Another Postmortem: The “I Have Not Waved the White Towel” Edition
Not Quite Operational
Nor will I. Those idiotic white towels that some corporate sponsor handed out to 75,000 fans yesterday in Notre Dame Stadium. BGS wanted us all to kill this idea because it was infinitely stupid for a bunch of people in green shirts to be waving white towels while our team played Michigan State. If you didn’t have an appreciation for the horrific power of group-think, then you’d have though that ND fans wouldn’t participate in white towel waving and you’d be wrong. What I found dumber was filling the air with billions of particles of cheap towel lint while we all tried to scream our heads off in support of the team and the team tried to run at full speed. I tell you one thing: If I die of lung cancer or some weird pneumonia, remember that I never smoked, and be sure to sue whoever was involved with those towels in my name. (Note: I realize the towels were somehow tied to Charlie Weis’ “Hannah and Friends” charity. I just wish the corporate sponsors had just given money to the charity than spending money on cheap towels.)
Anyway, let’s get to “grading” the progress of this squad. As I said Friday, we “went back to basics” in our measurement of progress just as the team did. Here’s what the results look like:
- Tackle - Hmm. Even though this first criteria seems simple, there are circumstances within the game that make this one more difficult to judge. And certainly the least of those circumstances is not named Jehuu Caulcrick. I swear to God that man has 200 pounds of meat on his legs. It must be like trying to tackle 2 battering rams at the same time. Still, what worried me the most here is the overall technique, or lack thereof, being applied to tackling. There were plenty of attempts to hit a guy really hard and to wrap up, but angle of pursuit was often poor. Our middle linebackers (Mo Crum included) don’t seem to fully understand how to “fill a hole” (more on this later), and still after the initial pop and attempt to wrap up, the legs of a lot of tacklers went dead. ND isn’t good enough for that. ND needs to keep driving with their legs on a tackle until the whistle is blown. Fail
- Block - Obviously, the blocking by the line, TEs, backs, and wide receivers all improved. The wide receivers actually improved to near-Maurice Stovall levels of blocking. That’s really good. The O-Line showed us that they are, indeed, capable of creating holes. They’re still not capable of winning the line of scrimmage in a 3rd or 4th and short, however. Scwapp creamed somebody! I saw it! It happened right in front of me! But I’m still mystified as to why he plays so much. It’s not that he’s lacking heart or strength. He’s just a really, really stiff guy out there, and it’s easy for linebackers to juke him and still make a play. Fail
- Run - Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy! Anyone else really excited to see Aldridge and Hughes looking really good as tough, rough runners with the ability to break a few runs for 20+ yards? Yeah. One thing Aldridge seems to have, which is a nice surprise, is excellent timing on his cuts relative to his lead blocks. A very limited number of guys can just run into a crowd and get beyond everyone (see also: Reggie Bush). Aldridge does a nice job of setting up his blocks, and just as the LBs have to commit to taking on the blocker, Aldridge makes a quick move to ruin whatever leverage or position the LB might have had. Pass
- Create the Violence - This was much improved. Neal and Smith are a ton of fun to watch because they look like all they live for is getting to whoever has the ball and creating a really unfortunate situation for that person. And Neal would have had even more success if MSU hadn’t figured out that the line judge on the MSU sideline wasn’t going to call holding even if the tackle had given Neal an atomic wedgie. Crum, when he did find his man (and he did that quite often) was popping guys as well as he could. Bruton hit everyone with quite a lot of force. Michael Turkovich, on one play, got his hands inside a OLB’s pads, drove him up into the air, and then landed on top of the guy with brilliant force. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still room to get much better, but this area also did get much better from last week. Pass
- Hustle - I heard a lot of things said in the stands yesterday (also more on this in a bit). And among those things I heard were criticisms that these guys came out flat and didn’t play with any heart. Those may have been valid criticisms in the first 3 games, but they were flat-out wrong in this game. These guys were playing to win during the entire game, and they were playing passionately. Pass
- Take Pride - This, naturally, plays into the previous goal. And it seemed pretty clear that these guys were giving it their all for themselves, the program, their fellow students, and the fans. Pass
- Win - Fail
Now, granted, we’ve sort of “lowered the bar” in measuring progress, but I think we can say that this team made some real progress over the previous week. So yay, moral victory! But it’s not good enough. Not by a mile. Not when you’re Notre Dame. And so this is no time to rest on some moral laurels. It’s time to take the progress that was made last week and apply it as a foundation for even more progress this week. And it’s time to learn to win.
Anyway, now for a lot of thoughts that I’m not sure how to string together coherently without the clever use of bullet points:
- ND Fan Knowledge: Like I said above, there were a lot of comments being made in the stands that would indicate that “they” were all watching a much different game than I was. Was I frustrated? Of course! I want to win, dammit. But I realize that this team is very young and has a lot to learn. I’ve also come to realize that there are an awful lot of people sitting in the stands who know crap about football. It’s actually hard for me to relate to, but that’s okay. It doesn’t make someone a bad fan for not knowing much about the game. Those people can cheer loudly and be passionate about the Irish simply for the fact that they love Notre Dame. They can still be excellent fans, but for the love of the woman standing atop the golden dome, some of you may want to consider what sort of tripe is spewing from your mouth about the game while in the stadium. Because the rest of us can hear you, and we’re laughing at you. There are a ton of knowledgeable ND fans. And there are many who are less knowledgeable but every bit as passionate. And then there are the one that don’t know that they don’t know.
