Or The “No Picture Seems to Capture ‘Incomplete’ Quite Right” Edition

Ok, clearly what everyone really wants to talk about is whether or not there’s a QB controversy. Short answer: No. Little longer answer: If you think it should even be considered as a possibility, you’re less thinker, more feeler.

We’ll get back to all of that with a really long answer later in this post. First, let’s look at our progress indicators…

• Tackle - Wretched. I don’t care how much better it looked later in the game, it started off so poorly, it can’t be considered a “pass.” And of all the guys commiting mistakes in this category, Zibby is the most frustrating. He doesn’t seem to be able to make a good tackle “in space,” meaning if he has to break down on a guy and tackle the guy with a good form tackle with nobody else around to provide any sort of boundary for the ball carrier. This needs to be fixed fast. Fail
• Block - Pass Blocking was better, no doubt. Rush blocking was pathetic and a big step backwards from last week. Fail
• Run - When? We only had 26 attempts for 1.9 yards per carry. Fail
• Create Violence - Eh. I only remember this happening right before a personal foul. Of course, that was a bogus personal foul, but maybe it was Karma biting us in the ass for a stray elbow in the face of the QB not getting called earlier. - Incomplete
• Hustle - In the 2nd half, sure. Lots of hustle. It was great to see, but let’s face it, there just wasn’t a lot in the 1st half that would impress anyone. I try to look at this sort of thing as if I’ve never seen a game of football before. How would I react to the team? - Incomplete
• Take Pride - Yes. And it’ll be hashed to death this week in the press. They took some pride and fought back after taking a beating in the first half. But where the heck is that pride in the first half? They get a pass here, because they did show that they’ve got a ton of heart, but they need to start using that heart all game long. - Pass
• Win - Fail
• 3rd Down Efficiency - Offense - 5 of 16 converted. Meh. The 16 is a big number. I’d rather that be down closer to 8 - 10 against a squad like Purdue. And the 5 conversions is fewer than 1/3rd. That’s too low. I’d rather have something like 5 of 10 or 4 of 8. 8 of 16 would be something, and yes, we had a few 4th down conversions, but it shouldn’t come to that. - Fail
• 3rd Down Efficiency - Defense - Conversion wise, not bad: 6 of 15. That’s just over 1/3rd. The problem here is that we gave up 2 3rd down conversions (3rd and 29 and 3rd and 22) on poor play and penalties. Statistically, this looked pretty good, but ND has got to stop being a team that makes me get nervous in 3rd and ultra-long scenarios. - Pass
• Performance on 3rd and Short (3 or fewer yards) - Offense - We had one 3rd and 2 that got called for holding. First, it’s bad that we got called for holding in that situation. Second, it’s terrible that we had 3rd and longish 15 times in the game. Just terrible. - Fail
• Performance on 3rd and Short (3 or fewer yards) - Defense - Looking at the play chart, Purdue was in 3rd and short only once, and we gave it up on an offsides penalty. - Fail (But that’s pretty good that we kept them out of 3rd and short. That means that they had 14 of what I would consider 3rd and long…ish.)
• Angle of Pursuit - This is something that got a lot better in the second half, which tells me that there were a lot more people really hustling in the 2nd half. Why not in the 1st? I don’t know. Maybe it’s tough to get emotionally charged for a game against the Sarah Plain and Tall of College Football. Either way, overall the technique here was pretty good. Purdue tried one reverse, and it was not just played well, but totally smothered. - Pass
• Defensive Ball Skills - Hey, remember that 3rd and 29? Yeah. Turn around! Play the freaking ball! This is one particular place where it became apparent that Purdue had identified a few key members of the defense that could get picked on, and pick on those individuals they did. - Fail
• LOS Technique of the Receivers - I really couldn’t tell from the way the game is shot. I don’t know what I was thinking in trying to observe this. I’m a moron. We’re DQ’ing this biotch.
• Kickoff Defense - When I came away from this game, I was furious that the play of special teams was so incredibly poor. And on PATs/field goals, it was, but I was stunned to see we did a pretty darn good job on defending kickoff returns. ND kicked the ball off 4 times. Purdue returned those kickoffs for an average of 20.75 yards and managed to start drives from kickoffs, on average, at the 35.5 yard line. That’s 1.5 yards better in field position than I’d hoped. That’s also 10.55 yards better in return average than Purdue’s season average (and that average includes the ND game). - Pass

