel. Don't tell me they don't love to hate us. Don't even go there.
If that's true, then please explain to me why last year USC let themselves lose to fucking Stanford but came into Notre Dame Stadium and kicked our asses 38-0.
But enough of that rant. On to the actual game, or as much of it as I can stand to rehash.
The Good
Defense. Once again, they prove stouter than our offense. Javon Ringer racked up 200 yards, but he spent more time fighting for inches on the three-yard line than making triumphant dashes into the end zone. He didn't get a single easy touchdown all game. He only had one real breakout run--a near-triumphant dash for the end zone--and that was late in the game when the defense was tired. Even then, they managed to catch him up and knock him out of bounds.
The Spartans had to fight tooth-and-nail for pretty much every scoring chance, and our D held them to more field goals than TDs, giving our offense every chance to make it a close game, even a victory.
Which bring us to
The Bad
We tried to pound the football this week. We really did. Over and over and over. It was a good effort, theoretically. I appreciated the commitment.
But our offensive line started to break down again. Two sacks. No holes for the runners. The longest run of the day was by Golden Tate, and he's supposed to be a wide receiver. Armando Allen had a few good dashes, but Hughes got absolutely stuffed on every try. Was it the hostile environment? Was it monstrous D by the Spartans? Was it poor decision-making by the runners?
Our short passing game seems to have emerged, but Jimmy's decision-making is often still questionable. We had a couple interceptions. We had quite a few missed opportunities. We had some horrific flashbacks to last season. We had no scoring in the first half, and only one brief success in the second.
The team looked pretty crushed after the game, but not like they did after every game last season. Not in the defeated, dejected, oh-let's-just-give-up sense. But disappointed in themselves. Angry, almost. Like they know they can do better, but something just went wrong.
MSU's really the first decent team we've faced all season, and it sent our offense spiraling backwards. But I don't think they did it in a way that's going to handicap us for the rest of the season. I think it's just going to give the team a lot to think over this week as they strap their pads back on and gear up for the Boilers. Mistakes to correct. Many things to work on.
But no reason to throw in the towel. We've got a lot more to work with this season, and we've still got a bowl game in our future if we play the rest of the season right.
We've just got to get rid of
The Ugly
HOW CAN YOU MISS TWO FIELD GOALS LIKE THAT!? THEY WEREN'T EVEN THAT FAR AWAY AND ANYWAY YOU HAD THE EFFING DISTANCE YOU JUST DIDN'T HAVE THE DIRECTION--I MEAN ISN'T THIS LIKE YOUR JOB OR SOMETHING--HOW HARD IS IT REALLY TO GET THIS ONE THING RIGHT?
Jimmy, can you please try not to be such a total tool box?
I saw you after the game, Jimmy Clausen. I saw you throw that golden helmet on the ground and scowl your way through the alma mater and barely put your finger in the air before you stalked off the field.
You'd better be careful what you do with that helmet, Jimmy. There were a lot of people who came before you who made it an honor to wear that.
And if you want your respect on the field, you might want to try showing a little respect off it.
And finally, the coach
In the immortal words of Knute Rockne, "One loss is good for the soul. Too many losses are not good for the coach."
Charlie's reached breaking point.
We've got too much talent for us to be as mediocre as we appear.
After last weekend, everyone was ready to jump on the bandwagon again. "This is not the team from last season, hurrah! See? Almost the entire Observer staff picked them to beat MSU!"
But this team still has its own fun set of problems to overcome, and like it or not, I think one of the big ones is the coach.
Next weekend we face Purdue. As far as I know, they don't have a Javon Ringer, but they do have a pretty decent senior quarterback in Curtis Painter, and they're the next real litmus test for whether this team is going to sink or swim.
...and for whether Charlie's got the answers or just a bunch of BS he backs up with four Superbowl rings and an ego larger than his waistline.
GO IRISH BEAT BOILERS!
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Nothing Like a Rain Game
Notre Dame 35, Michigan 17
The Irish emerge victorious once again. :-)
There's nothing like chanting "Who's house? OUR HOUSE!" in the tunnel before pregame and then after the game realizing it actually means something. OUR HOUSE wasn't much of one last season, but it's good to see us taking the field back this year. There's nothing worse than having an opponent disrespect you at home...which was pretty much the case for all of last season.
But now we improve to 300-96-5 all-time in Notre Dame Stadium, and with another win over Michigan, we creep slightly closer to taking back the all-time win percentage. We just need Michigan to have a couple bad seasons...and we need to have a couple good seasons...and it'll all work itself out again.
And it's Fumble, Fumble, Hike to Victory....
So obviously the key stat of this game was turnovers. I think that first fumble really set the tone for the whole game. Kind of like the first botched snap last year really set the tone for THAT whole game.
Within the first three minutes of playing time, the crowd inside Notre Dame Stadium was more euphoric than they had cause to be during all of last season. Two huge turnovers right away, backed up by two actual scoring drives on offense. (And by "scoring drives" I mean "red zone opportunities.")
And then a monstrous pass to Golden Tate to bring us to a cushy 21-0 lead in the first quarter--which, by the way, is the most points we've ever scored against the Wolverines in the first quarter.
If only we could have kept that production up for the rest of the game, we could have really repaid the Wolverines for last season.
Not that I'm saying 35-17 is a bad score. 35-17 is a "hahaha--what now, bitches?" kind of score. But it's not a "damn...we whooped your ass so bad I'm going to be all patronizing and feel sorry for you" score.
And it should have been that kind of embarrassing, patronizing score.
Impotent Offense?
Okay, we did score 35 points, and 28 of them were offensive. This is nothing to scoff at. However, our offense didn't score a single point in the second half. Our final TD was brought in off a fumble recovery by linebacker Brian Smith.
What happened to "pounding the ball"? Why is our short passing game so atrocious? WHY can't we convert on third-and short?
Look, I'm not saying we should be unhappy with this game. The win was decisive and hella fun to watch. Our team drop-kicked those imaginary colors straight back to Ann Arbor. I don't think there should be any lingering questions in anyone's mind whether this team--I'm talking the whole unit: offense, defense, and special teams--can play as a team.
That's really the biggest thing to take away from this win: our team won it. Not just the offense or the defense or the baller special teams. And not just the team--the students, the band, the alums. That stadium was LOUD yesterday. And it poured, and we got drenched, and no one left except those losers wearing imaginary colors in the upper deck pretending like they were football fans.
And considering Michigan's defense (which returned 7 starters this season) is basically the same D we saw last season, you can really see the improvement and the unity in the O-line. Did I mention no sacks?! NO SACKS!
However...
Once again, field goals continue to play absolutely no role in our offense. Not that this is entirely a bad thing, but it's not entirely a good thing, either. This basically means that our field position was either so close to the end zone that we just straight-up went for the touchdowns every time, or we were so far away we couldn't manage to get ourselves in field goal range before having to punt the ball away.
And we punted the ball away too many times.
There's a serious problem if your offense can't convert 3rd-and-1, 3rd-and-2, or even 4th-and-2. Not just once, but repeatedly. The same problem, over and over. What is the DEAL, guys?
Plus, Jimmy was only 10-for-21 passing with two interceptions. Maybe you can blame it on the weather, but you can also blame it on What The Hell, Jimmy? Aren't you supposed to be REALLY REALLY GOOD?
Obviously we got away with it in this game. But we're not going to be able to get away with it against teams that will actually punish us for not scoring on offense. There's this thing called ball control, and we don't have it.
But enough of that...there's no reason to linger on the question marks this week. We have a lot of other things to be happy about right now. We have a "SUCK IT, Wolverines" win over Michigan. We have a fan base that's not still thinking, "shit, 2007." We have a young team brimming with confidence. We have sparkly blue-and-gold intangibles spurting out of our every orifice.
And, in thrilling fashion...
We now have Special Teams
Welcome to the arena, boys. Let's hope you stay a while.
Eric Maust came up with an array of fabulous punts, and never lost his cool, even when the ball hit the ground, even when Michigan brought pressure.
Even when he shouldn't have been out there punting because we should have converted our 3rd-and-1.
Mike Anello recovered the Michigan fumble on our second kickoff to set up ND's second score of the game.
Brandon Walker made all of his PATs in high style, sending at least one ball straight over the net, but had no chance to redeem himself after missing a long FG in last week's game. Maybe next week, eh?
Except for that whole "Michigan-totally-showed-you-they-were-fake-punting-and-then-you-called-a-time-out-and-you-STILL-didn't-stop-the-fake-punt" thing, there's not much to criticize on special teams. Holla!
Opportunistic--but slightly porous--Defense
Our defense seems to be experiencing the same head-scratching hiccups they have for the last several seasons. They often look great on first down and second down, stuffing the ball, sacking the QB, breaking up passes, etc. But on third down, it felt like they were forever giving up 3rd-and-9, 3rd-and-11, 3rd-and-15... Thankfully, though, it only felt that way. I could have sworn the statistic was worse than this, but Michigan was only 4-of-12 on third-down conversions (but still enough to be one better than ND's 3-of-12).
But that's okay, really, because David Bruton saves us all by miraculously and consistently forcing our opponents to fumble during really key plays in the red zone.
And even if our D had trouble tackling that slippery little sucker McGuffie (who was pretty much the Wolverines' entire offense) for most of the game, they did manage to shut out the Wolverines in the second half. And they forced them to go for 3 points instead of 7 in the second quarter when it looked like Michigan was about to make the game close.
And kindly disregard all this talk of "oh they outgained us on the ground blah blah blah"...because that doesn't really matter much when you can't back up those yards with scores.
Onward...to an Away Game!
MSU game two years ago was the wettest, most agonizing, most wonderful night of my life. At least as far as college football is considered. Just imagine the rain we had yesterday--but imagine MORE of it. And imagine the score being reversed in the fourth quarter, with us losing quite handily. Right up until about the last six minutes.
And then imagine our opponent turning the ball over a bunch of times and us coming back, in the darkness (it was a night game) and the pounding rain, to take home a 40-37 victory.
Okay, so that doesn't quite evoke all the emotions flying back and forth across the stadium, the deafening, unbelievable loudness of the band (I've never heard 400 people scream so loud in all my life), the miraculous wonder of God's creation that is Brady Quinn, or the unbelievable game-changing performance of Terrail Lambert, without whom that game would have been entirely lost--but still. At least you can imagine the rain and the sheer misery that would have been our bus ride home had we not prevailed. (Cue all of our away games last year, minus the rain.)
So anyway, we're headed back to East Lansing, for a road trip that will hopefully be less soggy but just as victorious.
It's a sad state of affairs in college football when the Spartans are definitively better than their in-state brethren (I can just imagine Wolverines fans cringing at the suggestion that the MSU faithful are their brethren--but they're both from Michigan, so to hell with them), but thus is the case this season. MSU even has a Heisman-trophy candidate on their team in running back Javon Ringer, who ran for 282 yards yesterday in a 17-0 win against traditional powerhouse Florida Atlantic. (To be fair, the Owls are actually better than they sound--they're only in their eighth year as a program, but they made it to the New Orleans bowl last year and won.)
Word on the street is that MSU's gotten better and a lot more consistent, so we can't count on them to self-implode on us this season. But I guess we'll see.
The Spartans remain unranked, but look like they're in pretty decent shape so far, losing a close 38-31 matchup in their opener against (now) 23rd-ranked California and dominating Eastern Michigan 42-10 last weekend.
You could say it'll be our first real test all season--some are saying it'll be our first real wake-up call--but considering how fired up our team is and the way they've been talking in post-game interviews, it'll just be another chance to prove that our team is back--and their wins haven't just been about luck. Just take it from linebacker Brian Smith, who says, "I believe in luck. But I believe we're a good team and we're forcing these things to happen."
Despite the hiccups, despite the worries, our team is playing like a team.
And I think we have every likelihood of heading up to East Lansing next week and, rain or shine, kicking some MSU ass.
