3 Plays

Poor coaching of the fundamentals rarely changes "next year" when players have more experience, or more big time recruits fill the roster. These 3 plays from the Syracuse game in particular convict Weis and his staff of something I am not sure he can repair or change - the inability to teach fundamental football skills to young players.


Play 1 - 1st quarter, 3rd down and 4, third play of the game. Irish try to convert a third and medium with a pass from the shotgun.





The middle linebacker blitzes and hits Clausen completely untouched. Actually, there was not even an attempt to touch him. Inexplicably, left guard Eric Olsen does not even look the potential blitzer, instead helping out Turkovich, the left tackle. Errors like this typically occur when an offensive lineman has to choose between two blitzers to block, not whether to block anyone at all. This mental error for a junior this late in the year falls on the coaching staff, period. I hold Olsen accountable, but ultimately the teacher should be good enough to guide a pupil away from such simple yet potentially disasterous mistakes like this one. Weis is GUILTY AS CHARGED.


Play 2 - 1st Quarter, 4th and 2, in Syracuse territory. The Irish go for it with a goalline formation running play.





Its not a bad move to go for it, considering how long the field goal try may have been. But when the offensive line misses assignments (who is #67 attempting to block?) or just getting blown up (can I help you up off the ground former 5 star recruit #74 Sam Young?), there is just FAIL written all over the offensive line play and the playcall. Even if the aforementioned players make their blocks, the safeties would have likely snuffed the play out for a 1 yard gain, at best. Either the players are poorly coached and do not have the mental and physical tools to execute the play, or Weis should have known better and passed the ball. Either way, Weis is GUILTY AS CHARGED.


Play 3 - The first defensive play after play #2 above. Syracuse goes for the jugular after their big defensive stop.





Syracuse uses the running back in the shotgun, fakes a handoff, and then throws a pass downfield. I realize these plays can be difficult to defend. A good coaching staff realizes that a "nothing to lose" Syracuse will try to improve its longshot status of winning this game via trick plays or big shots down the field. What better time to try a big play than after your defense just made a momentum grabbing stop? Football people know that gaining a large chunk of yards or scoring a touchdown right after your defense gets a turnover can multiply the momentum just gained tenfold. No one knows this as well as Charlie, who routinely calls a play action downfield pass on the first play after a big interception by the Irish. If a coach had simply mentioned, "Watch the big trick play or deep pass", I would imagine the defense would have been defended this play. The Irisih defense was completely unprepared and this play should have been an easy touchdown for Syracuse. Weis is GUITLY AS CHARGED.


I realize that there are numerous other good examples of plays from the game that I likely missed. I also realize that players don't always play like they are coached. But at some point, we have to realize that good teams like Florida, Oklahoma, and Alabama don't have many plays like this. Bad teams do. And when Notre Dame is considered "bad", someone has to be held accountable.

We are what we are . . .

We are a 6-5 football team that just got beat by 2-8 Syracuse.

We are a mediocre football team.

We are a team that played one of the easier BCS team schedules in the country.

We are a program that can and will be successful again.

We are, possibly, going to be looking for a new coach in 7 days time.

Saturday was a difficult loss, no doubt. But it was the easiest loss for me to swallow this year actually. I became "numb" right before halftime when I realized that we still had not scored a touchdown against the lowly Orange. I told myself that getting upset would do no good, and prepared myself for the worst. Things looked better in the second half, but the moment that the Irish settled for a field goal instead of a touchdown, starting on offense after a fumble on the 4 yard line, I knew that what a 13 point lead could mean - a 1 point loss. Via this whole process, I had shut down my emotions and prepped my psyche for a loss. I recommend this to any of you that have emotional issues when the Irish lose.

I am not going to waste (much) time telling you about how we outgained another opponent on offense, yet did not win the game. I am not going to tell you about the solid game Jimmy Clausen had, throwing for 291 yards, 2 touchdowns, and no interceptions. Nor am I going to mention how we lost the 2nd game this season in which we had zero turnovers. Whoops I just mentioned all of that. And the NCAA really needs to clarify the "toe then heel" catch rule, confusion over which has burned the Irish for the 2nd straight week.

Those of you that read this blog know that we are very pro-Charlie and have defended Coach throughout this entire season. The mainstays of the Charlie-defense have been the promise of incoming and developing talent, as well as how most of the Irish losses this season were games which the Irish should have won. Right now, none of those defenses catch any ears or have any credibility.

