I love being wrong . . .

Wow. Who is this Irish team that we are watching, and where is the mediocre squad we've seen the past few months? Jimmy Clausen is playing the greatest game as a QB that I have ever seen - ever. 5 TDs and 87% completion, 400 yards, midway through the 3rd quarter?!? Wow.

Merry Christmas!

Somewhere Over the Rainbow . . .

For those that read this blog, you are familiar with my game "predictions". I predict the outcome of the game, and a few significant things that happened. Then I check my predictions after the game. More than just specific predictions, I try to really discuss what the story of the game will be. If I pick Jimmy to have a good game passing, or the Irish defense to have a field day. So when reading my specific predictions, enjoy them for what they are, which is mostly a "feel" for how the game will go for the Irish. Now onto my "predictions".

Tomorrow night, at 7pm central time on ESPN, America will be opening presents, at church, or watching the Irish play Hawaii in the Sheraton Hawaii bowl. The Irish have been in Honolulu since Friday, but there hasn't been much "buzz" coming stateside. For one, everyone is in the Christmas mood. Second, the real "bowls" don't start until New Years Eve.

What has been filtering back through the news wires is a sense of how BIG this game is for Hawaii. Numerous papers and persons are saying "this is the biggest game in Hawaii history, including last year's historic BCS Sugar Bowl appearance." Yikes, not good for the Irish. The Warriors are excited by two things about this game; first, the Irish are very beatable. I will not further dissect this. Second, the game is on prime time on ESPN, and more people will be watching this game than the Sugar Bowl last year (ie. Notre Dame is playing).

So when I tell you I am trying to predict how the game will go, the fact that this game has become the Super Bowl for Hawaii football certainly factors in.

• Prediction 1 - The Irish defense will play another solid "bend but not break" game, giving up 250 yards total offense and 24 points. Hawaii is not a great offense like recent years, as stated in my post just below with all of ND and Hawaii's stat rankings for the season (check it out). Hawaii's offensive average this season is 345 yards per game, so holding them to 250 is more than we should need.
  
• Prediction 2 - Maurice Crum goes out in style, with 1 fumble recovery and 1 big interception. Maurice Crum has been a 4 year starter and the heart and soul of this team. A two time captain, he wants to win his last game and end the 15 year bowl win draught.
  
• Prediction 3 - Jimmy Clausen has a solid day, but different than his other solid days. Early this season, Clausen was on fire. People forget how good he was. The problem was that he was reliant upon the deep pass, and had trouble with the intermediate pass. Late in the year, he couldn't hit the deep routes and his performance declined significantly. Look for Clausen to have a good game with checkdown WRs and lots of swing RB passes. A solid 289 yard, 2 TD and 1 INT effort.
  
• Prediction 4 - Special Teams touchdown early calms the Irish. Whether its a punt return or a kickoff return or a block, something will need to happen to settle the Irish down. I predict Golden Tate on a punt return midway through the 1st quarter.
  

Game prediction time -

ND 27 Hawaii 21

The Irish make 3 TDs and 2 field goals, holding off the late charging Warriors barely. Hawaii's kicker has had a worse year than ours, so missed field goals by Hawaii force Hawaii to have to go 80 yards for the game winning touchdown with a minute to go. The Irish hold the Warriors off, but they come very close to scoring. An exciting ending and fun game to watch.

Merry Christmas and GO IRISH!!!

Hawaii Six n Six

We're still here at VaticanSmoke. Not much news to report on during somewhat of a "dead period" for the football team. Today the team has finished finals and is heading to Hawaii, which should begin the flow of a bit more information. The Vegas line is still around Hawaii favored by 1 to 1.5 points. Can you blame them? Realistically, the Irish offense has not played consistently well enough to beat good teams since the first half of the North Carolina game.

I have seen a lot of message board postings and other musings over the past two weeks that have really explained the decision to keep Charlie Weis as coach. Everyone has an opinion - from ESPN to the guy at your water cooler. But the prevailing current that runs through the ND family of former players and educated fans is that keeping Charlie was the right decision. Charlie is a proven recruiter and next season will be the first where he has 4 full classes of his recruited depth. Keeping Charlie also avoids the reputation of being a "coaching guillotine", at least until next year. Stability is another by product of the decision - something Notre Dame football hasn't had in quite some time.

