Notre Dame Football: Irish Must Use This Bye Week to Fix Glaring Flaws

Notre Dame's football team appears headed in the right direction. They lost the first two games of the season, but they should have easily split those two and realistically should have won both.

Still, with four wins in a row, the Fighting Irish are on track, or so it would seem.

After this bye week, the next two games that Notre Dame plays are going to be vital to their season. First, archrival USC comes to South Bend, a place where the Trojans haven't lost since 2001. A week after that, Notre Dame hosts Navy, a team it once tormented for more than 40 straight seasons, but has lost to in three of the last four meetings.

After that, games against Wake Forest, Maryland and Boston College are likely wins. If Notre Dame beats USC, Navy and those three teams, then they should be OK for at least a good non-BCS bowl, even if Stanford beats them in the season finale (which is likely).

But for that run of games to matter, Notre Dame must beat USC and Navy.

I would say that they need to win handily, but both USC and Navy are good enough teams that a simple win would do just fine. What can't happen is a split, and they certainly can't lose both games. If they do lose one of those games, it won't matter if they beat Stanford; a BCS game will not be in their future.

Notre Dame would still likely get a preferential non-BCS game, but the season just wouldn't be as successful.

This is an important stretch of games, so it's good that they are getting a bye week heading into them. With what should be a healthy team playing two home games, there are no excuses for Notre Dame.

Now, the good news is that these are all games that Notre Dame should win. They need to do a better job at stopping their opponents and avoid the turnovers.

If that happens, the Fighting Irish should head into that Stanford game at 9-2. If it doesn't, don't be surprised if they lose to USC and or Navy, and possibly to one of the other three teams.

If Notre Dame wants to be ranked and taken seriously as a BCS team, then it must waste no time when the bye week is over. Every game from this point on is a must-win.

They should win them all before Stanford, but can't take anything for granted.