Boiled!

I really don't have much to say about this win over Purdue...

After some of the drubbings we took a few years back at the hands of Joe Tiller, I just can't get enough of watching the Irish beat the Boilers over and over again.

Like Weis, though, I'm pissed about the defensive breakdown at the end of the first half that led to the 80+ yard passing TD-- and meant we could only go into half-time with a two-touchdown lead.

42-14 just had such a ring to it..

But alas, I'll have to settle for 35-21... it's just not as impressive in the paper the next morning.

Well.. now my wife's a fan

ND 40
Michigan State 37

Please, guys.. let's not have many more like this one.
By the third quarter there were signs of life-- though I freely admit, I'm not able to recall anything more specific than that rough impression as the game wore on. For a while there, I was having to contemplate how I'd be spending the rest of the Fall weekends, since the Irish were sure to fall out of the Top 25 with this loss and there would be little hope of salvaging the season from this point on.

But ND managed to score just enough to keep it within two touchdowns.. and unlike Michigan last week, MSU didn't ever seem to have their hand on the 'Shut down' switch... and gradually, gradually, as the Irish went more and more with the No-Huddle (Weis to Brady-- "Hey Meat, Don't think, just throw!")-- belief started to creep in.

I can confirm this only because it was at about this time, with the Irish down by a couple of scores, that I went to my wife, who was sitting at the computer in the next room, and I apologized in advance for my behavior upcoming. I knew. Something momentous was going to happen. I could just feel it.

This isn't to say that my behavior throughout the previous three quarters had been exemplary. I was generally slouching and moping around the house during commercials, pacing the living room floor and muttering at Brady as he overthrew wide open receivers. Even Samarzidja could be seen shaking his head and smiling wryly as he looked at the bench-- "You expect me to catch this shit?"

But then, right when we needed them, came the turnovers.
First Ndukwe's beautiful rip-n-strip.
ND scores and now we're within a touchdown of taking the lead. With 5 minutes or so on the clock, there's still a world of time.
Hope is alive and well and by now my wife has entered the living room and is standing in front of the TV with me..
And then Terrail Lambert's shoe-string interception.. takes it to the house.. and now I'm on the floor, pounding the carpet with my fist-- and my wife is having to run upstairs because I think I just woke the kids.

She said: "This is why I hate sports."
I said: "This is why I love sports!"

Weis' Bowl of Cherries

Perhaps the hardest thing to think about while the game was falling to pieces yesterday was the affect that game could have on recruiting.. Who knows how the next batch of 17 year-olds could react to watching this prospective team go down in flames like that.. You can hardly imagine any way that even a master coach like Charlie Weis could turn a 47-21 drubbing into any kind of a positive sales pitch...

But this afternoon, I noticed this comment from Weis in his press conference... and I can almost believe that he could pull it off-- letting the boys see how you handle adversity, how you face it.

Q. You talked about how you have to think about what you're going to say to the team going into the locker room after the game. With a large number of recruits here, do you have to talk differently to them?

COACH WEIS: No, we don't let the recruits in the locker room until after we're done with our talk. We have a private locker room. There's very few people in this locker room now other than the team. The only three people other than the team are that allowed in there are the president, the AD and the associate AD, deputy AD, who football under his jurisdiction. Other than that, we have no one in there. There's no other people in that locker room.

When I talk to the team, I'm just talking to the team, okay? When I talk to the recruits, we had a bunch of recruits that we had a big dinner for last night, that was really a bowl of cherries having to do (laughter). I had to talk to them. I had to talk to all of them last night. I talked to them very matter?of?factly just like I'm talking to you. You can't hide the fact of what just happened. To be honest with you, having gone through appointments with a lot of these guys today, I was very encouraged at the positive response. They like the fact when you don't sugar coat it. You just be brutally honest with them.

On to next week..

A little tidbit from the Weis Press conference that makes me think Coach is planning to take out some frustration and get some back from Michigan State for their flag-planting at ND Stadium last year:

Q. You mentioned State a little bit. Do you use the struggles your team had the past few years with them or is this game all the motivation you need?

COACH WEIS: There's one incident in particular that I'll use as motivation.

47-21

As I mentioned, I was fearful going into that game.. but I had no idea just how fearful I should be.
We did manage to cover Breaston-- but apparently we couldn't cover Manningham, as well.