Despite the majority acceptance of the decision to keep Charlie, everyone agrees that 2009 will be "it" for Charlie. Sink or swim, Waterloo, and whatever other analogy - they all apply. Lucky for Charlie, he has a core of sophomores and juniors who will lead the team next year, with a full but average class of seniors sprinkled in. And oh yeah, another easy schedule.

Check back early next week for a Hawaii Bowl preview. As always, comments and discussion are appreciated.

PS. Follow VaticanSmoke via Twitter.com updates. Sign up at twitter.com and add "vaticansmoke" as a friend. Twitter is essentially "microblogging", or small text messages via the web or mobile phone that are quickly communicated to any number of your friends. I plan to "tweet" during the game next week, and over the weekend as any ND news becomes available.

Stat Talk

Yesterday I predicted the initial betters line between the Irish and the Hawaii Warriors to be ND favored by 3.5 points. Turns out I was off, as the Warriors are favored by 1.5 pts currently, although the line should be moving a bit in the early betting. I am no longer surprised at this line after I have looked at the season long stats. The stats below are the NCAA Div1A national rankings (out of 119 teams). Here we go . . . (check out the stats via this link if you cannot view the table in your email or reader):

Offenses: The offenses are eerily similar, with Hawaii and the Irish ranking 74th and 75th, respectively. Yes, Hawaii has played 13 games to ND's 12. But remember that these stats are averages, so I don't think that 1 game affects the stats very much. Both teams pass better than they run, and both teams are average in the passing game but decidedly weak in the running game. Scoring wise, Hawaii has been slightly more efficient with their yards gained this season. Turnover margin wise these teams are nearly identical as well. Advantage: PUSH


Defenses: The Irish have the better defense, albeit just by a small margin. Scoring defense and pass defense is where the Irish clearly outpace the Warriors. ND's defense has been efficient this year, a perfect bend but not break and opportunistic squad (at least early in the year). The solid defensive advantage in yards given up becomes a very slim one if you taken into account tackles for a loss. Hawaii is 19th in the country, compared to the woeful Irish ranking of 112th. A slight edge to the Irish. Advantage: IRISH.


The raw offensive and defensive stats may indicate that the Irish should be a slight favorite. But the following factors weigh heavily against the Irish in this matchup:

Hawaii Homefield Advantage - Hawaii was 5-2 at home this season, and the Hawaii bowl is played in their home stadium (Aloha Stadium).

Irish Road Performance - The Irish were 2-4 on the road this season, holding on to beat Navy and handling Washington. Against Michigan St, UNC, BC, and USC, the Irish had major issues all over the field, and typically looked lost (except for the 1st quarter of the UNC game).

Irish 2nd half performance - The Irish finished the 2nd half 2-4, only looking like the first half of the season Irish during portions of the Washington and Navy games. Losing 4 out of the last 5 games was particularly terrible.

Confidence factor - Right now, I cannot imagine that the Irish have any confidence. They ended the season on embarrassing performances, and surely realize that they nearly got their coach fired. How could they be confident right now?

All in all, I am not surprised Hawaii is favored. In fact, if we weren't Notre Dame, we'd be touchdown underdogs. Lucky for us, the Irish will have their best defensive and offensive players back on the field, when Freshmen WR Michael Floyd and Sophomore LB Brian Smith return (they each missed the Syracuse and USC games, and it showed). Personally, I think the warm weather and the almost firing of Charlie Weis will give this team a spark. How much of one is up in the air. But if I were setting a betting line for this game, I think Hawaii favored by 1.5 pts is fair based on what I have discussed here.


Certainly there are other factors weighing against or in favor of the Irish - would love to hear your thoughts via the comments section. And for anyone that doesn't think this game matters, check out my post from yesterday.