GO IRISH BEAT SPARTANS!
The Irish emerge victorious once again. :-)
There's nothing like chanting "Who's house? OUR HOUSE!" in the tunnel before pregame and then after the game realizing it actually means something. OUR HOUSE wasn't much of one last season, but it's good to see us taking the field back this year. There's nothing worse than having an opponent disrespect you at home...which was pretty much the case for all of last season.
But now we improve to 300-96-5 all-time in Notre Dame Stadium, and with another win over Michigan, we creep slightly closer to taking back the all-time win percentage. We just need Michigan to have a couple bad seasons...and we need to have a couple good seasons...and it'll all work itself out again.
And it's Fumble, Fumble, Hike to Victory....
So obviously the key stat of this game was turnovers. I think that first fumble really set the tone for the whole game. Kind of like the first botched snap last year really set the tone for THAT whole game.
Within the first three minutes of playing time, the crowd inside Notre Dame Stadium was more euphoric than they had cause to be during all of last season. Two huge turnovers right away, backed up by two actual scoring drives on offense. (And by "scoring drives" I mean "red zone opportunities.")
And then a monstrous pass to Golden Tate to bring us to a cushy 21-0 lead in the first quarter--which, by the way, is the most points we've ever scored against the Wolverines in the first quarter.
If only we could have kept that production up for the rest of the game, we could have really repaid the Wolverines for last season.
Not that I'm saying 35-17 is a bad score. 35-17 is a "hahaha--what now, bitches?" kind of score. But it's not a "damn...we whooped your ass so bad I'm going to be all patronizing and feel sorry for you" score.
And it should have been that kind of embarrassing, patronizing score.
Impotent Offense?
Okay, we did score 35 points, and 28 of them were offensive. This is nothing to scoff at. However, our offense didn't score a single point in the second half. Our final TD was brought in off a fumble recovery by linebacker Brian Smith.
What happened to "pounding the ball"? Why is our short passing game so atrocious? WHY can't we convert on third-and short?
Look, I'm not saying we should be unhappy with this game. The win was decisive and hella fun to watch. Our team drop-kicked those imaginary colors straight back to Ann Arbor. I don't think there should be any lingering questions in anyone's mind whether this team--I'm talking the whole unit: offense, defense, and special teams--can play as a team.
That's really the biggest thing to take away from this win: our team won it. Not just the offense or the defense or the baller special teams. And not just the team--the students, the band, the alums. That stadium was LOUD yesterday. And it poured, and we got drenched, and no one left except those losers wearing imaginary colors in the upper deck pretending like they were football fans.
And considering Michigan's defense (which returned 7 starters this season) is basically the same D we saw last season, you can really see the improvement and the unity in the O-line. Did I mention no sacks?! NO SACKS!
However...
Once again, field goals continue to play absolutely no role in our offense. Not that this is entirely a bad thing, but it's not entirely a good thing, either. This basically means that our field position was either so close to the end zone that we just straight-up went for the touchdowns every time, or we were so far away we couldn't manage to get ourselves in field goal range before having to punt the ball away.
And we punted the ball away too many times.
There's a serious problem if your offense can't convert 3rd-and-1, 3rd-and-2, or even 4th-and-2. Not just once, but repeatedly. The same problem, over and over. What is the DEAL, guys?
Plus, Jimmy was only 10-for-21 passing with two interceptions. Maybe you can blame it on the weather, but you can also blame it on What The Hell, Jimmy? Aren't you supposed to be REALLY REALLY GOOD?
Obviously we got away with it in this game. But we're not going to be able to get away with it against teams that will actually punish us for not scoring on offense. There's this thing called ball control, and we don't have it.
But enough of that...there's no reason to linger on the question marks this week. We have a lot of other things to be happy about right now. We have a "SUCK IT, Wolverines" win over Michigan. We have a fan base that's not still thinking, "shit, 2007." We have a young team brimming with confidence. We have sparkly blue-and-gold intangibles spurting out of our every orifice.
And, in thrilling fashion...
We now have Special Teams
Welcome to the arena, boys. Let's hope you stay a while.
Eric Maust came up with an array of fabulous punts, and never lost his cool, even when the ball hit the ground, even when Michigan brought pressure.
Even when he shouldn't have been out there punting because we should have converted our 3rd-and-1.
Mike Anello recovered the Michigan fumble on our second kickoff to set up ND's second score of the game.
Brandon Walker made all of his PATs in high style, sending at least one ball straight over the net, but had no chance to redeem himself after missing a long FG in last week's game. Maybe next week, eh?
Except for that whole "Michigan-totally-showed-y
Opportunistic--but slightly porous--Defense
Our defense seems to be experiencing the same head-scratching hiccups they have for the last several seasons. They often look great on first down and second down, stuffing the ball, sacking the QB, breaking up passes, etc. But on third down, it felt like they were forever giving up 3rd-and-9, 3rd-and-11, 3rd-and-15... Thankfully, though, it only felt that way. I could have sworn the statistic was worse than this, but Michigan was only 4-of-12 on third-down conversions (but still enough to be one better than ND's 3-of-12).
But that's okay, really, because David Bruton saves us all by miraculously and consistently forcing our opponents to fumble during really key plays in the red zone.
And even if our D had trouble tackling that slippery little sucker McGuffie (who was pretty much the Wolverines' entire offense) for most of the game, they did manage to shut out the Wolverines in the second half. And they forced them to go for 3 points instead of 7 in the second quarter when it looked like Michigan was about to make the game close.
And kindly disregard all this talk of "oh they outgained us on the ground blah blah blah"...because that doesn't really matter much when you can't back up those yards with scores.
Onward...to an Away Game!
MSU game two years ago was the wettest, most agonizing, most wonderful night of my life. At least as far as college football is considered. Just imagine the rain we had yesterday--but imagine MORE of it. And imagine the score being reversed in the fourth quarter, with us losing quite handily. Right up until about the last six minutes.
And then imagine our opponent turning the ball over a bunch of times and us coming back, in the darkness (it was a night game) and the pounding rain, to take home a 40-37 victory.
Okay, so that doesn't quite evoke all the emotions flying back and forth across the stadium, the deafening, unbelievable loudness of the band (I've never heard 400 people scream so loud in all my life), the miraculous wonder of God's creation that is Brady Quinn, or the unbelievable game-changing performance of Terrail Lambert, without whom that game would have been entirely lost--but still. At least you can imagine the rain and the sheer misery that would have been our bus ride home had we not prevailed. (Cue all of our away games last year, minus the rain.)
So anyway, we're headed back to East Lansing, for a road trip that will hopefully be less soggy but just as victorious.
It's a sad state of affairs in college football when the Spartans are definitively better than their in-state brethren (I can just imagine Wolverines fans cringing at the suggestion that the MSU faithful are their brethren--but they're both from Michigan, so to hell with them), but thus is the case this season. MSU even has a Heisman-trophy candidate on their team in running back Javon Ringer, who ran for 282 yards yesterday in a 17-0 win against traditional powerhouse Florida Atlantic. (To be fair, the Owls are actually better than they sound--they're only in their eighth year as a program, but they made it to the New Orleans bowl last year and won.)
Word on the street is that MSU's gotten better and a lot more consistent, so we can't count on them to self-implode on us this season. But I guess we'll see.
The Spartans remain unranked, but look like they're in pretty decent shape so far, losing a close 38-31 matchup in their opener against (now) 23rd-ranked California and dominating Eastern Michigan 42-10 last weekend.
You could say it'll be our first real test all season--some are saying it'll be our first real wake-up call--but considering how fired up our team is and the way they've been talking in post-game interviews, it'll just be another chance to prove that our team is back--and their wins haven't just been about luck. Just take it from linebacker Brian Smith, who says, "I believe in luck. But I believe we're a good team and we're forcing these things to happen."
Despite the hiccups, despite the worries, our team is playing like a team.
And I think we have every likelihood of heading up to East Lansing next week and, rain or shine, kicking some MSU ass.
GO IRISH BEAT SPARTANS!
Sunday, September 7, 2008
It's the moooost wonderful time of the year....
Notre Dame 21, San Diego State 13
Ahh football season. If you know anything about me at all, you will know that my life is now complete. The stars have aligned, the demons have been chased away, and all that is good and shining in the heavens smiles down upon the earth and says, "Go Irish."
Or something like that.
Anyway, as you all are perfectly aware, there is nothing in the world like a Notre Dame football weekend, and yesterday we had a pretty good one. As fans go, the Aztec faithful were respectful and, as far as I could see, pretty classy. On my walk back to TC, an SDSU fan stopped me to give mad props to the band, and also ask how big we are. (Those were his exact words. "Mad props." ...just kidding.) Score one for the Band of the Fighting Irish.
And hey guess what guys?
The Irish win at home!
It's hard to believe, I know, especially for you sophomores, but trust me--we used to do this ALL the time. As a matter of fact, if we had lost yesterday (just thinking about it is giving me vomitous convulsions), it would have been the first time we lost back-to-back home openers since 1887-1888 (you know, in the first two years Notre Dame had a football program).
I suppose we have Kevin White to thank for this cupcake schedule. It could not have come along at a better time. In the future, of course, I will continue to scoff at any easy-ass schedule the Irish have lined up, because quite frankly, we deserve better. There's no reason we shouldn't have the toughest schedule in the country every year, and there's also no reason we shouldn't be able to compete with the best in the country every year.
Except for right now, of course. Now there are plenty of reasons, which I'll get to in a minute, but for right now I'll just say: wooooooo! The Irish win at home!
And I would like everyone to keep in mind, no matter how dire they would like to be about the fact that we did not crush former Division II powerhouse San Diego State, that a win is a win. Is a win. Is a win win win!!!!
Ch-ch-ch-changes
Anyone who says that yesterday's team resembled last year's team needs a good whack over the head. Possibly with a large metal frying pan. Or a football cleat. Or a shillelagh. Or something.
Charlie's done a lot of talking about the changes he's tried to make in the off-season--hiring Jon Tenuta, handing over offensive play-calling duties to Mike Haywood, trying to spend more time with the players, actually paying attention to special teams--and whether or not these changes are going to be enough to set us back on track is not yet apparent. (For those of you who aren't aware, "back on track" means "back in contention for the national championship," which we've never gone so long without winning.)
Basically, Charlie spent the off-season trying to figure out what he should have been trying to figure out three years ago: how to be a college head coach instead of an offensive play-calling guru. Too bad he didn't have the chance to do this at some other, less football-oriented school first, instead of on the national (media-circus) stage of historically great (and perennially hated) Notre Dame.
Even if Charlie's solutions in the off-season aren't 100% what we need, at the very least they've already done a heap of good for the boys on the team. Anyone who says otherwise clearly did not attend the pep rally on Friday night.
This team is miles away from the disjointed, despondent, and often-dejected squad we saw struggle for cohesiveness through all of last season. This guys all actually appear to be--wait for it--having fun. They look like they enjoy each other's company. They smile. They're coming up with their own cheers, for goodness' sake.
This is an extremely good sign. You can't have unity on the field if you don't have it off. The thing that worries me, though, is that the only significant person who seems to be outside the loop (as far as team bonding goes) is Jimmy. According to my roommate, they wouldn't let Jimmy in the "Crank me up!" huddle at the pep rally. This does not surprise me at all; Jimmy is a little pustule with an attitude problem. But he's what we have right now, so hopefully this year's team is a little more willing to block for him than last year's.
I would also like to point out that when we won the coin toss yesterday, we deferred to the second half, which is normal for most teams, but for Charlie, it's huge.
Oh hey, offense. Welcome back.
Okay, so our team's not specifically good right now, but they're not specifically bad either. (You want to know what specifically bad is? Specifically bad is last year's team, which had negative fourteen rushing yards after three games.) We've got a lot of things going for us that we didn't have last season.
