Duds:Robby Parris: I've been a Parris fan all season long, but against Duke he was overshadowed by the performance of other players who stepped up at his position, going catchless with a few drops. The competition at the WR position will be something to pay attention to next game.
James Aldridge: I've been a huge fan of Weis' first prized recruit, but he has only been able to average over 4 yards a carry 3 times this season (5.1, 5.5, 4.4 yards against Michigan, MSU, and Air Force, respectively). I realize that Aldridge left the game early, but his mediocre production has given the other running backs on the team a chance for them to show what they can do during the games. I am obviously not including an injured player in the 'duds' column because he is injured, but because his injury just might lead to a position change at running back. The Stanford game could set the stage for a very competitive running back battle during the off season that I'll be looking forward too.
Every week I try my best to find players who sucked it up when we won (UCLA) and played well in a losing effort (see other 9 games), but for some reason, I struggled to do this with the Duke game. Even Aldridge and Parris played decently well, but the fact is that our defense looked very competent and our offense seemed to have a game plan for the first time all season. What's not to like about that?
Studs:
Robert Hughes: The first freshman to run for over 100 yards since Walker against Pittsburgh 3 years ago, Hughes showed some good potential in a great performance Saturday. Granted it was against Duke, but on senior day, a freshman was able to step up in a big way, earning some of the carries that Aldridge used to see.
Jimmy Clausen: Weis mentioned in a post game interview that Jimmy has benefited greatly from sitting out against USC and Navy, getting a chance to rest up a little bit and watch from the sidelines. Once again, his last two starts were against Air Force and Duke, but Notre Dame has been waiting all year for a quarterback that can move the ball without creating turnovers, and with 440 yards (50% completion rate), 6 touchdowns, and no interceptions in his last two starts, it seems that JC is starting to do just that.
Trevor Laws: Laws ended his final game in Notre Dame stadium with 7 tackles and a sack, continuing to make a case for being a first day draft choice. Hats off to him for playing solid game in and game out all year.
The Seniors: Everyone probably saw this one coming, but its still important to recognize the seniors for getting some playing time and making sure that they ended their final game in South Bend on a good note. This might just have been me, but I thought center Neal Kennedy looked good enough to get some snaps in earlier in the year...
As for the decision to play Zbikowski at quarterback, I'll say that Willingham probably wouldn't have played him like Weis did. Some might have viewed the move as disrespectful to Duke, but Zibby had been asking Weis for three seasons to get a chance to go under center. The fact that Weis didn't make any apologies for giving one of his most loyal seniors some requested playing time is one of the reasons that his players like playing for him. He knows how to reward good performance. Although after watching Zbikowski run the offense, I'm glad Weis chose not to put him in earlier in the season...
Go Irish! Beat Cardinal!
5 comments:
I would havev thought you would have included the two "dud" guards who went off side on 4th and 2 - just to use them a symbol for the continued lack of discipline regarding penalties.
On that subject, I would have rather included John Latina, but I thought I would be getting too repetitive. Isn't it obvious that Dan Wenger is a better fit at center, and Chris Stewart is better than Duncan? Hell, it took Stewart threatening to transfer in order to get him on the field, and look at the results. We need a coach that can:
1. Teach the big uglies how to run Weis' offense
2. Establish a more physical presence in the trenches
3. Can evaluate which players will fit best in the system and not wait half of the season to give them some playing time
Walker was a frosh 4 years ago. And the game he ran for over 100 was Michigan, right?
I was going by ESPN.com's write up of the game:
"Hughes became the first Irish freshman to run for 100 yards since Darius Walker ran for 112 against Pittsburgh on Nov. 13, 2004."
So at this point, I guess that it's basically 4 seasons ago, but I was going off of 2007-2004=3. Walker did not play in the game after Pitt that year (against #1 USC) and rushed for just over 40 yards in the bowl game against Oregon State (where now Browns superstar Derek Anderson lit us up for 350 yards and 4 TDs)to close out his freshman year.
Pops,
ya think we'll be ranked this week?
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