The haters are already out there. ESPN, Sports Illustrated, CBS sportsline and virtually every other internet sports publication has already started the Irish bashing. It's amazing how much people love to have on Brady Quinn and Notre Dame. Last night didn't prove anything the USC game didn't (I am not lumping Michigan in there because I don't think they are a better football team than us, we gave that game away). We cannot make mistakes and win against a quality opponent (like LSU) and we made plenty of them. I don't understand how our football team can be so dramatically different this year from last in terms of how we play in big games seeing how we are basically the same team. And I really don't understand how a team like Ole Miss can push LSU to the brink of defeat and we can't. It just goes to show you, as this bowl season proved, anyone can beat anyone on any given day. It also goes to show you that every team we play gets up to play us. We always get their best because everyone loves to hate us. Amazing, we aren't tooting our horn, the media does. But as soon as we are over-rated it is our self-righteous NBC football wielding contract arrogant attitude that is to blame. I'm sure every school in college football wouldn't jump at a television contract if they could get it. Right.
A few things I learned this bowl season. Les Miles isn't good on the camera. He was given a plethora of opportunities last night when prompted with questions and didn't once deliver anything resembling intelligent dialogue. The same can be said for his players. We also learned that Fox can't cover college football games. The commentary, setup, and even sound was terrible. You can't take guys that follow NFL football all year, thrust them into the bowl game, and expect good results. It just won't work. Mike Bobo is going to be one heck of a good offensive coordinator down in Georgia. Don't ever, ever bet against Pete Carroll in games following a bye week or bowl games. Even though USC (particularly Dwayne Jarrett) has no class, the guy is just too good. Additionally, Dwayne Jarrett can taunt his opposition but Jeff Samardzija can't. I don't know if I would call what he did taunting but I certainly would what Jarrett did. The Statue of Liberty play call in the Boise State game was a thing of beauty. Congrats to the media dubbed "BCS spoilers."
If you told me that Darius had 100+ yards rushing and we had a 2:1 time of possession advantage at halftime I would have told you we would win the game. I thought the longer we kept it close, the better chance we had of winning. Keeping their defense on the field for 19+ minutes and posting nearly 250 yards of first half offense were really good signs. I don't know about the fake punt, we might as well have just handed them seven points. But if it works, Weis is a genius. Unfortunately, it didn't, in the second half the roles reversed. They were on the field almost the whole half and we managed a paltry amount of yardage.
Brady had arguably his worst game of the past two years. He didn't look like the Brady I've seen in the past. His throws were errant and he didn't have a lot of touch on many of his throws. He looked over-hyped. It's tough to be in his position against a team like LSU with a defense like they have but he had time and a running game and he didn't execute. I think he hurt his draft stock because the knock on him is that he can't win big games. I guess people forget about the USC game last year when he outplayed everyone's favorite poster boy Matt Leinart. People must also forget that Peyton Manning never beat Florida. However, real or perceived, last night did nothing to change people's opinions. He did manage to show his footwork again, Brady isn't slow. But we just can't win when we don't capitalize on turnovers, don't catch passes we should on third down, and don't hit open receivers. Throwing off your back foot into the flat on inside man coverage isn't necessarily a good idea either.
I thought the offensive line played a pretty dang good game. They controlled the line of scrimmage and Carlson did an excellent job sealing on the outside. I thought they were going to be the deciding factor in this game and they held up their end of the bargain. I was really impressed with how well they played. Unfortunately, we have a secondary that couldn't cover themselves let alone the other team.
Darius had a good game running, catching, and pass protecting. He looked a step faster last night. He really is invaluable in our offensive scheme. I typically hate the way he runs the ball, last night was the exception.
David Grimes had the game of his life. It wasn't just the amazing catch for the touchdown. He was blocking down field all game long. Weis was using wide receiver crack blocks to seal the inside and Grimes took on quite a few linebackers with success.
I'm kind of surprised that we didn't use Carlson more in the passing game. I didn't play that close of attention but I guess he just didn't get open.
