Notre Dame 2009: A Look Back

The 2009 Notre Dame football season began with much excitement and lofty expectations. A perceived soft schedule and the best on-paper offense had most expecting a BCS run and 10 wins.

What unraveled as the season progressed was maybe on of the more depressing and confusing years of pigskin ever played in South Bend.

After a year of lost leads and disappointment in 2008, 2009 was believed to be a year of redemption. Junior quarterback Jimmy Clausen and junior WR Golden Tate were mentioned highly on preseason watch lists, the offensive line had a new coach and was thought to be much improved, and the defense was deeper and faster.

Coach Charlie Weis seemed certain to remain in his job for at least 2010.

The season started well in a blowout win versus Nevada, in which the Notre Dame offense met little resistance and the defense shut down a very potent rushing attack.

The win fueled hopes that the team had turned the corner finally, combining a potent offense with a stout defense. Hopes began to turn to belief.

The party only lasted one week, as the following Saturday, holes in the Irish armor began emerging.

Michigan's quick but impossibly slight freshman QB Tate Forcier exploited a weak Irish front seven all day, while turnovers and penalties coupled with some questionable clock management doomed the Irish.

The Irish offense came up one first down short of icing the game, throwing two incomplete passes in their final possession allowing Michigan to keep its time outs, which they used driving to the game-winning score with 11 seconds remaining.

The Michigan loss not only dispelled the myth of Irish defensive strength, but it also kicked off the season of the Cardiac Irish, who would find 10 of 12 games decided in the last minute.

Michigan State came to town riding a long and quite painful win streak over Notre Dame. It took a gift interception in the closing moments to prevent another Sparty win.

The Irish maintained a balanced offensive attack and moved the ball well, but lost game-breaking receiver Michael Floyd to injury right before the half and played much of the game with an injured Clausen.

The 2-1 Irish next traveled to Purdue. Sophomore QB Dayne Crist saw his first action in the second quarter, as Clausen was forced to leave the game after aggravating his injured toe. Golden Tate led a Wildcat-based attack that pushed the Irish out to a 17-7 lead late in the game.

Purdue sprang to life, finding large holes in the blitz-happy Irish defense and scored to take the lead 21-17 with just over two minutes remaining.

It what may be the highlight game of his Notre Dame career, Clausen emerged from the bench, and, on one foot, led a game-winning drive connecting with Kyle Rudolph with 24 seconds remaining.

The Washington Huskies, fresh off of an upset of USC were next on the roller coaster for the Irish. The game was billed as a matchup of Heisman contenders in junior QBs Jake Locker and Jimmy Clausen.

Notre Dame trailed at the half, following two odd turnovers by the Irish. The first was a backward pass that was returned for a score, then a pass to a wide-open Armando Allen skips off his shoulder and into the arms of a Husky linebacker.

The game was again a nail-biter that ended up being Charlie Weis' only OT victory as coach of the Irish.

After a much-needed bye week, and re-entering the top 25, Notre Dame hosted it's longtime rival USC.

The game began as many had feared, with USC dominating the Irish up front and controlling the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. The Trojans led 20-7 in the third quarter before the Notre Dame aerial attack found traction.

Clausen hit Golden Tate with one of the more perfect passes you'll ever see for a 45-yard touchdown (the first TD pass allowed by the Trojan D). But again USC took control and seemed to put the game away with a pair of punishing drives.

Down 34-14 with 12 minutes to play, Clausen perched the team on his back, connecting on big play after big play setting up another heart-stopping ending.

Rallying to within seven, again after absolutely horrific clock management wasting at least seven seconds the Irish' last gasp, a third-down throw from the five-yard line fell incomplete.

Clausen's rally ended just short and the Irish lost for the eighth-consecutive time to the Men of Troy, 34-27.

In what was perhaps the Irish's best overall game, Notre Dame followed the loss to USC by ending their losing streak to Boston College.

Notre Dame's come-from-behind game-winning TD pass came early in this one, and the defense had to hang on as Kyle McCarthy hauled in his second game-clinching INT of the season.

The Irish then held a "home" game against pitiful Washington State in San Antonio.

The game was over by the half, it probably was never as close as the 40-14 score indicates. The only noteworthy play was the fourth-quarter season-ending ACL tear to Dayne Crist, who threw his first career touchdown pass minutes earlier.

As if the injury to Crist was foreshadowing, nothing that happened over the Irish's last four games was in any way positive.

Inexplicably, Notre Dame made seven red-zone trips, racked up 512 total yards of offense, reeled off 32 first downs, and only scored 21 points.

