First of all, there is no excuse for losing 33-3 to any team on our schedule. Georgia Tech does not have more talent than we do on their team. That said, I don't believe the game was as bad as everyone in the media has portrayed it to be. Remember, you are never as good, or as bad, as it seems. I'm going to go over a litany of things here. I'll try and wrap some organization around it as it is mostly stream of consciousness.
Offense
The Good
Yes, believe it or not, there was good on offense Saturday. First of all I believe that George West had an excellent game. He did have the one drop I thought he could have made, and it did come at a critical time, but other than that Georgia Tech couldn't cover him...at all. Grimes had a similarly good game and Parris proved that he can really catch the ball, even in traffic. I thought if we could have protected our quarterback a little better we really could have exploited their secondary. We got a lot of separation from defenders on the plays where we tried to throw the ball. I thought the entire corps of receivers played well for the most part. Looks like Dave might have been correct when he said he thought this was going to be a surprise group.
I thought Armando Allen looked good in limited duty. He hits the hole so quickly the offensive line really doesn't have to block for very long. That is primarily why he had three plays for good, positive yardage. I also thought Aldridge looked good. He broke at least one tackle every time I saw him carry. The negative plays were results of him not having a bunch of room to operate.
Sam Young really had a good game from what I saw. There were several times where I saw him make an initial block then move on to the next level and make another block. He has the athleticism to really be good. The times where he didn't look so good I felt he was having to compensate for the interior lineman next to him.
I also thought Sharpley looked good when he was given time. He has surprising velocity on his throws and put the ball on the money, for the most part, when he wasn't pressured. Minus the miss to Grimes on the long ball I thought he was pretty accurate. Clausen also looked good while he was in there. He was easily the most composed of the quarterbacks. I thought it was an excellent testament to his experience as a quarterback when he slightly overthrew the long ball to Hord (which it looked like he slowed down running on) and it didn't even seem to phase him. I would caution to hold judgement a little bit on his performance in the Georgia Tech game because it was the second team defense and he was mostly given a good bit of time by our offensive line. But he does seem to be the most qualified for the position in terms of the intangibles. And he threw some nice balls in the game.
The Bad
There were (obviously) also some bad things on the offensive side of the ball. Travis Thomas didn't seem to play well. He seemed hesitant when given the ball, although he had little room to operate the times he did get it. The thing that surprised me the most about him was how poorly he played in pass protection. He wasn't physical and was pushed around a lot in the backfield by blitzing Georgia Tech defenders. We will desperately need better pass protection from him in the future.
Obviously the offensive line played poorly at times but Paul Duncan looked terrible. He was owned by Darrell Robertson most of the plays he went up against him. Sullivan didn't look particularly good either. Again, I think it may have been compensating for the youth around him but it showed up. I think a lot of the problems with our offensive line stems from a lack of experience playing with each other.
Demetrius looked bad. The package of plays for him were limited but I just felt like he was restricted by what he was doing. I really can't see him starting for us in the future. He may come in for spot duty or in special situations, but his throwing motion is so poor and he looks so uncomfortable that I don't believe he will be able to function in our offense. It really seemed that Weis has no confidence in his ability to throw the ball. And despite everyone's optimism about Clausen, he did seem to stare down every receiver he threw to and his play action skills were seriously suspect.
The Ugly
The offensive line play, as a whole, was poor. But what disturbed me even more than letting the occasional defender through untouched was the lack of physical play at the point of attack. We couldn't control the line of scrimmage and more often than not we were pushed back by their defensive line. Since we out-weight them by quite a considerable amount, there's really no excuse for that. It is mostly will on will and Georgia Tech seemed to want it more.
I don't think anyone realizes how much we missed Brady Quinn on Saturday. Yes, we gave up a lot of sacks and couldn't effectively run the ball (although the statistics are skewed due to the yards lost on sacks) on a consistent basis pointing to poor offensive line play. But it's more complicated than that. If you go back and look at the game there were multiple times where we ran a three step drop and the quarterback just didn't get rid of the ball. Result? Sack. On a three step drop our offensive line is taught to cut down the defensive linemen's legs so they can't get their hands up. If the quarterback doesn't get rid of the ball the defensive line has a free shot. There were multiple times when they sent more than we had to block, meaning someone has to be open, and our quarterback froze, unable or unwilling to release the ball. Brady would make defenses pay for that. Saturday, we didn't. I underestimated the importance of having an inexperienced quarterback and offensive line facing the type of defense they faced on Saturday.
Defense
The Good
Holding Georgia Tech to nine points with the type of field position they had through their first four possessions was a feat in and of itself. I thought we really played well in the first half minus the critical Justin Brown penalty that really changed the game. We likely would have been down 9-0 at halftime and it is a much different ballgame.