Samardzija was invisible behind double and triple-teams...
But as I feared, Brady had trouble hitting the open guys as well..
Had McKnight open on a go-route and over threw him.

I'm exhausted this morning.
I hate losing to Michigan!
I literally had to take a shower after that game, trying to wash it off of me..

At the Post-game press conference, Weis gave due credit to Carr and the Wolverines:
"it's really only right to give just due to your opponent who just kicked your butt."

And I don't think I'd want to be a member of that team right now. Asked if he's concerned about the secondary, Weis replied:
"I got concerns with everything right now... We have a lot of work ahead of us here in the next 48 hours."

The next 48 hours.
No taking the night off.. no rest or reflection..
Just get back to work..

Get ready to sweat, kids.

It's a landslide!

No question which is the real game of the week, despite ESPN's best attempts to promote the Auburn-LSU game.

Week 3: the Wolverines come to South Bend

The media has been all over this one this week. They're calling this 'Separation Saturday' over at ESPN. The Irish are back to #2, Michigan #11 in the AP. And Michigan hasn't won in South Bend since 1994... hasn't won a road-opener since 1999... and, as every pundit has been saying all week-- the Irish "just have too many weapons on offense."

Going into this game, I am primarily fearful of two things for the Irish:

1) Mike Hart. I think our DBs can cover Breaston. But I'm not so sure that our Linebackers can keep up with Hart.

2) Michigan's D, and Brady and the Amazing Floating Ball. Last week, especially in the first half, we still saw Brady throwing passes that just seemed to float on him.. over throwing open receivers (or not seeing them at all) and missing guys streaking across the back of the end-zone. Samardzija and McKnight can often go get the ball wherever it is (and now we've seen Carlson has some good hands as well).. but depending on what Michigan brings on Defense, I don't want to see Brady get rattled. He needs to settle in early and get confident, get his touch on the ball, whatever..

Go Irish!

For the Record: After Week 2

Real quick, the Irish rankings after the week 2 win over Penn State:

AP: #2 (up from #4) behind Ohio State
Coaches: #3 (up from #5) behind Ohio State and Southern Cal.

My 'As if Anyone's even reading this' Top 5:

1. Ohio State
2. Notre Dame
3. Auburn
4. USC
5. Alabama/Rutgers (tie)

Man, it's hard to find 5 teams that have played two decent opponents!

ND 41 PSU 17

Went to dinner with friends about midway through the third quarter with the score 34-3. Well in hand, so I don't feel so bad about heading for some dinner..

But from the bar TV in the restaurant, I spotted the final score: 41-17... and all I could think was "17?" I've got to hit the Tivo to see how those two Penn State touchdowns happened...

Quinn to Shark.. a little something for the ladies..

Another post from the Extra Point.. he's getting clips posted in-game...
This one of the Quinn to Samardzija touchdown at the back of the end-zone..

ND Alumni: Get ticket, will travel.

And they wonder why ND gets those invites to Bowl games..
the ExtraPoint (a swell little blog I just discovered this afternoon) makes a great point-- as highlighted by ESPN/ABC this morning..

It's simple-- ND/PSU tickets are going for more than #1OSU vs. #2Texas (both HUGE enrollment State schools) on the online-marketplaces..

ND/PSU: Notes from the first half

Okay.. like I said last year... I'm not a football expert.. I'm not going to try to be some kind of scout/pundit here.. but just a couple of notes and observations from my couch on the first half..

1. Nice new NBC intro.. FINALLY NBC incorporates some actual elements of the campus experience-- shots of campus, the band, etc. And they actually use the fight song! ND Nation has complained for years that NBC steadfastly refused to let you hear the band play the fight song as part of either the intro our outro of the game.

2. Brady still worries me with the way he's overthrowing some of these open receivers.

3. Got D? We do! You better look out!

Less than an hour to go...