For example: Jimmy did not get sacked. At least, not that I saw. I did go to the bathroom once, so maybe I missed something. But I'm thinking no. This is extremely refreshing. Sure, our opponent was San Diego State, but last season Jimmy got sacked at least four times in every game including the Duke game, so really, this is very encouraging.
Secondly, OMFG WE HAVE RUNNING GAME. Not a particularly excellent running game, but you know, the fact that it exists is kind of exciting. The O-line still has some issues opening up holes for people (namely Robert Hughes, who apparently had to be tackled by San Diego State's entire defensive line every time he ran up the middle, because he is such a beast), but that doesn't concern me nearly as much as it did last season. You know why? Because now we have something to build off of. We didn't have that last year. Last year we went from bad to really bad to oh-hey-we're-still-bad to "screw it let's just pass the ball all the time" bad. And then we got to the end of the season and Charlie realized we still didn't have a running game established, so we tried again against weaker opponents and actually managed to gain some ground yards (cue Robert Huuuuuuughes).
At any rate, there were very few running plays that resulted in no gain. Unfortunately, most of these seemed to be on crucial 3rd-and-1 conversions, but...oh well. Like I said, it's something to build off of. Armando Allen seemed to average about five yards a carry, and Robert Hughes seemed to bash through a couple people every time he got his hands on the ball, even if there was nowhere to go. (P.S. Where was James Aldridge yesterday? I feel like I didn't see him at all...)
Also, success in the air! Didn't I say it? DIDN'T I? Golden Tate is the man. There were some very nice grabs yesterday, off some not-always-so-gossamer passes, by Duval Kamara and David Grimes as well as Tate.
Not to knock all Jimmy's passes -- he's improved leaps and bounds since last season. For example, Jimmy has finally learned to throw the ball away. I can't tell you how invigorating that is. Also, overall, the offense managed itself a lot better and with a lot more composure than it did last season. I know yesterday's game wasn't at all what we were hoping for, and I know we were playing San Diego State and everything, but still. Even with the botched field goal, even with the turnovers, I was never concerned that we wouldn't win. Frustrated, of course. Horrified when Hughes and then later Allen went down.
But there's something different about our team this year, yeah? They made it happen. They didn't give up. They had the capacity during the whole game (and I feel this was evident from the beginning, though you can call me delusional if you like) to do what they did in the fourth quarter: drive the ball down the field and score.
I feel that the reason we did not do this well in the first half is, first of all, we tried to throw the ball WAY too many times on 3rd-and-short, and failed. I don't care if we tried to run the ball on 3rd-and-short later in the game and failed. That doesn't mean you should give up on your run game. That just means you need to pound the ball on 3rd-and-short until your offensive line knows what they need to do to make it happen. If you can't gain a yard on the ground when you most need it, there's something wrong there. (It's not like SDSU's defense was so stellar or anything. You know?)
Also, we had some bad luck. That turnover when Robert Hughes got CRUSHED and injured really wasn't his fault. That would have been a score. It was a really good drive up until that point. (But hey, karma worked in our favor later when we stripped the ball from SDSU on the goal line.)
Aaand we also just had some screw-ups. That botched field goal later? HUGE mistake. But that's something we can fix. (We hope. Why oh why don't we have any awesome kickers? Whyyy?)
Jimmy's pick? Frustrating, but at least there was only one of them, and we came back on the field again and scored in high fashion.
We had a game with four turnovers. Against another team, we might have paid dearly for it, but our defense played solidly enough (and SDSU's offense played weak enough) that that didn't happen.
Happily.
And we managed to end the game on our own terms, holding onto the ball long enough to end the game by taking a knee (though I would have preferred slinging the ball into the end zone one last time, just to get the score closer to what it should have been).
What we're experiencing here is growing pains. We've got a little momentum. We've got something of a running game and something of a passing game and a no-huddle offense in place for emergency use.
And hey, we've got a little defense too.
Crank Me Up
Thanks to the freshmen for attending the pep rally and teaching "Crank me up" to all the upperclassmen who apparently think they have better things to do with their lives than go to the pep rally on Friday night (you fools).
But no thanks to the freshmen who think we need to do the stupid first-down chop. We're not Florida State, thank you very much. Get over it.
Anyway, our D did a decent job of bringing pressure and knocking away enough pass attempts to hold SDSU's QB to a 49% completion rate. As predicted, with the extra emphasis on linebackers and blitzing (courtesy of Jon Tenuta), we're slightly more susceptible to the big play, which bit us in the butt a few times as we gave up key 3rd-and-long conversions.
BUT we did come up with the BIGGEST play when we needed it--David Bruton's stripping the ball on the goal line to keep the Irish well in the game. There are some definite sparks there.
I would have liked to see more aggression, though--perhaps getting that safety when we had the opportunity, a few more sacks, and oh, I don't know, an interception or two?
Like I said, growing pains.
But before you get all, "OMFG it was SAN DIEGO STATE how did we almost lose to THEM??" just consider a few things
As previously mentioned, a win is a win. A win is not embarrassing. As Coach Weis said in his post-game presser, "I'll take an ugly win every day of the week."
Because here's the thing about ugly wins: they help you more than they hurt you. First of all, your team walks off the field with a W, so they get to feel good about themselves all week. They get to celebrate with the student body, sing the alma mater with a big fat smile on their faces, hear the ever-elusive victory clog.
And if your opponent for next week is thinking, "oh hey, thanks SDSU for exposing all their weaknesses!" --guess what? SDSU did our team that favor, too. We know what almost cost us the game. We know what we need to fix.
And, more importantly, we know that in a game-time situation, we can overcome those weaknesses long enough to bring home a win.
Also I would like to point out that for most teams, particularly teams that have never gone up against the Irish before, playing Notre Dame is a Big Fucking Deal. Everyone loves to beat us. Even when we stink, the college football world is So Aware of us. When you play in Notre Dame Stadium, you play on a national stage. (It's like Monday Night Football in the Pros, okay? Everyone's watching you.) I can guarantee you San Diego State has NEVER had such a large national viewing audience before (they have played against other big D-I schools like Michigan and Ohio State, but neither of those schools have an exclusive contract with NBC now do they?), and I can bet you the coaches spent a lot more time scheming over how to trip up the Irish than they did scheming over that I-AA school they lost to last week.
If you weren't aware of this before, be aware of it now: Everyone brings their A-game when they play Notre Dame. We don't just have to be better than our opponent. We have to be better than the best our opponent can possibly play. (Unless they're Michigan State. Then they're likely to self-implode and do the job for us.) I'm not saying San Diego State was wonderful or anything, but they certainly played better this week than last week, and (if you watched Coach Weis's presser) they did as much as they possibly could to trip us up; they didn't bring out their usual set of schemes, they brought pressure on the weak side when they usually come from the strong side, and so and so on. And they had the lead for a while.
But we're stronger this year, and we fought back. We're not convincing yet. But we've got something.
Murky waters ahead
So we face Michigan next week. They're not supposed to be any good this year. Then again, last year they lost to Appalachian State and went on to kick our butts 38-0. (See what I mean when I say A-game?)
Soooo it's really tough to say how we're going to go up against my second-most-hated opponent of the season. (The first is USC, always USC.) They have the most inexperienced offensive line we're going to face all season, so hopefully our linebacker-heavy defense will be able to capitalize on that, but who knows?
Michigan's hard to estimate, considering they have a new coach, no solid quarterback (it's a rotation between Threet and Sheridan at the moment--I'm sure we're all aware of how fun Musical Quarterbacks can be), an untested O-line, and the same gutless, uninspired football they've been playing for the last hundred years. They lost to Utah in their opener and are coming off an ugly win of their own against Miami (OH), which they won 16-6.
All I can say is there's no reason for us NOT to win. The Wolverines haven't done anything impressive so far, and they've had TWO games to get in shape for ND. I say we're going to take back our house and kick Michigan to the curb in old school fashion. And if we can, let's exact a little revenge for last year's game...SHALL we, boys?
Oh, and if the putrid sight of Michigan's [imaginary color]-and-blue uniforms isn't enough to get your gag reflex going, consider this: their kicker this year is Nathan Parseghian, Ara's great-grandnephew. Let's prove to that loser he made the WRONG choice, shall we?
*EDIT* Oh thank God I was wrong. Nathan is Miami's kicker. Well that's okay then. (Clearly I was not actually watching the Michigan game. I don't look at those turd monkeys if I can help it.)
To conclude: The Irish are 1-0. I'm in my happy place.
GO IRISH BEAT WOLVERINES!
Ahh football season. If you know anything about me at all, you will know that my life is now complete. The stars have aligned, the demons have been chased away, and all that is good and shining in the heavens smiles down upon the earth and says, "Go Irish."
Or something like that.
Anyway, as you all are perfectly aware, there is nothing in the world like a Notre Dame football weekend, and yesterday we had a pretty good one. As fans go, the Aztec faithful were respectful and, as far as I could see, pretty classy. On my walk back to TC, an SDSU fan stopped me to give mad props to the band, and also ask how big we are. (Those were his exact words. "Mad props." ...just kidding.) Score one for the Band of the Fighting Irish.
And hey guess what guys?
The Irish win at home!
It's hard to believe, I know, especially for you sophomores, but trust me--we used to do this ALL the time. As a matter of fact, if we had lost yesterday (just thinking about it is giving me vomitous convulsions), it would have been the first time we lost back-to-back home openers since 1887-1888 (you know, in the first two years Notre Dame had a football program).
I suppose we have Kevin White to thank for this cupcake schedule. It could not have come along at a better time. In the future, of course, I will continue to scoff at any easy-ass schedule the Irish have lined up, because quite frankly, we deserve better. There's no reason we shouldn't have the toughest schedule in the country every year, and there's also no reason we shouldn't be able to compete with the best in the country every year.
Except for right now, of course. Now there are plenty of reasons, which I'll get to in a minute, but for right now I'll just say: wooooooo! The Irish win at home!
And I would like everyone to keep in mind, no matter how dire they would like to be about the fact that we did not crush former Division II powerhouse San Diego State, that a win is a win. Is a win. Is a win win win!!!!
Ch-ch-ch-changes
Anyone who says that yesterday's team resembled last year's team needs a good whack over the head. Possibly with a large metal frying pan. Or a football cleat. Or a shillelagh. Or something.
Charlie's done a lot of talking about the changes he's tried to make in the off-season--hiring Jon Tenuta, handing over offensive play-calling duties to Mike Haywood, trying to spend more time with the players, actually paying attention to special teams--and whether or not these changes are going to be enough to set us back on track is not yet apparent. (For those of you who aren't aware, "back on track" means "back in contention for the national championship," which we've never gone so long without winning.)
Basically, Charlie spent the off-season trying to figure out what he should have been trying to figure out three years ago: how to be a college head coach instead of an offensive play-calling guru. Too bad he didn't have the chance to do this at some other, less football-oriented school first, instead of on the national (media-circus) stage of historically great (and perennially hated) Notre Dame.
Even if Charlie's solutions in the off-season aren't 100% what we need, at the very least they've already done a heap of good for the boys on the team. Anyone who says otherwise clearly did not attend the pep rally on Friday night.
This team is miles away from the disjointed, despondent, and often-dejected squad we saw struggle for cohesiveness through all of last season. This guys all actually appear to be--wait for it--having fun. They look like they enjoy each other's company. They smile. They're coming up with their own cheers, for goodness' sake.
This is an extremely good sign. You can't have unity on the field if you don't have it off. The thing that worries me, though, is that the only significant person who seems to be outside the loop (as far as team bonding goes) is Jimmy. According to my roommate, they wouldn't let Jimmy in the "Crank me up!" huddle at the pep rally. This does not surprise me at all; Jimmy is a little pustule with an attitude problem. But he's what we have right now, so hopefully this year's team is a little more willing to block for him than last year's.