Don't waste your time defending Charlie any longer. Instead of defending him and pointing to the future, it is time that Charlie measures up in the only category that matters - Wins. At this point, Charlie is pretty much unable to impress me via the recruiting rankings, stat lines, depth charts, almost wins, moral victories, or quarterback play. We all want Notre Dame back to where she should be - top 10 every year, a team feared far and wide. If Charlie cannot do better than this, its time to move on and find someone else who can.

Many of you like my "predictions" so here is another one for you: If the Irish fail to cover the 29 point spread against USC this Saturday, Charlie Weis will be unemployed 7 days from right now.

All Hands on Deck

It has taken 48 hours for my heart to return to a normal rhythm after the near disaster Saturday in Baltimore. After controlling the game and dominating for 55 minutes, the Irish - including many walk ons and second teamers who played most of the last 5 minutes - had a sloppy finish that almost cost them the game. Most of you watched the ending, so I will not recount what happened. In short - the Irish 2nd team offense fumbled on the goal line, which then prompted a long Navy touchdown, followed by 2 on side kick recoveries and a touchdown sandwiched in between. Navy had the ball with a minute to go and a chance to score a game winning touchdown, but thankfully failed.

This game is your perfect "glass half full or half empty" or "Jekyl and Hyde" or whatever other cliche you wish to describe contrasting good and bad performance by the Irish. Here is your bullet style attack from the Vatican:

Good Irish . . .

• Irish rushing attack racked up 230 yards against a solid Navy rush defense (previously 30th nationally, giving up an average of 116 yards per game). I realize this was Navy and this should happen, but it was nice to see the Irish pound Navy with success throughout the game (and outrush the #2 rushing attack in the country). All 4 Irish backs had their moments, as James Aldridge, Robert Hughes, Armando Allen, and even freshman Jonas Gray all got in the action. A solid effort by the backs and especially the offensive line. Hopefully this will build confidence in the rushing game.



• 2nd Half Offensive Adjustments - A credit to Weis and his playcalling for simplifying the 2nd half gameplan, using only swing passes, screen passes, and the running game. Why throw forward passes when Navy's defensive backs were giving a 10 yard cushion, their safeties playing deep zone coverage, and the linebackers played the short zone? Navy was doing what most teams have done against the Irish in the 2nd half of the season - make them win via the short stuff, not the quick strike deep passes that the Irish feasted on against early opponents. Take what they give you, and don't try to force passes into triple zone coverage (Ahem, Jimmy).



• Irish defense held Navy to 120 yards less than their rushing average. Other than the 2nd teamers in the last few minutes, the Irish defense once again had a fantastic effort, forcing Navy to punt 8 times. Navy's option attack never got going in the game, despite what the score may indicate. The Irish held Navy to 7 points through 58 minutes, and even some late fluke touchdowns cannot erase the efforts of the Irish defense. Kudos.



• Irish Punt teams - The Irish blocked a punt early and scored a touchdown when Mike Anello broke through the line and made the block. This was clearly the play of the 1st half, and a play that let ND take a sigh of relief while the offense wasn't yet clicking. On the 3 punts that the Irish made to the Middies, Navy only was able to return 1 of them for a loss of 1 yard. A solid day's work on both sides of the punt coverage.

Bad Irish . . .

• 5 Turnovers - Nothing more needs to be said. 2 interceptions, 3 fumbles, versus only 1 Navy turnover. For the season on the road, the Irish turnover margin is something like 20 to 1. I am pretty sure the road game turnover margin was 15-0 against the Irish when the game began, but no matter what the specifics, its a sad picture. You simply cannot turn the ball over that many times on the road and win football games. The Irish better get this part together, otherwise USC will beat us by 50.



• Clausen's passing performance - awful. He continues to throw passes into the zone coverage most teams are playing against the Irish. Defenses know that ND's best attack has been the deep pass, and so defending this pass has been priority #1 the past few weeks as Pitt, BC, and Navy have all displayed a similar strategy. When there are 7 men in zone pass coverage, there are only going to be so many holes. Clausen must take what the defense gives him - even if he is throwing the short swing passes to Armando on every play. The only way to get the defense out of those coverages is to beat them to death on the short passes and the running game. Take the 5 yards per pass and move on, and stop forcing passes into triple coverage.



• Brian Smith and Michael Floyd injuries - Unfortunately, two of our brightest young stars will be out up to 4 weeks, missing the Syracuse and USC games. Both were taken out early in the Navy game, both with knee strains. Navy likes to chop block and they did this on Smith, while Floyd was the victim of someone falling on his knee. Its going to be that much more difficult to have a respectable showing at USC with these guys out.