JoePa

Okay, suspend the killer instinct for a second and read this.
The guys over at BlueGraySky got a really wonderful essay about Joe Paterno and the Nittany Lions from one of the Penn State bloggers. JoePa has always been one of the 'good guys' in college football-- humble and with a simple approach: go to class, get good grades, play good football. But this essay really puts the impression that he makes on that campus into perspective. Money paragraph:

Penn State University has played 1153 football games in its 120 year history. Joe Paterno has been an assistant coach or the head coach in 611 of them. That’s over half. Paterno owns 355 of the school’s 772 all time wins. Joe Paterno is the face of Penn State football and Penn State football is a reflection of Joe Paterno. Achieving longevity like that takes more than just winning games. It’s more than x’s and o’s. It’s about being part of the community. It’s about standing for principles and values that go beyond football. It’s about doing things the right way.

Remember the "Snow Bowl"

For the Record: After week 1

Since I usually have a hard time remembering how these things progressed after the season is over, I'm going to track ND's ranking (here's hoping they remain ranked all season!) week to week..

Going into Week 1, the Irish looked like this:

AP: #2
USA Today/Coaches: #3 (tied with Southern Cal)

with Ohio State the consensus #1.

Now, heading out of week 1, the Irish have, not unexpectedly, dropped:

AP: #4
Coaches: #5

A win followed by a drop in the polls is usually followed, itself, by a loud uproar from the fans of the descending team-- how can you drop a winning team, they howl.

No such uproar has been heard from the reputedly 'whiney', 'spoiled', 'unrealistic' (if you believe Mark May and others of his ilk on the sports page) Notre Dame Nation... I think we're all reasonably confident that, should ND win out the rest of the season, there will be no question where we should be placed in the polls.

So for now, we remain respectfully silent... and hopeful for next week's game against Penn State.

Enough of this nonsense..

The media is abuzz with chatter about the helmet-to-helmet call in the second half lastnight.

Ivan Maisel over at ESPN mentions "Even Charlie Weis thought it was a clean hit," and quotes Wheeler, the ferocious middle linebacker who put the lick on Quinn:

"I think the referee said it was an illegal hit but I didn't lead with my head," Wheeler said. "I do not think it should have been a penalty."

And in the Atlanta Constitution this morning, Yellow Jackets Head Coach Chan Gailey whined about sending a tape of the play to the conference office.. well, if this had been an ACC crew, that is:

The Jackets might have held Notre Dame to a single touchdown if not for a controversial personal-foul call against Wheeler for helmet-to-helmet contact. Gailey objected to the call during and after the game and stood by those objections on Sunday. If it were an ACC game, he could send a video of the play to coordinator of football officials Tommy Hunt, but it was a Big Ten crew so Gailey decided not to make any formal complaint.

"Because you know what's going to happen," he said. "It's going in the trash."

Chan Gailey, I have just three words for you: Send the tape!

Good flag.
Look, fellas.. this Big Ten officiating crew was hardly out to give the game to ND-- I'm still looking for this holding by Rhema McKnight that stalled ND's opening drive. And whether Wheeler meant to hit Quinn with his head or not, it was flagrant-- he put his helmet right on Brady's ear hole.. no doubt about it.

"It was a clean hit," Georgia Tech cornerback Kenny Scott said. "But that comes with the territory. These were Big 10 officials and we're playing Notre Dame."

Note to Kenny Scott: Notre Dame isn't in the Big Ten. In fact, the Big Ten kind of hates us.

So hey GT, go play your next game against, who? Samford? Then who is it? Troy State?
Best of luck with that Murderer's Row.

On to Penn State.
Go Irish!

Season 2, Game 1: Georgia Tech

Can't fully process what I saw last night, except to say that I'll be vacuuming up all the bitten fingernails off the floor today.

Quinn had Happy Feet the whole first half.. seemed to settle down in the second. He needs to be a lot more consistent throwing the ball if they're going to beat Penn State next week.
The Defense kept the Irish in the game-- how ironic considering all the negative publicity the Defense had been getting all off-season.
In the second half, the Offense finally seemed to get it's rhythm back, thanks entirely to Darius Walker.

Oh, and the hit of the night-- no it doesn't go to Zibby-- gotta give it to Ndukwe for this Td-saving (maybe game saving) hit on the very impressive Calvin Johnson in the first half:

Sure, Bo, sure...

Bo Schembechler says "ND needs Michigan more than Michigan needs ND."
And that's why he's been saying the Wolverines should stop playing the Irish.
Wouldnt' have anything to do with what we've done to the UM national championship hopes the last several years would it?