I would also like to point out that when we won the coin toss yesterday, we deferred to the second half, which is normal for most teams, but for Charlie, it's huge.
Oh hey, offense. Welcome back.
Okay, so our team's not specifically good right now, but they're not specifically bad either. (You want to know what specifically bad is? Specifically bad is last year's team, which had negative fourteen rushing yards after three games.) We've got a lot of things going for us that we didn't have last season.
For example: Jimmy did not get sacked. At least, not that I saw. I did go to the bathroom once, so maybe I missed something. But I'm thinking no. This is extremely refreshing. Sure, our opponent was San Diego State, but last season Jimmy got sacked at least four times in every game including the Duke game, so really, this is very encouraging.
Secondly, OMFG WE HAVE RUNNING GAME. Not a particularly excellent running game, but you know, the fact that it exists is kind of exciting. The O-line still has some issues opening up holes for people (namely Robert Hughes, who apparently had to be tackled by San Diego State's entire defensive line every time he ran up the middle, because he is such a beast), but that doesn't concern me nearly as much as it did last season. You know why? Because now we have something to build off of. We didn't have that last year. Last year we went from bad to really bad to oh-hey-we're-still-bad to "screw it let's just pass the ball all the time" bad. And then we got to the end of the season and Charlie realized we still didn't have a running game established, so we tried again against weaker opponents and actually managed to gain some ground yards (cue Robert Huuuuuuughes).
At any rate, there were very few running plays that resulted in no gain. Unfortunately, most of these seemed to be on crucial 3rd-and-1 conversions, but...oh well. Like I said, it's something to build off of. Armando Allen seemed to average about five yards a carry, and Robert Hughes seemed to bash through a couple people every time he got his hands on the ball, even if there was nowhere to go. (P.S. Where was James Aldridge yesterday? I feel like I didn't see him at all...)
Also, success in the air! Didn't I say it? DIDN'T I? Golden Tate is the man. There were some very nice grabs yesterday, off some not-always-so-gossamer passes, by Duval Kamara and David Grimes as well as Tate.
Not to knock all Jimmy's passes -- he's improved leaps and bounds since last season. For example, Jimmy has finally learned to throw the ball away. I can't tell you how invigorating that is. Also, overall, the offense managed itself a lot better and with a lot more composure than it did last season. I know yesterday's game wasn't at all what we were hoping for, and I know we were playing San Diego State and everything, but still. Even with the botched field goal, even with the turnovers, I was never concerned that we wouldn't win. Frustrated, of course. Horrified when Hughes and then later Allen went down.
But there's something different about our team this year, yeah? They made it happen. They didn't give up. They had the capacity during the whole game (and I feel this was evident from the beginning, though you can call me delusional if you like) to do what they did in the fourth quarter: drive the ball down the field and score.
I feel that the reason we did not do this well in the first half is, first of all, we tried to throw the ball WAY too many times on 3rd-and-short, and failed. I don't care if we tried to run the ball on 3rd-and-short later in the game and failed. That doesn't mean you should give up on your run game. That just means you need to pound the ball on 3rd-and-short until your offensive line knows what they need to do to make it happen. If you can't gain a yard on the ground when you most need it, there's something wrong there. (It's not like SDSU's defense was so stellar or anything. You know?)
Also, we had some bad luck. That turnover when Robert Hughes got CRUSHED and injured really wasn't his fault. That would have been a score. It was a really good drive up until that point. (But hey, karma worked in our favor later when we stripped the ball from SDSU on the goal line.)
Aaand we also just had some screw-ups. That botched field goal later? HUGE mistake. But that's something we can fix. (We hope. Why oh why don't we have any awesome kickers? Whyyy?)
Jimmy's pick? Frustrating, but at least there was only one of them, and we came back on the field again and scored in high fashion.
We had a game with four turnovers. Against another team, we might have paid dearly for it, but our defense played solidly enough (and SDSU's offense played weak enough) that that didn't happen.
Happily.
And we managed to end the game on our own terms, holding onto the ball long enough to end the game by taking a knee (though I would have preferred slinging the ball into the end zone one last time, just to get the score closer to what it should have been).
What we're experiencing here is growing pains. We've got a little momentum. We've got something of a running game and something of a passing game and a no-huddle offense in place for emergency use.
And hey, we've got a little defense too.
Crank Me Up
Thanks to the freshmen for attending the pep rally and teaching "Crank me up" to all the upperclassmen who apparently think they have better things to do with their lives than go to the pep rally on Friday night (you fools).
But no thanks to the freshmen who think we need to do the stupid first-down chop. We're not Florida State, thank you very much. Get over it.
Anyway, our D did a decent job of bringing pressure and knocking away enough pass attempts to hold SDSU's QB to a 49% completion rate. As predicted, with the extra emphasis on linebackers and blitzing (courtesy of Jon Tenuta), we're slightly more susceptible to the big play, which bit us in the butt a few times as we gave up key 3rd-and-long conversions.
BUT we did come up with the BIGGEST play when we needed it--David Bruton's stripping the ball on the goal line to keep the Irish well in the game. There are some definite sparks there.
I would have liked to see more aggression, though--perhaps getting that safety when we had the opportunity, a few more sacks, and oh, I don't know, an interception or two?
Like I said, growing pains.
But before you get all, "OMFG it was SAN DIEGO STATE how did we almost lose to THEM??" just consider a few things
As previously mentioned, a win is a win. A win is not embarrassing. As Coach Weis said in his post-game presser, "I'll take an ugly win every day of the week."
Because here's the thing about ugly wins: they help you more than they hurt you. First of all, your team walks off the field with a W, so they get to feel good about themselves all week. They get to celebrate with the student body, sing the alma mater with a big fat smile on their faces, hear the ever-elusive victory clog.
And if your opponent for next week is thinking, "oh hey, thanks SDSU for exposing all their weaknesses!" --guess what? SDSU did our team that favor, too. We know what almost cost us the game. We know what we need to fix.
And, more importantly, we know that in a game-time situation, we can overcome those weaknesses long enough to bring home a win.
Also I would like to point out that for most teams, particularly teams that have never gone up against the Irish before, playing Notre Dame is a Big Fucking Deal. Everyone loves to beat us. Even when we stink, the college football world is So Aware of us. When you play in Notre Dame Stadium, you play on a national stage. (It's like Monday Night Football in the Pros, okay? Everyone's watching you.) I can guarantee you San Diego State has NEVER had such a large national viewing audience before (they have played against other big D-I schools like Michigan and Ohio State, but neither of those schools have an exclusive contract with NBC now do they?), and I can bet you the coaches spent a lot more time scheming over how to trip up the Irish than they did scheming over that I-AA school they lost to last week.
If you weren't aware of this before, be aware of it now: Everyone brings their A-game when they play Notre Dame. We don't just have to be better than our opponent. We have to be better than the best our opponent can possibly play. (Unless they're Michigan State. Then they're likely to self-implode and do the job for us.) I'm not saying San Diego State was wonderful or anything, but they certainly played better this week than last week, and (if you watched Coach Weis's presser) they did as much as they possibly could to trip us up; they didn't bring out their usual set of schemes, they brought pressure on the weak side when they usually come from the strong side, and so and so on. And they had the lead for a while.
But we're stronger this year, and we fought back. We're not convincing yet. But we've got something.
Murky waters ahead
So we face Michigan next week. They're not supposed to be any good this year. Then again, last year they lost to Appalachian State and went on to kick our butts 38-0. (See what I mean when I say A-game?)
Soooo it's really tough to say how we're going to go up against my second-most-hated opponent of the season. (The first is USC, always USC.) They have the most inexperienced offensive line we're going to face all season, so hopefully our linebacker-heavy defense will be able to capitalize on that, but who knows?
Michigan's hard to estimate, considering they have a new coach, no solid quarterback (it's a rotation between Threet and Sheridan at the moment--I'm sure we're all aware of how fun Musical Quarterbacks can be), an untested O-line, and the same gutless, uninspired football they've been playing for the last hundred years. They lost to Utah in their opener and are coming off an ugly win of their own against Miami (OH), which they won 16-6.
All I can say is there's no reason for us NOT to win. The Wolverines haven't done anything impressive so far, and they've had TWO games to get in shape for ND. I say we're going to take back our house and kick Michigan to the curb in old school fashion. And if we can, let's exact a little revenge for last year's game...SHALL we, boys?
Oh, and if the putrid sight of Michigan's [imaginary color]-and-blue uniforms isn't enough to get your gag reflex going, consider this: their kicker this year is Nathan Parseghian, Ara's great-grandnephew. Let's prove to that loser he made the WRONG choice, shall we?
*EDIT* Oh thank God I was wrong. Nathan is Miami's kicker. Well that's okay then. (Clearly I was not actually watching the Michigan game. I don't look at those turd monkeys if I can help it.)
To conclude: The Irish are 1-0. I'm in my happy place.
GO IRISH BEAT WOLVERINES!
Thursday, February 7, 2008
National Signing Day and the Future of ND Football
Setting aside Super Tuesday, Mardi Gras, Ash Wednesday, the Chinese New Year, the happy re-activation of my credit card, and the two papers I've written in the past several days, let's talk about what's really important in the world this week: NATIONAL SIGNING DAY.
For those of you un-obsessed with the world of college football, National Signing Day is the day when high school football players all across the country officially commit to their chosen schools. Prior to National Signing Day, most players make verbal commitments, so schools have a pretty good idea of what their recruiting class is going to look like long before National Signing Day rolls around, but verbal commitments aren't permanent, so players can still change their minds at the last minute--which happened last year, with ND losing some of its promising recruits to schools like Florida (which, for some reason, thought that it was important last year, for some delusional reason like...I don't know, they won the national championship. Pfbt. Whatever).
This year, however, recruiting has been much more intense, with most of our recruits verbally committing before the start of this year's football season, and all the work seems to have paid off. Yesterday, ND signed 23 of the best high school football players in the country, hailing from 17 different states (that's right...17), and according to Coach Weis's presser, we have now signed: "five defensive linemen, four linebackers, three DBs, four offensive linemen, two tight ends, three wide receivers, a running back and a quarterback."
Excellent haul. But I have a question for you, Coach Weis: WHERE'S THE EFFING KICKER?????
Is it really THAT HARD to find a good--heck, I don't know, even halfway decent--kicker to come play for the Irish? Is there any reason that Notre Dame, with all its history, accolades, reputation, and scholarships, should continue to play WALK-ONs at the most crucial special teams position on the field? I mean, IS THERE?
Just asking.
Right, so, this year's recruiting class. There are too many to go through accurately (and let's face it, if you all really cared you'd be reading through Coach Weis's presser and surfing the real ND football blogs just like I did to hear about all the new recruits in detail), but there are a couple things I want to highlight.
First of all, we have a local kid signing up for the squad this year--Braxston Cave (good football name) from Penn (sssssssssssssssssss) is going to be joining the O-line (and, hopefully, improving it). Apparently his parents have been inviting all the new recruits over all season long for pasta nights or whatever, so there's been a lot of good ol' team bonding going on already (we can only hope).
Sean Cwynar, a defensive lineman from Illinois, has enrolled a semester early* (along with a couple other recruits, I think--but I can't remember which at the moment), so he's already on campus soaking up the ND lifestyle (quarter dogs at midnight!) and hopefully hitting the weight rooms in preparation for spring practices.
Favorite New Football Player Name This Year: Jamoris Slaughter. Defensive back, Georgia. Last year's fave was Golden Tate. We're racking up an excellent list of quality football player names.
Favorite new recruit overall: Mike Golic, Jr. He was the first player to commit to this year's recruiting class, and apparently he faxed in his signature to the Mike & Mike show yesterday morning announcing his commitment to ND (at least, this is what I hear...didn't actually tune in for the Mike & Mike show, but let's assume this happened, because it's nifty). Basically, Mike Golic rocks. He's on the O-Line as well, slated to compete for the position at center**. I get a good feeling from this kid. He reminds me of Bobby Morton, which is the highest compliment I can currently think of. Time will tell if he is as cool as Bob Morton, or as nice to the band.
