One Bright Spot from Saturday

Saturday's defeat to the hated Trojans highlighted a number of the problems which have plagued the Irish this season. I usually blame poor tackling as the number 1 cause in my book. The defense stopped playing two-hand touch and played a decent game (one John Ryan even had a sack). I still need to watch the replay of the game on Universal HD sometime this week, but at the game it just seemed that the defense schemes on important plays (short yardage/3rd down) were just wrong. The guys on the field played their hearts out and came through again when necessary against a very talented team. But I feel that when a coach is known to use his tight ends vertically down the field in short yardage situations, the play should not be to leave them uncovered. All and all the team played whard, finally got a due turnover, and had multiple chances to send the game into overtime. There is nothing to hang our heads about that, and it was one of the more memorable games in my 4 years.


The Charlie's Nasties' recruiting desk correspondant known as "The Franz" first allerted me Friday that the speedy recruit Tai-ler Jones would be attending the game against USC, and was having doubts about his verbal comit to Stanford. Sure enough with a good performance Saturday from Weis's offense, and a fantastic stadium atmosphere during the game, the WR Jones changed his comittment to Notre Dame. This is an awesome pick-up for the Irish since his speed and elusiveness will complement well the other playmakers in the WR core, and it comes at the loss for his hometown Florida Gators, and the rising Stanford. Mark my words, Jim Harbaugh is going to build a very competitive program in the next few years, and the Cardinal will/won't be a pushover game.

And how much better did the student's section look this week with everyone just wearing green. Pick your favorite green t-shirt and wear it, and wow, it looks better than just about anything we've thrown out there in a while. Who knew that any real shade of green (not the 2007 shirt) would look better than a pasty/sandy gold shirt?