So what have we learned about this team this week? Squat. I’m re-evaluating the metrics. Time to go back to actual measurables. The team actually is good enough, and I’m done questioning their heart/pride after the 2nd half this week. So they get a big ole’ incomplete this week. That’s partly because my test sort sucked and partly because they were an almost schizoid team on Saturday. Did they get better? Yeah. They showed some more promise. They did some good things. They also did some bad things. One thing is for sure, this team has not given up, and neither are we.

Since I’d rather not waste a post, let’s discuss what everyone seems to want to talk about: The non-existent QB controversy.

First, a look at the stats as the NCAA looks at them:

• Jimmy Clausen: 69%, 1 TD, 1 INT, 169 Yards
• Evan Sharpley: 62%, 2 TD, 1 INT, 208 Yards

Now, what everyone that wants to discuss some “QB Controversy” really seems to want to talk about is why Evan should be the starting QB. They see that Evan was nearly 40 yards and 1 TD better than Jimmy, and that’s good enough for them. And if you’re in a conversation with one of these people, you’re lucky if they even bother to use actual stats like that and don’t just resort to, “well, ND just looked so much better with Evan in the game.” But the truth is, the team looked better the entire 2nd half. A lot better, actually. And that comes down to 2 big things. The first big thing: Play calling.

• 1st half ND offensive play calling: 11 called rush plays, 20 called pass plays
• 2nd half ND offensive play calling: 7 called rush plays, 39 called pass plays

Now, the numbers might not jive with the “official NCAA” counts because I combed thru the play-by-play and counted sacks and QB rushes that weren’t called as “pass play calls.” The NCAA considers a sack a “rush,” but in my numbers I consider it a called pass play. I also consider a QB scramble for 0 or positive yardage a called pass play. ND didn’t run any QB draws or called QB naked bootleg runs on Saturday. And in my numbers, a QB scramble for a positive gain is still considered a positive called pass play. That helps me determine how productive each QB was during every called pass play, not just the plays that the NCAA almost arbitrarily calls a pass play. It also helps determine how well the team was playing when each QB was in the game.

The first thing that jumps out at you is that we ran a ton more plays in the 2nd half than in the first: 46 to 31. And that indicates more success being had in the 2nd half. And some would say more success was being had because Sharpley was playing. But what should also scream out at you is that ND called a much higher ratio of passes in the 2nd half versus the 1st: 85% to 65%. Charlie virtually gave up on the run. It’s what he does when he needs to go back to what he feels most comfortable with: slicing and dicing a defense. And against a Brock Spack defense in particular, this is an excellent approach. If any DC falls back on his heels when a play caller really starts to attack him, it’s Brock Spack.

The second really big thing is who, aside from Evan Sharpley, started to play a role in the game in the 2nd half: Duval Kamara, Golden Tate, Robby Parris, and Junior Jabbie.

First, Junior Jabbie rushed the ball 4 times in the game, but not once did he rush in the 1st half. He rushed for 5, 0, 5, and 6 yards in the second half. That’s an average of 4.0 yards per carry. Not stellar, but pretty good, and far better than anyone other than Armando Allen had been averaging. He was also in the backfield picking up blocks or running routes in the 2nd half for a significant amount of time (Something that Armando Allen still isn’t physically ready to do at this point.). His positive rushing gains came at key times, helping ND garner 2 second half first downs, thus forcing the defense to respect that possibility in future plays.

