The Shirt 2010

The Shirt 2010: "We are the Fighting Irish."

It's green. Good choice.

The design doesn't exactly make you go "ooh" and "ahh," but it's nice and clean and it gets the job done.

The longer I'm away from ND, the more I appreciate all the live coverage and free video posted by und.com. During football season, they kept me afloat with press conference and pep rally coverage, and over the past few weeks, their coverage of spring practice has worked like a nicotine patch to help ease my football withdrawal.

Now it's a long dry summer of waiting, of course, but props to und.com for helping to keep me sane thus far, and for closing out spring practice with a lovely little clip of the "Shirt" unveiling, plus live streaming coverage of the Blue-Gold game.

Only four months til football season (give or take). So as this year's Shirt says, "Rally sons of Notre Dame...onward to victoryyyyy!" (Okay, so some of the extra "y"s might be mine, but whatever.)

Irish Football is BACK

....for spring practice, I mean.

I can't say anything about how the team will actually perform this fall. But I can say that I like how they're performing at this exact moment, based on the approximately five minutes of actual practice footage I've seen. Which clearly makes me an expert on the subject and entitles me to extrapolate on it at length, with the aid of key quotes, press conference clips, clever inferences, and the possibility of over-exaggerated extended metaphors which, if nothing else, seemed like a good idea at the time.


Take her to warp speed, captain!

So the main reaction to the first spring practice of 2010 (which took place yesterday, for those of you who haven't been paying attention) seems to be that it was fast. Really fast. Fast like a cheetah. Fast like a viper. Fast like Golden Tate on a straight route up the sideline past the Purdue secondary. (Sorry. Was that too much 2007 too soon?) Fast like the USS Enterprise or...whatever.

The point is, X out of X football journalists recently polled state that yesterday's spring practice was the "fastest" and the most "up-tempo" of any Irish spring practice they've ever seen, stretching back to at least the Devine era. No-huddle offense. Helmets on at all times. No standing still.

...you know, except for the necessary amount of standing still required to wait for instructions / water / the players' bodies to cool down enough so they don't vomit / pass out / begin imagining that the faces of people who mocked them in the past have suddenly been transposed onto the faces of the players on the other side of the ball.

This may or may not be an accurate assessment of the actual amount of hustle involved in practice, considering, you know, I wasn't there.

So anyway. This tempo of this practice seems promising, if you believe in the whole "you play like you practice" mantra. It seems to suggest a higher level of conditioning necessary to survive the practices, let alone the games.

Thinking optimistically...this may make it easier for the team to adjust to game speed in the fall, and might possibly improve the players' overall stamina enough for them to actually play all four quarters of football. And at this point, that would be something of a feat, considering how effing long all our home games have become (thanks NBC). On the flip side, too much intensity during practice could leave the players without their legs under them when game day actually does roll around.

But Brian Kelly has been a head coach for 19 years now (this season will be his 20th, I believe), so I'm going to have to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one.


Beam me up, Scotty

It's only one day of practice so far, so it's impossible to say we've really arrived anywhere. It's impossible to draw any real, concrete conclusions. But here's a chunk of the WNDU article on yesterday's practice, complete with some optimistic quotes from Kelly's pre-practice presser:

"I think probably the thing that is absolutely non-negotiable is the intensity through repetition," Kelly told the media before practice.

Kelly said he doesn't want to hear any talking, complaining or see any fights at practice. But he does want to see some fight.

"If we can get the fight back in the Fightin' Irish, that's what I'm looking for," Kelly said. "I want to compete our butts off for four quarters.

"I want our guys to go to practice and compete, compete and compete."

For the most part, this is the sort of pre-season stuff you'd expect any new coach to be saying. I mean, you'd certainly hope that any new coach coming to Notre Dame would want to say something corny like he wants to put the "fight back in the Fightin' Irish." And any coach worth his cleats should be promising that his team's going to play for four quarters.

But it's one thing to claim "intensity through repetition," one thing to say that you want your guys to "compete, compete, compete." It's entirely another to go out on the first day of practice and prove it.

So... what do we got so far?

High-tempo practice. Lots of focus, lots of action. Lots of work toward getting the players to “think on their feet.” As previously mentioned, these practice sessions have been like nothing we’ve seen from ND spring ball for the last, oh, thirty years or so (at least), but as Kelly himself remarked after today’s practice, “It doesn’t mean it’s better, it’s just different for ‘em.” It’s intriguing, but we’ll just have to wait and see whether this approach pays dividends in the fall.

Chips all in. Anyone who could walk was on the field yesterday, including Dayne Crist and Kyle Rudolph, both of whom underwent off-season surgery. Both are looking to be in pretty decent shape for the coming season (we hope). The reporters are saying Dayne Crist will probably be the starter at QB, which seems logical, but it's impossible to make any concrete statements at this point, considering Kelly is operating with

No depth chart. Kelly apparently prefers to practice with different “pods” or groups of players, rather than dividing them into first-string and second-string teams. All the players are out there competing for a starting spot; nothing's guaranteed. Which, theoretically, is the way it should always be in spring ball, and it's definitely nothing less than you'd expect from a brand-new head coach. But I really like that there's not even a hint at first-string or second-string yet, except from the reporters. The players (including Dayne Crist) all seem to be feeling the pressure to get out there and compete, to earn the spot they want. Like I said, nothing really unusual here, but it’s still nice to see.

The position shuffle. A number of players have shuffled position already – I’m just going to mention a couple.

Sophomore running back Theo Riddick has been moved to slot receiver. I have to say I like this move. By all reports, Theo is the fastest guy on the team. Which means he’s faster than Golden Tate. Last year, Theo picked up most of his playing time on kick returns for special teams, and a few really scrappy plays against Washington State that, were it not for a few well-placed shoestring tackles, might’ve turned themselves into scampers for the endzone. (Okay, he may have had a few more carries than that, but mostly I remember the WSU game, because that game was really fun to watch, because we were, you know, winning.) I’m very curious to see how his speed will transfer to a receiving position. If you will recall, Golden Tate played fullback in high school. One could surmise that this experience had an extremely positive effect on Golden’s ability to make plays after the catch. It’s possible that the same could be true for Theo Riddick. Possibly. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, it’s only spring practice.

There’s also been a lot of flip-flopping throughout the linebacker corps. Harrison Smith is switching from outside linebacker to safety, Steve Paskorz is moving from inside linebacker to fullback, Manti Te’o is switching from middle to inside linebacker, and inside linebacker Brian Smith is switching to outside. The reason for all the switching? Apparently Kelly likes his strong, physical players on the inside and his athletic, faster players on the outside. Which makes sense, really, doesn’t it? Giving the faster guys more of the field to cover? But again, we’ll have to see how this all shakes down in the fall. I certainly hope all the shuffling in the linebackers will prevent one of the safeties from becoming next year’s leader in tackles. Not that I didn’t love Kyle McCarthy, but come on – when a Safety is your leading tackler, you’ve got some serious defensive issues.



To infinity, and beyond!
(Oh wait, that was a Buzz Lightyear reference.)

So anyway. One month of spring practice before the Blue-Gold game, which, sadly, I will not be attending. (Sigh.) ND’s spring practices this year started later than…pretty much every other school’s…so let’s hope these up-tempo practices and some intense focus can get us where we need to be by the end of April.

Six months or less ‘til football season……

GO IRISH BEAT BOILERS!

New Coaching Roster...Prepped and Ready to Go

Pretty much every major Notre Dame news source has been busy covering the new coaching staff (especially the always excellent Blue-Gray Sky blog) recently. I have particularly enjoyed The Observer’s series of articles about each of the new coaches.

If you click on the Blue-Gray Sky link above, you can check out their complete listing of the new coaching staff, which provides a run-down of what position each coach has been hired for, how many years of experience they have in that position, what BCS teams they have coached (if any), and little trivia bits for each coach.