Hawaii Bound

The 6-6 Irish found out their bowl destination yesterday, as the school announced its acceptance of the Sheraton Hawaii Bowl bid. The (7-6) Hawaii Warriors await the Irish in their home stadium in Honolulu on Christmas Eve, 8pm eastern time. The bowl marks the third time the Irish have played U of Hawaii, both previous times ending in 1 point Irish victories (November 1991 and November 1997).

The odds makers have not come out with a line that I have seen yet, but I am going to predict the line will be the Irish favored by 3.5 points. Factor in the stats I will provide in my post tomorrow, and see what conclusion you come to.

While many fans are upset, angry, or apathetic about the Irish bowl bid, this game is far from irrelevant. The Notre Dame football program has failed to enter an off season with a bowl victory since 1994. I'm going to type that sentence once more time, so please read it out loud or whatever you need to do for it to sink in: The Notre Dame football program has failed to enter an off season with a bowl victory since 1994.

Had the Irish won some bowl games at the end of a few of the good seasons during that stretch, maybe the Irish program would have experienced more consistent success, with fewer ups and downs? The Irish had numerous goods seasons (2000, 2002, 2005, and 2006 come to mind) but got soundly beaten in bowl games to end each season, killing any momentum as the Irish head into a winter full of conditioning and hard workouts. I cannot think of a bigger motivational spark or confidence building tool than winning a bowl game - even a lesser bowl like the Hawaii bowl.

Lou Holtz used to say the phrase "WIN" - which stood for "What's important now". He used it often to keep his team focused and to motivate. "What's important now" for the Irish is to learn from the inconsistent and disappointing 2008 season, and then discard any mental or emotional baggage that may remain, allowing full focus on Hawaii and this bowl game. No matter how prideful or embarrassed you may be as a fan of the Irish right now, the only thing we can do about it is to win this bowl game - a road game against a quality opponent - breaking a 14 year bowl drought. Then maybe we can truly move forward out of the cesspool that was 2007 and 2008 Notre Dame football, towards a better future.

Party Cloudy

Although we won't know anything official until Monday, Notre Dame's bowl picture cleared up slightly based on the result of the Rutgers vs Louisville game last night.

With the Rutgers win, the Big East now has enough 7-5 teams to prevent the Sun Bowl from selecting Notre Dame. Notre Dame is considered as a member of the Big East pool for 2 bowl games - the Sun and Gator. Notre Dame can be selected by either bowl over any other Big East team UNLESS the Irish are 6-6 and a 7-5 Big East team is still available for a bowl. With Rutgers hitting 7-5 last night, Notre Dame now has no bowl tie-ins. The Irish can only go to a bowl game as an "at large" selection for a bowl game that cannot utilize their conference tie-ins.

Here are the bowls that will be unable to select teams based on their tie ins, each having at least one spot available "at large":

Hawaii Bowl (Dec 24th, Honolulu)

Poinsettia Bowl (Dec 23rd, San Francisco)

Motor City Bowl (Dec 26th, Detroit)

Independence Bowl (Dec 28th, Shreveport)

Texas Bowl (Dec 30th, Houston)

Should any or all of these bowls want Notre Dame, it will be totally up to Notre Dame to decide which offer to accept. From what I am hearing though, Notre Dame wants to avoid any bowl games that would affect exams or occur right around Christmas. [Remember, Notre Dame did not go to any bowl games from 1924 (Rose Bowl) until 1969 (Cotton Bowl), choosing to forgo bowl games and instead have students focus on their exams and the Christmas holidays.] That really only leaves two bowl options - the Independence and the Texas Bowl.

The Texas Bowl has already selected one team - the Rice Owls from Conference USA. As the Big 12 will not have enough eligible teams to fill the other side of the bowl slot (due to 2 teams being in the BCS), the Texas bowl has an at large spot and has been "actively recruiting" Notre Dame, according to the president of the Texas Bowl. Negatives: Playing Rice in Houston, playing a solid offense like Rice. Major downside is that this game will be shown on TV on NFL Network, which is not available to everyone. It will be Tuesday evening game as well, albeit the only college bowl game on at that time. Positives: Playing in an NFL Stadium (Reliant Stadium, home of the Houston Texans). Rice does not have a particularly strong defense.

