Suggestions For Charlie Weis: Week Six

After going two games without committing a single turnover, the Irish walked into Chapel Hill, NC and commit five turnovers, with four coming in the second half. You cannot expect to turn the ball over five times and still win the game.

Part of my frustration with this is that the two games where the Irish committed most of our turnovers were when they were not in Notre Dame Stadium. People say that we can’t expect this team to win on the road, in a hostile environment and it’s true if this team can’t make smart decisions in a hostile environment.

Poor decisions by the quarterback, not protecting the ball, and incorrect route-running by the wide receivers-all of these play into the offensive woes for the Irish on the road.

It’s time to rectify these problems.

It’s a 60 Minute Game 

For the second week in a row, the Irish had a comfortable lead going into halftime, both by score and success on both sides of the ball.

And for the second week in a row, they blew it.

This team and their coaches are not coaching and playing to win the game in the second half, they are coaching and playing to not lose the game in the second half.

It’s not working.

That’s the difference in this team. They come out in the second half and put on the cruise control instead of slamming on the throttle. Something has to change because this team cannot expect to win anymore games if they want to take it easy for the second half of the football game.

The Strength of our Team is Now Our Weakness 

If there was one thing we as fans knew about this team coming into this season: the Irish secondary could have been one of the best in the nation.

Then, Darrin Walls left the school for the semester and was replaced by a very capable duo of backups in Gary Gray and Raeshon McNeil.

Why then, after Mike Anello knocked out Brandon Tate on a clean hit in the first half and didn’t have him to worry about, did the secondary still have trouble shutting down Hakeem Nicks?

Why in the third quarter, when North Carolina was facing a third and 18 did Sexton complete a pass to Hakeem Nicks for 19 yards and a first down?

Could it be that our secondary isn’t as good as we originally thought? During Saturday’s game, the Irish safeties were playing 15 yards off the line of scrimmage to try to prevent the big passing plays, but the cornerbacks were giving the North Carolina receivers 10 yards of cushion at the line of scrimmage.

It’s either an issue of discrepancy between the coaching philosophies of Jon Tenuta and Corwin Brown, or the cornerbacks aren’t as good as everyone, including me, originally thought.

Right now, they are the weakness of our defense that is full of questions and is currently struggling to shut down opposing offenses.

Summary

The winner of this game should have been Notre Dame, but it will be recorded in the history books as a victory by North Carolina.

But North Carolina did not win the game on Saturday, Notre Dame lost the game.

A mixture of mental errors and lackadaisical emotions made up the bullet that was fired into the toe of the Fighting Irish at the beginning of the second half. One must imagine how much longer this adolescent team will continue to play like one as the Irish head into a bye week with the Washington Huskies and Tyrone Willingham approaching rapidly.

What stings is not that the Irish lost this game, but that they must head into a bye week with a horribly discouraging defeat to dwell on and the option to allow this defeat to affect their performance in Washington on the 25th.

If Charlie Weis is half of the coach he thinks he is, he won’t let this happen.

Players of the Game

Offense
Golden Tate: 5 receptions, 121 yards, 1 TD
Mike Floyd: 6 receptions, 93 yards, 1 TD

Defense

David Bruton: 8 tackles

Special Teams

Brandon Walker: 1 field goal, 1 attempt

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