Duval Kamara didn’t get involved in the game until late in the 2nd quarter (a single reception for 12 yards), but once that happened, it was as if Weis had found something, finally, that could be a go-to play when the boys were up against it. In the 2nd half, Kamara had receptions of 15, 12, 16, 7, and 7 yards (and one TD and one incompletion). At one point, Charlie’s play calling indicated that he was telling Purdue/Brock Spack, “if you can’t stop it, I’m just going to keep doing it.” And eventually, it looked like Purdue was trying to adjust to it. Which leads us to…

Golden Tate. Tate was also not involved in the offensive plan until right around the same time Kamara got in on it all (around 2:15 left in the 2nd quarter). At which point, Jimmy Clausen threw him his first completion of the game, a pass for 36 yards. Suddenly, ND had it’s deep threat. And, based on Charlie Weis’ own admission in the post-game presser, it was all drawn up in the dirt: “Run a Go. We’re throwing it to you.” Clausen and Weis later went back to Tate with only seconds left in the 3rd quarter, but at that point, Clausen’s injury had made it difficult to throw, and the ball didn’t have enough distance. Still, the message to the defensive play-caller had already been made late in the 1st half: “Back the hell off.” And the defense did. And things opened up a bit.

UPDATE: Forgot to mention Parris.  The first pass attempt to Parris was a 12 yard completion from Clausen early in the 2nd half.  Not a single pass went his way until then, but Clausen found him, and along with other passes in the early 2nd half, this helped loosen up the defense.  Parris went on to catch 7 passes for 93 yards.  All in the 2nd half.

People have a natural tendency to see what they want to see, and in the case of football teams, people like to see heroes take over and make everything okay. And a lot of eyes saw Sharpley have some success, and those eyes want to make him a hero. Don’t get me wrong, Sharpley did an excellent job. He deserves a ton of kudos. But the real heroes of that 2nd half weren’t throwing the ball. They were rushing the ball well enough to force the linebackers to respect the run. They were catching balls that didn’t seem like they should be caught, and they were driving CBs off the LOS en route to a dozen yard slant pattern.

And the rest of the offense, as a whole, played better too. But that’s not because of some ethereal “it” that Sharpley possesses and Clausen does not. Purdue had been backed up on it’s heels a bit (largely thanks to throws that Clausen had made), Brock Spack fell back into The Brock Spack Quasi-Prevent Defense a bit, and some play-makers on the ND offense stepped up a bit.

Clausen himself (along with the entire offense) played better in the 2nd half. He was a full 1.5 yards better in production on called pass plays (6.8 vs. 5.35) and he completed 80% of his passes in the 2nd half. Eighty-FREAKING-Percent. That’s astonishing even if he did only get to attempt 10 passes.

And let’s give some credit to the defense as well. The ND defense forced Purdue into 2 punts and an interception in the 2nd half. That helps the offense create and keep a rhythm, not to mention it helps the offensive line because the defensive linemen of Purdue were getting tired out a bit in the 2nd half from having to be on the field so much. Sound familiar?

So if that doesn’t convince you that there is no QB controversy because Clausen not only deserves to keep his job, but earned his job (and a lot of respect when he was trying to play hurt), then I don’t know what will help.

Again, Sharpley did a great job, and we’re lucky to have such a high-quality QB in that supporting role. And he deserves every bit of Charlie Weis’ confidence to run the entire offense in the case that Clausen can’t, but Clausen should continue to be the starter until that time.

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• That Sucks
• BCS Rankings Are Out, But Why?
• Friday Roundup: The Influential Edition

Last week we were measuring the progress of the 2007 Notre Dame Football team using the Lego Duplo version of “measurements.” After having seen some real progress, we’ve decided that this team is ready to not choke on the 1-piecers and 2-piecers, and so we’re moving them up to The Lego City Edition. A bit more to work with here. There are a few moving parts and even an opportunity to poke your eye out once or twice, but still not even close to the Lego Technic measurments and miles upon miles to go from the Lego Mindstorms measurements of progress.

