The clock clicked to zero and the players on the field began to jog into the locker room. It was halftime and Notre Dame was beating up on North Carolina. The score was 17-9 and by that alone, you couldn’t tell that the Irish were playing some of the best football I’d seen all season.
The Notre Dame defense held the North Carolina offense to three field goals and the Irish offense was moving the ball fairly well against a stout Tar Heel defense.
I was too comfortable.
I had come to expect such production out of such a young team for, as the previous two weeks indicated, the Irish were fairly explosive on offense.
However, I knew they had a tendency to implode and let a turnover or a mental error snowball into nearly costing them a couple of games. Which is why, when Charlie Weis was leaving the field he said to a reporter that they needed to come out in the second half and get an early score, I leaned over to my wife and said, “They’re going to have to protect the ball.”
Such prophetic words had never been spoken.
With that, the Irish came out in the second half and proceeded to neatly wrap the game and give the Tar Heels an early Christmas present. This single interaction between my wife and I is what personified entire afternoon for Notre Dame.
On Saturday, Notre Dame was their own worst enemy. When they had a big play on offense, they negated the play with a penalty or a turnover. When they stopped a run on defense, they allowed the Tar Heel wide receivers to reach the first down marker—one step forward, two steps back.
Sure North Carolina is a decent team, but the Irish had the ‘Heels on their heels (pun intended) going into the half.
What the Irish couldn’t do for Stanford one week earlier, they managed to do for North Carolina.
The Good
Receivers are Getting Separation
If there’s one thing that has been fairly constant throughout this entire season, it’s that the receivers are clearly the strength of this offense. They were arguably the second weakest part of the offense last season, second only to the offensive line.
However, with the emergence of young talent like Mike Floyd and Golden Tate, the entire corps has become very reliable. Additionally, they seem to be the one unit on offense that is committing the least amount of mental errors. Sure, some routes haven’t been run correctly, and that botched lateral by Mike Floyd at the end of regulation cost us the game, but they are one of the most consistent parts of the entire team.
Not only that, but the receivers are getting a decent amount of separation against their defenders. The only reason that Golden Tate is able to perform fade routes so well is his speed, and he uses it well to get separation from opposing cornerbacks.
Mike Floyd is one of the most nimble freshman receivers to come to Notre Dame that I have seen. . He reminds me of Maurice Stovall or Derek Mays, but with a bit more muscle.
He is a freshman and already, he is able to contort his body, stop and start quickly, or turn on a dime in order to catch the football. It’s amazing what these two will be able to do for this offense when Tate is a senior and Floyd is a junior.
7 comments Last one added 8 months ago — Leave a Comment
Lisa Horne 8 months ago
Nice job on analysis. The biggest weakness is your strength, however; your safeties. If your safeties are the leading tacklers, then that is a huge red flag. It means one of two things:
1- The running backs are getting past the line and box and the safeties have to make the game-saving tackles.
2- Everyone is passing on the Irish because they know where the chink in the armor is.
Either way, it's not good.
But keep the faith...you're on a bye, which is a good time to rally the troops.
Golden Tate is unreal....I love that kid. Best player on that team, with Kuntz a close second.
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Jon Hunn 8 months ago
I'm not sure if it's as big of a red flag as some might assume.
With Tenuta's offense, the defensive line holds the line of scrimmage which allows some linebackers and safeties to make all the tackles or sacks. Notre Dame is always blitzing some safeties or linebackers, so I'm not all that concerned that they have more tackles than anyone else.
I guess the main emphasis of my point was that our linebackers and cornerbacks are getting beaten over the middle with passes and it leaves the safeties to pick up the slack. As you can see from the statistics standpoint, David Bruton only had 7 tackles on the game, and he was the leading tackler. So, evidently, he wasn't getting to the line of scrimmage as much as usual. The same goes for Kyle McCarthy.
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sven ghali 8 months ago
I think what we're seeing with the corners is the opposite of the the '05-'06 seasons. Back in those days we didn't have blazing receivers to practice against, and our corners were always letting top tier receivers run past them. I think now that our corners have to line up against Floyd and Tate all week, they're giving the opposition too much respect at the line of scrimmage. Just my theory because you play like you practice.
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Joe G 8 months ago
I know how you feel with the bad kicking game. At MSU we went from Dave Rayner (great kicker) to John Goss (who was something like 4/11 on the season.) Lost us quite a few big games in the one year he was the place kicker. Brett Swenson is here now, and he hasn't missed since the first attempt of the season. So don't worry, things get better.
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Paul Melodia 8 months ago
Can anyone tell me why freshman running back Jonas Gray isn't getting any playing time with the inconsistency in the running game?
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Jon Hunn 8 months ago
My guess is that he hasn't perfected everything that a running back needs to do in Weis' offense. A running back needs to block, pick up the blitz, and catch out of the backfield in Weis' system, as well as being able to read defensive formations from behind the quarterback.
If the question was size and running skills, he'd be playing, but as it is, I'm not sure he's ready to play just yet. But, he may be close. He is playing with the Special Teams units. So, Weis is giving up a year of his eligibility which means he may seem some duty behind the line of scrimmage this year... Remember, Jonas Gray was the one who fumbled the kick-off towards the end of the first half against North Carolina?
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jimmy p 8 months ago
You forgot ruin Notre Dame's brand with a complete lack of integrity and character... WHOOPS already done. Carry on myopian!!!
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