John L. Smith may need to be checked into a mental institution fairly soon. He's losing it and his team is along with him. The one thing you don't want to do after losing a game like MSU lost last week is have the coach hold onto it. See how Weis handled the loss to USC last year. Smith is not only holding onto it, he's losing his mind over it. Who slaps themselves in a press conference? I hope Georgia Tech continues to play well and make us look good because I know MSU won't.
I have some general concerns about things but I'll reserve that for within the two sides of the ball conversations. In general, we are an average, or slightly above average, football team.
Offense
Brady had a pretty dang good game. However, this was primarily due to inferior competition. Yes, he had more time, yes we ran the ball better, yes, he looked better in his reads, yes, their defense had, at times, four freshmen in the defensive backfield. That said, when Brady has a little time he isn't worried about moving the pocket as much and he is able to deliver better. Not sure what he was thinking on that long lob to Rhema where the ball was in the air for an hour and half but other than that he looked pretty solid. He missed Samardzija on that deep route but it was as much Samardzija's fault as it was his. I'm still not confident in his accuracy. He seems to play well against inferior competition but not show up in really big games. Of course, he was phenomenal against USC last year but their defense wasn't that good. In my opinion, Troy Smith will likely win the Heisman because he has shown up in the big games even though Quinn will end up with some really good numbers.
Samardzija didn't have a great game but they were doubling him all over the field.
Brock Spack should be fired. After last year I'm sure he was scared about the deep ball and about containing a Weis' offense in general. But Weis loves to dictate the tempo of the game via his play calling and Spack did nothing to stop this. He didn't blitz until near the end of the game and that was when they began getting pressure on Brady. Rather, he took his terrifically young team and asked them to sit back, react, and play base defense against one of the better offensive football minds in the game. Good job Spack. As soon as Weis is allowed to dictate the play calling and get a defense on their heels he is much more effective. You have to fight his aggressiveness with aggressiveness of your own. I would have thought Georgia Tech and Michigan would have shown that. I guess Spack doesn't watch much film. And it isn't that Weis doesn't have answers for an aggressive defense. He certainly does, an excellent screen game being the primary one. But our offensive line can't block themselves much less our opponents.
Rhema had a good game and showed he can really break well on the out routes. That has, and will continue to become a big, clutch, 3rd down play for us. Look for Weis to break out the out and up at some point as well. It will be 3rd and somewhat short on their side of the field. Weis will know he's going for it on fourth when he calls the third down play and he will call the out and up to McKnight. Rhema will be so open he will walk into the end zone.
Darius looked good and showed excellent conditioning. He didn't have to work as hard for many of the gains this week because there were actually holes. I still think he is as invaluable without the ball as he is with it. On the reverse play in the opening drive he took the fake and danced to the right taking two people with him. He could have just loafed or run straight ahead but he took off to the right and faked out two defenders. I'm not saying either of them would have caught West but it was just an incredibly heady play.
And speaking of the reverse by West for the touchdown...that was one of two plays that were very important in this game. That play and the fake field goal were clutch plays for us not just because they scored touchdowns but also because they are the type of plays that stand out to someone watching film. Opponents are going to have to prepare for them in the future and that will cause hesitation any time West comes on the field and any time we kick a field goal.
John Sullivan had an excellent game. He got to the next level and laid some vicious hits on linebackers. He really played well and he was physical. We still need to become more physical up front, in general. Where are the good old days when we used to line up and run over people? Ryan Harris had a pretty good game as well.
No turnovers and good third down conversion percentage are the reasons we won the game. We also scored 4 out of the first 6 possessions (not counting the fake field goal) and to start both halves. That is more like last year. Taking the opening kickoff down and scoring does so much to demoralize a defense and gain confidence for your offense.
We absolutely owned the time of possession. You don't need a good defense if you have the ball the whole game...unless they give up touchdowns in three or four plays.
Munir looked really fast in limited duty. He will be better when the offense has more time to work with him and get him more reps. They are used to Darius who is a completely different runner and the timing will need to develop more. Be patient with this, I have a feeling he will be a dandy. I would still like to get the ball to him out in the flat and see what he can do with it.
Defense
How bad are we? I think we are actually worse than last year. I would have loved to have been in the Purdue offensive play calling booth Saturday. I think they put their playbook up on a dart board and started throwing because it didn't matter what they called, everything worked. They threw the ball 45+ times and we didn't sack Painter once or intercept a pass. This is a game I am not looking forward to next year.