• Hands team is fired. The two onside kicks that Navy recovered were awful displays of how to attempt to receive an onsides kick. The unit looked tenative, scared, and worst of all, very poorly coached. The front line of a hands team always blocks the oncoming kicking team, while the 2nd line gets the ball. ND's front line stood there, not blocking or grabbing the ball, and the result was a Naval assault that Douglas MacArthur would have been proud of. On the very first Navy onside kick, Irish hands teamer Robby Parrish batted the ball out of bounds. He smiled and was excited - clearly not knowing he had committed a penalty of "batting". The fact that the hands team did not know about this rule was evidence to poor coaching for this extremely important play. This may be the only time this season where the Irish need to use their hands team, and it was almost a fatal performance.

As for my 4 game predictions, 3 of them were decently close while 1 was way off. Clausen did not pass for 250 yards and 2 touchdowns, but less than half of that plus 2 interceptions. The Irish defense and rushing attack both did significantly better than I expected, a great performance for each. I picked the score to be 31-21 Irish, and I was just 4 points total off the exact score. Certainly I didn't expect Navy to score 14 points in 30 seconds late in the game, but the prediction was close. My season prediction record in Irish games is 7-3 straight up, 6-4 when predicting who covers the point spread.

This week the Irish need to get healthy, and pound hapless Syracuse this weekend. Playing well against USC is priority #1b right now, even with beating Syracuse this week being at the forefront. Hopefully the Irish can start gameplanning now for the USC game, without short changing the Syracuse game preparation.

Who is the real Fredo?

The Irish fell to the Eagles for the 6th straight time, almost completely erasing a chance at an 8-4 record for the Irish this season. BC needed to do very little to win the game, simply letting the Irish self destruct in the 17-0 rout. BC scored 3 times, all 3 aided by Irish turnovers (7 points on a interception returned for a TD, 7 points after a blocked punt in BC territory, and 3 points after another interception). You can review the game stats and recap here.


I won't spend much time on my predictions, which you can view in the recap below. I predicted Jimmy would throw 3 TDs and 1 INT, and I was grossly wrong. Jimmy's 4 interceptions was a career high, and was easily the story of the game. The Irish passing attack got some yards, but the turnovers negated it all. There are no excuses, not even the fact that Jimmy was bedridden Friday evening with the flu. Stat of the day - The Irish outgained the Eagles by 50 yards, marking the 3rd loss out of 4 this season in which the Irish have outgained the opponent.


Numerous thoughts come to mind 36 hours after this loss - is Charlie the right guy to be coach for the Irish? How can the offense, with such talent and early season success, completely self destruct and lay a goose egg? Why does this team look mentally unprepared for each big game they play? How in the world has Charlie Weis and Irish lost to the last 15 opponents they have played with a winning record?


At this point, we can focus on the bad news or the good. The bad news is that the Irish have not proven anything to anyone, or earned any respect outside of recruiting rankings. The bad news is that the Irish offense got shut out by a team that had given up an average of 34 points in its last 3 games. But, the good news is that there are 3 more football games left to improve, including 1 against an arch rival USC. The Irish defense - more good news. They continue to keep every game winnable and in fact did much better than that against BC, holding them to 245 yards total offense. Another piece of good news is that the Irish will likely have a chance to break the 15 year bowl curse on the program. Winning a bowl game would remove an awful statistic too often referenced, as well as usher the Irish into the offseason with a winning feeling unlike any of the past 14 seasons.


As disgusted as many of you are, ask yourself this: at the beginning of this season - or more directly, at the end of last season - would you have accepted a 7-5 season and a bowl win? As prideful as we Notre Dame fans are, I think the answer for most is yes. Certainly it cannot be classified as a great season, but simply a required stepping stone on the trail from 3-9 to National title contender.



Of course, 7-5 means beating Navy and Syracuse. Navy is once again good (6-3, beat Wake Forest earlier this year) and will certainly pound the Irish if they do not recover. The fact that Navy has a winning record will allow the Irish a chance at breaking the 15 straight losses to teams with winning records. It's all about ending bad streaks and creating positive ones.

The 5 Most Important Plays of the Pitt Game

I hate rehashing losses, especially ones that were easily preventable. These 5 plays are, in my mind, the 5 chances the Irish had to win the game. There was some football to be played after most of these plays, but the chances of an Irish victory would have drastically changed at a minimum, with Pittsburgh likely having no chance or too little time to recover.