For the MSU game, we had the following progress indicators:

• Tackle - The overall technique against MSU was poor. Granted, I’d rather eat nothing but salad for the next 2 weeks than try to tackle Jehuu Caulcrick just once, but I’m an out-of-shape office dweller, and I spend my free time critiquing the effort and execution of 19 year old kids, so… Anyway, Purdue don’t have a Jehuu, and it will be absolutely vital in this game to limit yards after contact, so hopefully ND’s tackling has improved quite a bit this week.
• Block - We saw a lot of promise developing last week. Sam Young and Turkovich seemed to lead the way. Sully played tough. Even Schwapp made me smile a time or two. This, above all else, is an area that has a little bit of momentum. Hopefully that can continue to gain some more.
• Run - We’ve got 3 running backs that pretty much any team in D1 football would take in a heartbeat. We need to ride them like trampy girls on a mechanical bull at Hogs ‘n Hunnys. 5 yards here, 3 yards here, and then an occasional 40-yarder here or there.
• Create the Violence - I’ve seen Zibby really pop a few guys. I’ve seen Turkovich send a guy flying like he was the victim of a roundhouse kick in an anime flick. I’ve seen Bruton put every once of what he has into a hit. What we need here is more consistency. Every single hit should count. Every single hit should register in the mind of the opponent and get him thinking about pain rather than winning.
• Hustle - Last week, even though the second half wasn’t pretty, I think it’s fair to say we saw this the entire game. It’s part of what gives me hope for this team - they don’t give up.
• Take Pride - Given the account by Charlie Weis of the mood in the locker room after the MSU loss, I think it’s fair to say these guys take a lot of pride in what they’re doing. What needs to happen is that the young guys on this team learn how to channel that into positive plays so that they can stop feeling badly about the results and start feeling good.
• Win

And now, having seen some sure signs of progress, or, at least, promise, we’re ready to hand this football team the rubberized wheels and hinged cockpit doors. Who knows, maybe we’ll even pass along some of those little stickers that you have to soak in water for a few minutes in order to remove from the backing!

The new pieces include:

• 3rd down efficiency - offense - An actual quantitative element! Woo hoo! The stuff up above is a little to touchy-feely for my tastes, but this right here is a real indicator of performance with statistical correlations to winning and losing! All season, ND has had trouble converting 3rd downs. This is an area about which I once just shook my head in awe back in the Quinn/Shark/Walker years. Now I just try to shake away the pain.
• 3rd down efficiency - defense - This is really where the game got out of hand against MSU. Really, the defense performed reasonably well for 2 out of 3 plays on several drives, but they kept allowing themselves to be gashed by 4th and shorts and 3rd and longs.
• Performance on 3rd and short (3 yards or less) - offense - This is a matter of attitude. And really, while I’d be pleased just to see the numbers improve significantly here, I’ll be sort of bummed if Charlie finds a way to do it without running the ball over the defense, especially considering we’ve got Hughes and Aldridge and the other team has light DEs. I’ll be even more displeased if Charlie tries to improve this area of performance without a real running attack and fails.
• Performance on 3rd and short - defense - Also a matter of attitude, but I don’t think anyone can complain about the attitude of guys like Kuntz and Laws. Corwin Brown needs to find a way to reliably use that attitude to beat the opposing offense off the ball and stop the ball carrier for a loss while not allowing the LBs and DBs to get sucked in and then beaten on play action.
• Angle of Pursuit - As important as tackling will be against Purdue, how exactly the ND defenders go about getting to the ball carrier may be even more important. Purdue tends to change direction of the play and go against the grain or flow of the defense after short passes or during runs. It’s vital that all of the defenders play excellent “assignment football” (meaning they take responsibility for their particular gap and/or zone) and not over-pursue the the initial part of the play. Because if the play reverses course, the defender needs to be there to make the stop after a 3 yard gain rather than a 15 yard gain.
• Defensive Ball Skills - For starters, get a feel for when the ball has been thrown. As much as QBs need to feel the rush and know when to get rid of a ball, a good CB must have a good instinct about when the ball has been thrown and when to turn around and try to make a play on that ball. Of course, not getting blown off the LOS will help tremendously here. We’re going to face a lot of challenges as Purdue will find ways to create man-to-man match-ups that may not favor ND. It’s important that all of the CBs and Safeties have a good game and also make sure to team-tackle once a guy has the ball.
• LOS technique of the receivers - A lot of people point out that Jimmy Clausen holds onto the ball too long. Almost as many people have expressed wonder at whether or not any receivers are open. Our front-line receivers aren’t going to torch anyone going down the field, so they must use excellent technique to create space between themselves and the defender. And given the fact that our OL isn’t considered very good at pass blocking, and our receivers tend to be small, you can expect to see a lot of physical play right at the LOS, trying to slow down the ND receivers’ release, thus forcing Jimmy to hold onto that ball.
• Kickoff Defense - Purdue is #1 in kickoff return right now.  The challenge for ND: Don’t allow Purdue’s starting field position to average better than the Purdue 37 yard line after a kickoff.