Since I’ve already babbled on long enough, I’m just going to give a brief listing of the coaches and provide a few thoughts about things I’ve noticed so far. Here’s the basic run-down. Next to each coach’s name, in parentheses, is the title of the position they coached in 2009, and the name of the school where they coached that position:

NOTRE DAME COACHING STAFF 2010

Head Coach: Brian Kelly

OFFENSE
Offensive Coordinator / Quarterbacks Coach: Charley Molnar (Passing Game Coordinator & Wide Receivers Coach, Cincinnati)
Offensive Line Coach: Ed Warinner (Offensive Coordinator, Kansas)
Running Backs: Tim Hinton (Same position, Cincinnati)
Wide Receivers: Tony Alford (Running Backs Coach, Notre Dame)
Tight Ends: Mike Denbrock (Associate Head Coach, Indiana State)
Graduate Assistant: Michael Painter (Staff Assistant, Cincinnati)

DEFENSE
Defensive Coordinator / Inside Linebackers Coach: Bob Diaco (Same position, Cincinnati)
Defensive Line / Special Teams Coordinator: Mike Elston (Same position + Assistant Head Coach, Cincinnati)
Outside Linebackers: Kerry Cooks (Defensive Backs Coach, Wisconsin)
Defensive Backs: Chuck Martin (Head Coach, Grand Valley State [Division II])
Graduate Assistant: Bill Brechin (Graduate Assistant, Grand Valley State)


We’ve got a new Strength & Conditioning staff for the team, too, which will have a huge impact on the team and their preparedness for next year, but I don’t really have any observations to make about them, so I’m not including them here.

So, here are some things to note:

~ As you may have noticed, 5 of Notre Dame’s new staff members are direct hires from Brian Kelly’s Cincinnati staff (Molnar, Hinton, Diaco, Elston, and Painter). Of these five, four retained their coaching positions, and one (Charley Molnar) was promoted to Offensive Coordinator.

~ The lone holdover from Weis’s coaching staff is Tony Alford, who has been moved from running backs coach to wide receivers coach. This will be his first year at the new position, so we’ll see how that goes. It looks like he’ll have a pretty good resource to draw on in Charley Molnar, though; Cincinnati’s fast passing attack in 2009 not only led the Bearcats to an undefeated season, it also led to them finishing dead last in time of possession (averaging 25:46 per game). So. This seems like good news for fine-tuning receivers, but possibly bad news in terms of an overall scheme…we’ll have to see how that works out for the defense, eh?

~ The only other coach on the staff who has experience coaching the Irish is Mike Denbrock (tight ends coach), who coached offensive tackles and tight ends under Willingham from 2000-2002. He helped coach Ryan Grant and Julius Jones, and recruited the likes of David Bruton, Travis Thomas, and Brady Quinn.

~ Ed Warinner is the only coach who has no previous connections to Kelly. Molnar, Hinton, Diaco, Elston, and Painter are obviously connected to Kelly through Cincinnati; one of Alford’s relatives played for Kelly when Kelly was coaching at Grand Valley State, and Alford has also previously worked with Molnar; Mike Denbrock served as Offensive Coordinator and Defensive Coordinator under Kelly at Grand Valley State; Cooks was a teammate of Bob Diaco at Iowa; and Chuck Martin worked on Kelly’s staff at Grand Valley State and was promoted to Head Coach when Kelly was hired at Central Michigan

~ This is a highly experienced staff. Most of them have at least 5 years of experience coaching the specific positions they’ve been hired to coach (3 have more than a decade of experience), and the majority of the staff has experience at higher-level coaching positions. This is Molnar’s first season as Offensive Coordinator and Diaco’s third as Defensive Coordinator; Ed Warinner spent three years as OC at Kansas; Denbrock has served as OC & DC at the D-II level and an Associate Head Coach at the D-I level; Elston was Assistant Head Coach at Cincinnati; and Chuck Martin went 74-7 as the Head Coach at Grand Valley State.

To conclude, here are some quotes that jumped out at me from the introductory press conferences / Observer articles:

From new O-line Coach Ed Warinner:

“Football is teaching and coaching fundamentals relative to what system you’re in, and the advantage I have of coaching a lot of different systems and a lot of different places and a lot of different kids is anything we want to do offensively, I’ll have some kind of perspective on that, and the different issues each kid has.We’ll be able to find ways to make them better.

From new OC Charley Molnar:

“I would be disappointed if we went through this season without a 1,000-yard rusher at the running back position.”

“We are very aggressive in our offensive approach.We are looking to score virtually every time we have the ball. Even at the end of the half, we are looking to score a touchdown if we can. Aggressive also means the type of kids that play for us. We have turned down many good athletes that were offered [scholarships] by other schools because we did not think they were aggressive enough physically on the field to play in our system.”

“In 2008 and 2009 we were Big East Champions. The thing I learned from [those seasons] is that you don’t always have to have the very best players on the field in order to win football games,” he said. “It’s about playing harder than your opponent, and believing in what you do, and really that’s about it. If guys would just [play harder than their opponent], you have a chance to win each and every week.”

So…there you have it, folks. Now we just have to wait…and wait…and wait…and see.

T-minus 224 days until kickoff.

GO IRISH BEAT BOILERS!

Things that don’t completely piss me off: aka Notre Dame Football’s off-season

It’s not that I’m particularly fond of the off-season or anything. It’s just that the football team can’t do anything to break my heart over the off-season. (Well. Unless they decide to start going around knocking over liquor stores, getting into fights with our basketball players, stealing rosaries from little old ladies on the side of the road, etc. But since Brian Kelly is all about making sure his players are “tough gentlemen,” we’re going to go ahead and assume that he is not going to put up with that sort of hanky-panky during the off-season. Just as soon as he makes sure Michael Floyd gets whapped thoroughly around the wrists and ankles [but not the shoulder—anything but the shoulder.] for a bonehead underage drinking violation that occurred over winter break, I’m sure the team will be all in tip-top shape.)

The exciting news of the moment is that we finally have an entire football staff assembled, we’re going full-speed ahead on recruiting, we have five early enrollees on campus for spring ball, and now—it’s just a game of waiting.

Which is why I’ve got to babble about all this, because I hate waiting.


Interesting Tidbits

--So I hear the football players have all been put on diet plans. FINALLY. One would think that this is pretty much a no-brainer. I mean, come on, you’re unleashing college-age males into an all-you-can-eat dining hall three times a day and you expect them to just magically make all the right food choices on their own? Ppbbbt.

--In the midst of the coaching flux, we’ve managed to lose only two recruits. Whose names I can’t remember, but they’re lousy little de-committers, so who cares anyway?

--Our QB situation is distressing, but not as dire as it could have been. Dayne Crist will still be recovering from his torn ACL during pretty much all of spring ball, but the good news is that we’ll still have two fully healthy quarterbacks on campus for spring ball: one of the early enrollees on campus this semester is freshman QB Tommy Rees, and he’ll be competing alongside Nate Montana, who is back from his less-than-lackluster stint at Pasadena City College (35% in pass completions…youch). But hey, two-and-a-half quarterbacks competing for a starting job is better than nothing, and keep in mind that Kelly has experiencing winning games with inexperienced quarterbacks. In 2008, the Cincinnati Bearcats rotated five different quarterbacks through the lineup and still managed to win the Big East.

Also, in the fall, Crist, Rees, and Montana will be joined by freshman QB Andrew Hendrix. Hendrix was almost a lousy de-committer, backing away for a bit after Weis was let go, and he almost got himself sucked into Urban Meyer’s Evil Recruiting Vortex of Death, Lies, and Doom. (Whoops, sorry Urban, forgot you’re still busy being indefinite about your leave of absence. I’ll have to rephrase that. “The Indefinitely Absent Urban Meyer’s Former Recruiting Vortex of Statements That May or May Not Have Involved Death, Lies, Doom, and Visions from God”) But then Hendrix backed away from Florida, reconsidered, and decided he’d rather attend, to use Hendrix’s own words, “the best University on the face of this planet.” Good boy, Andrew. Way to suck it up to the alumni. You’re going to fit right in here. (You can see this quote on his blog, where he briefly describes the decision-making process involved in committing to the Irish over the Gators. It seems to involve a lot of gut feelings, but no direct visions from God.)

--Jack Swarbrick has been discussing the Irish’s future football schedules with the media. If you are like me and you despise the 7-4-1 model Kevin White came up with, you will be pleased to see this quote from Swarbrick:

We have the goal of the 7-4-1 model, but there may be some years where an opportunity presents itself that we may go to 6-5-1 or 7-5. We’re open to those sorts of modifications.

