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.

Boston College Game Preview

IRISH @ Boston College - ESPN, 7pm CENTRAL time, Saturday night primetime

The 5-3 Irish and 5-3 Eagles face off in Boston in another big game for both team's bowl hopes. Games like this determine the difference between the Meineke Car Care Bowl and the Gator Bowl. ESPN HD will be televising, and I imagine the crew of Mike Patrick/Todd Blacklidge will be announcing the game, although I could not confirm. Now for what to watch for . . .

When Boston College has the ball . . . you might think this team is North Carolina. Their offense is very similar to the Tar Heels, in that the QB (Chris Crane) has more interceptions (12) than touchdowns (8), and their rushing offense is solid but not great. BC has the 82nd ranked offense in the country based on yards; 91st in passing yards, 59th in rushing yards (check out the cool NCAA statistics page that ranks every team in every category). The Eagles average 4.2 yards per carry for the season on the ground, but a very pedestrian 5.5 yards per pass attempt. While the offense as a whole looks like North Carolina, I don't believe BC has any gamebreakers on the offensive side of the ball like North Carolina did in Brandon Tate and Hakeem Nicks. The Irish defense ranks 50th against the run, 64th against the pass, and 38th in scoring defense. Bottom line - I do not expect BC to be able to get more than 24 points against the Irish, period. NC got only 21 points against the Irish defense, and I do not think BC can do any better. Look for the Irish to pressure Crane into some bad throws (which is always Tenuta's plan!).

When Notre Dame has the ball . . . you might see the same offense as in the North Carolina game - 5 wide, no running back, quick passes. Boston College has a very solid defensive line and linebacker corps, but is not as strong in the secondary. However, BC is still a top 18 ranked defense against the run and the pass, so its not like they are weak. This defense is not as opportunistic as the UNC defense is (UNC is ranked 6th in the nation in turnovers), and I think that will be the major difference between ND's offensive performance against UNC and the one to be displayed Saturday night at Chestnut Hill. Running the ball on Boston College, in my opinion, will only happen once we spread them out to defend the pass. I fully expect (and hope) the Irish come out 5 wide and let Jimmy get into a passing groove early. Then run some draws with Armando, as well as a healthy dose of swing passes. If the Irish try to run the ball early, I will be surprised and disappointed (unless it works!).

Prediction time. Check out my Pitt preview post grading below - even though I was way wrong on the score, my stat predictions were downright scary.

• Prediction 1 - Jimmy will pass for 245 yards, 3 touchdowns and 1 interception. A gritty performance in which the Irish get great field position and have some short fields.


• Prediction 2 - Chris Crane will account for 3 turnovers - either fumbles or INTs. One big defensive play in the 2nd half in favor of the Irish will be the difference.


• Prediction 3 - Golden Tate - house call. I am going to keep predicting this until it happens, and I started predicting this last week. I think his confidence is there, and its just going to take that perfect kick or punt that is bound to come soon. I say it happens early in the game tomorrow night.


• Prediction 4 - The Irish grind out a difficult but gutsy 115 yards rushing. BC doesn't give up much run yardage, so this will have been hard earned.

I think this game will go a long way towards determining how Irish fans will remember this season. A win over BC, and this season will be remembered as progress and growing, with a bright future. A loss to BC confuses Irish fans - and this confusion officially opens the debate on the question all Irish fans fear - Is Charlie the right coach? I guess we could lose to BC and then win out, including a bowl game - certainly that finish with conjure feelings that I liken with a victory over BC. But in reality, if the Irish lose to BC, they are not ready to be anything but 6-6 or 7-5.

Score prediction time. I think this game is going to be a good one, but one that is more about BC stumbles and Notre Dame capitalizing on easy chances than anything else.

IRISH 31 BC 24

(Record in games straight up picking the winner is 6-2. Record against the point spread is 5-3. I predicted wrongly that the Irish would beat North Carolina and Pitt, and I failed to pick the spread winner in the Mich St game, the Stanford game, and the Pitt game.)

Shaq Fu

This morning Notre Dame received another committ for its 2010 class in Shaquelle Evans, WR from Inglewood, California. The 6 ' 1" 203 pound wideout is a huge get for the Irish, especially since it marks another California recruiting victory head to head over USC. Evans was a former "soft verbal" of USC, until he took his official visit to Notre Dame and was blown away.

Here are the recruiting rankings and profile links on Evans - Scout.com ranks him a 4 star, and the #8 WR in the nation. Rivals.com ranks Evans as the #7 WR in the country, also a 4 star (rated #51 prospect overall). ESPN Recruiting ranks Evans as the #3 WR in the country, #21 prospect overall (note that the ESPN Recruiting link includes free video highlights - pretty cool). And for those of you that don't believe in recruiting rankings, the kid had offers from Oklahoma, USC, UCLA, Michigan, UNLV, Cal, Arizona, Arizona St, Oregon, Colorado, and Notre Dame. So obviously, there peoples that think this kid can play.

The more elite WR talent Charlie can collect, the more problems defenses will have against the Irish. Matchup up "Shaq's" talents with Michael Floyd and Golden Tate will cause stopping the Notre Dame offense to be as difficult as solving the Pythagorean theorem. Now for some Shaq quotes:

Lets hope Shaq can be half as good as the real Shaq. I am going to have a lot of fun with the name "Shaq" over the next four years.

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.

Change in Vatican Smoke Format

Here at Vatican Smoke, we have decided to change the format of the blog - specifically the focus. While the Vatican has many teams and opinions, we think that the blog being more focused on our core competancy - Notre Dame football - will allow for more in depth and meaningful discussion and analysis. The majority of the posts are already related most always to Notre Dame football, but now its official - Vatican Smoke is a Notre Dame football blog, first and foremost.



Your thoughts and comments are always appreciated.