Tevor Laws was unblockable most of the game. Pat Kuntz also played surprisingly well. I thought, between those two, Kuntz caused some havoc in the center of the line and Laws really held his side of the line. I thought Vernaglia played pretty well. He was solid at the point of attack on most plays. He could still use some work getting off blocks but he played pretty well. Brockington also played decent and seems to be moving around better than he did last year.
I thought Bruton showed flashes of brilliance. He is very rangy, he moves well, and he reacts well. He doesn't have great change of direction so I think it's important to keep him in a defensive package that doesn't make him make too many reads, but overall I'd say he played well.
I also thought our corners played well. I only saw one time where a receiver was running free and, fortunately for us, Bennet overthrew him. Walls played more physical at times, but also got pushed a round a little. Both Walls and Lambert, as well as Wooden, covered well in one-on-one situations. Take this with a grain of salt, however, as Georgia Tech really didn't try to exploit the passing game much. They didn't have to.
I saw us get more pressure on the quarterback from the outside than we had in the past. We also did a better job of pressuring the quarterback when we blitzed. Finally, I thought we showed consistently good effort until the defense got tired. The offense didn't do much to help by way of time of possession, field position, etc. and it started to show more at the end of the game.
The Bad
We took ourselves out of position several times in this game. Since we played so much man-to-man defense on the outside our outside linebackers have to contain the outside running game. When we blitzed they went too far upfield, taking themselves out of the play. John Ryan was particularly guilty of this. We have to work better at playing outside-in defense and forcing the runners back to the middle of the field where our pursuit is.
The only exception I have to the good defensive line play of Laws and Kuntz is that we can't seem to get a consistent pressure in the middle. We also didn't move the offensive line back often, although the 3-4 is more about pursuit down the line of scrimmage than penetration beyond it. The side of our defensive line opposite Laws played poorly pretty much all day long.
I know I've been high on him but Toryan Smith had a very poor game. He reacted slow in addition to not being very fast. He also seemed to play timid when he needed to be physical which is supposed to be his strong suit. Crum also didn't play very well taking poor pursuit angles most of the day. It looks like he has lost a step with the weight gain.
While the corners played well in coverage, many times they didn't fight off their blocks in run support. Most of the outside runs Georgia Tech had featured their wide receivers effectively blocking our corners. Zibi also didn't particularly impress.
The Ugly
How can you not stop a direct snap to the running back? That play worked every time they ran it. It's the en vogue thing to do in college football right now, line up a running back as a quarterback and then run it with him, run a play action flanker sweep series, and occasionally throw the ball. Thank Malzham for that one. But what I don't understand is why you wouldn't make that running back throw the ball out of that formation to beat you. The purpose of doing it is to get another blocker in for the running game. How can we not know it's coming and stop it? That killed us. If you take those runs away it is a completely different game. Our inability to stop that play is a huge coaching and player error.
Special Teams
The Good
Allen looked like he is poised to break a kickoff if we can block it for him. Bruton, as usual, was very good on punt coverage. We made our only field goal attempt which is good considering it is supposed to be a weakness. We also kicked the ball pretty well on our kickoff's.
The Bad
Our punt return team couldn't block anyone. They gave Zibi no room and as good as he is on punt returns, we could have used the help in field position. Price looked mediocre at best on his punts. Our blocking on kickoff returns is horrendous and Golden Tate doesn't look like he's ready for the prime time quite yet.
Coaching
The Good
The only thing I can say that was good about our coaching is that our defense looked respectable in the early going. I think later in the game we took some chances to try and force a turnover and that resulted in some of the yardage we surrendered. Give Bill Lewis some credit as the secondary looked better than it has in the past few years.
The Bad
Obviously our execution was bad on offense. But most of the remaining comments I have fall into the "ugly" category.
The Ugly
Three points (Weis is averaging just over two points per quarter against Tenuta), nine sacks, the worst home opening loss in our illustrious football history, 122 yards of total offense, and 265 yards rushing for the opposing team are really unacceptable for this Notre Dame football team. This was not a talent gap, this was the result of a team that was unprepared on the offensive side of the football and whose psyche wasn't in the right place. Read on.
The one thing that baffled me more than anything else in this game can best be described by the following question: "How does a wildly successful offensive coach in both the NFL and college completely shelve the offense he knows best in order to learn something he's never coached before?" I don't understand the logic behind trying to run the spread option with Demetrius Jones. First, Weis knows very little about it. Second, it's only successful if you have a passing game and very mobile offensive lineman to accompany it. It is a very difficult blocking scheme to perfect. Third, it takes absolutely FORVER to practice and perfect the zone read. And fourth, Weis' current offense is so broad and complete it allows him to do just about everything you could ever want to do. It stretches the entire field, uses all the players, and really makes it tough for the defense to ignore any single type of offensive play. I'm completely baffled by this decision of Weis. It was as if Weis was using surprise as his ultimate, and only, weapon. That isn't going to cut it against a team of Georgia Tech's caliber. I understand Weis wasn't counting on the two fumbles by Jones but that is irrelevant. My point is that he could have spent all of the time in practice installing a new offense getting Sharpley a little more ready to make the reads needed to get rid of the ball. Maybe, just maybe, we wouldn't have had seven sacks while he was in the game. I don't even think we had a hot read package installed. I didn't see one receiver or tight end adjust their route the whole game. And it's likely that we didn't have it because we spent too much time installing the zone read package with Demetrius. Weis is notorious for being too "creative" with his play calling. It looks like this time he was too creative with his entire offensive scheme. To me this decision was inexcusably wrong and jeopardized future wins for this football team. Again, read on.