Ok, so our “measurables” are still largely unmeasurable, at least in a classic, quantitative sense, but we’re getting there. Hopefully on Sunday we can talk about how we’ve “turned the corner,” and we can toss most of the touch-feely stuff aside in future editions. See you Sunday and be sure to drink excellent beer this weekend.

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• Measuring Progress: The Lego Duplo Edition
• NCAA Releases Self-Invented Metric Results For Some Self-Back-Patting
• Another Postmortem: The “I Have Not Waved the White Towel” Edition

I mentioned in my post about Chris Stewart’s possible transfer that there’s no reason to freak out over the number of guys who’ve transferred because it’s pretty typical of programs with good talent.

What I didn’t do was prove that assertion, but John at The Irish Roundup has.

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• Ianello: Don’t Freak Out
• Don’t Forget Your Bracketitis!
• Don’t Forget! The 1st Ever Donna Shalala Liar Of The Week Award!

Some of us can’t seem to extract our loyalties from our picks. Some of us are not named The Bear.

We kid, The Bear. We know this is your clever use of reverse psychology to cause ND to win a game.

The Games:

Notre Dame/Purdue

Cal/Oregon

Oklahoma/Colorado

The Picks:

• Sed: ND – 59, Cal – 86, Oklahoma - 72, QB: Oklahoma
• Sed’s Dog: ND - 45, Oregon - 45, Colorado - 45, QB: Oregon
• Biscuit: ND - 37, Cal - 65, Oklahoma - 50, QB: Oregon
• Bad Kermit: ND - 63, Cal - 49, Oklahoma - 72, QB: Oklahoma
• The Bear: Purdue - 45, Oregon - 75, Oklahoma - 72, QB: Oklahoma
• ChisND: ND - 59, Oregon - 80, Oklahoma - 69, QB: Oklahoma
• DNeelan: ND - 28, Oregon - 35, Oklahoma - 48, QB: Oklahoma
• domer.mq: ND - 40, Cal - 60, Oklahoma - 60, QB: Oklahoma
• JoeO: ND - 48, Cal - 69, Oklahoma - 49, QB: Oregon

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• HLS Expert Picks Week 7: Time for Some Superstition
• 2006 Her Loyal Sons Expert Picks: Week 1
• Expert Picks Contest Rules: 2006 Edition

We do these Friday Roundups to give you, the Notre Dame football fan, some knowledge about and views into the college football world so that you, the Notre Dame Football fan, will be prepared for the weekend, when, inevitably, one or two of the stories will come up in polite conversation during one of your game watches, or black-tie dinners, or movie production meetings, or international espionage missions.

Unfortunately, as with any Purdue week, we find ourselves struggling to to serve up a steaming cup o’interesting because everything seems to be enveloped in a cold, clammy veil of boring. Purdue has that effect on things. They make everything boring. It’s sort of like how Michigan (sucks!) tends to make things suck more, except not nearly as compelling.

Anyway, here’s the roundup in case you don’t have any IEEE standards to review in your spare time:

• Last week, James Aldridge averaged 4 yards per carry for 17 of his carries. He averaged 43 yards per carry for his other carry. Also and this is just incredible/sad, ND’s juniors and seniors have gained a total of 33 yards.
• Bonger tries to explain why we feel so differently about Weis versus Davieham. Nobody’s going to listen anyway.
• There’s one Purdue blog on the entire internets, and they’ve got a bit of a sense of humor. After seeing our bit about Purdue being boring, they renamed the sight, briefly, to “Bored Sports.” Anyway, he’s not entirely sure Purdue’s going to have a cake walk.
• We love to hate Whitlock, but sometimes he seems to be the only guy in the mainstream media that gets it.
• Ever heard the one about the scorpion and the frog? Meet the scorpion.
• The guys at Rakes of Mallow are all “big time” now that they got interviewed by The Observer. They also haven’t fully embraced their nerdiness.
• Clausen speaks! But you’ll need to click on this link using IE because UND.com is still getting familiar with this whole “website thing.”