(If you subscribe through email, you may not see clips in your email. Go to VaticanSmoke to view the 5 very short clips).

The 5 plays that would have won the game for the Irish if any had gone differently - with #1 being the 1 play I would change if I could:

Play 5 - The Irish have the ball on our own 45, with 50 seconds and three timeouts remaining. Its 4th and 1, and the Irish use their first timeout to stop the clock. The Irish come set after the timeout, and then have to call another timeout. Credit to Clausen for calling the 2nd timeout, as he obviously saw something that was going to bust the first play up. But the two timeouts in a row were embarassing. So then the Irish go for broke in a typical Weis move, attempting a play action pass to win the game. But after the two timeouts, Pitt was ready and almost no linebackers bit on the play action. If the Irish convert, we still had 1 timeout, and likely could have advanced the ball within range of a Brandon Walker field goal attempt. Who knows if he would have made it, but the chance would have been nice.


Play 4 - 2nd & Goal from the 3 yardline in 1st OT. Quite simply, the Irish have two chances from the 3 yardline to score and win the game. Pitt has already had the ball and kicked a field goal. Two chances, no score. On the 2nd play, notice how the Tight End on the bottom of the screen - #9 Kyle Rudolph, true freshman - gets abused by the defensive end, busting up the play. I bet Jimmy finds #18 Duval Kamara on the top slot position for a TD if Rudolph makes any type of block.


Play 3 - Jimmy's overthrow to Michael Floyd in the 2nd OT. Nothing much to be said - Jimmy overthrew a wide open WR for a sure TD. Score a TD here, and the Irish have a great chance to stop Pitt. Who knows what would have happened, but it would have been nice to see if Pitt could have scored a defense that knew it already had scored a TD.


Play 2 - David Bruton almost intercepted an errant Pitt pass in the 3rd OT. This one might be a stretch, but I thought Bruton had a chance to intercept this pass. It would have been a fantastic play, and likely the Irish would have had a good chance for a game winning field goal.


Play 1 - Pittsburgh has the ball, 4th and 5, on the Irish 10 yard line, with 2:25 to go in the game. The Irish stop this pass, then Pitt only has 1 timeout, and the Irish would be able to run nearly all the time off the clock. Game is over if this pass is better defended, and the game never goes to OT. The coverage wasn't bad, but it wasn't good enough by Rashon McNeil.


Coulda, woulda, shoulda. The only value in watching these 5 plays is that we see how close the Irish were to winning this football game. Maybe you can do this with any loss, and a few plays is all that separates the winner from loser in most games.

Losing is never acceptable. In the context of last season, there is some value in that we are competing. I expect the Irish to break through and win one of these close ones this season. Experiencing success in a close game is the next step for this team. Learning from missed chances is one way to be ready for the next opportunity to take the step.

Tree Removal

A great win by the Irish over the Cardinal, 28-21. The game was actually not as close as the score indicated, largely due to the mishaps in the Irish kicking game. Brandon Walker missed from 40, 42, and then in the 2nd to last play of the game, the Irish chose not to kick a 30 yard field goal, opting to go for it on 4th down instead.

The story of the game is the rapid and astonishing development of Jimmy Clausen. Hyperbole and exaggeration have not been uncommon to Clausen, a high school phenom that came with much hype when he entered college. The hype is starting to make sense, as Clausen has thrown for 600 yards and 6 TDs against no INTs in his last two games. 350 yards and 3 TD performance against Stanford was a clinic, hitting check down RBs and later going deep, with some rockets over the middle to the Tight End. This kid is not going to be good, he is good. At this pace, every Irish QB record (I'm looking at you Brady) will be broken. Now if we can just get a running game . . .

Our friend Chris Marinelli, from the post below, had a tough game, as the Irish "200 blitzes with 1 sack" defense that he predicted would be "mashed", got to the Stanford QB for 3 interceptions, a fumble recovery, and 5 sacks. 5 sacks, a number worth repeating. Tough day for this loose mouthed offensive lineman that apparently was an Irish hopeful in high school, yet did not receive a scholarship offer. Good luck the rest of the season.

The defense again played well enough to win, holding every opponent this season to under 24 points. The defensive pressure didn't yield sacks until this game, but there is no doubt that teams are passing the ball a bit earlier than they would like against the Irish, taking many 3 step drops. The rushing defense is still sub par though, and eventually this will catch up with the Irish. Lets hope not.