Now, I'm not trying to say there was no merit in his attempt(s) to try and run the ball. I just think it took too much time away in practice. This will likely set our offense back even more this year because we will have to play catch-up on the "regular" offense. Considerable amounts of practice time has been spent on new terminology, blocking schemes, formations, and play calling for this spread option offense. Furthermore, it seemed like this was just something Weis installed for just this game. That seems like a lot to do for only one game. Blocking the zone read is challenging for any offensive line, let alone one that is young and inexperienced. If you want to run the ball against a blitzing type of team you run it right at them. You cave one side of your offensive line down, you use your big, strong fullback to kick out the defensive end, and you use your big backs to physically punish the defense. That's as simple as it gets, it pits your talent on their talent, it cancels out all that blitzing, and you minimize your opportunity for turnovers. I didn't see us run one inside isolation play all day long. I just don't understand this coaching move at all. And on top of that, how can you not call a single screen pass against a defense sending seven or eight every play? Allen is a perfect screen back, get him in the open field with the ball.
I know Jimmy wasn't ready to play. I know Weis must not have had many options with Sharpley, but trying something completely new seemed to me to be a disaster waiting to happen. I know he wanted to do everything he could to win this one game but, as a coach, you have to look down the road and see what is going to happen in the future. Weis knows more about football than I but it seems like his arrogance clouded his judgement in this case. Weis claimed to always have the strategic X's and O's advantage, there seems to be evidence to the contrary.
What further troubles me is that Weis seems to be ineffective as a leader and motivator. This type of lopsided loss is an indication of a team being completely unprepared. We played largely uninspired football and were not at all ready for what was coming. The same thing happened against Michigan and Michigan State last year. I would stipulate that the LSU and USC games of last year were a little different, we kept it close in both contests early on and had our opportunities but it was such that the end result looked worse than it was. However, it has been three consecutive games that Weis has lost by 20 or more points. That isn't good and reeks of a lack of "nasty" play. This also adds fuel to the Willingham comparisons.
Going Forward
Here is my annual shot at the front office. If we had the last four games on our schedule as the first four, we would be in much better shape this season. It may mean the difference between winning 6/7 vs. 8/9 games. Georgia Tech isn't the type of opponent to warm up an inexperienced offensive line and quarterback. We could have worked out a lot of our kinks against more poorly coached and less talented teams. I've been saying that we shouldn't judge this season's success on wins and losses alone. Rather, it should be about how hard we play and how close the games are. I'm going to add one more. I'm going to add how much we improve as a team. The honeymoon is over for Weis. We have talent, it may be raw and inexperienced, but it is certainly there. There is no excuse for us to not improve every week and get better as a football team. If we don't improve the ability of our coaches' acumen has to be called into serious question.
Weis announced today that Clausen will be the starter for Penn State. He said Clausen was the best at the end of the Spring but that the injury kept him from being able to practice enough in the Fall to be ready for the first game against Georgia Tech. Weis said mentally he is ready to play but he just didn't have the health to practice consistently enough to prepare himself. It seems like Clausen will be the future of our football team at the quarterback position. I liked Clausen's play against Georgia Tech. I think he has the tools to become a great quarterback. But it will be a learning experience. He may be the right person to play but he will hit some bumps along the way. Don't expect him to be our savior coming out of the gate. We still need to run the ball effectively to take pressure off him, we need to give him relatively easy passes to build confidence, and we need to protect him as he is the least mobile of the three quarterbacks we have. Be patient with his development. I will also say this, we're going to find out tough Clausen is in a hurry.
Stay the course with this team. They are young. While I didn't feel we would play as poorly as we did against Georgia Tech, it's one game out of twelve (hopefully thirteen) games. But also be prepared for it to get worse. Georgia Tech isn't the best team we will face this season. They may turn out to be very good, but they aren't the best team we will play. The reason things turned out as badly as they did is because of the type of defense that they played. Granted, other teams may watch this film and try and do what Georgia Tech did, but they won't have defenses built the same way to be as effective doing it. I think while we will play better teams than Georgia Tech, we may match up better with them. Take that for what it is worth, but some outcomes may be less predictable than others.
