Ok. Who wants to lead today?

Only in a bizarre season where nobody is safe could ND, at 1 and 5, play so poorly and yet give the now #3 team in the nation a solid run for it’s money.

We all knew, in our heart of hearts, that the win over UCLA was completely non-indicative of any “measurables” that would tell of any real progress aside from winning and destroying another team in the turnover battle. However, we also didn’t really feel like ND had regressed at all. In fact, there were solid indications that things had at least stabilized from the disastrous first 3 games of the season. And so we simply hoped that the Irish would not regress this week, show some progress, and possibly beat BC.

But regress they did. Against a good (but arguably weaker than UCLA) defense, the Irish were unable to create any momentum on offense during the entire 1st half. Of course, some magical, ill defined “spark” was provided once Evan Sharpley entered the game. But we’ll just have to get back to that shortly. First, a look at the progress indicators as we defined them last week:

• Win: Obviously, a failure. And more than any other loss this season, a disappointing failure. The team had chances and didn’t capitalize.
• Kickoff Defense Team: ND, up to the BC game, has, on avearge, kicked the ball to the 11 yard line, allowed a 23.77 yard return, and allowed teams to start drives after kickoff at the 34.77 yard line. Against BC, ND, on average, kicked the ball to the 11.33 yard line, allowed a 14.33 yard return, and allowed the Eagles to start drives after kickoff at the 31.667 yard line. The good thing here is that the average return dropped significantly. The bad thing here is that, after an excessive celebration penalty, the kickoff team attempted a sky-kick to one of the mid-level blockers and allowed this non-return specialist to get an 18 yard return into ND territory, resulting in a momentum swinging TD. In fact, on average, ND’s kickoff teams haven’t been horrible. But they’ve allowed this sort of thing to happen far too often. Fail
• Kickoff Return Team: Before the BC game, the ND kickoff return team has, on average, received the ball at the 8.7 yard line, returned it 19.6 yards, and started drives after kickoff at the 28.34 yard line. Against BC, the ND Kickoff return teams, on average, received the ball at the 10.6, returned the kick for 14.8 yards, and started drives at the 25.4 yard line. So after allowing BC to get a big return by an up-man, ND couldn’t muster better than a 14.8 yard return with a best of 19 yards. That’s just unacceptable. Fail
• QB Protection: Previous to the BC game, ND’s offense was good for a bonus of 2.23 sacks per game over an opponent’s average. With an average of 2.67 sacks per game for the BC Eagles, that projected to, essentially, 5 sacks in the ND game. ND gave up 2 sacks thanks, largely, to Jimmy Clausen’s ability to wing a ball into the gold seats and Evan Sharpley’s ability to look Tony Romo-esque. The O-Line does pick up pass protection far better than they did in the first 3 games, but it’s still bad. Still, the numbers say they passed. Pass
• Positive vs. Negative Plays: The ND offense was averaging 36.67 plays that gained 1 yard or more per game and 25.67 that gained 0 yards or lost yardage. They were also averaging 4.67 plays that lost more than 5 yards and 1.33 that lost more than 10 yards. Against BC, ND had 32 positive plays and a horrible 34 plays that resulted in 0 yards gained or lost yardage. Essentially, ND had a ton of incomplete passes. On the other hand (and this probably had something to do with ND staying in the game until late), ND only had 1 play that resulted in more than 5 yards lost. In fact, other than the 2 sacks and that last play with 1 second on the clock, I don’t see any other negative plays on the books. Pass
• 3rd Down Efficiency – Offense: ND converted 6 of 18, or 33% of their 3rd downs into 1st downs. That’s right about where we’d like to see our defense hold opponents, so… Fail
• 3rd Down Efficiency – Defense: Before the BC game, ND was allowing 44% of their opponents’ 3rd downs to be converted into 1st downs. Against BC, they allowed 7 of 17, or 41%. A marginal improvement. What makes that number frustrating was that ND allowed 4 of 7 in the first half and only 3 of 10 in the second. Why wasn’t the 2nd half defense out on that field in the 1st half? Fail
• Penalties: We were hoping for 4 or fewer penalties by the Irish. They got 7. And most importantly, 2 or 3 of the penalties occurred at excruciatingly important moments in the game. It was also observed, I believe around half time, that Sam Young had more holding penalty yards than ND had rushing yards in the game. Fail
• Score: Clearly a failure in this game, as with all the other games in 2007, even the 1 win. ND just can’t seem to put a string of good plays together on a consistent basis. It’s sort of watching a teenage kid who’s got some real talent learn to golf. They whack their drive down the middle of the fairway, then chunk their approach shot, then make a decent pitch shot to the green, and then run their lag put by the hole by 40 feet and into the rough. It’s maddening. Fail
• Pass Offense: Jimmy Clausen went 7 of 20 (35%) for 60 yards and 2 picks. Evan Sharpley went 11 of 29 (38%) for 135 yards and a TD. Though Evan’s yardage is pretty good, before the ND game, BC was giving up more than 290 yards per game in the air. ND could only total 195. That’s nearly a football field below par and it’s just miserable. Evan was really only on pace for 270 for a full game. Part of the issue here are all the young receivers playing in the game and making either poor route decisions or using poor technique. Part of the issue is Jimmy Clausen hardly throwing any balls down field and forcing the defense to stretch itself in 4 directions. Part of it is Evan’s tendency to float balls over the head of his receivers. But as a whole, it’s all bad, and no matter the QB, if the pass protection doesn’t get better still, these numbers will continue to suffer. Fail
• Pass Defense: We knew that ND’s pass defense ranking was a bit inflated because nobody had to pass against ND to beat them, but they still played pretty well. We set that bar at below 270 yards on the day for Matt Ryan, and, really, the defense came pretty close at 291. That’s not too bad. That’s giving up maybe one long or two short passes that we don’t think ND should have given up. Still, it’s too much. Fail
• Rush Defense: Again, ND came pretty close here. And save that one horrid defensive effort that resulted in a 52 yard gain for BC, ND did a pretty fine job against the run, giving up 168 yards rushing. I know you can’t discount a play, but that 52 yard gain seemed to be a counter going against the grain of a defense that was entirely slanting against it. It was terrible luck to have that call on defense against that call on offense (or excellent scouting by the BC Eagles). Not sure which, but you take that play away, and ND gives up just 106 yards rushing. That’s not excellent, but it’s amazing how well the defense played in the 2nd half. Still, games are played for 60 minutes, not 30. Fail

