Effect: The defense is a major point of concern. Yes, we let Navy dominate us on the ground and let them score 23 points. However, even with a shutout against Nevada, our team is giving up 29 points a game, so the Navy performance can almost be viewed more as a continuing trend than anything new.
Cause: Everyone knows by now that Weis is an offensive coach, but as a head coach, he still must be held accountable for the defense. The poor performance of the defense this season leads me to believe that A) Weis does not understand defense enough to be a head coach, or B) Weis has not done a good job of hiring and promoting his defensive coaching staff
Effect: With two All-American receivers and a (former) Heisman candidate quarterback, our offense was shut out in the first half and managed only 21 points.
Cause: I am actually going to give Charlie a pass here. His offensive game plan lit Navy up for over 500 total yards, and we gained as many first downs as we did against a hapless Washington State. The missed opportunities while going 2-6 inside the red zone seemed to be more the fault of the players than the coaching. Weis is a damn good offensive coach.
Verdict: Weis has three games left, and he must win out to keep his job. Our last win against a ranked opponent was in 2006 against Penn State, and we were favorites in that game. Losing to Pitt next week would cement the idea that Weis' teams cannot win against anyone ranked higher than them, which is unacceptable. Losing to UConn or Stanford (both of which are having good years) cements the idea that Weis' teams play down to (on paper) inferior opponents, which is unacceptable.
Now for what I'm sure everyone really came to read:
Duds
Excise Police: On a weekend where there is so many football related issues to talk about, I'm not going to spend too much time here, but the same week Notre Dame sponsored an event for off campus students to learn how to live safely in the dangerous city of South Bend, the Indiana State Excise Police broke up a party thrown by my friends only to ticket 2 younger siblings that were visiting for the weekend. Great use of resources.
Sergio Brown / Robert Blanton / Harrison Smith: Our defensive backfield has had issues all season, but this was one of the more frustrating performances. I'm not sure if Sergio took one step downfield to stop the run as he was content catching the fullback after ten yard gains instead of proactively trying to hit someone. Blanton's showboating after big plays is really starting to irritate me. Against Washington State, he was able to tip down the only deep ball thrown at him, but his celebration seemed unwarranted considering that a better ball would have resulted in an 80 yard touchdown. Similarly against Navy, RJ was heavily lobbying that the receiver should have been down at the 1 after he missed an assignment that resulted in a touchdown; just get off the field and get the next play right. This paragraph is getting kind of long so I'll let Brawling Hibernian comment on Smith.
Remember Washington?: This time Notre Dame was unable to get points in the red zone as missed field goals and turnovers inside the 20 negated an otherwise stellar performance by the offense. Credit Navy for standing strong when it counted, but one, if not both of our turnovers, were more mental errors than great plays by Navy, so this blame really goes on the players.Coaching: The offense was great, but the defense was hard to watch. We gave up 348 yards on the ground because our coaching staff was not able to make adjustments. Our DBs were not prepared to defend the one pass that hurt us. Most importantly though, is that down 2 touchdowns with 12 minutes to go in the game, our entire sideline looked like they would rather be sitting in an Accounting class. In the NFL, its hard to tell someone who's making millions of dollars a year to yell; in college ball, it should be easy, but yet not one of our coaches made an effort to motivate the sidelines during the game. Maybe the cliche of coming out flat was why we couldn't score in the first half or why we couldn't make stops when we needed to. To me, this is my single biggest knock on Charlie Weis' teams; it is too hard to get them excited unless the game is in its final minutes.
Studs
Clausen / Floyd: I have to put them in here for the stats. Jimmy ran off 452 passing yards and Floyd grabbed a game high 141 receiving yards to go along with his touchdown. Even though Floyd had a few big drops, you have to applaud the guy's ability to come back after an injury with such a big game. Jimmy almost found himself in the Duds column this week for his two turnovers and poor reads in the fourth quarter. This is probably overstepping my bounds as I don't know what was going on after Clausen's fumble, but I can tell you that it reinforced every negative stereotype about Clausen when he laid on the ground showing off his injury after the fumble.
Tate: 9 catches for 132 and a touchdown. Also made a great play on the onside kick to give us a chance to win. After Clausen missed on his fourth consecutive first down fade to Floyd in the fourth quarter, a student next to me lamented about Floyd's return, complaining that now less passes will get thrown to Golden.
David Ruffer: The kickoff specialist gave Notre Dame it's first touchback in a long time.
Bye Week: At least I didn't have to watch my Browns lose this weekend, too. If Notre Dame decides to cut ties with Charlie at the end of the year, the school might learn a lesson from the Browns, who have found a comfortable place in the cellar of the AFC North behind two former Belicheck coaches in Romeo Crennel and Eric Mangini (who we inexplicably hired after he was fired from the Jets). Our next coach should be proven, either with BCS appearances in college or with rings in the NFL. Notre Dame should be an attractive coaching job, and we need to stop trying to find the next breakout coach and make a hire with less risk.
That's it for the Duds and Studs segment. Go Irish! Get a freakin good win, please!
Photos from the AP.
4 comments:
The poor performance of the defense this season leads me to believe that A) Weis does not understand defense enough to be a head coach, or B) Weis has not done a good job of hiring and promoting his defensive coaching staff.
But, could it be C)poor D line performance?
I would say poor D line performance falls under the same category as poor defensive coaching staff, from fundamentals to schemes.
Unless, however, you want to make the argument that Weis has been unable to recruit good D line talent, which I think is also a factor.
No matter which way you slice it though, because the D line has (with the defensive secondary) consistently been weak this season, I still think it falls directly on Weis for being unable to correct it.
I guess what I mean is what if they just can't correct sub talent?
Who knows, the 2010 class looks awful strong on everyone but the D and O lines.
Big epiphany for me this weekend. Charlie can't win because he's a me guy. A group of individuals, even if physically superior, will be beaten by a team. Charlie is smart. He has assembled a good coaching staff. He has recruited well. He doesn't speak we he speaks me. I suspect ND will win, possibly big, this weekend as they close ranks around their coach. This just reinforces the point.
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