How Do You Like Your Eggs?

Because there are a lot of them about after the Irish got done laying them in East Lansing, so we might as well do something with 'em.

A tough loss and a bitter pill. I was listening to the Irish Eyes podcast this past week, and Mike Frank had "Coach D," as a guest. Coach D kept talking about how this particular Irish squad was going to win some games it maybe shouldn't and lose some games it definitely shouldn't, and as I sat there, listening, I just kept thinking, "yeah. I really don't like this game." Sure, on paper (ignoring the point-spread papers), ND certainly has better talent, and if ND could "just stop Ringer," then MSU should implode and ND should win. By definition, this was one of the games ND should not lose - like SDSU but without the SDSU ineptitude - and so, like a young, mistake prone team, they lost.

Thus far this season, after the MSU game, ND has managed to lose 9 turnovers. 4 turnovers to SDSU nearly lead to the unthinkable. 2 to UM(s!) really sort of managed to slow down the Irish and keep them from making a true blow-out of it (largely thanks to jumping on UM(s!) first 3 turnovers). And now 3 lost turnovers to MSU's one finally stung the Irish. Really, as things were going, it was only a matter of time. We can debate the Irish's lack of a competent running game or the coaching staff's odd play-calling for days (I'm sure we will), but you cannot debate the power of the turnover. Sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes the bear eats you.

Just think, for a moment, if ND manages to cut their turnovers in half in the next 3 games. How much better will this Irish team look? In the MSU game, the 3 turnovers killed a drive of 5 plays and 56 yards, gave MSU the ball on ND's 14 and lead to a MSU TD, and killed a drive of 6 plays and 51 yards. Sort of uncanny, considering against SDSU, Hughes fumbled the ball to end a 73 yard drive at the 1 and Clausen threw a pick in the endzone after ND intercepted the ball and gave the Irish possession on the SDSU 17. But hey, turnovers are, after all, part of the game, so protect the damned ball!

Thoughts and whatnot that are 2 phast, 2 phurious to place into an articulate treatise:

• 7 Runs Resort. It felt really weird watching this Irish squad try to run the ball on the first 7 plays from scrimmage. The call to run on 3rd and 24 was probably smart, and, really, that drive was killed by our veteran right tackle who decided to get "nasty" with a personal foul penalty. Better to just try to keep from having a big turnover there. The next series was sort of a surprise, with the 3 runs by Armando Allen in a row. I'm pretty sure they were all on the script, and Haywood was still just trying to manage the game and get into some sort of rhythm against a not-too-explosive opponent. That's fine, but I'd have thought 2nd or 3rd down might call for an attempt at play-action. It was pretty obvious after the first 5 runs that MSU was going to sell out stopping the run. At least try to make them pay. The end-around to Tate was sweet to see to start the 3rd series, partly because it gained a nice chunk of yards (should have been a TD), and partly because I just knew it would lead to a fake end-around later in the game for a TD pass to a streaking-down-the-middle tight end. I just knew it. I hate when I know things and they're completely wrong.

  I also hate when OCs call stretch plays to the boundary or short side of the field. I see it all the time, and it works about one out of 10 times. Of course, it's quite possible that some of them were audibles by the QB. Part of the problem there is you might be at a point where you trust your QB to adjust plays at the LOS, but not so much that you'd let him call an actual play rather than just call "the running play option from this pass play." And then you're jammed up because out of this particular pass play, the running play is a freaking stretch to the boundary side. Gah!

• Still just a sophomore. I admit, when I learned of Jimmy Clausen, and how he was so polished that NFL draftees didn't want to practice with him for fear of looking bad, I thought he'd skip right over that whole "needs to mature" thing. Don't get me wrong, Clausen does seem to be maturing. He's getting better at reading defenses, making plays, and being a leader. But make no mistake, he's still right in the thick of that whole "needs to mature" thing. Most of all, he needs to mature to the point of realizing that 1st down on the opponent's 30 yard line doesn't mean, "take a shot at the end zone no matter what." I'm virtually certain that on the rather large number of picks Clausen has thrown in the end zone, the called play didn't look like this:
  
  
  
  So JC really needs to work on finding the routes that aren't called "go run under it, jump, and catch it."

  That said...

• How To (Not) Run an Out Pattern. So, you're a receiver, and you're on the short side of the field. The ball is snapped, you look your mark (the guy lined up against you) in the eyes, and start your route. Now, being an excellent route runner, your first 5 steps are really hard. This is called "driving your man off the line," and is meant to look like you're going to just run a go. But while you're doing that, your mark leaves you for a corner blitz. And you, knowing that your man is the blitzer, are now a hot route. So you run the appropriate hot route, breaking off your original, deep route and cutting hard to the outside in one step. You then run full speed to the boundary as you look back for the ball. Unless you're a ND receiver, in which case, you might notice that your mark took off, so you "break off" your original route and sort of make this curbing turn to the sidelines which, while you do so, increases the distance between yourself and the QB and provides an angle to the ball for the rotating safety who's jumping the out route and can because the QB, as instructed, throws the ball to where you should be and you aren't there since you ran an out route so bad that fans on internet chat insisted that you'd actually run a flag pattern. A very, very curvy flag pattern. This is, of course, all hypothetical, and so it's only hypothetical that such play results in the safety getting a drive-killing, point-swinging INT.
  