- Our Tackling Technique is Problematic: We talked last week about how, if your feet go dead, you can’t block anyone. Well, it’s also really difficult to tackle anyone. Essentially, in the game of football, if your feet go dead, you’re dead. Mo Crum is a great example of this. From my corner seat, I could see a lot of what he was seeing, and he “got to the hole” more than he “filled the hole.” He’d sort of sniff the play out, get to the right starting position, and then try to receive the ball carrier in the hole. Problem is, those big backs had a lot of momentum when Crum would receive them. And then the backs would get 5 yards after contact. It was killing us. The better approach would be for Crum to sniff out the play (which he does well), get in position (which he does well), and then before the ball carrier moves into the hole, attack the ball carrier. I’m not sure why this isn’t happening. It may be a problem of lateral movement. When the LB attacks the ball carrier, he needs to be able to adjust his body laterally while still being able to deliver a blow on the tackle (This is part of the reason why you always hear “keep your pads square” if you hang around linebacker coaches in practice.) I’m not sure Crum, with his added weight, feels like he can “flow” to the ball as well as he could. Sadly, without the added weight, he doesn’t match up real well as a middle linebacker.
- How to throw on ND: Design a play called “Throw it at Lambert.” I know it’s not nice to throw a kid under the bus. He’s genuinely trying to play football. He’s also not looking for the football. This has to be corrected and it has to be corrected by the coaches.
- Young Playmakers: It was really striking to see how the big plays of the game for ND were all being made by young guys. Either first-year starters or true freshmen/sophomores. It’s remarkable, really. Yes, some of the more senior guys played hard, most notably on defense, but the senior playmakers of last year, Quinn, Shark, Darius, etc… are being replaced with freshman and sophomore playmakers.
- Fubmle-rooskie: I still haven’t gone back to look at the play on TV, but on the play that MSU scored on a pass after the QB looked to have fumbled the ball, if that wasn’t a “planned” fumble, it should have been. The entire defense converged toward the fumble, and it left the receiver wide open.
- When I Stop Harping on This, We’ll Be Winning: Everyone has their thoughts on when the “turning point” in the game occurred. I’d say sometime in May of last year when the offensive leadership all graduated from Notre Dame. Don’t get me wrong, I admired Sullivan for playing thru some pain yesterday (even if it did rob us of a chance to cheer for Bemenderfer), but there’s still nobody in that offensive huddle that the rest of the team can look to when things aren’t going so well. And that’s why things turned around and the game got out of hand. If games were won just because one or two things went wrong, ND would have won this game after MSU’s early fumble and ND’s first TD of the year. But MSU had someone on that field holding the offense together. ND is still in search of that. Jimmy Clausen will need to be that person in the future. I’m hopeful James Aldridge may be able to be that person very soon.
- Jimmy ain’t Jesus: That kid knows what he’s doing insofar as playing the game is concerned. He’s got all the physical tools and the mental tools too. What he needs to work on is reading his progressions at college speed, creating the necessary “internal clock,” and managing the huddle and cadence against the play clock. But even some of his incompletions were impressive because they were incomplete rather than intercepted. In other words, he gave his receiver a chance to catch the ball while giving the defender no chance at all.
- Charlie ain’t Bill or Bill: It’s been interesting to watch Charlie during his press conferences lately. If Bill Parcells were in this situation, I don’t think he’d be making jokes. If Bill Belichick were in this situation, I’m not sure he’d even speak. Charlie’s a pretty cool hand, really. It’s interesting because it seems like a lot of fans expected, given his pedigree, to get a clone of Parcells when they got Charlie. But Charlie’s got his own personal style and, having seen it while he’s winning and, now, losing, I have to say I really appreciate it. It’s far more amiable than the Bills, and I think it will serve him well in the college ranks. That’s not to say he can’t shoot someone down in a hurry when he wants to, but it sure seems he at least aims his shots.
So, overall, we did see some progress. There’s a foundation there - something to build upon. Get the running game going, and that opens up the play-action passing. Get some play-action passing going, and suddenly those safeties can’t help defend the run. Before you know it, you’re in a wonderfully vicious circle.
It’s time to grow up a little more this coming week. Time to realize that one, two, or even a few bad plays can’t knock you out of a game if you don’t let them. And time for a leader, any leader, on offense to continue to emerge.
We’re going to continue looking at these same criteria next week, but we’ll add a few more as well. The football team has something to build on and so do we. I’m thinking we’ll look at things like 3rd Down Efficiency on both sides of the ball, 3rd and shorts on both sides of the ball, angle of pursuit, ball skills on the part of the defense, and line of scrimmage technique by the wide receivers.
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