Yessssssssss. This makes it possible for us to schedule more games with schools that have great football traditions, and who aren’t willing to get skewered by the Irish’s refusal to screw people out of home-and-home series (which is the only thing that makes 7-4-1 possible). However, Swarbrick followed up this comment by saying,

I'd like to try and figure out how to keep the Stanford relationship, because in so many ways, that's an institution we like to do business with and have multiple relationships with across the university. ...I'd like to do more with Duke and Wake and some of those schools. It's really more institutionally focused - what's a good fit for Notre Dame? What sort of looks and feels like us?

Which sort of makes me want to bang my head against the wall.

That is SO not the point of football scheduling, Jack. SO not the point. I mean, okay, I have nothing against building relationships with those schools academically, but not at the cost of sacrificing games with schools that actually have decent football programs. I mean, Stanford is one thing, but Duke? Wake Forest? (Tulsa? WESTERN MICHIGAN?) You’re killin’ me, Petey, you’re killin’ me.



Upcoming: Observations on ND's new coaching staff

Coaching Carousel

Seeing as the grand majority of people who regularly peruse my posts (without leaving comments) seem to be people who only read my enraged drivel because they find it amusing (and not because they regard Notre Dame football as some sort of rare and precious elixir that will last only long enough to ensure that no internal organs shrivel up during the dry, blistering desert that is the off-season), I feel the need to post a note regarding the current activity of the college football world. Purely for educational purposes, of course, which means that obviously I should not feel any guilt whatsoever about composing this during work.

So, if you have not been paying any attention at all since Brian Kelly was hired, or since Jimmy and Golden declared for the NFL draft, or since the last time I posted a deranged Facebook note (and I suspect that the people who have not been paying attention to any of this are the same people who are unclear about what it means to say that Notre Dame’s defense will be switching from a 4-3 to a 3-4 this season)…here are a few important updates of which you should be aware:


My Least Favorite Person In All Of College Football resigned. And then un-resigned.

You may be shocked to realize that this person has never played a down of football for the Irish and also does not reside in the state of California (or rather, Washington, as we will discuss in a moment). No, my least favorite person in college football is, in fact, the walking pinnacle of un-Popeliness himself: Coach Urban MCMXCIX.

(…and he parties like it, too.)

I find this most distressing, mostly because I can no longer express my utter distaste and unfounded loathing for this conniving little slop bucket with quite as much zeal as before. I mean, it’s one thing to rail against a smarmy little sunshine-dwelling, recruit-stealing championship-winner whose players have a complete disregard for other people’s eyeballs…but there’s just something wildly indelicate about insulting a man who has just realized that he doesn’t know his family and is on the verge of cardiac arrest because his entire life for the last twenty years has consisted of yelling at out-of-breath twenty-one-year-olds who are simultaneously trying to decipher the significance of "Ace Right z-Dig x-Shallow Bananaberry Split London Bridge on-one on-one" and recall the last name of the girl whose phone number somehow ended up scrawled across their right forearm this morning.

I mean…it just doesn’t seem sporting.

Unless, of course, Meyer really is the kind of fargin’ icehole that anyone with morals / a conscience / a human soul that hasn’t been sold to the devil always suspected him to be.

Shortly after stepping down from the head coaching position at Florida, he decided to change his resignation to an “indefinite leave of absence,” which is so indefinite that he “expects to be on the sidelines for the 2010 season,” at least according to this article from ESPN.

And then there’s the wild rumor surrounding the recruiting of Sharrif Floyd, one of the top defensive tackles in the country, who was recently named National Football Player of the Year by the Maxwell Football Club. He had offers from Penn State, Ohio State, North Carolina, South Carolina, and the Trojans, but after a long and stressful decision-making process that apparently involved Urban Meyer receiving visions from God, he settled on Florida.

Now, of course, these comments are so outrageous that they are most likely complete hogwash. The following quote apparently surfaced first on a South Carolina blog, and skipped around the blogosphere for a while before being refuted by Floyd himself, via a Florida Gators blog.

The following quote purportedly came from Floyd’s high school coaches, describing the decision-making process behind Floyd’s commitment to Florida:

Sharrif was really confused and put a call into Coach Meyer. When they spoke Coach Meyer told him that he had a ‘dream’ the night before, and that Coach Meyer saw himself on the sideline coaching Sharrif. Told him that is was a “message from God that I should come back and coach, as I guess if it’s my time to die, I’d rather die on the sidelines coaching you than anywhere else in the world.

Sharrif talked to us the next day and said Ohio State is great and all, but Coach Meyer said he would DIE for me. That’s pretty intense…

Oh, Internet. The things you come up with.

The rebuttal from Floyd is posted on this here Gators fan message board:

I read those comments and when I did I immediately spoke with my head coach Ron Cohen. Coach Cohen told me that it was not true at all and nothing like that was ever said. I immediately called Urban Meyer to let him know what was being said on the internet. I wanted to let everyone know that this is total and false information. I never said that to my coach because it did not happen and my coach never said that to anyone. I am going to the University of Florida because that is where I want to go. I have a great relationship with Urban Meyer and I am a Gator. A lot of schools tried to hit me with the religion pitch but not Florida, not at all and that's how it is and I am not going to change my mind. I have talked to a bunch of my friends and they think this is something that started on one of the Ohio State boards. People are trying to get back at me for not going to Ohio State and not going to their team but I know what I am and that is a Florida Gator.

So what do we believe here? Was it irate Ohio State fans – or perhaps irate South Carolina fans—making things up to get back at Floyd? Is Urban Meyer really just an unholy corksoaker who will stop at nothing to land recruits? Are the Florida fans just trying to cover their team’s ass by blaming everything on the Ohio State fans? (The Internet reports: You Decide.)

Whatever the case, I’m going to try to tone down the Urban Meyer-related rage until the fargin’ bastige is actually back on the sidelines again.

In the meantime, I guess I’ll have to find another target at which to direct all the impotent anger I feel for coaches who get away with being walking penises simply because their players actually win football games. Speaking of which,


The World’s Largest Walking Penis Has Officially Departed from Condom Land.

It is possible that, in the course of this insult, I have inadvertently paid Pete Carroll a compliment. (I understand that men are quite sensitive about this whole “size” issue.) But let me assure you that no kind intentions were meant. Any lapses in my ability to properly lambast this man for being a licentious piece of weasel dung with all the aged dignity of a man whose face / integrity looks like it has been slowly reduced to a pulpy oozing mess by a never-ending string of BB pellets, apparently being fired at him by his own inner child, result from the sheer frustration of knowing that this man never lost a football game to the Irish.

And now he’s bolting for the NFL.

Yes, it seems the Amazing Walking Penis caught a whiff of changes afoot in South Bend / the cantankerous scent of justice being spewed forth by NCAA Violations Committees (well. perhaps that’s stretching it a bit.) and decided to head north, toward the scent of several million dollars being thrown in his general direction by the overzealous management of the Seattle Seahawks, who apparently decided that lusting after Carroll was a better game plan than holding onto Jim Mora, Jr., whose first and only season with the Seahawks resulted in a lackluster 5-11 record. (And people say Notre Dame’s too hasty with its coaching turnovers.)

What a skeaze bucket. Skeaze. Bucket.

There’s been so much change already in this off-season. I can’t handle it. I feel like the college football landscape just jump-shifted slightly to the left and now all the sportswriters (read: Sports Illustrated) are falling all over themselves to talk about how good Alabama is, because apparently they’ve lost all faith in Florida, USC, upstart teams like Cincinnati, etc.

Oh, SI preseason poll. You are smoking the hardest kind of crack there is. Ohio State at number three? Ha! Ha ha! Please stop trying to pretend like the Big 10 is good, or that anybody outside the state of Ohio actually cares about teams from Ohio. (I mean, there may be 110,000 people sitting up in Ann Arbor’s ass crack who possibly care about a certain team from Ohio, but their opinions aren’t really worth endorsing, either.) I cannot believe somebody gets paid for coming up with the outrageous horseshit that is a preseason poll in January.