Ok, so, essentially, the team failed to show real progress last week. Now let’s talk about some other game observations…

2 Steps Forward, 2 Steps Back.

Do we have a QB controversy? Eh. Yeah. I suppose we do. But at least we have one now because of actual differences in play between 2 QBs rather than what anyone thinks they felt or saw with their own eyes. In last week’s game, Clausen threw 2 picks and completed very few of his passes while Sharpley drove the team down the field for one TD and nearly did it a second time. He also nearly threw a pick about 3 times – 2 of which I’m not sure how the BC Eagles dropped the ball. But did Sharpley create a “spark?” It’s hard to say, really. Yes, by the numbers, he did, and for that reason alone, I’d be quite interested in seeing him start against Southern Cal, but I have to wonder how many of those successful down-field throws were the result of more aggressive play-calling by Weis after Clausen threw his second interception and ND fell behind 20-0. I just have to wonder, but I also have to wonder why Clausen wasn’t throwing the ball down field considering Weis had talked all week about taking the cuffs off of Clausen and opening up the offense because he felt they’d need to score more than 20 points to beat BC.

Here’s the really sticky dilemma that Coach Weis is in: He’s got 5 games left. With Southern Cal making tons of mistakes, next week’s game is not an unwinnable game by any stretch. And this young team would certainly benefit from the extra practice a bowl game would get you. If ND managed to beat Southern Cal, they have 4 more very winnable games against lower-tier opponents. Regretfully, I can no longer say they’re “guaranteed wins.” That said, who helps you in beating Southern Cal so you can even start worrying about the next 4 games? Probably Sharpley. He’s the “gamer,” if you will. Not as polished, probably, as Clausen, but he sure isn’t afraid to throw the ball down field, even into double coverage, and the ball does seem to move down the field when he’s behind center. But he makes several mental errors, and his added possible rewards carry with them their correlating risks. So in a game against Southern Cal, he could help win the game in glorious, streak ending fashion, or lose it in the most miserable of ways possible. But let’s assume he wins that game throwing (and here’s a dream scenario) 3 TDs and 2 picks. Who do you start against the next 4 opponents? Consider for a moment that those are games that ND should be able to win by simply managing the game on offense and playing attacking, aggressive defense. Limit ND’s mistakes and allow the opponents to make mistakes by trying to “do too much” with their lack of talent. If you start Sharpley, again, you’re probably putting your team at risk. And if those risks start going bad, you could have a loss on your hands in the exact same fashion that Southern Cal managed to lose to Stanford. So do you start Clausen, who has shown he can play smartly and safely enough to limit the mistakes and win games against hapless opponents? This is why I don’t get paid 3 million dollars a year.