The Irish defense's complete inability to stop the Naval Academy's triple option (or to recognize a play action) along with a Clausen fumble at the goal line, and an INT that bounced off of Michael Floyd's No. 3 at the three-yard line spelled doom for Notre Dame.

The game also highlighted a disturbing trend over the last five years, that Notre Dame often plays well below its potential and is regularly shoved around by much smaller teams.

Next on the docket for the Irish was not a smaller team by any stretch. The Pittsburgh Panthers are currently the only Irish opponent who remain ranked and, at the time, were 8-1 and in the top 10.

Were it not for an absolutely horrendous call overturning an obvious incomplete pass and creating a fumble, Notre Dame may have pulled off yet another last-minute rally.

As it was, despite a 19-point fourth quarter and another great showing by Notre Dame's dynamic duo of Clausen and Tate, the Irish dropped to 6-4.

Randy Edsall's Connecticut Huskies certainly had no pity for the Irish, still mourning the loss of one of its own. The Huskies' rushing attack and the Irish defense's continued inability to tackle a ball carrier or apply consistent pressure to a passer despite nearly constant blitzes wasted a terrific offensive game.

The Huskies never led until the first overtime, but held the Irish out of the end zone in the second OT period, winning the game an Andre Dixon TD run.

It was nearly a certainty following the third-consecutive loss that there would be a coaching change made following the season.

In what was Weis' last game, the Irish faced their strongest rushing opponent in Heisman runner-up Toby Gerhart.

Gerhart killed the Irish, racking up 206 yards and three touchdowns in leading the Cardinal to a 45-38 come-from-behind win over the Irish.

For Notre Dame, again wasted was a 23/30, 340 yard, 5 TD, 0 INT performance from Jimmy Clausen. Also lost was a game that Notre Dame led most of the way.

Stanford scored the game-winner with only a minute remaining, after drawing even at 38 only minutes before.

Quickly following the Stanford game, Charlie Weis was dismissed. The team voted to decline any bowl invitations, despite their eligibility. Clausen and Tate each announced that they will leave early and enter the NFL draft.

Brian Kelly was hired to replace Weis pretty much as soon as his Cincinnati Bearcats game against Pittsburgh ended.

In retrospect, the "cakewalk" schedule that was viewed at the outset of the season turned out to be a mirage.

In total, the Irish faced eight bowl teams. Three of the four non-bowl teams finished with 5-7 records. Only Washington State was truly awful.

Notre Dame saw 10 of its 12 games decided within the last minute, all by seven points or less.

Despite finishing with the same record as in 2008, the Irish were an improved team, most noticeably on offense.

Jimmy Clausen completed 68 percent of his passes for 3,722 yards and 28 touchdowns. Of his four interceptions, three bounced off of the intended receiver. He posted a second-best in DI FBS rating of 161.43.

Golden Tate was the receiver of the majority of Clausen's throws, hauling in 93 for 1,496 yards and 15 touchdowns. He also carried 25 times for 186 yards and two touchdowns, as well as returning a punt for a TD.

Tate won the Biletnikoff Award as the most-outstanding wide receiver, and was named as an All-American.

The rushing game was also much improved, with Armando Allen leading the way. Combined, the Irish rushed the ball 401 times for 1,539 yards and 13 touchdowns.

Returning for next season are most offensive weapons, the full stable of running backs, Kyle Rudolph, Michael Floyd, and a talented bunch of receivers, and three starting offensive linemen.

The problems and lingering questions for the Irish remain on the defensive side of the ball.

The defense had plagued the Irish for the entirety of the Weis era. Several coordinators and little speed, talented opponents often made short work of the ND front seven.

Manti Te'o proved to be a bright spot, but was too often making a play late that someone else should have made sooner.

Kapron Lewis-Moore is an emerging talent who should be watched as a high motor DE that could anchor the line.

Special teams are another area that Weis never truly grasped. The place kicking was drastically improved this year, but kick coverage was not. Returns were a problem all year, and returns for TDs contributed largely in losses to Michigan and Connecticut.

Charlie Weis was a brilliant offensive mind, and the offense at Notre Dame was as expected. Brilliant.

Head coach Weis failed in every other facet of the game. He brought talent to South Bend, but found little to do with that talent once it was enrolled.

The Irish never seemed to be emotionally ready and seemed to be unable to get "up" to face some teams.

Weis' firing was the only way this could have ended.

By any measure, the 2009 season could only be described as a failure.

For 2010, a new coach, new system, new attitude.

Hopefully, different results.