Sigh.

Upcoming: Actual commentary on what's going on with ND's football program.

BRIAN KELLY!

It's a mixture of relief and--dare I say it?--optimism: Brian Kelly is the 29th head football coach at the University of Notre Dame. For a lengthy, in-depth recap of Kelly's coaching credentials, I recommend the always superb Blue-Gray Sky.

For now, all you need to know is that this is a man who just coached the Cincinnati Bearcats to a perfect season, and now they're going up against Florida in the Sugar Bowl. (Although popular opinion seems to be that Cincinnati's going to get smeared all over the Superdome. I offer no opinion on this except to say that you all should know how I feel about Urban Meyer by now, so--Go Bearcats!) And now Mr. Kelly is forgoing the chance to coach in New Orleans by taking up residence in the Gug's big, cushy corner office.

Before I get going on the new coach and start paraphrasing everything I just heard in the press conference, I just want to say: mad props to Jack Swarbrick for keeping the lid tight on this thing right until the very end. I commend you, sir. Also, I found it a very classy move that you presented our new head coach with a medal of Mary instead of a helmet or a football jersey. Way to be true to the spirit of Notre Dame.

Coach Kelly--apparently a Boston Irish Catholic--seems to get the spirit of Notre Dame, too, which is pretty much essential for anyone who's going to attempt to lead the football team at Our Lady's University. He spoke of the university's tradition, its high academic and athletic standards, and approached the university not only as a fan but as a coach. He spoke of developing players who work hard on the field and are gentlemen off the field. He spoke of Notre Dame in a way, I thought, that represented Notre Dame.



Plumes of reactionary optimism

For as despondent as I've felt since the end of the season, I have to say I was pretty darn pleased to get that e-mail announcing Brian Kelly was our new head coach--because if it wasn't gonna be him, who else WAS there? I think, at this current moment in time, we actually did get the best man for the job. And I have to say, I'm way more up-in-the-clouds about all this than I thought I'd be.

Part of this, I think, is reactionary: looking for (and finding) things in the new head coach that were lacking with the last. This sort of amplifies the feeling of all-around glee at the thought that Notre Dame finally has a coach who
A) comes in with a .747 win percentage after 19 years of coaching
B) has proven he can turn limp programs into national champions (Grand Valley State, D-II) and conference champions (Central Michigan, Cincinnati)
C) has been a head coach--IN COLLEGE--for almost two solid decades

This man has a proven track record. He's not being sucked in through the NFL. He is not a gamble. (You know, so I assume.)

In case you've missed out on my biggest beef with Charlie the last couple seasons, here are the two things I've griped about the most:
1) Lack of fundamentals
2) Having a head coach who's still learning how to be a college head coach. (And by that I mean--watching in agony as he figures out that no, you can't treat college kids the same way you treat guys in the NFL, and no, college players don't come pre-conditioned with great fundamentals, and no, no matter how clever you think this play is, if your players aren't disciplined and consistent, all the scheming in the world isn't going to help you.)

And pretty much right off the bat Brian Kelly proved that he understands the nature of being a head coach in the college game.

Two little words that one reporter called "vague," but which were music to my ears: player development.

Ah, yes--YES! There it IS! College players have to be DEVELOPED! That is the why college football has become so crucial to the success of players in the NFL, is it not?

This is not to say that Charlie didn't know how to develop a player. I mean, he developed Brady Quinn. I'm just saying--Charlie came from the pros, he ran a pro-style game, he's a pro-style man, and I...

You know what, I'm just going to stop talking about Charlie. He came, he did what he did, he helped turn the program in the right direction, I wish him the best.

Back to Brian Kelly and player development. I liked this quote:

...it's not just about being bigger, faster, stronger, it's getting your players to trust. It's getting your players to be accountable on a day to day basis. It's developing them as young men, and you have to do that through relationships.

Boom! Right there. This is a man who knows he's dealing with college kids, knows he's dealing with people who are still maturing and learning how to manage themselves, and that is as crucial a part of the college game as anything else. Another choice example:

Eating at Burger King at 3:00 in the morning is not going to make you the best for your 8:00 workouts. Not being on time, not paying attention to detail, not being purposeful in what you do on a day to day basis. Attention to detail is absolutely crucial in this process of winning, and so when I talk about working on winning, I mean you do that from the first day you step on this campus if you want to win.

This is not me accusing the players or the previous coaching staff of anything in particular. This is just me saying that the new head coach is talking like a man familiar with success, familiar with making success happen in a college system, and familiar with how college kids work. And that, to me, is extremely promising.


Another comment that I particularly liked was this one, which almost certainly struck a chord with me because it's exactly the sort of thing I've been griping about for the past few seasons:

You don't win on Saturdays with Xs and Os. You win on Saturdays because you've been working on it all week, and so it's that attention to detail. It's morale, it's camaraderie, it's one voice.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! THANK YOU. Thank you thank you thank you. You have NO idea how good that is to hear. No idea.

(Once again, not trying to disparage anybody. I'm just sayin'--when your life for a few years is X's and O's, like Charlie's life was, you tend to approach the game in X's and O's.)

Something else that pretty much made me want to jump up and down and pump my fist in the air:

I think it's important to point out that you win and lose football games as a whole.

Yes. YES. YES!!!! I mean, I know this is sort of obvious to anyone who pays attention to the fact that football is a team sport--but it strikes me that, too often these days, people don't really approach it that way. I mean, theoretically head coaches do, but speaking as a lay person, it seems like teams are often lopsided--strong on one side or another--due to the leanings of whatever position their head coach happened to coordinate before he became the head coach.

I have this problem as a fan, too; I expect teams to be lopsided one way or another. For example...when I'm watching the Indianapolis Colts, I pretty much expect Peyton Manning to go out there and win the game for them. I know, somewhere in my head, that of course the defense has to do its job, and Peyton would be nothing without his O-line and his receiving corps of thrifty ballcatchers. But let's face it--when the game's on the line, I expect Peyton Manning to go out there and win.

It's the same problem watching defensive teams--you know, like how Da Bears used to be. How many teams can you watch throw six picks against Arizona on Monday night and still expect them to be able to win? The Bears did it a couple years ago. It was absurd.

Anyway, the point is--at the very least, Brian Kelly is approaching football the way a head coach needs to approach football: as a head coach, one who will oversee ALL aspects of the game:

So offense, defense and special teams has been what I'm an expert at. And when I talk about expert at it, I mean I don't just rely on one side of the ball. As a head football coach, you are responsible for all those areas, and as you can tell probably from my experience in Division II, we had when I started two full time coaches. So you couldn't just be the offensive coordinator; you couldn't just be the defensive coordinator; you had to be involved in all those areas. I will be intimately involved with what we do defensively as the head football coach.

Now, of course, we don't know how any of this is going to translate, but I hope for the best.

I look forward to our special teams next year.



Enough about the past. Let's talk about the future.

First off, Brian Kelly is a living-in-the-present type of guy:

Well, we go to work right away. We don't get a five year plan. This is a five minute plan. I mean, we're working on it immediately, and we expect our football players to play at a high level immediately.

Boom! Hit the ground running. I like it.

Second, let's focus in on our immediate future: recruiting. Kelly said that recruiting would be the first thing on his docket: calling our recruits, trying to keep the commits, going out there and fighting for the future of the Irish. I'm curious to see how this goes, and if any more of our recruits will end up falling through the cracks. Some players commit because of the coaches and then de-commit once they're gone; not all of them can be total badasses and commit after the head coach has been fired like Louis Nix.

In a related note, it will be interesting to see which Irish coaches are retained for the staff, too. Coach Ianello's already taken the head coaching job at Akron, and considering the state of our defense I think pretty much everyone expects us to have a new defensive coordinator...but I'm curious to see who of the remaining staff will stay, and what kind of impact that will have on recruiting.

Regarding the approach to recruiting and the kind of players Kelly is going after, the one big thing he mentioned was passion:

They have to love to play this game. So in the recruiting process, as we go from coast to coast in finding that right profile, I want to be around players that love to play this game. I love being around it. If you're not passionate about what you do and how you do it, you probably won't connect with me. So I'm looking for that passion, and it's got to resonate with me in the recruiting process. Yeah, we'll look at the profiles, but I've never gotten caught up in profiles as much as making sure that that passion is there.