Armando Allen With the injury to James Aldridge, Robert Hughes and Armando Allen played quite a bit and I have to say that Armando Allen played pretty well. He needs to work on his hands a bit, but I loved the fact that the commentators on TV were talking about the big hits he was absorbing. This is a kid that coughed up the ball in the Michigan game after he received his first real, college-level hit. But last week he actually delivered some hits, rebounded, and delivered more hits. Sometimes all in a single play. I also noticed that he’s vastly improved in pass protection. In the first 2 games, he was totally lost, but in this game he looked much better sitting next to the QB, reading the DE and Linebacker, and then picking his man correctly. He didn’t always make a great block, but he made a few, solid blocks with good technique that slowed the blitzer down.

Offensive Line Play I’ve been thinking a lot lately, “Who is this squad’s anchor?” And I have no answer. An “anchor” is the guy on the offensive line around whom you build the rest of the offensive line. You might say he’s the foundation of the foundation because you probably ought to build you entire offense around the line. Anyway, he can play at any position on the line, but he’s the guy that you just know is going to beat his man no matter what. ND doesn’t have that in any one of the offensive linemen right now, and it needs to find one quick. Not just for the sake of this season, but for the sake of next season as well.

RO-CKET! Rocket Ismail gave the pep rally speech last weekend. It was awesome. Go to UND.com and watch it. Seriously, had ND won, this speech would have gone into ND lore like the Win One for the Gipper Speech. The man can preach! So go and watch it, and when you do, take note of which guys were really getting pumped up from it and which weren’t, and I think you’ll see some correlation with the biggest problems we’ve had this year. I also think you’ll see some other significant correlations.

Oh Snap! I’m still not positive, but I believe John Sullivan has now managed to snap the ball over the intended target’s head or around the intended target in every game this season. I’m not sure he did that twice last year.

Your Mission, Should You Accept It I don’t have time to do this myself, but if any of you out there would like something to do with your free time this week, go take a look at the game tape and figure out how many times the BC defense blitzed against both QBs. Then figure out how often the offensive line managed to pick up that blitz for each QB as a matter of percentages. Because it “feels” like the offensive line blocks better for Sharpley, but I’m honestly not sure. Note: If the QB wasn’t sacked because he threw it away, or scrambled, or got a quick pass off, that doesn’t count as a blitz pickup. It only counts when every pass rushing defender is blocked, and the offensive line and blocking back wasn’t outnumbered.

And Finally… Charlie Weis nearly blew a gasket on Saturday after one of BC’s linebackers hit Clausen in a fashion that Charlie felt was “helmet-to-helmet.” Whether or not Charlie was right, that was the sort of hit on a QB that should have prompted, at the very least, a shoving match between ND offensive linemen and BC defenders. So what did Sullivan do? One little push on the defender’s shoulder utilizing every muscle fiber in his fingers on his left hand. Wow. Just incredible. Way to protect your QB. Way to protect your teammate.

I suppose we should feel good that ND didn’t get slaughtered in this game. I suppose we should feel good that ND was in the game at least until the final 5 or 6 minutes. But I can’t stand it when every kid in little league gets a participation trophy, so I’m not going to feel real good. Boston College managed to win this one despite 131 yards in penalties and Wanstachesque decisions to go for it on 4th down in bizarre circumstances. Losing this game sucks no matter the “intangibles.” If ND had simply managed to play a “good” game, the Irish would have beaten the so-called #4 team in the country. A team that doesn’t have nearly the same amount of talent across the board as ND, and, really, the same level of coaching. This game was lost by ND, not won by BC.

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