And, most importantly: NEW QB ALERT!!!
I'm pretty sure you're all well-acquainted with my opinions on Jimmy Clausen (the little pustule). I could not be happier that we have a new excellent quarterback who will be competing (and actually competing, not just competing-because-he's-been-around-Coach-Weis's-system-for-three-years competing) for the top spot at QB--especially by the time next year rolls around.
Dayne Crist hails from Notre Dame high school in Sherman Oaks, CA, and in his high school uniform bears a striking resemblance to my Favorite ND QB Of All Time (see inserted photo).
Yeah. No joke. Number 10.
So anyway, you can plainly see where my allegiance lies as far as the QB situation is concerned in the future. For this season, we have to assume that it will be Jimmy Clausen all the way, and though I still think he looks like an emu and has the charming personality of a narcissistic twat...if he's the guy who's going to lead us to a winning season this year (should I even dream of a bowl game?!), then so be it.
Last tidbit before I rush off to class: Aaron Taylor, former ND great, has been talking about this year's recruiting class on his blog. I'll leave you with his thoughts on what makes this year's recruiting class particularly intriguing and promising:
"...it’s hard to ignore the accolades that this Notre Dame recruiting class is piling up as Feb. 7, aka “National Signing Day”, fast approaches. In fact, we haven’t heard this much talk about an incoming Irish class since, well … since the class I was a part of back in 1990.
If you followed the site last year, you’ll remember the podcast of Kevin McDougal and I talking about how special our class was, (it’s still up under “Exclusive Interviews” if you want to check it out). The 1990 recruiting class consisted of eight High School All-Americans, and no fewer than a dozen of us made it to the NFL, including five in the first round of the 1993 and 1994 Drafts (a group that yours truly was fortunate and proud to be a part of). Two of those guys, B. Young and RB Jerome Bettis, are almost certain locks for the NFL Hall of Fame, and other guys like C Tim Ruddy, DL Jim Flanigan, S Jeff Burris, DL Oliver Gibson, WR Lake Dawson and LBs Pete Bercich and Anthony Peterson certainly had their moments in The League.
That class was truly special, and not just because we went 40-8, including Notre Dame’s last three bowl wins (I still can’t believe that when I write it). No, it was special because we all formed an instant, tightly knit bond ... a bond that has lasted to this day among many of us. And as talented as the incoming class is, it’s the bond between them that has me more excited than anything else."
*My friend Holly informs me that according to the Observer I am wrong, that only Trevor Robinson is on campus early, but I find this interesting considering I got the detail about Cwynar enrolling early from Coach Weis's presser...and let's hope for the sake of the team that Coach Weis knows which of his players are on campus and which aren't.
**Holly informs me that Braxston Cave is like the best center in the country, so who knows if Mike Golic, Jr. will ever see time at center? I maintain that he will have an impact, because he really seems to Get the whole ND thing. Not that I have any basis for an argument one way or another, I'm just throwing out nonsense like I always do.
For those of you un-obsessed with the world of college football, National Signing Day is the day when high school football players all across the country officially commit to their chosen schools. Prior to National Signing Day, most players make verbal commitments, so schools have a pretty good idea of what their recruiting class is going to look like long before National Signing Day rolls around, but verbal commitments aren't permanent, so players can still change their minds at the last minute--which happened last year, with ND losing some of its promising recruits to schools like Florida (which, for some reason, thought that it was important last year, for some delusional reason like...I don't know, they won the national championship. Pfbt. Whatever).
This year, however, recruiting has been much more intense, with most of our recruits verbally committing before the start of this year's football season, and all the work seems to have paid off. Yesterday, ND signed 23 of the best high school football players in the country, hailing from 17 different states (that's right...17), and according to Coach Weis's presser, we have now signed: "five defensive linemen, four linebackers, three DBs, four offensive linemen, two tight ends, three wide receivers, a running back and a quarterback."
Excellent haul. But I have a question for you, Coach Weis: WHERE'S THE EFFING KICKER?????
Is it really THAT HARD to find a good--heck, I don't know, even halfway decent--kicker to come play for the Irish? Is there any reason that Notre Dame, with all its history, accolades, reputation, and scholarships, should continue to play WALK-ONs at the most crucial special teams position on the field? I mean, IS THERE?
Just asking.
Right, so, this year's recruiting class. There are too many to go through accurately (and let's face it, if you all really cared you'd be reading through Coach Weis's presser and surfing the real ND football blogs just like I did to hear about all the new recruits in detail), but there are a couple things I want to highlight.
First of all, we have a local kid signing up for the squad this year--Braxston Cave (good football name) from Penn (sssssssssssssssssss) is going to be joining the O-line (and, hopefully, improving it). Apparently his parents have been inviting all the new recruits over all season long for pasta nights or whatever, so there's been a lot of good ol' team bonding going on already (we can only hope).
Sean Cwynar, a defensive lineman from Illinois, has enrolled a semester early* (along with a couple other recruits, I think--but I can't remember which at the moment), so he's already on campus soaking up the ND lifestyle (quarter dogs at midnight!) and hopefully hitting the weight rooms in preparation for spring practices.
Favorite New Football Player Name This Year: Jamoris Slaughter. Defensive back, Georgia. Last year's fave was Golden Tate. We're racking up an excellent list of quality football player names.
Favorite new recruit overall: Mike Golic, Jr. He was the first player to commit to this year's recruiting class, and apparently he faxed in his signature to the Mike & Mike show yesterday morning announcing his commitment to ND (at least, this is what I hear...didn't actually tune in for the Mike & Mike show, but let's assume this happened, because it's nifty). Basically, Mike Golic rocks. He's on the O-Line as well, slated to compete for the position at center**. I get a good feeling from this kid. He reminds me of Bobby Morton, which is the highest compliment I can currently think of. Time will tell if he is as cool as Bob Morton, or as nice to the band.
And, most importantly: NEW QB ALERT!!!
I'm pretty sure you're all well-acquainted with my opinions on Jimmy Clausen (the little pustule). I could not be happier that we have a new excellent quarterback who will be competing (and actually competing, not just competing-because-he's-bee
Dayne Crist hails from Notre Dame high school in Sherman Oaks, CA, and in his high school uniform bears a striking resemblance to my Favorite ND QB Of All Time (see inserted photo).
Yeah. No joke. Number 10.
So anyway, you can plainly see where my allegiance lies as far as the QB situation is concerned in the future. For this season, we have to assume that it will be Jimmy Clausen all the way, and though I still think he looks like an emu and has the charming personality of a narcissistic twat...if he's the guy who's going to lead us to a winning season this year (should I even dream of a bowl game?!), then so be it.
Last tidbit before I rush off to class: Aaron Taylor, former ND great, has been talking about this year's recruiting class on his blog. I'll leave you with his thoughts on what makes this year's recruiting class particularly intriguing and promising:
"...it’s hard to ignore the accolades that this Notre Dame recruiting class is piling up as Feb. 7, aka “National Signing Day”, fast approaches. In fact, we haven’t heard this much talk about an incoming Irish class since, well … since the class I was a part of back in 1990.
If you followed the site last year, you’ll remember the podcast of Kevin McDougal and I talking about how special our class was, (it’s still up under “Exclusive Interviews” if you want to check it out). The 1990 recruiting class consisted of eight High School All-Americans, and no fewer than a dozen of us made it to the NFL, including five in the first round of the 1993 and 1994 Drafts (a group that yours truly was fortunate and proud to be a part of). Two of those guys, B. Young and RB Jerome Bettis, are almost certain locks for the NFL Hall of Fame, and other guys like C Tim Ruddy, DL Jim Flanigan, S Jeff Burris, DL Oliver Gibson, WR Lake Dawson and LBs Pete Bercich and Anthony Peterson certainly had their moments in The League.
That class was truly special, and not just because we went 40-8, including Notre Dame’s last three bowl wins (I still can’t believe that when I write it). No, it was special because we all formed an instant, tightly knit bond ... a bond that has lasted to this day among many of us. And as talented as the incoming class is, it’s the bond between them that has me more excited than anything else."
*My friend Holly informs me that according to the Observer I am wrong, that only Trevor Robinson is on campus early, but I find this interesting considering I got the detail about Cwynar enrolling early from Coach Weis's presser...and let's hope for the sake of the team that Coach Weis knows which of his players are on campus and which aren't.
**Holly informs me that Braxston Cave is like the best center in the country, so who knows if Mike Golic, Jr. will ever see time at center? I maintain that he will have an impact, because he really seems to Get the whole ND thing. Not that I have any basis for an argument one way or another, I'm just throwing out nonsense like I always do.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Good Omens
Notre Dame 21, Stanford 14
All right, so...I'm glad we've gotten this season out of our system.
I'm also glad we've won out the last two games of our season for the first time since 1992.
I'm also so glad that the players and coaches have nine months to rest, train, recruit, and basically rethink their lives before they strap on a bunch of pads (or, you know, a headset) and hit the gridiron again.
Perspective
Yaaaaay we won our last two games of the season. Yaaaay the two teams we beat have four wins between them. If you add Notre Dame's total number of wins for the season to that number, you have a winning season!!!
Duke + Stanford + Worst Notre Dame Team In History Of Football = Bowl Eligible!
Eat your heart out, International Bowl! DuFord Dame is on its way!
Oh Jimmy
If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: you are not a scrambling quarterback. No, really. Get over it. Stop trying to stiff-arm people who are twice your size. Also when you try to throw the ball away (providing this option occurs to you while you're still on the field), maybe try throwing it to the sidelines instead of chucking it pell-mell into the arms of a Stanford player.
Overall, progress has been good. I'm sure you'll get over this little phase where you stand in (or behind) the pocket forever and then decide to run with it even when there's nowhere to run.
Granted, it's not all your fault. It would help if our receivers could get open faster. Also it would help if our O-line gave you better protection. But still...you do not need to run away and still try to make a play out of it every time some opposing defender has chased you ten yards behind the line of scrimmage. It's pretty much okay to chuck the ball out of bounds in these situations. I promise.
I realize that if you just chucked the ball out of bounds every time you were under pressure you would never complete a pass, but still. Let's work on a nice delicate balance so you don't keep getting sacked five times a game.
Replay officials say whaaaaat?
Dear Pac-10 Replay Officials Who Worked the Stanford Game,
I don't believe you.
It deeply troubles me to see men so invested in the glorious game of football who have no respect for its wondrous athleticism, majestic physicality, or downright badass playmaking.
If you die a mysterious death on the sideline someday from a wayward flying cleat, rest assured I will only see it as glorious recompense for your erroneous attempt to screw my beloved team out of one of the only wins it has truly earned all season.
It is a crime to rob these young men of such Herculean efforts on the field, and your blatant disrespect for the game of football and troubling disregard for the tremendous amount of effort this team displayed on Saturday is utterly horrifying and mind-boggling. I suggest you retire to the Poconos and take up the officiating of some sport that is more your speed. (Like golf. Or shuffleboard.)
Love,
Lisa
Talk to Chuck
Well, somebody ought to.
Often this season I have wondered if Charlie bothers listening to his assistant coaches. (Particularly his offensive coordinator. And who in the bloody hell is their Offensive Line coach? What's he been doing with his life?)
I mean...look. You don't just lose nine games. It's not the sort of thing that just happens.
And it's not like we were robbed of any of those games, either. The only game they tried to rob us of was the Stanford game, but that turned out fine, so...moving on.
No, in all the other games, we either got our asses completely handed to us or we just couldn't get it done.
I don't have a real solution for this, Charlie, but Lord knows I hope you do. You like to be the man with the answers, but you haven't exactly had any of those all season.