  
  
• But Mummy, You Said I Could Have Some Candy! Listen, Veruca, I don't give a damned what Charlie Weis said when he was hired about having a "nasty" team. I don't particularly care about what he said with regard to pounding it this summer. He could say the sky is purple and all the children in the land will be blessed with angelic singing voices and full stomachs for all I care so long as he produces a winning football team. Going onto internet message boards and quoting him as a way to make a point that he hasn't delivered is only making one point: You're a whiny little bitch. If you've got an issue with the way the team plays, then use some facts to support an argument. Don't go about crying because "he said so!" It's obnoxious at best and just down right creepy at worst. You're like the psycho girlfriend that all your friends wanted you to dump. Got an issue with the performance of the running game? I do. Know how I'll make my point? By pointing out that ND is 111th in rushing offense. I don't care if Charlie had said ND's gonna be a bunch of apoplectic pixies who wing it around the field 70 times a day, I'm still going to take issue with 2.7 yards per carry a lot faster than I'll care about some quotations you had to Google to get verbatim. Nicely done, Mr. Memorex. It's people like you that cause administrations to go and hire Bob Davie, King of the Managed Expectations.
• Stop. Just stop. Biscuit did a pretty nice job of saying it in his own way, but let me say it in mine: Some of you need to shut the hell up. The internet provides far too vast an audience for those of you with far too little knowledge of the program or of how the freaking sport is even played for you to go spouting off. You're hurting the program the same way CNN's Crossfire was hurting the country. Stop opening your Notre Dame Football Almanac and dry-humping the pages involving the 1988 team. You can only learn from history, you can't resurrect it. And in case you haven't noticed (which you haven't because you don't f-ing pay attention), the entire college football game has changed an awful lot since 1988. Joe Moore's offensive line coaching may work in today's game. It may not. You don't have any more clue than I do you mumbling sack of mental deficiency.
• I Don't Think Dad Remembers My Name. If you catch yourself asking someone else something akin to, "how long has it been since ND beat the teams it was supposed to beat?" Consider the fact that in 2005 and 2006, with far less overall talent but more mature players, ND beat some of those opponents so badly that we were all laughing at hilarious pictures of Purdue DC Brock Spack over and over again. Then go get checked for Alzheimers.
• Yes. I do have concerns. But they're pretty obvious concerns. The team can't turn the ball over at this rate and even expect to have a winning season. Think about it, in 9 games, the ND defense has created 9 turnovers, and yet the Irish Turnover Margin sits at 0 because the offense isn't protecting the ball. Protecting the ball means not throwing it up into the endzone for the home run every time you're within the opponent's 30. It means knowing when you are down and making sure you don't let some punk rip the ball out of your hands while your knee is being popped out of the socket. It means fighting for the ball.

  I'm not sure if the turnovers can be blamed on youth. I do think it's interesting that Brady Quinn, while Weis coached him, set records for total number of pass attempts without a pick. I think it's interesting that Darius Walker almost never lost a fumble during the Weis era. And I think it's interesting that they were juniors and seniors at that time. Maybe they'd just been playing long enough to have learned a lesson. Well, sophomore Irish dudes who keep turning the ball over, there's your freaking lesson. Maybe you weren't listening when the coaches yelled at you over and over again to protect the ball. Maybe you'll listen now.

  And yes, the running game is just pathetic. I'm not sure why people thought the Michigan (sucks!) game was clear evidence that all of ND's rushing woes were fixed, as the Irish only managed 3.3 yards per carry in that game, but I don't blame you if you're stunned simply for the fact that the Irish managed just 0.7 yards per carry against MSU. I submit that if it holds true that the offensive line knows the play, and the defensive line does not, and if it holds true that the offensive line knows the snap count, and the defensive line does not, then no amount of poor technique or bad scheme, save for asking the ball carrier to run backwards for a few steps on each play, can suffice to explain 0.7 yards per carry. Maybe 2.7. Maybe 1.7. Not 0.7. So there's got to be something else, right? Something else has to explain why a relatively bland defensive front just bent the ND offensive line over the line of scrimmage. I've got a feeling it has a lot to do with this (HT: BGS). Not being able to regroup after success can be obvious at the skill positions, but it can be devastating at the line of scrimmage. Yes, I do wish Weis had some sort of coaching magic to get these guys properly focused, but mostly I just hope this is another lesson these guys have learned this week.

• I've got your definition right here. Of all the dumb things that get tossed around by fans of a football program, perhaps the dumbest is the notion of a game being able to define anything about anything. Leading up to the Michigan (sucks!) game, people were arguing that it could be a season-defining game. Then most of those people decided the UM(s!) game didn't make any sort of definition about this team clear, so they tossed that out and called the MSU game a "defining game" for this squad. And now that the game's over, they're tossing out the idea that the Purdue game could define the season for the Irish. You know what will define the season for ND? The freaking season.

That game sucked. Let's move on... to the most boring week in blogdom: Purdue Week. Damn. May as well have a week off to stew over the MSU loss.