After the effort the Irish team put forth this season, I think everyone's pretty much zipped their mouths shut Re: accusing the team of not playing with passion. So it's nice to see that the requirement for passion is there. (You would assume that anyone willing to kill themselves to play at the level of D-I football is passionate about the game but, you know, based on the clearly 100% accurate storytelling of the movie Rudy, not everyone who suits up on Saturdays always has their full heart in the game.) It might seem a little iffy to hear him talk about not getting "caught up" in the profiles of players, but for now I'm willing to ride with him on this one. In recent years, coaches at programs like Boise State, TCU, and (dare I say it?) Cincinnati have proved that you don't have to have a team full of top-rated, emu-faced recruits to win games. You've just got to make sure you can make the players you've got work as a team.

So...we'll see how it goes.

The last snippet I want to post has to do with our team--the current collection of next year's Fighting Irish. As I said, I think our team proved this season that they are hungry for victory--hungry for excellence. The letdown at the end of this season (UConn?? Really? UCONN????? Sorry, I still can't get over it.) will become a blip in Irish football history if Coach Kelly can turn this team's drive and potential into the one thing that matters most in the world of college football: wins.

As I've said all season, potential is frustrating. Potential is maddening. Potential, if unmet, eats you up from the inside.

And that, I think, is at the core of this whole idea of player development, of taking the potential of each player, and then moving them, as Kelly says, "to a level they can't get to by themselves. That's player development. That's at the core of what I mean, to get people to do things that they normally wouldn't do on their own."

So let's see how it goes. Let's see if we can get there. Let's see what Coach Kelly makes of the players we have here, and the players that we've yet to gain.

And of our team, the new head coach says this:

They want to win. They want to win. They're like any other football program that I've been around; they want to win football games, and they want to be led. They want to be developed. I could tell that immediately.

You do not come to the University of Notre Dame because you want to be average. You want to be the best of the best. And that's why I'm here. It inspires me to be around young men like I had in front of me today.

In the words of Rocket, kids: GO GET IT.

GO IRISH BEAT BOILERS!

I'm going to keep rambling on even though it's way too late to matter

So um, first things first--if you want any actual updates on ND football, go to Blue-Gray Sky. Everything they have posted for the past couple weeks is effing brilliant; pretty much every other Notre Dame blog I read has been linking over to BGS constantly since the close of the season. There's a lot of new stuff to talk about--the coaching change, the players' reactions, players de-committing and newly committing, Jimmy and Golden declaring for the draft, etc etc etc. I don't plan on covering any of that, but it's important stuff to know, so, you know, go read BGS. It's good stuff.

Second things second--there's an excellent post over on Her Loyal Sons that covers the players' reactions to Charlie's firing. There are some excellent press conference snippets in there, and it really sheds light on how mature the players have gotten, how dedicated they are to the program, and how much they really GET Notre Dame. Which is an excellent reflection on Charlie and the work he's done off the field these past five years. (Which, in some sense, is sort of shocking to realize, isn't it? Because we just expect these things to immediately translate themselves to the field, and when they don't....)

UConn 33, Notre Dame 30

WOOF.

This is my basic reaction to the UConn game, Jimmy's black eye, and everything else that's been going on in the world of Notre Dame football for the past few weeks.

Regarding JimmayJimmayJimmay and his shiner, let me just say this....

Although I have been waiting for someone to punch Jimmy in the face for approximately three years, and although I can think of dozens of personal reasons why I might want to slug him personally, he got punched out because of a football game, and that pisses me off. I know there were other factors involved, but seriously--after three years of this kind of shit, can you really blame him for declaring for the draft?


Anyway. I feel like I never really made myself sit down and work through the end of this depressing, depressing season, so I am going to do that now. If you don't want to sit here with me and rehash the utter agony of the UConn game or the absurd bumblefuck that was the Stanford game, you should just walk away right now.

But if you're a masochist like me, then by all means continue.


Dog Bites

What the effing EFFER, you effing little EFFERS? How are you going to go out on YOUR field on YOUR Senior Day and lose to UCONN?

I thought we were past this, guys. No seriously. All season long I have been saying how far this team has come since that awful, frigid day on which my fingers froze to my piccolo and you broke my heart and made David Bruton cry. (Yes, I am going to keep bringing this up until it stops being painful. Oh wait--that would be never.) And as bad as last season's home finale was (and I can't BELIEVE I'm going to say this), this season's was worse. You know, I know UConn had that whole "avenge their fallen teammate" thing going on, but I don't care. That didn't stop all their opponents leading up to Notre Dame from beating them, and no way in hell should it have stopped us. What happened to Jasper Howard was horrible--it really was--and as much as I'm a believer in intangibles, they are called INTANGIBLES for a reason. No freaking way should a team be able to come in and kick us around on our home turf during hte last home game of the season. Not when we've got an NFL-worthy QB-WR combo and a bafflingly experienced offensive line (the baffling part being why they aren't the best damn line in all of college football) and a whole bunch of seniors standing on the sideline, waiting for something they've been waiting for for four years and now will never get.

See, THAT is what breaks my heart. It is bullshit that those seniors didn't get to play. Bull. Shit.

There are moments in life that you cannot redo, that you cannot take back--opportunities that, once they're gone, are gone forever. And to work that hard, to come that close, and only get to run out of the tunnel....

I mean, that in itself is an experience worth having, trust me. And not that I ever wore a football uniform, but, you know--just to put on that uniform is special. And to stand on the sideline--that's something, too.

But, um, I get the sneaking suspicion that that is NOT precisely what those young men broke their backs for for four years, and they deserve better than that. They deserve better than to watch helplessly from the sidelines--all suited up at last but still unallowed to go out on the field and actually help their team win a game--and watch as we lose to some mediocre-ass team whose school hasn't even been playing Division I football for a decade.

What the HELL?

I mean, it's one thing to listen to obnoxious non-Notre Dame fans whine on and on about how Notre Dame's not even good anymore, not even relevant, can't win a bowl game, has seen its last glory days, is only clinging blindly to its past, is soooo overrated, has no real place in the elite of college football anymore, and blah blah blah blah blah...... I mean, whatever, right? Because by constantly whining about Notre Dame, all those people are doing is keeping Notre Dame relevant.

But it's really another thing to watch you prove them right. That's really NOT COOL.

I thought we'd gotten past this, guys. I really did. We had such confidence this season. Such...swagger. (Apparently Jimmy really did rub off on the rest of the team.) We had such heart, such grit, such determination. Such Golden Tate. We were this close--THIS CLOSE--to being undefeated.

But um, we were also equally close to being 2-8.

So that puts us right where we belong, at a nice even .500. And that burns.

I mean, is it just me, or does it seriously feel like we're just carrying around all these things that Notre Dame is supposed to stand for, but that it doesn't anymore, because we are in the drought of droughts, and we can't win a national championship to save our lives (and/or coach)?

NOTRE DAME is still there. The spirit, the energy, the tradition, and...everything. It was there before the USC game. You could FEEL it.

But it did not manifest into the much-needed win, and that's what has me worried.

You'd think I would be more optimistic, what with the coaching change and all, but if you have read my previous post (which probably you didn't, because mostly I feel like I am writing to myself these days, but that's okay because at this point it's mostly therapy anyway), you will see that trying to find a new head coach has me more worried than anything. Because if it's not the right guy, we are so SCREWED again, for another five years. And I just can't take much more of this.


So...about the actual game

Right. Well. If you did not catch the UConn game / have already erased it from your memory, it was all bonbons and gumdrops and lollipops until the second quarter. We were up 14-0, and it basically looked like the game was going to be a repeat of the Washington State game.

And then. Then the personal foul.

Sergio Brown's late-hit penalty kept alive a UConn drive that would eventually give them their first score of the game. And after that...the momentum changed. New life for the Huskies. Bad news bears for the Irish.

And in the second half...a bigass breakdown on special teams that allowed UConn to return a kick for a touchdown. More bad news bears.