So I think this is going to be a good off season for everybody. Let's hope those players hit the weights until their thighs have the girth of two small children and their biceps weigh more than a standard jersey chaser. Let's hope all our recruits stick. Let's hope we get back to fundamentals so our team actually knows how to block and wrap up and tackle and...kick a field goal, for Christ's sake. And lets hope Jimmy and his receivers spend the summer glued to a TV screen until they have complete comprehension of Charlie's scheming.
And such.
What tho the odds be great or....
So, anyway. We beat Stanford. We should have beaten them by like three touchdowns, but whatever.
At least we get to send our team into the off season on a high note, for once. At least the players have something to feel good about for the next nine months or so (at least until they watch the replays of the Michigan and USC games again).
In a game where pretty much no one scored in the second half, there were a lot of really dazzling plays.
Tom Zbikowski proved to the world once again that he is an absolute beast. It's too bad, first of all, that we've hardly seen this side of Zibby this season (or last season, for that matter), and it's further terrible that every single time he has gotten into the endzone this season or made a punt return longer than fifteen yards, either our offense has been unable to capitalize or the entire thing has gotten called back.
We've seen life from our wide receiving corps (finally), and against the 11th-ranked pass defense (or was it just pass rush?), no less. Duval Kamara came to life with some outstanding grabs, his lanky figure and sticky hands this week almost resembling--dare I say it?--good ol' number 83, Jeff Samardzija. David Grimes likewise impressed with the most outstanding catch of the game--a total dive into the end zone for a ball entirely out of his reach that remained in his possession the entire time and never once hit the ground even though his hands did. (Even the booth commentators were shocked by the call on that one. I think it's just a crime to take that kind of effort away from a kid. Absolutely freaking ridiculous.) Junior Jabbie also impressed near the end of the game with a couple of nice grabs and a breakout run that (unfortunately) led to nothing.
Our running backs continue to cause problems as far as turnovers go. Hughes and Schwapp both fumbled early in the game to kill two ND scoring chances. Robert Hughes, however, made up for it by tacking up two forty-yard runs at the beginning and end of the game, and by rumbling in ND's final score of the game. What I would like to know is--where was Hughes in the middle of the game? In the first quarter and fourth quarter, Hughes made a tremendous impact, but in the middle it seemed like we were (a bit unsuccessfully) passing all the time, or handing off to Armando Allen, who is speedier but not as large as Hughes. If Allen could break through the holes, he would definitely pick up more yardage, but he doesn' t have the ability Hughes does to pummel his way through the holes like a bull and drag defenders with him for a couple more yards when it seems like he should get none at all.
On Defense, Trevor Laws continues to eat people. It was so troubling when he got injured twice near the end of the game, but that didn't stop him from getting in there and knocking people around.
Also, can anyone else believe we injured their first and second string quarterbacks in the same game? The ESPN commentators were absolutely livid they put Tavita Pritchard back in the game after they'd "taken his helmet away." I kind of have to agree, though...what if he had a concussion? I mean, really. Do you want a quarterback playing with a concussion??? Although I guess Stanford didn't want to put their third-stringer in and have us pull a UCLA game on them.
Isn't it ironic, though? Jimmy gets sacked five times and he's fine and their two QBs are the ones getting concussions and hand injuries and whatnot? I guess Jimmy's getting pretty tough by now....
Onward...
Next season will be my senior year, which I'm kind of freaking out about.
I do, however, have ambitions to go to every single Notre Dame game next year, so if anybody's with me on this...let's start planning now. We have Michigan State, BC, Navy, Washington, and North Carolina away (as well as USC, but supposedly the band's going to that one). Go Irish! Beat Everyone!
Also I would like to thank everyone who's tuned in and listened to me rant about football all season. It's been an adventure.
Until next year then, kids...stay safe, and, as always, love thee Notre Dame.
All right, so...I'm glad we've gotten this season out of our system.
I'm also glad we've won out the last two games of our season for the first time since 1992.
I'm also so glad that the players and coaches have nine months to rest, train, recruit, and basically rethink their lives before they strap on a bunch of pads (or, you know, a headset) and hit the gridiron again.
Perspective
Yaaaaay we won our last two games of the season. Yaaaay the two teams we beat have four wins between them. If you add Notre Dame's total number of wins for the season to that number, you have a winning season!!!
Duke + Stanford + Worst Notre Dame Team In History Of Football = Bowl Eligible!
Eat your heart out, International Bowl! DuFord Dame is on its way!
Oh Jimmy
If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: you are not a scrambling quarterback. No, really. Get over it. Stop trying to stiff-arm people who are twice your size. Also when you try to throw the ball away (providing this option occurs to you while you're still on the field), maybe try throwing it to the sidelines instead of chucking it pell-mell into the arms of a Stanford player.
Overall, progress has been good. I'm sure you'll get over this little phase where you stand in (or behind) the pocket forever and then decide to run with it even when there's nowhere to run.
Granted, it's not all your fault. It would help if our receivers could get open faster. Also it would help if our O-line gave you better protection. But still...you do not need to run away and still try to make a play out of it every time some opposing defender has chased you ten yards behind the line of scrimmage. It's pretty much okay to chuck the ball out of bounds in these situations. I promise.
I realize that if you just chucked the ball out of bounds every time you were under pressure you would never complete a pass, but still. Let's work on a nice delicate balance so you don't keep getting sacked five times a game.
Replay officials say whaaaaat?
Dear Pac-10 Replay Officials Who Worked the Stanford Game,
I don't believe you.
It deeply troubles me to see men so invested in the glorious game of football who have no respect for its wondrous athleticism, majestic physicality, or downright badass playmaking.
If you die a mysterious death on the sideline someday from a wayward flying cleat, rest assured I will only see it as glorious recompense for your erroneous attempt to screw my beloved team out of one of the only wins it has truly earned all season.
It is a crime to rob these young men of such Herculean efforts on the field, and your blatant disrespect for the game of football and troubling disregard for the tremendous amount of effort this team displayed on Saturday is utterly horrifying and mind-boggling. I suggest you retire to the Poconos and take up the officiating of some sport that is more your speed. (Like golf. Or shuffleboard.)
Love,
Lisa
Talk to Chuck
Well, somebody ought to.
Often this season I have wondered if Charlie bothers listening to his assistant coaches. (Particularly his offensive coordinator. And who in the bloody hell is their Offensive Line coach? What's he been doing with his life?)
I mean...look. You don't just lose nine games. It's not the sort of thing that just happens.
And it's not like we were robbed of any of those games, either. The only game they tried to rob us of was the Stanford game, but that turned out fine, so...moving on.
No, in all the other games, we either got our asses completely handed to us or we just couldn't get it done.
I don't have a real solution for this, Charlie, but Lord knows I hope you do. You like to be the man with the answers, but you haven't exactly had any of those all season.
So I think this is going to be a good off season for everybody. Let's hope those players hit the weights until their thighs have the girth of two small children and their biceps weigh more than a standard jersey chaser. Let's hope all our recruits stick. Let's hope we get back to fundamentals so our team actually knows how to block and wrap up and tackle and...kick a field goal, for Christ's sake. And lets hope Jimmy and his receivers spend the summer glued to a TV screen until they have complete comprehension of Charlie's scheming.
And such.
What tho the odds be great or....
So, anyway. We beat Stanford. We should have beaten them by like three touchdowns, but whatever.
At least we get to send our team into the off season on a high note, for once. At least the players have something to feel good about for the next nine months or so (at least until they watch the replays of the Michigan and USC games again).
In a game where pretty much no one scored in the second half, there were a lot of really dazzling plays.
Tom Zbikowski proved to the world once again that he is an absolute beast. It's too bad, first of all, that we've hardly seen this side of Zibby this season (or last season, for that matter), and it's further terrible that every single time he has gotten into the endzone this season or made a punt return longer than fifteen yards, either our offense has been unable to capitalize or the entire thing has gotten called back.
We've seen life from our wide receiving corps (finally), and against the 11th-ranked pass defense (or was it just pass rush?), no less. Duval Kamara came to life with some outstanding grabs, his lanky figure and sticky hands this week almost resembling--dare I say it?--good ol' number 83, Jeff Samardzija. David Grimes likewise impressed with the most outstanding catch of the game--a total dive into the end zone for a ball entirely out of his reach that remained in his possession the entire time and never once hit the ground even though his hands did. (Even the booth commentators were shocked by the call on that one. I think it's just a crime to take that kind of effort away from a kid. Absolutely freaking ridiculous.) Junior Jabbie also impressed near the end of the game with a couple of nice grabs and a breakout run that (unfortunately) led to nothing.
Our running backs continue to cause problems as far as turnovers go. Hughes and Schwapp both fumbled early in the game to kill two ND scoring chances. Robert Hughes, however, made up for it by tacking up two forty-yard runs at the beginning and end of the game, and by rumbling in ND's final score of the game. What I would like to know is--where was Hughes in the middle of the game? In the first quarter and fourth quarter, Hughes made a tremendous impact, but in the middle it seemed like we were (a bit unsuccessfully) passing all the time, or handing off to Armando Allen, who is speedier but not as large as Hughes. If Allen could break through the holes, he would definitely pick up more yardage, but he doesn' t have the ability Hughes does to pummel his way through the holes like a bull and drag defenders with him for a couple more yards when it seems like he should get none at all.
On Defense, Trevor Laws continues to eat people. It was so troubling when he got injured twice near the end of the game, but that didn't stop him from getting in there and knocking people around.
Also, can anyone else believe we injured their first and second string quarterbacks in the same game? The ESPN commentators were absolutely livid they put Tavita Pritchard back in the game after they'd "taken his helmet away." I kind of have to agree, though...what if he had a concussion? I mean, really. Do you want a quarterback playing with a concussion??? Although I guess Stanford didn't want to put their third-stringer in and have us pull a UCLA game on them.
Isn't it ironic, though? Jimmy gets sacked five times and he's fine and their two QBs are the ones getting concussions and hand injuries and whatnot? I guess Jimmy's getting pretty tough by now....
Onward...
Next season will be my senior year, which I'm kind of freaking out about.
I do, however, have ambitions to go to every single Notre Dame game next year, so if anybody's with me on this...let's start planning now. We have Michigan State, BC, Navy, Washington, and North Carolina away (as well as USC, but supposedly the band's going to that one). Go Irish! Beat Everyone!
Also I would like to thank everyone who's tuned in and listened to me rant about football all season. It's been an adventure.
Until next year then, kids...stay safe, and, as always, love thee Notre Dame.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
We Woke up the Echoes, but They're Still Drowsy
Notre Dame 28, Duke 7
YAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!
We beat one of the worst teams in the country.
At home!
YAAAAAAAAAAAAY!
I'm very excited about this, in the sense that I might have thrown myself off a cliff by now if we hadn't won yesterday. (I am, of course, exaggerating. You'd have to drive for hours to find anything remotely resembling a cliff in Northern Indiana, and who wants to waste that much gas?)
But really. I'm excited about it. I'm glad we won, especially for the sake of the seniors. (Those poor effing seniors. Especially the fifth-years. What a bomb for a season.)
Before I get to the jubilation, however, a few key points...
Coach Weis
Hooray for a redeeming win in the stadium. More people seemed willing to form the "W" when we played the 1812 Overture this week instead of booing.
However...it was Senior Day, and we beat Duke, so perhaps "redeeming" wasn't the right word. I can give you props, but I can't give you mad kudos on this one. Actually, in light of this entire season, not sure I can really give you any kudos.
Wouldn't it be funny if we ended up 3-9 this season? I mean...wouldn't it?
Capitalizing Win
So we finally managed to take advantage of some of our opponents' blunders and scored when they turned the ball over. Refreshing!
However, the fact that we almost went into halftime tied at 0 with Duke really says a lot about our consistent lack of progress over the season. I mean, yes, we won, we almost got a shutout even, and later in the game it felt good to see our offense score of its own accord. (Which, granted, they have been doing more and more often as the season progresses.)