Zibi doesn't look good tackling. Actually, we don't look good tackling as a team. This was a concern after Penn State and has magnified.
We missed Thomas out there. Brockington looked lost at times. I can't believe we can't recruit decent linebackers to the University of Notre Dame. Thanks Willingham et. al.
Walls got abused out there. He looked like Clifford Jefferson. Calling Ruben Mendoza...get Walls into the weight room.
We couldn't cover the short pass with bump and run and we couldn't get enough pressure on Painter when they tried to go deep. If their receivers don't drop balls we have a different ball game.
We have to generate more turnovers. In a game like this where we turn the ball over we are in trouble.
They had 6 plays for 230+ yards. That's just ridiculous. And we can't give up points with two minutes to go in the half, especially not a touchdown. Add to that three drives of like 80 yards and you aren't going to win many games playing like that. When you give them a long field you have to stop them. Make them work for it and eventually most teams will make a mistake on their own. When we are giving up tons of big yardage plays we aren't making them work for it very hard.
I sat all game trying to think about what we could do to improve and stop them. We couldn't stop the short passing game with bump and run, we couldn't get pressure on Painter after play action and the deep ball. We really didn't stop the run all that well. I was just trying to think what Minter could have done to slow them down. It seemed like we gave him a lot of looks but we didn't disguise it very well. I went back and watched a little of the MSU game. Same thing really, we did a lot of different things on defense but we didn't disguise it much. If the offense is mixing in the run, short passes, and deep passing game I feel like we should line up the same pretty much all the time and then change it up post snap to give the QB less time to read. I don't know if that would have made much difference but it seems like we tip our hand too much.
#1 should not have had the day he did. I'm not saying that because he wasn't open, can't catch, isn't fast, etc. I'm saying that because he isn't seasoned. He isn't a veteran player. We (read Zibi) should have let him come across the middle, catch the ball, and then knock the snot out of him. I guarantee he wouldn't have wanted to catch another ball over the middle again. He would be looking for him all day. Zibi really hit hard and tackled well during Georgia Tech and PSU but since then has whiffed a lot and not tackled particularly well.
Special Teams
I thought the one punt coverage we had were Bruton just drilled the returner with a perfectly timed hit was just great. Those are the types of plays that can swing momentum if you need it. Kickoff coverage was terrible. Punting was, as usual, excellent. Price is earning himself and NFL paycheck.
General Comments
I'm getting very concerned about Weis' attitude towards the defense. Between the OSU game last year (most yards ever against a ND defense) and the game against Purdue (most yards receiving by a single player against an ND defense) we are setting some pretty dubious records. He seems to give a lot of attention to the offense but not to the defense. I feel this will really show up in recruiting. On the one hand you can say, "Look, we aren't very good on defense, you can come in and play now." But on the other, how is a young man going to react to playing on a team where his unit seems to be an afterthought? It was even pointed out to me that he always uses the word "we" when speaking of the offense and "they" when speaking of the defense. I know he doesn't want to get into Minter's hair but I think he needs to take a more active role in the defensive side of the ball. Minter is losing his hair anyway.
Another growing concern is Weis' (and Minter's) apparent satisfaction with our defense taking away the one, or few, thing(s) another team does very well and not let that beat us. Weis' said it, against teams like MSU, unless they choose to have hapless coaching staffs, they will score a lot of points on us and continue to do it all game long. I know you can't ever shut down a team completely but you can't say I'm going to shut down Dorien Bryant and Kory Sheets and let #1 go wild on you. Last week it was MSU's running game when we were supposed to shut down Trannon and Stanton. I know part of that is not having the people he necessarily feels comfortable with in winning the one-on-one battles but get creative and get out of your comfort zone if you have to in order to not get killed by someone. I just feel like this is a message we are sending to our players to settle in only stopping one objective instead of really shutting down a team.
We need to get better on defense soon and I don't mean our starting 11. We lose a lot on both sides of the ball this next year and if we can't score a lot of points with a raw, inexperienced QB, our defense will have to keep us in games. I don't care how good Clausen is supposed to be. If you don't have a line that can protect him, someone to hand off to, and people to throw to, it won't be a fun season for the Irish.
I see this game as a loss as much as a win. The only reason they didn't score on any single possession was due to their own mistakes and not ours. We need to get our defense improved and in a hurry. We need to come out and dominate teams on both sides of the ball. The team that played yesterday would have gotten spanked by USC in the 14-21 point range. These next few games aren't as big of cakewalks as we think they are. I'm especially concerned with UCLA as they can toss the ball around pretty good.
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