I don't know how we can be so bad in the defensive backfield. Last night it looked like we had four Clifford Jefferson's out there. Can we just not recruit someone who can cover, anyone, someone? I wish my name was Jimbo Fisher because our defense made him look like a genius. It didn't matter what play LSU called, it worked. I don't know if JaMarcus Russell is that good because he didn't have to make a tough throw all night. I thought we would play a lot of zone and try and give them everything underneath but we tried to mix it up a lot and confuse Russell. It didn't work.
Their offensive line owned our front seven. Our defensive line played their worst game in recent memory and our linebackers were swallowed up by the offensive line and tight ends. We couldn't stop anything and really failed to get much pressure on Russell. Even when we blitzed we didn't get there.
I don't think there was one person on defense that had a good game. I will say this though, we played hard. We may not have played well but we were hitting and playing hard. Duke and Richardson played particularly hard.
The one bright spot all night (as far as tackling goes) was David Bruton. That kid is great on special teams kickoff and punt coverage. Other than that, we didn't have a big play in the special teams game. We had plenty of opportunities on kickoff returns but didn't take advantage on any. The failed fake punt was a disaster.
To say I'm disappointed in how the game turned out would be an understatement. However, I took friendly advice and played it out on my newly acquired XBox 360. Final score, ND 52, LSU 24. That's right, I ran it up.
And to close out...temporarily, a nice article on Tressel here. Thank Kinder. Nota bene that Tressel promises greatness in the classroom. I guess the 34% African American football player graduation rate and largest disparity between white and black graduation rates among all bowl bound teams is considered "great" to The Ohio State University. It's a pity they make so much money on these kids without preparing them for the real world.
I kind of got to thinking about a few more things and had some dialogue that prompted me to want to write more.
First, it is laughable that LSU suspended a few of their players for a couple of quarters. Jimmy Johnson said it before the game and he was dead on: "Oh come on Tim [Brown], this is LSU not Notre Dame, these guys will be in after the first series." Weis told our players if any player violated a curfew or broke a team rule they would be sent home. What a joke of an effort at discipline it was.
Second, it was pointed out to me (thank McColgan) that our secondary is really sort of victimized by self-fulfilling prophecies. They've heard over and over again how slow they are and how they always give up the big play. This just feeds off itself. Other teams see and hear this and keep testing us deep more and more. If the percentage of big passing plays given up by our defensive secondary (vs. the number attempted) was examined and compared to other teams I'm not sure there would be grossly large disparity. Teams just go deep on us far more often than "normal." This will continue until we prove we can stop it or until we are able to consistently get pressure on the opposing QB. To me we weren't visibly slower than them last night, we were just greatly out of position on many occasions. It's tough when we have three converted wide outs playing in our secondary.
I don't anticipate this problem getting any better soon. A lot of people are calling for Minter's head but I'm not convinced that is the problem. I feel that Weis knows how to come up with a defensive gameplan. If you know offense you know defense and I'm sure he "checks" the game plan going in. I think the talent gap is more severe than I believe, more serious than I anticipated, and a larger contribution to our defensive performance than I have previously acknowledged. We have more highly regarded talent coming in and Weis has said the first few classes have to be loaded with difference makers while the subsequent ones can have fewer. He's right, we need to have a depth of talent to push people for playing time and be able to play multiple persons at the same position to keep people fresh during the game.
Finally, our wide receiver play this year, at times, was poor relative to last year. While Carlson surpassed Fasano in his play, Samardzija wasn't the same receiver and McKnight dropped far too many balls, many of them in clutch situations. We only played three wide receivers this year (with any consequence) which goes to show you that we don't have the talent behind them to push them to play better or to take their place.
The bad news about our current state of football affairs is that Weis can't seem to (read hasn't yet) beat a top tier team and people are slowing us down on offense. Usually the second year is a good indication of the future for a coach. In this case, let's hope that is the exception rather than the rule because I am certainly not satisfied with our performance this year. The good news is that Weis seems to understand this. He knows we don't have the talent to play with the big boys but he isn't going to say that, isn't going to stop trying to win every game, and isn't going to not support his players in every way possible.
Keep the faith and continue support and let's ride it out.
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