Let's pay the blame game for a second and blame lack of fundamentals for the fact that these two plays occurred at all. Either one of these plays doesn't happen, and Notre Dame doesn't have to go into overtime on Senior Day. Theoretically.

But then, of course, you can't blame this game on Sergio Brown or the special teams. First of all, that's not fair, because football is a team sport, and there were plenty of chances for the entire TEAM to make sure UConn did not win the game. Second, by all reports Sergio Brown was found crying in Coach Weis's office after the game, trying to apologize, which Coach Weis would not let him do, because Charlie insisted on taking all the blame for this loss (and every other loss) on his own shoulders.

Which, actually, is a good sign. In a way. I mean, these guys care about the team. They really do. They try. I mean, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a guy who tries harder than, for example, Golden Tate. And, you know, they've got (or they had) a head coach cares about the team, too--and more importantly, he cares about the individual players; so much so that he has consistently taken all the blame upon himself, tried to shield all his players from as much of the media BS as possible, and turned his entire head of hair gray in the process.

They are so much more of a TEAM than they were last year, and that is what makes all of this so upsetting. Because you KNOW they're good enough to rise above all this crap and execute well enough to win every game...but, um, they weren't consistent enough to actually DO it. And we can all sit around and point fingers and blame who we want to blame--the coaches, the players, the refs, NBC, or my personal favorite, lack of fundamentals--but at the end of the day it is not one person or entity that makes or breaks a game. (No, not even Golden Tate. Although I'm sure the Heisman committee would have you believe otherwise. You tweak the outcome of say, three big plays this season, and suddenly the Irish are 9-3, and sure as shit you'd be finding Golden's name near the top of the Heisman pile. Which is SUCH a crock of shit, because one player should not have to take the ENTIRE game into his hands so that his TEAM wins so that he can be considered for an INDIVIDUAL trophy. Although if the Heisman committee were actually fair, the winner every year would probably be some random-ass player from the WAC or the Sun Belt or some other conference no one cares about, who does crazy shit on both sides of the ball but who no one's heard about because, again, he plays for some conference no one cares about. But whatever, my point is--you cannot point blame at one single aspect of a team.) That's not what does it. It is the whoooole package.

And this here package we've got is starting to look a little beat up. Is it not?

So we're getting a new box (aka coach). That's what we're doing. We're chucking out the old box and we're getting a new one. And in T-minus three years, we'd better have some shiny new rings in that box, or somebody's gonna have some explaining to do. (Just in case you weren't aware, Leahy, Parseghian, Devine, and Holtz all won national championships in their third year as head coaches. So clearly it stands to reason that if the third season doesn't produce a new banner in the tunnel, we're doomed. I think J.J. should wait until at least the third season this time before renewing the contract. Just a thought.)

Stanford 45, Notre Dame 38

Tree bark

As for that other game we played to close out the season...

Well, it was not a banner night for either defense, let's just say that.

But it was the same damn story we've seen from the Irish all season. So close--so close--so close--down to the wire--and then ahh--aw--not so much.

Although, I have to say, mad props to Sergio Brown for playing harder than I've ever seen him play. He was clearly trying to make up for the UConn game, and dude, I think he succeeded. For the first time all season, he was right up there with Kyle McCarthy and Manti Te'o (11 and 10 total tackles, respectively). Check out these stats for Mr. Brown: 7 solo tackles, 3 assists, 2 tackles for loss, 1 forced fumble, and 1 sack. Best individual defensive stats of anyone on the team. I tip my hat to you, sir.

But, unfortunately, the 31 combined tackles of these three players was not enough to stop Stanford's offense / human hippopotamus Toby Gerhart from scoring 45 points. (Again with the whole "it's a team sport" thing.)

And what's really depressing is--even if we had won, would it have made that much of a difference?

In the grand scheme of things, Charlie was getting fired anyway. And with Charlie gone, no head coach and no offensive coordinator for the postseason, so...no bowl game. And without Coach Weis, it's really not surprising that we're saying bye-bye to Jimmy and Golden. (Although, you have to admit, it's a little selfish. I don't care who we have has head coach next year, that quarterback spot is going to be hurting. C'mon Dayne--HEAL! You too, Michael Floyd. Get your collarbone back in the game. XXXOOO.)

So...6-6, 7-6...the end of this season was so depressing I feel like I would hardly have been able to differentiate between the two. And it's not even remotely cheerful to think that we played better against Stanford than USC did, because USC is a crock of SHIT this year, and it's absolute BS that they're even still ranked in the BCS poll. What kind of crack are those computers SMOKING?

Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

It is a long, bleak off-season, with no more Golden and no more Kyle and no healthy quarterbacks (anyone know when Nate Montana's rich little legacy ass is supposed to show up on campus again?) and, at the moment, no verdict on a new coach. Plus we've got next year's thrilling line-up of Tulsa, Utah, Western Michigan, and Navy to look forward to. (Except Navy...oh wait. Oh, we lose to them now. I forgot.)

UGH.

And I'm not even really looking forward to this year's bowl games, because I'm pretty much counting on 'Bama to smoke the national championship (no offense Texas--I'm not messin' with you, I'm just sayin'...), and I'm only vaguely interested in watching Cincinnati, because if Kelly's not coaching for us next year who cares, and if he IS coaching for us next year but not coaching them in the bowl game, then...again, who cares?

You see? You see what this season's done to me? I'm so morose. I didn't even watch the Colts keep their unbeaten streak alive last Sunday, or the Bears (finally) play some defense and win an ugly game. (Of course, odds are those games weren't even broadcast in my area, but the point is, I didn't even look to see if they were ON. And although I watched most of the first half of the SEC Championship last Saturday, I was also, you know, flipping back and forth between that an episode of Gilmore Girls. Further proof that I should never actually be a sportswriter. When my team's not in the mix, it is SO hard to make myself actually care. Because I love football, and I love sports, you see, but mostly...I love Notre Dame.)

Thus concludes the 2009 Irish football season. Mad props to Golden Tate for making All-American. (You hella belong there.) Good luck with all your other award nominations, and with the NFL Draft.

And to you, JimmayJimmayJimmay....I still can't believe you said you'll miss NDSP.




GO IRISH BEAT BOILERS!

Here...we...go.

I've been feeling understandably melancholy about the state of ND football for the past two weeks, as I'm sure you can imagine. You might also imagine that there are other words besides "melancholy" running through my head when I think about this season, and you're probably right, but for the moment, melancholy is what I am.

I am not relieved that Charlie is gone. I am...other things.

I'm overwhelmingly disappointed that this season did not work out as it could have. We seem to have lost some crucial elements of ND football that make it feel like the tradition that it is. We should not be losing to Navy. We should not have to take every game down to the wire. We should not have seniors standing on the sideline on Senior Day staring at a field that, after four years of work, blood, sweat, tears, injuries, and sacrificing hours upon hours of study time/energy/youth, they will never get to play on. Not one snap, not one down, nothing. That, to me, is the biggest tragedy of this season. And last season. Even the year we went 3-9, we won on Senior Day. And there's just no excuse for that. There's no excuse for not wanting to win on Senior Day as badly as the other team.

I mean, okay, so maybe the other teams get hyped up because they're playing Notre Dame. But, um, in the words of Lou: HELLO, you get to represent Notre Dame! There's no greater motivation than that.

And--ugh--we got SO CLOSE. We were so close, all season, to being what we might have been. And we never broke through that last barrier.

So, we ended the season 6-6, but we were about half a quarter of football away from being undefeated.

We are also equally that far away from being 2-8.

And that puts us right where we belong -- at .500.

And, ladies and gentlemen, there is just nothing more depressing than mediocrity.

Because, you know, you COULD be great, but...you're not.

And you could be the biggest effing pile of shit you've ever seen, but...you're not that, either.

You're right smack-dab in the damn middle, and the worst part is--you look at all these players we've got, at the season Jimmy and Golden and Armando, and McCarthy and Te'o, have had despite the way the games have gone, and you look at how experienced our O-line is (or is supposed to be), and you think to yourself-- WHAT THE HELL? Why not a BCS year? Why and how and when did Notre Dame fall so far as to be practically irrelevant except for our history, our TV contract, and our widespread (and totally BALLER) fan base?