I could link more, but Purdue week is a buffet of tedium, and I can barely stand another bite right now.

The most interesting man in the world denies any knowledge of Purdue Football for fear of losing his title.

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• Friday Roundup: The “It’s All About Bob” Edition
• Friday Roundup: The Biscuit Edition
• Friday Roundup: The Saturday, the 14th Edition

Very interesting. I’d paste some text, but word is the South Bend Tribune is a little touchy about that these days.

Personally, I’d love for Chris to come back to ND, play like an animal, and become the monster offensive guard we so badly need.

Come on, Chris’ dad!

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• Good Luck, Chris
• Seriously, Don’t Freak Out.
• File Under: “In Case You Live Under A Rock News”… Chris Stewart is Back!

Sophomore Offensive Guard, Chris “The Planet” Stewart is apparently transferring. We were going to wait until an official press release was, uh, released, but the cat seems pretty well out of the bag, so… If we’re wrong, oops!

Now, some people are going to start yelling and screaming about losing our 3rd kid to transfer in about as many weeks in the middle of the season. Those people should be avoided at times of war or at cocktail parties. They’re Debbie Downers and Chicken Littles. And, perhaps worse, they’re myopic.

The fact is, we’re actually starting to build some depth in particular positions. Demetrius Jones certainly seems like he wants to start, but now that Clausen has the starting position, he’d have been relegated to back-up/special circumstances play. Reuland, though reportedly leaving because he just wasn’t happy at Notre Dame, was the 4th tight end on the roster and facing 2 highly recruited tight ends coming onto the squad next year. And now Stewart finds himself stuck at the bottom of a depth chart so badly he didn’t even make it on the bus for Penn State (not sure about Michigan).

Notre Dame fans are going to have to grow accustomed to this. A ton has changed in the world of College Football even since the Lou Holtz days. We’re going to have a lot of talented kids who, if they can’t get on the field at ND, will realize that a lot of other teams across the country have some television coverage and a few obsessive fans writing blogs. ND hasn’t had to deal with this too much because, really, we didn’t have that much depth anywhere until recently.

Take a look at Southern Cal’s recent transfer rates. It will actually probably really surprise you because, except for the case of Moody, hardly anyone noticed. Why? Because Southern Cal is already so deep, it really doesn’t matter.

And in a year or two, that’ll be the case for ND as well. Charlie and his staff are quickly getting ND back into “reload” mode. I don’t think we’re really been there for 10+ years. Charlie wont admit it, but this season has been a “rebuilding year” for ND, but it could very well be Charlie’s last. As long as Weis keeps recruiting like he has, it really will be “next guy up.”
I suspect we’ll see a lot more of these sophomores who see little or no chance of playing at ND transfer to other schools in the years to come. One of the real problems with that is ND doesn’t typically accept transfers from other schools, so while we can lose out in this current scenario, we can’t really benefit from players at other schools wanting to transfer to ND. Another problem seems to be that ND players earn what is considered by many schools to be an “associate’s degree” by the end of the summer after their freshman year, thus allowing them to use a loophole in the NCAA rules that would otherwise be unavailable. We’ll explain that more once we understand it fully ourselves.

In summary, don’t freak out.

All that said, we’re bummed because we’re always bummed when a good kid chooses not to be a part of the ND family any longer. Personally I really liked Chris from what I knew of him in interviews and the recruiting process.
Good luck, Chris.

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• UPDATE: Chris Stewart’s MAY Not Transfer
• Goodbye and Good Luck
• File Under: “In Case You Live Under A Rock News”… Chris Stewart is Back!

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• Just a Reminder…
• Jim Donnan Actually Writes Something Worthwhile. HLS Creates New Category.
• Friday Roundup