The Independence Bowl is much more wide open. Since both the Big 12 and SEC will fail to provide a team through their tie ins (largely due to both conferences sending 2 teams to BCS bowls), the Independence Bowl has two spots available. One interesting note - last year the game featured Alabama versus Colorado. As to who the two teams will be, its anyone's guess. La Tech, Memphis, Notre Dame, Arkansas St., Western Michigan, and a few others. Negatives: Not a marquee opponent, Shreveport is pretty boring. Positives: A Sunday night ESPN game national spot, a winnable game, and its a relatively close drive for yours truly.

One major positive from either of these bowls is the opportunity to break the bowl game winning streak. But with an easier opponent than traditional Irish bowl matchup, the potential embarrassment factor also is in play.

If I had to predict the bowl destination, I would say 70% chance of the Texas Bowl against Rice, 30% chance of the Independence Bowl against La-Tech. I personally am rooting for the Independence Bowl due to location, but the Texas Bowl probably sounds like a better fit. Houston is a big Texas city that Notre Dame would like to recruit more in. The stadium is Super Bowl caliber NFL stadium. Rice is a solid and beatable team. Official destination will be known on Sunday at 4pm. More to come then . . .

To the Edge and Back Again

Sorry for not posting the past few days. I have been watching the whole media feeding frenzy after the USC loss, and really just waiting for something to write about. Certainly I could have posted about a number of things. Focusing on new coaching candidates could have been a post or two, but I wasn't sure Weis would be fired and I did not want to waste the energy. I could have done a post game wrap up after the USC game, but who wants to break down a 38-3 drubbing? And I doubt you'd care to read it.


Now that Notre Dame has officially come out and backed Charlie Weis publicly, we can end the confusion and actually put things into perspective.


Notre Dame football this season has put me through the gamut of emotions - first I was disappointed by the losses to Michigan St. and North Carolina, then outraged by the losses to Pitt and BC. Finally came apathy after the loss to Syracuse, and embarrassment after the drubbing by USC this past weekend. Somewhere in between was awe as to how we almost lost to Navy on 2 straight onsides kicks. The past few days have brought numerous feelings about Charlie Weis. It feels as if we fired him Saturday night or Sunday - and then rehired him on Tuesday night. Weird.


No matter what we have all felt the past few weeks and months, we are now left with a mediocre football team and a beleaguered coach that is likely on a very short leash. I will not waste any time outside of this post speculating as to whether keeping Charlie or firing Charlie was the right move. I honestly don't know the answer, as you can give compelling reasons for both. Since I am positive and looking forward, here are a few reasons why we should be glad the school kept Charlie:


Charlie is a great recruiter that has refueled the talent pipeline in South Bend. Davie and Willingham did not recruit nearly at the top 10 level Weis has, although on the field the results have not yet been different. His Super Bowl rings are still shiny to recruits and should be to us fans also.


Charlie desperately cares for this program, and is an Alumnus of ND. I realize that my devotion to ND football does not qualify me to be coach, but this characteristic cannot be overlooked.


Charlie has been humbled and walked to the edge of his career ledge - yet he's still around. Men have a strange way of sometimes taking these experiences and improving.


Charlie's presence will create some continuity for the Irish. 5 years for a head coach is really the best way to measure him, although 5 years is too long for most fans today. Charlie now has had time to develop all of his recruiting classes and allow guys to have lots of experience in his system.


Charlie is willing to change. He certainly is going to have to change a lot, especially on his coaching staff. Look for at least 3 coaches to be gone, likely the Offensive Coordinator Mike Haywood, Offensive Line coach John Latina, and Defensive Line coach Jappy Oliver. The most important position that has been underdeveloped has been offensive line, so we must get an offensive line coaching guru to ND at all costs.


Next year Charlie will have his full lineup of experienced Weis recruits. Lets give him the one and final shot to prove his worth.


No more Charlie job talk. In the coming posts we will focus on the bowl game, recruiting, grades for every position, and any other topic that presents itself on the road to improvement. We are not looking back with regret or emotion, but with a critical approach to get better. Negativity about the program or Weis will not live here.