A recap of this game cannot be complete without mention of the classless and temper-tantrum prone coach, Jim Harbough. This classless guy says that he "wears his emotions on his sleeve", which I guess means that he acts like a baby and a moron, but uses his emotions as his excuse. After the game, Clausen walked up to Harbough and extended his hand saying "Good game coach", in front of numerous reporters. Harbough just kept walking, even when Jimmy then exclaimed, "Coach - are you just gonna walk away from me like that?". Harbough later said he didn't see Clausen, to which Clausen responded, "Uh, yeh. Right", smiling.

Stanford and ND are more alike than I would like to admit, but it feels good to have another victory over them. A good developing rivalry here as Stanford continues to improve. Now, here are some YouTube highlights of the game. Enjoy

Irish 38 Purdue 21

The Notre Dame defense continues to play plenty good enough to win, now giving up only 18.5 pts per game through 4 games. The offense finally clicked, with 3 TDs and 275 yards from Jimmy, and 200 yards rushing. Easily, the best game since 2006, maybe 2005. Hard to believe, but still the more true. Here are some highlights via YouTube. Enjoy

ND vs San Diego St. - Recap

ND - 21 San Diego St 13

Game recap here

The initial impression that many have today is one of disgust or "here we go again" after watching the Irish yesterday. As ugly as it was, a win is a win. Last year's team would not have won that football game late like the Irish did yesterday. Much more can be learned after an ugly win than what could have been learned after a loss that likely would have been the beginning of the end of the Weis era. Now to address my specific game predictions from my Friday post, as well as to assess grades for the 4 areas of grading (Passing Offense, Rushing Offense, Defense, Special Teams), here we go:

• Rushing Game I predicted 10 carries at least each for Armando Allen, James Aldridge, and Robert Hughes. In addition, I predicted 300 yards rushing and 4 TDs on the ground. Wow. The rushing total finished at 105 yards, including zero rushing TDs. Allen had 17 carries, Hughes had 16, and Aldridge had none. I love giving all the carries to the more talented sophomores than the older, slower Jr James Aldridge. But where were the big 300 pound uglies that we heard about all off season? The run blocking was just plain bad for 90% of the rushing attempts. This must be fixed, because passing won't come as easy on other teams. Grade: C-
• Passing Game I predicted Jimmy Clausen would finish with 2 touchdowns, 1 interception, and pass for 225 yards. Jimmy surpassed all expectations, especially late in the 4th quarter, throwing 3 touchdowns and 237 yards, against 2 interceptions. It should be noted that the two interceptions were likely both Kamara's fault, one hitting him in the face mask and another ball thrown his way that he wasn't even looking for. Jimmy's touchdown passes were beautiful, well thrown passes. He finished the game 10 out of his last 11, allowing the Irish to complete the comback with a victory. Pass blocking, unlike last year, was superb. Zero sacks for Jimmy Clausen, and only 1 hurry. This after giving up 58 sacks in 2007. Grade: A
• Defense Predicted 3 turnovers, 4 sacks, and 2 celebration penalties. The Irish defense got 2 turnovers, 1 INT and 1 Fumble. Overall, I thought the defense played fair. They definitely blitzed a whole helluva lot, which is encouraging to see. It's apparent though that our defensive line will not be able to get pressure by itself, so blitzing and leaving short passing routes open for the opponent - which San Diego St used all day long - will be a common situation our defense creates. The defense only got 1 sack, despite all the blitzes. We must get more pressure on the quarterback, while figuring out a way to better stop the short and intermediary passing routes. Our safeties and deep pass coverage was a plus. And hey, we only gave up 13 points and 345 yards of total offense, so I can't complain too bad. But San Diego State's ball controlling and short passing game was definitely a cause for concern. Grade: B-
• Special Teams A complete abortion on the kicking game. Numerous bad snaps by Freshman Braxton Cave, in addition to a field goal attempt that was not unlike a Chinese fire drill. We did partially block a punt, and had good coverage on our punts and kickoffs. Some decent punt returns by Armando Allen as well. But our inability to lineup and kick a field goal, with even extra points not even close to certain, this was a huge disappointment. Grade: D

A win is a win, but we all know the Irish will have to play better to beat any of our later opponents on the schedule. This win does put us on a 3 game winning streak. We'll see how much longer it can last when the Wolverines come to town next weekend. They have plenty of talent, but luckily haven't totally put it together yet either. More on that game later in the week.