And I'm not sad to see Charlie go, in a sense, but I am despondent. I am afraid that we will have another five years and more of the same and I just can't help feeling like I'll be skeptical for the next three seasons until something's proven again.

Plus with all the wild speculation about Jimmy and Golden leaving, and knowing Crist isn't really going to be healthy until the start of next season, and wondering who the hell is going to coach our defense and with Mama Kyle departing.... It is time for a change but I am not necessarily glad and I am not necessarily confident that we will go where we want to go.

Swarbrick seems to know what he wants and he certainly acts like he knows what he's doing and there is every possibility that he looked at next year's schedule and said, "What the hell, why NOT Western Michigan?" because he knew he'd be getting a new head coach long before it seemed Charlie's time was truly up, and he thought he might as well pave an easy road for next year's newbie at the helm. I mean, I'd hate to think that's true, but also in a twisted way it would give me more respect for the whole BS Western Michigan decision if it WERE true. It's all useless speculation of course, and based on absolutely nothing...

Don't mind me, really; like I said, I'm despondent.

So. Just thought I'd drivel on with those thoughts for a while. I have some other things to say about the last two games, which I figure I'll cover some time between now and when we figure out whether or not we're going to a bowl game, and whether or not that bowl game is (most depressing of all possible outcomes) in Detroit. Hopefully the next time I blather on about ND football I'll have something more cohesive and useful to say. But for now, I'm just another member of the bleeding hearts club.

Which is unfortunate, because all season long here I was thinking that it was my spleen that wouldn't survive the season intact.

Oh, no. not again.

Pittsburgh 27, Notre Dame 22

"Curiously, the only thing that the bowl of petunias thought as it fell was, 'Oh no, not again.' Many have argued that if we knew why the bowl of petunias thought this, we should have a better understanding of the universe than we do now." --The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy


Bowl of Petunias

You can't deny it. That's EXACTLY what we are. We are like that bowl of petunias from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, watching our team plummet into the fourth quarter, trying to scrape together a win again and again and again. And on the sideline is the team, having a lot of thoughts just like the whale, trying to make things happen.

And sometimes the whale splashes into the sea and swims cheerfully off into next week's game.

And sometimes it slams head-first into the ground.

Either way, I can bet you the only thing the fans are thinking is, Oh no. Not again.

(If you have no idea what I'm talking about, just don't...don't even worry about it.)




I've calculated your chance of survival, but I don't think you'll like it.
--Marvin the Robot


So.......I think this quote pretty much sums up Charlie's job situation right now.

Which is too bad, really, because it's just another distraction the team / coaching staff DOESN'T need if they want to avoid another disgusting 6-6 end to a season.

Not that I'm suggesting we're going to lose to UConn. I'm just saying that the rest of the season looks pretty bleak when you consider that our offense didn't bother to show up for the first half of the last game, Michael Floyd still looks as rusty as an old man's pickup truck, and Stanford just scored more points against USC than ANY TEAM EVER.



Have I been to this planet before? ...I HAVE been here before!
--Ford

I think we've been on this planet all season long. This can't-get-it-done-til-the-

last-second planet. And, even then, we can only really accomplish the getting-it-together business against teams that aren't very good. You could make an argument for Boston College, I guess--but really, who wants to think about Boston College right now?

It's too bad our offense and defense can't show up for the same quarter. In the first half, that would've been...really helpful.

So. This is basically the same stuff we've seen all season long: 65% passing from Jimmy, 5.5 ypc for Armando Allen, 100+ yards receiving and 2 TDs for Golden Tate, and very little offensive production until the fourth quarter. The defense did enough to enable the offense to win. And this week, for the fourth time, we came up short.

At this point in the season, I'm gonna have to say: this is just the team we've got. I'm going to keep hoping for a really miraculous transformation in the sunshine in California, but...it's the end of the season. Everyone's got to be worn out by now, and I feel like all the major problems we have aren't things you can fix in a one- or two-week stint. When you don't show up for all four quarters of a football game...when your veteran O-line gets penalized week after week...when you can't buckle down and make things happen except in the clutch.... I don't know, maybe it's just me, but that sort of screams lack of discipline and fundamentals, doesn't it? And if they don't have those by now, it ain't gonna never happen.

Not this season anyway.


42 23
--The answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything

For the purposes of our team, the answer to the Ultimate Question is Golden Tate.

The kid absolutely will not quit, no matter what the odds. Not even when the Vogons have destroyed our planet and we've been tooling around the galaxy with the idiot who signed the orders.

Also, I'm pretty sure that pretty much every Irish fan in existence zapped Golden Tate with the Point of View gun, because general consensus before/during/after the game seemed to be that it had been way too freaking long since ND ran a punt back for a touchdown, and somebody needed to do something about it.

So thank YOU, Golden, for making it happen.



Infinite Improbability Drive

Odds Charlie will be back next season?

Odds the Irish will score 55 points against Stanford?

Odds Zach Frazer will show the Irish a thing or two about quarterbacking?


...............I don't even want to know.



I don't have a lot of words this week. At this point in the season, there's very little left to say.

Only two weeks of football left... I'm just taking it one day at a time. (Too bad there's no patch on the market for football withdrawal.)


GO IRISH BEAT HUSKIES!

.......................flatlined.

Navy 23, Notre Dame 21

Note: I am not nearly as rational and collected as this note makes me sound. If indeed it makes me sound like either of these things.






EXPLETIVE — EXPLETIVE — EXPLETIVE — irrational bout of self-loathing —

EXPLETIVE.





So, Irish fans, if you’re like me, you had yourself convinced that the spirit-crushing triple overtime debacle of 2007 was nothing more than a hideous byproduct of the tradition-shredding, nightmare-inducing 3-9 death spiral of horror, and that last year’s unnecessarily close game in Baltimore was proof that we would go right on beating Navy for another 43 years without a hiccup.

Guess what? We were wrong! Ha!

Apparently now this game is just like any other, and the biggest weapon we had going up against the Naval Academy—the solid and unwavering conviction that, no matter the odds, we were going to win and both squads knew it—is poof! Gone. Out of existence. No longer a factor. Navy knows it’s an even spread now.

But apparently the Irish didn’t.



FML. …..FML? FML.

Listed above are the three states of emotion I had from the end of the first quarter until the end of this game.

The first part of the first quarter was all roses and sunshine and feeling fluffy, bunny-shaped torrents of glee at the sight of Michael Floyd running around in full uniform catching the ball again. It was apparent even on the TV broadcast that all the Irish fans in the stadium were feeling giddy about this too, and were consequently way too distracted by endorphins to notice that the football game was going to shit until we reached halftime down 14-0.

Or perhaps until Nick Tausch missed that first field goal. That, too, was a pretty good indicator that whatever luck was hanging over the stadium on Saturday was not there to swing things our way.

I wasn’t miffed at Tausch for missing that first field goal. It was a long one, and at an angle.

The second one, though, was all in his head, and THAT was not okay.

It became even more not okay later when we were fighting for our lives in the fourth quarter, but then of course you can’t blame Nick Tausch for losing this game. Not...really.



For those of you NOT watching at home….

…allow me to give you a darling recap of the ENTIRE COMMENTARY OF THE GAME:

Announcer 1: Man, these Navy kids play so hard! Golly, they’re just so disciplined! They really just play harder than hard for this game! You’ve got to admire the way they play so hard!

Announcer 2: You know, I think it’s the way Navy plays hard that’s really impressive! I mean, just look at the size of these guys—they’re smaller than the Notre Dame guys! I mean, would you just look at this weight comparison chart? Gee whiz, I can’t get over how they weigh less than the Notre Dame guys! And yet they play so hard! They really make up for that weight difference by playing hard!!!

HALFTIME

Announcer 1: Let’s look at some statistics from the first half. Man, you know what, I just don’t think these numbers reflect how hard those Navy guys have been playing!

Announcer 2: No kidding! I mean, just look at their coach—he really gets them to play hard! I mean, Notre Dame, they’ve got some good players. That Jimmy kid, he’s a tough guy. But look how hard those Navy guys have been playing!!!!!!!!

Announcer 1: I KNOW! I don’t think anyone understands HOW HARD those Navy guys play!!!!!!!