But still..I mean...it's Duke. They had the same record we did coming into this game, with a somewhat less intimidating schedule. The fact that it flickered into anyone's mind (including my own) that we might lose to Duke is depressing beyond all reasonable explanation.
We didn't, though. So that's good.
It's still just so frustrating to see our team struggle with pass-blocking, rushing, field goals, giving it up on 3rd-and-long, and, above all, penalties.
Some of those penalties, I swear, were just the referees being blind. But a lot of the other ones were completely unnecessary. (Especially at the end of the game. But some of those don't really count because, come on, Tommy Z was in at QB and the student section couldn't get over it, and our regular starters weren't out there. And what do a couple of false starts in a row mean anyway?)
Clearly, our defense did pretty well, considering we almost got the shutout. (The last time we got a shutout win, we beat Rutgers 42-0 at home. It was...five years ago, I think. I was a sophomore in high school, and it was the first time I'd ever seen an ND game inside the stadium. And they scored all the touchdowns in the end zone opposite the one my dad and I were sitting behind.)
But still...we gave up some first downs that we shouldn't have, and a lot of our success on turnovers resulted from the slippery conditions as much as the effort of our players. Plus (okay, I know I keep saying this, but just hear me out)....it's DUKE.
I'm ecstatic that we won, I'm happy for our team, the students, the band, the alums, the coaches, absolutely everybody in the ND fan nation, but...let's face it. If it hadn't been Duke, we still might have tanked. There aren't many teams in the country you can go scoreless against for almost an entire half and then not pay for it later.
All the same, as I was watching the game, I kept thinking, "Damn. If only this was our first game of the season."
Then it wouldn't be quite so troublesome. Then we might be in, not good, but at least a mostly acceptable state to improve upon for the rest of the season. Then our team would have more confidence and we might have better chemistry/intuition/whatever the heck it takes to get the O-line thinking and moving together.
But no. Such is not the current state of things.
At least our players will be riding on a high heading out to California to face a stunning 3-7 Stanford team.
I'm convinced we're going to beat them, because they already beat USC, and we just have a knack for beating teams that can beat USC, even though we remain incapable of toppling the Trojans ourselves.
Also, it's Thanksgiving weekend, and I'd like to think it's going to be a good Thanksgiving weekend. (I can always hope, right?)
All right, well...enough lamenting. This season has been sad, but now it's nearly over and we can only hope Charlie has learned enough from it to somewhat deflate his enormous ego and prepare him for the trials of putting together a solid team next season. (Which is still going to take more than excellent recruiting and clever scheming.)
Onward...to VICTORY!
Everybody kept talking about it being a day of "lasts" on Saturday. Last home game, last game for the seniors, last this, last that... But psh, it was a day of firsts.
It was the FIRST time we've won at home all season, the FIRST time the band has gotten to play the victory clog at the end of a game, the FIRST time the freshmen experienced the utter euphoria in Notre Dame Stadium after a victory, the FIRST time the team has gotten to celebrate with instead of just merely salute the students...
It was also the FIRST time Robert Hughes (HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUghes) has rushed for over 100 yards in a game (making him the FIRST since D-Walk to do so as a freshman), and the FIRST time all season the entire student section has really caught on to a new cheer. (I love saying HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUghes, because, first of all, it makes me think of LOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU, but also it makes me think of MUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUHSin Mohammed and Da Bears, and both of those things are always good things.)
Also it was the FIRST time many of the seniors have gotten to take the field during a game and play a snap or two for the Irish.
As well as the FIRST TIME WE'VE SEEN ZIBBY PLAY QUARTERBACK FOR THE IRISH!
I swear he's been a senior like three times already, but who cares, this time he got to QB it at the end. (Uh-maz-ing.) He didn't really get to do much because, oh yeah, the O-line still can't open up holes for people and we kept getting called on false start, and then Travis Thomas fumbled the ball away, but whatever, it was still SWEET.
Saturday also marked the FIRST Notre Dame game my cousin John's ever been to (which was fun), as well as my FIRST season getting a shamrock award for band.
Speaking of band...it was also the FIRST time the PICCOLOS WON SECTION OF THE YEAR! (YEAH PICCS!)
So yeah. I will miss the seniors (especially the band piccolo seniors), but how can you look back on Saturday and be sad? It was the first time all season we've had so many things to celebrate.
So rock on, Fighting Irish, and head out to California and show those losers who's boss.
Never forget...
WE ARE
*clap clap*
ND
*clap*
GO IRISH BEAT CARDINAL!
YAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!
We beat one of the worst teams in the country.
At home!
YAAAAAAAAAAAAY!
I'm very excited about this, in the sense that I might have thrown myself off a cliff by now if we hadn't won yesterday. (I am, of course, exaggerating. You'd have to drive for hours to find anything remotely resembling a cliff in Northern Indiana, and who wants to waste that much gas?)
But really. I'm excited about it. I'm glad we won, especially for the sake of the seniors. (Those poor effing seniors. Especially the fifth-years. What a bomb for a season.)
Before I get to the jubilation, however, a few key points...
Coach Weis
Hooray for a redeeming win in the stadium. More people seemed willing to form the "W" when we played the 1812 Overture this week instead of booing.
However...it was Senior Day, and we beat Duke, so perhaps "redeeming" wasn't the right word. I can give you props, but I can't give you mad kudos on this one. Actually, in light of this entire season, not sure I can really give you any kudos.
Wouldn't it be funny if we ended up 3-9 this season? I mean...wouldn't it?
Capitalizing Win
So we finally managed to take advantage of some of our opponents' blunders and scored when they turned the ball over. Refreshing!
However, the fact that we almost went into halftime tied at 0 with Duke really says a lot about our consistent lack of progress over the season. I mean, yes, we won, we almost got a shutout even, and later in the game it felt good to see our offense score of its own accord. (Which, granted, they have been doing more and more often as the season progresses.)
But still..I mean...it's Duke. They had the same record we did coming into this game, with a somewhat less intimidating schedule. The fact that it flickered into anyone's mind (including my own) that we might lose to Duke is depressing beyond all reasonable explanation.
We didn't, though. So that's good.
It's still just so frustrating to see our team struggle with pass-blocking, rushing, field goals, giving it up on 3rd-and-long, and, above all, penalties.
Some of those penalties, I swear, were just the referees being blind. But a lot of the other ones were completely unnecessary. (Especially at the end of the game. But some of those don't really count because, come on, Tommy Z was in at QB and the student section couldn't get over it, and our regular starters weren't out there. And what do a couple of false starts in a row mean anyway?)
Clearly, our defense did pretty well, considering we almost got the shutout. (The last time we got a shutout win, we beat Rutgers 42-0 at home. It was...five years ago, I think. I was a sophomore in high school, and it was the first time I'd ever seen an ND game inside the stadium. And they scored all the touchdowns in the end zone opposite the one my dad and I were sitting behind.)
But still...we gave up some first downs that we shouldn't have, and a lot of our success on turnovers resulted from the slippery conditions as much as the effort of our players. Plus (okay, I know I keep saying this, but just hear me out)....it's DUKE.
I'm ecstatic that we won, I'm happy for our team, the students, the band, the alums, the coaches, absolutely everybody in the ND fan nation, but...let's face it. If it hadn't been Duke, we still might have tanked. There aren't many teams in the country you can go scoreless against for almost an entire half and then not pay for it later.
All the same, as I was watching the game, I kept thinking, "Damn. If only this was our first game of the season."
Then it wouldn't be quite so troublesome. Then we might be in, not good, but at least a mostly acceptable state to improve upon for the rest of the season. Then our team would have more confidence and we might have better chemistry/intuition/whatev
But no. Such is not the current state of things.
At least our players will be riding on a high heading out to California to face a stunning 3-7 Stanford team.
I'm convinced we're going to beat them, because they already beat USC, and we just have a knack for beating teams that can beat USC, even though we remain incapable of toppling the Trojans ourselves.
Also, it's Thanksgiving weekend, and I'd like to think it's going to be a good Thanksgiving weekend. (I can always hope, right?)
All right, well...enough lamenting. This season has been sad, but now it's nearly over and we can only hope Charlie has learned enough from it to somewhat deflate his enormous ego and prepare him for the trials of putting together a solid team next season. (Which is still going to take more than excellent recruiting and clever scheming.)
Onward...to VICTORY!
Everybody kept talking about it being a day of "lasts" on Saturday. Last home game, last game for the seniors, last this, last that... But psh, it was a day of firsts.
It was the FIRST time we've won at home all season, the FIRST time the band has gotten to play the victory clog at the end of a game, the FIRST time the freshmen experienced the utter euphoria in Notre Dame Stadium after a victory, the FIRST time the team has gotten to celebrate with instead of just merely salute the students...
It was also the FIRST time Robert Hughes (HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
Also it was the FIRST time many of the seniors have gotten to take the field during a game and play a snap or two for the Irish.
As well as the FIRST TIME WE'VE SEEN ZIBBY PLAY QUARTERBACK FOR THE IRISH!
I swear he's been a senior like three times already, but who cares, this time he got to QB it at the end. (Uh-maz-ing.) He didn't really get to do much because, oh yeah, the O-line still can't open up holes for people and we kept getting called on false start, and then Travis Thomas fumbled the ball away, but whatever, it was still SWEET.
Saturday also marked the FIRST Notre Dame game my cousin John's ever been to (which was fun), as well as my FIRST season getting a shamrock award for band.
Speaking of band...it was also the FIRST time the PICCOLOS WON SECTION OF THE YEAR! (YEAH PICCS!)
So yeah. I will miss the seniors (especially the band piccolo seniors), but how can you look back on Saturday and be sad? It was the first time all season we've had so many things to celebrate.
So rock on, Fighting Irish, and head out to California and show those losers who's boss.
Never forget...
WE ARE
*clap clap*
ND
*clap*
GO IRISH BEAT CARDINAL!
Monday, November 12, 2007
Bombed
Air Force 41, Notre Dame 24
I've been a little sluggish and heartbroken this week. My desk is unusually messy. There are candy wrappers all over. I finished all my homework for Monday. I did my laundry before the basket was all the way full. I have no idea where my large umbrella is. Also, Notre Dame lost to two service academies two weeks in a row.
Clearly, all is not right with the world.
Go Team
After last weekend's dazzling 44-point scoring spree and subsequent spirit-crushing triple-OT debacle, our offense limped and gimped to a staggering 24 points, making our offensive totals from the last two games combined about as hefty as our point totals for the entire rest of the season.
It has rarely been more depressing, in the entire history of college football, to be a Notre Dame fan.
The fact that the students had enough heart left at the end of yesterday's game to start the "We are ND" cheer is kind of staggering.
But that's what Notre Dame is all about, and that's why the rest of the country thinks our fans are delusional.
I am always prepared to believe, even in the direst of circumstances, that our team can prevail.
People have been saying it all season long: with the talent we have on this team, there is no reason for us to be playing like we are. But teams with less talent than us have been playing better than us, because football isn't about the talent. It's about the team.
So many of our guys have SO much talent, but we're not playing in a way that allows them to succeed. Armando Allen, for example, can be an absolute beast when he gets a little room to run, but he rarely has that room to run. Ability can only take you so far if there's no one to block for you.
Another example: John Carlson. Monster tight end. Should be having monster season. Not so easy to make a play, though, when you're constantly being thrown the ball under double coverage (*coughcough*Jimmy).
It's so late in the season now I don't think this year's team is ever going to gel. Do I think we're going to beat Duke on Saturday? Well, yeah, but Dear Lord, it's Duke; they have the same record we do (and no--not half as much talent). The only disadvantage there is that we're both going to take the field thinking, "YES!! We're going to WIN this one!!!" And also every team seems to have a little extra bloodlust when they play Notre Dame.