(During a commercial break….)

Announcer 2: Do you think anyone’s noticed that we ran out of things to say about this game after the first quarter?

Announcer 1: No way! We’ve been commentating Notre Dame football forever. All we have to do is keep mentioning the past so people know that we know what we’re talking about.

Announcer 2: Good point! When we get back from commercial, let’s mention that 2007 overtime loss again!

So, you know, if you were actually AT the game and you thought it was bad…oh trust me, it was worse watching it at home. I mean, occasionally the commentators would spew out player names and tell you what down it was, but for the most part they were completely useless. I kept the game on mute for pretty much the entirety of the fourth quarter.



So WTF happened out there?

You know, after a lot of deep soul-searching and original, innovative thought, I have come to the conclusion that perhaps we didn’t play hard enough.

Or, perhaps, that the Navy guys played harder.

But that’s just idle, unfounded musings…pay no attention to the lightness of my thoughts or the glimmering postulations of my being.


I think, perhaps, what really sunk us was our (team’s) conviction that we were going to win. We were playing Navy, for goodness’ sake, and we’ve spent almost this entire season winning (or losing) games in the final minutes of the fourth quarter. I don’t think the team ever got worried enough, because I don’t think they truly believed they would fail to pull it out.

But Navy did.

Navy (I think) had two weeks to prepare for this game. Navy has seen us win games in the fourth quarter all season long. Navy knew what to prepare for.

And Navy won the last time they came to Notre Dame Stadium.

I think our pride worked against us, in the same way it worked against us in the USC game. Only for the USC game—we had two weeks to prepare, we respected our opponent more, and we put in the kind of effort to try to beat them that Navy put in to beat us. (Though you might argue that Navy played even harder.)

That’s really what I think it is—I think we came back from San Antonio and our arrogance bit us in the butt. Michael Floyd came off the bench and we convinced ourselves we would be unstoppable. Jimmy came out at the end and readied himself to play Superman again—the savior of the fourth-quarter deficit. But Navy was ready for us. Navy was not tired, Navy did not quit, and Navy’s secondary--somehow--made two of the best receivers in all of college football miss.

Sometimes it was pressure on the quarterback. There were a lot of tipped passes toward the end of the game. But mostly it was just good coverage—damn good coverage. The kind of coverage that usually Golden Tate and Michael Floyd are able to wrap their hands around and beat. But apparently not against Navy—not against a team that wanted this game so bad the announcers could talk about nothing else.

Make no mistake: our offense didn’t choke this one up. The Navy defense beat us.

They beat our receivers. They beat our O-line. They beat up on our quarterback so hard he lost the ball and a scoring chance and convinced most everyone that Evan Sharpley was going to have to try to win this game.

Which, if you remembered the last time Evan Sharpley started against Navy, did not exactly bring warm fuzzy feelings to the cockles of your frazzled heart.

I was also concerned about the play of Michael Floyd. Especially in the fourth quarter, Jimmy gravitated toward his favorite target, and Floyd did not quite come through in the clutch. Was it the defenders? Was it fear of ripping the ball down too hard and injuring his collarbone again? Or was his head just not all the way in the game because he’s been out for seven weeks, and he is—dare I say it—a little rusty?

That interception was just bizarre. What was Floyd doing on that play? It looked almost like he was trying to block the defender, as though it was some sort of run play or something—and then he couldn’t turn around fast enough to even see the ball that was flying in his direction, and it bounced off his back and a Navy guy caught it—and now Jimmy’s 3-for-3 on interceptions that weren’t his fault.

Those Navy guys swarmed to the ball like we did against Boston College. It was a little terrifying. And unexpected—we’ve been so good at ball control this season.

But once again, I maintain that we partially beat ourselves in this game by having too much faith in our ability to win in the clutch. We HAVE to start playing in the first and second quarters like we do in the fourth. Which is easy to say but harder to do, considering how much more tired the defenses are in the fourth quarter.

The Navy game is proof, just like the USC game was—you cannot count upon your ability to make it happen in the fourth quarter. You cannot. You have to play 100% of the football game—play like it’s the fourth quarter all the time.

Navy did. We didn’t.



The Red Zone is Not Our Friend

I think if Charlie calls a pitch play on a first-and-goal one more time I’m going to have a seizure. “Oh, sure, we’re two yards away from the endzone, let’s toss the ball BACK five yards, the defense won’t have any time to adjust to THAT before our player gets close to the goal line!”

………………………………………….ugh.

I don’t know what it is. I don’t know WHY our team can’t score from less than 20 yards out. It is not only pathetic but alarming.

Granted, in this game, especially toward the end, turnovers were our biggest obstacle to getting in the endzone.

But even so…it’s not as though it’s just this game, and just against this clawing, persistent Navy defense that we’ve failed to come through from scoring territory. It’s every game this season. It’s one thing to come away from a possession without scoring—it’s quite another to come away from the red zone five, six times a game with a field goal or less.

How consistent we are in this deficiency. Oh goody! Consistency!


Defense.

Struggled against the triple option, more than they did last year. Came through in the fourth quarter once again when our offense needed some desperate chances to score. Disappointed at that huge pass they gave up—but when a team is running and running and running the ball all game, how much can you really prepare for that? I mean, I guess you can cuss at our secondary if you like, seeing as we’ve been giving up deep balls all season long—but really, when you’re holding a team like Navy to three TDs in a game, and almost equal time of possession through the first half…

There were plenty of things I would have liked to see the defense do a little better, but really, against this style of offense, you’re going to be on your heels most of the time trying to figure out where the ball’s going. And the Navy quarterback played his system very well. The one thing I might’ve asked for more is a turnover. That’s what our offense really needed our defense to do—and granted, our defense is a lot better at interceptions than forced fumbles, and it’s hard to pop the ball out of the hands of the disciplined players you’ll find at the Naval Academy….but it would’ve been nice.

Even so, I don’t think our defense lost this game. I think the Navy defense won this game. Even though our offense (and our special teams with those onside kicks) tried really hard at the end to make the Navy D's effort fall short.



So…Pittsburgh next week

Let’s hope this week was a wake-up call. We’re going to have to play a little tougher and a little harder in every quarter from here on out if we have any hope of being the kind of team we want to be next year.

I don’t know how the Irish nation / the team is feeling in general after that game, but I maintain that the players have their standards set high for next season. And at the moment they’re slipping away from the pinnacle they’re trying to achieve. And I anticipate that the pollsters will rightly punish them for it, and that even a win against Pitt—unless it is a solid throwdown of a win—frankly isn’t going to help us much.

So unless we’re throwing up 40 points this week and we demolish UConn and Stanford, we can pretty much say good-bye to any bowl game higher than the Gator.

Although you never know. Those bowl scouts—they’re a funny bunch of squirrels, and they think mostly in profit margins. So if they think ND fans will come out in droves to see us play, for example, in the Cotton Bowl, we could easily end up in a place we don’t belong.

We could also easily start playing like it’s a place we DO belong, but after last weekend I’m a little too heartsore to be feeling very optimistic about our chances of winning the kind of bowl game that has any weight to it at all.

Lou always says “it’s a different team every week”—and we can assume the man knows what he’s talking about. So I expect this week’s team to be a far cry (in the RIGHT direction) from the team that just lost to Navy. (It’s like a twilight zone, typing those words, but I have to do it to convince myself that it’s not just a hallucination, and to adjust myself to the new paradigm of thought that must exist in order for Irish fans to accept that we are, in fact, now living in a world in which our football team may occasionally lose to Navy.)

Anyway. Looking ahead….

We’re going to get more chances to score against Pitt, because Pitt isn’t running the triple option and (hopefully) our run defense will be as staunch as it was against USC so that they can’t chew exorbitant amounts of time off the clock. We’re also going to play better against Pitt as a whole, because we just got smacked in the face by Navy. (Or, conversely, we’re going to play like hell against Pitt, but I personally have full confidence in this squad—unlike previous squads—to bounce the f*** back when they’re down.)

But I haven’t actually looked to see how good Pitt is compared to their ranking (#9? They're probably quite good), soooo…let’s just wait it out til Saturday night and see how this shit goes down.

GO IRISH BEAT PANTHERS!