Speaking of which, how many of our players went down yesterday with injuries? Yikes.
Oh God, and speaking of going down...
Jim-may
Congratulations, you got sacked six times. Maybe try dumping the ball off a little quicker in the future. Or, I don't know, THROWING THE BALL AWAY.
Look, I appreciate that you are a play maker and that you want to make plays happen and that you would prefer to get positive yardage. But I think I would appreciate not ending up in 3rd-and-19 situations wherein, for SOME REASON UNBEKNOWNST TO THE ENTIRE STUDENT BODY, Charlie always seems to want to run the ball. ("They'll never see it coming!!!!" ................Yeah. Okay.)
Jimmy just takes too long in the pocket. Always. He is, apparently, not that good at reading defenses yet, we can bet he doesn't have 100% command of Charlie's playbook, and--although he's started a number of games this season--he's still a freshman.
I'm not worried about Jimmy's evolution as a quarterback in the long run. Brady, as a freshman, wasn't much to shake a stick at (that first USC game of his, which I was in the stands for, still makes me cringe), and he didn't really break out into Heisman-candidate form until his junior year. So Jimmy has time and a head start and will be fine in the long run...he's just making me mad now.
Look, Jimmy, I'm sorry, but you're not a scrambling quarterback. Also you can't try to stiff-arm people the way you do when your biceps are still smaller than your head. I mean, have you seen Brady's biceps? He could wrestle an alligator. (Although, as Peyton Manning has proved, it does not necessarily take great biceps to be a great quarterback.) Also...please get over yourself. Thanks.
Maligned
Our poor effing defense.
If it wasn't for our offense, they'd be doing so great.
They made a lot of crucial stops, forced some key turnovers, punts and field goals, improved greatly against the option, aaaand were basically on the field so often they're all going to need open-heart surgery by the time this season is over.
I mean...really. The offense failed to capitalize on most of the good opportunities the defense gave them, and even when they weren't failing at that, they managed to turn the ball over at really inopportune moments.
Why do you think the student section gives up on doing the arm motions to Celtic Chant midway through the second period? We only play Celtic and the Imperial March when our team is on defense, and we play Celtic so often I feel about ready to mutiny by the end of the game. So yeah, it'd be nice if we got some more songs to play on defense (maybe an adaptation of Dropkick Murphys' "I'm Shipping Up to Boston"? It's...Irish-y...), but also it'd be REALLY FREAKING FANTASTIC if we hardly had to play it at all.
I mean, I guess you could argue that if our defense was truly monstrous they would take matters into their own hands and just win every single game for us (a la the UCLA game), and that giving up 41 points is not exactly a mark of great success, and that Navy should not have gotten a 2-point conversion (EVER), but also...it's really f$%^*@# hard to defend against the option, and, for example, when we really needed our D to force a 3-and-out near the end of the game when it looked like we might have the slightest chance to come back and at least tie....they forced a 3-and-out. You know?
Charlie: What. The. F.
Okay. So.
You can't treat these kids like they're veterans. They're not. Some of them are, but as a team they're not. I mean...I hope you're still drilling fundamentals like wizz-ow (yes, that is "wow" with a random "izz" stuck in the middle), but I feel like probably no. It certainly doesn't look that way on the field. Nothing's working. I mean yes, we got 24 points in our second-biggest offensive effort of the season, and, yes, we had some pretty fantastic catches in the end zone (which unfortunately I did not get to see because they were all in the other end zone), but we still have all the same problems we had at the beginning of the season. All of them. (The only thing I can say is I guess our penalty count is down.)
Jimmy got sacked left and right. We dug ourselves into WAY TOO MANY third-and-longs and were unable to convert. We had to go for it on fourth too many times. And, when it came down to the wire, we were unable to convert a 4th-and-1 on a QB sneak. Those aren't just problems. Those are irreparable damages.
At least for now.
This team (most specifically the O-LINE) is going to have to make leaps and bounds in training during the off season to really bulk up and be strong enough to make the difference in next year's team. We can't do anything if we can't block and open up run lanes and, I don't know, tackle. I mean, yeah, that's all really basic, but that's exactly what we can't do. We need to get everyone set in their position (and stop switching people around all willy-nilly), get everyone to build up their legs like tree trunks, and just let it sink in 'til the O-line's like cement and the team is...well...a team.
Also the underclassmen need to wake up and realize what they're doing, what they're missing, what they're not going to have some day.
This is not Notre Dame football. This is like some twisted horror story taken out of some deranged USC fan's dream.
But this is also, all, really, stuff that can be FIXED. This is basic stuff.
The question is: does Charlie know how to build a college team?
We know he knows how to scheme, and we know he knows how to recruit.
But does he know how to take players through the transition from high school to college, from college to the NFL, in a way that will strengthen both the players and the team?
Yeah. I'll get back to you on that one.
In the meantime, I'll be preparing for a decimation of the Blue Devils, who have kind of an ookie mascot and also no hope of triumphing in Notre Dame Stadium this weekend, because A) It's Senior Day and B) they're completely lame.
Wake up the freaking echoes already, will you?
I've been a little sluggish and heartbroken this week. My desk is unusually messy. There are candy wrappers all over. I finished all my homework for Monday. I did my laundry before the basket was all the way full. I have no idea where my large umbrella is. Also, Notre Dame lost to two service academies two weeks in a row.
Clearly, all is not right with the world.
Go Team
After last weekend's dazzling 44-point scoring spree and subsequent spirit-crushing triple-OT debacle, our offense limped and gimped to a staggering 24 points, making our offensive totals from the last two games combined about as hefty as our point totals for the entire rest of the season.
It has rarely been more depressing, in the entire history of college football, to be a Notre Dame fan.
The fact that the students had enough heart left at the end of yesterday's game to start the "We are ND" cheer is kind of staggering.
But that's what Notre Dame is all about, and that's why the rest of the country thinks our fans are delusional.
I am always prepared to believe, even in the direst of circumstances, that our team can prevail.
People have been saying it all season long: with the talent we have on this team, there is no reason for us to be playing like we are. But teams with less talent than us have been playing better than us, because football isn't about the talent. It's about the team.
So many of our guys have SO much talent, but we're not playing in a way that allows them to succeed. Armando Allen, for example, can be an absolute beast when he gets a little room to run, but he rarely has that room to run. Ability can only take you so far if there's no one to block for you.
Another example: John Carlson. Monster tight end. Should be having monster season. Not so easy to make a play, though, when you're constantly being thrown the ball under double coverage (*coughcough*Jimmy).
It's so late in the season now I don't think this year's team is ever going to gel. Do I think we're going to beat Duke on Saturday? Well, yeah, but Dear Lord, it's Duke; they have the same record we do (and no--not half as much talent). The only disadvantage there is that we're both going to take the field thinking, "YES!! We're going to WIN this one!!!" And also every team seems to have a little extra bloodlust when they play Notre Dame.
Speaking of which, how many of our players went down yesterday with injuries? Yikes.
Oh God, and speaking of going down...
Jim-may
Congratulations, you got sacked six times. Maybe try dumping the ball off a little quicker in the future. Or, I don't know, THROWING THE BALL AWAY.
Look, I appreciate that you are a play maker and that you want to make plays happen and that you would prefer to get positive yardage. But I think I would appreciate not ending up in 3rd-and-19 situations wherein, for SOME REASON UNBEKNOWNST TO THE ENTIRE STUDENT BODY, Charlie always seems to want to run the ball. ("They'll never see it coming!!!!" ................Yeah. Okay.)
Jimmy just takes too long in the pocket. Always. He is, apparently, not that good at reading defenses yet, we can bet he doesn't have 100% command of Charlie's playbook, and--although he's started a number of games this season--he's still a freshman.
I'm not worried about Jimmy's evolution as a quarterback in the long run. Brady, as a freshman, wasn't much to shake a stick at (that first USC game of his, which I was in the stands for, still makes me cringe), and he didn't really break out into Heisman-candidate form until his junior year. So Jimmy has time and a head start and will be fine in the long run...he's just making me mad now.
Look, Jimmy, I'm sorry, but you're not a scrambling quarterback. Also you can't try to stiff-arm people the way you do when your biceps are still smaller than your head. I mean, have you seen Brady's biceps? He could wrestle an alligator. (Although, as Peyton Manning has proved, it does not necessarily take great biceps to be a great quarterback.) Also...please get over yourself. Thanks.
Maligned
Our poor effing defense.
If it wasn't for our offense, they'd be doing so great.
They made a lot of crucial stops, forced some key turnovers, punts and field goals, improved greatly against the option, aaaand were basically on the field so often they're all going to need open-heart surgery by the time this season is over.
I mean...really. The offense failed to capitalize on most of the good opportunities the defense gave them, and even when they weren't failing at that, they managed to turn the ball over at really inopportune moments.
Why do you think the student section gives up on doing the arm motions to Celtic Chant midway through the second period? We only play Celtic and the Imperial March when our team is on defense, and we play Celtic so often I feel about ready to mutiny by the end of the game. So yeah, it'd be nice if we got some more songs to play on defense (maybe an adaptation of Dropkick Murphys' "I'm Shipping Up to Boston"? It's...Irish-y...), but also it'd be REALLY FREAKING FANTASTIC if we hardly had to play it at all.
I mean, I guess you could argue that if our defense was truly monstrous they would take matters into their own hands and just win every single game for us (a la the UCLA game), and that giving up 41 points is not exactly a mark of great success, and that Navy should not have gotten a 2-point conversion (EVER), but also...it's really f$%^*@# hard to defend against the option, and, for example, when we really needed our D to force a 3-and-out near the end of the game when it looked like we might have the slightest chance to come back and at least tie....they forced a 3-and-out. You know?
Charlie: What. The. F.
Okay. So.
You can't treat these kids like they're veterans. They're not. Some of them are, but as a team they're not. I mean...I hope you're still drilling fundamentals like wizz-ow (yes, that is "wow" with a random "izz" stuck in the middle), but I feel like probably no. It certainly doesn't look that way on the field. Nothing's working. I mean yes, we got 24 points in our second-biggest offensive effort of the season, and, yes, we had some pretty fantastic catches in the end zone (which unfortunately I did not get to see because they were all in the other end zone), but we still have all the same problems we had at the beginning of the season. All of them. (The only thing I can say is I guess our penalty count is down.)
Jimmy got sacked left and right. We dug ourselves into WAY TOO MANY third-and-longs and were unable to convert. We had to go for it on fourth too many times. And, when it came down to the wire, we were unable to convert a 4th-and-1 on a QB sneak. Those aren't just problems. Those are irreparable damages.
At least for now.
This team (most specifically the O-LINE) is going to have to make leaps and bounds in training during the off season to really bulk up and be strong enough to make the difference in next year's team. We can't do anything if we can't block and open up run lanes and, I don't know, tackle. I mean, yeah, that's all really basic, but that's exactly what we can't do. We need to get everyone set in their position (and stop switching people around all willy-nilly), get everyone to build up their legs like tree trunks, and just let it sink in 'til the O-line's like cement and the team is...well...a team.
Also the underclassmen need to wake up and realize what they're doing, what they're missing, what they're not going to have some day.
This is not Notre Dame football. This is like some twisted horror story taken out of some deranged USC fan's dream.
But this is also, all, really, stuff that can be FIXED. This is basic stuff.
The question is: does Charlie know how to build a college team?
We know he knows how to scheme, and we know he knows how to recruit.
But does he know how to take players through the transition from high school to college, from college to the NFL, in a way that will strengthen both the players and the team?
Yeah. I'll get back to you on that one.
In the meantime, I'll be preparing for a decimation of the Blue Devils, who have kind of an ookie mascot and also no hope of triumphing in Notre Dame Stadium this weekend, because A) It's Senior Day and B) they're completely lame.
Wake up the freaking echoes already, will you?
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