Irish Lose Tar Heels’ Game

I'm not a big fan of horror movies. For one, my imagination is pretty wild, and as a kid the Muppets used to give me not just nightmares, but "night terrors," or horrible dreams from which my parents couldn't wake me. I don't even want to recount my middle-school foray into the literature of Steven King. For another, I just can't stand the shear foolishness of most victims of horror film antagonists. They tend to do things like check out the strange noises by themselves, or, always a classic, run upstairs. And no amount of yelling "don't go upstairs!" ever seems to keep the victims from becoming victims. Instead, they fall right into the hands of the antagonist's little trap, as pedestrian as that trap may be. On Saturday, the Irish fell right into the Tar Heels' not-so-clever trap and became victims by playing the Tar Heels' game.

First of all, let me just give credit to Butch Davis and the Tar Heels. They played a heck of a game and won in the only fashion they were really capable of winning. They "created" big plays that either scored points or gave them very manageable opportunities to score. But other than the brilliant play by a UNC defensive lineman to strip the ball from Jimmy Clausen, the Tar Heels didn't so much "force" turnovers as they patiently waited for ND's new-found confidence to turn into hubris and develop self-destructive forces. It was a smart play for Carolina and probably their only play. They had to bet on that self-destruction and win or face a pretty decisive loss. The bet paid off. It's so frustrating that the bet paid off.

I blame hubris for this loss because you could sort of see the warning signs before the destruction occurred, and the young Irish squad ignored them. Twice in the first half, the Tar Heels nearly picked off a pass. Both times, I believe, those passes were directed toward Kyle Rudolph. Rudolph had sort of become Clausen's new receiving toy in the last 2 games. Before Purdue, Rodolph had 3 receptions. For the Purdue and Stanford games, Rudolph had 8 receptions, had developed into a scoring threat, and had become quite trusted by Clausen. By the 2nd half of the Stanford game, you could see Clausen looking for Rudolph. Apparently Butch Davis noticed it as well. Heck, before the second near-pick, you could see him making the universal gesture for "filming" to his defense. Clearly they recognized something.

Clausen tried to continue utilizing Rudolph against UNC. And who can blame him? Rudolph's got great hands, plenty of speed to blow by most linebackers and plenty of size to out-fight most defensive backs. He's a QB's dream. But Clausen's confidence in Rudolph and in his own ability to thread passes into tight coverage became hubris when, after 2 warnings by the UNC defense in the 1st half, Clausen took the first snap in the 2nd half, kept his eyes on Rudolph during his entire back-peddle, and then fired a shot at #9. By then UNC had "adjusted" defensively, moving on from "try and jump the route if Clausen looks to the TE," to "just jump the TE's route." It was a gamble by UNC because they'd already nearly picked off 2 TE passes in the 1st half, and you've got to imagine the ND coaching staff warned Clausen about this trap at half-time. Had Clausen not stared down the TE, and/or simply pump-faked to the TE on a Go route, one can only imagine how the game might have turned out, but that's not what happened.

The second interception by Clausen was also hubris, but of a different sort. It was like watching a teenager driving fast on familiar roads, close to home. Having already responded to the first pick-6 with a nice, long touchdown drive, Clausen again had the Irish cruising, all the way to the UNC 35. And during the cadence, Clausen saw something he liked and tried to make an audible, but even watching it all unfold as it happened, something seemed off. His audible to the WR, which is really a hand-gesture, seemed rushed. It didn't look like his usual hand-waggle that so often this season has prefaced some sort of 40 yard completion. It was quick. So quick, you might have missed it. So quick, perhaps Floyd missed it. Or maybe Floyd didn't know what that signal meant, since it wasn't quite "normal." Clausen, as he'd mentioned to the ABC announcing staff earlier in the week, was feeling confident and comfortable, and while that's a great thing, it can often lull one into being sloppy. Something about the pre-snap operation on that play was sloppy, and the Tar Heels had been waiting for the slop like pigs in a pen.

There is no moral victory here, but there are certainly silver linings. The over-confidence that the Irish may have developed over the previous 2 weeks has probably been taken down a notch, hopefully replaced with a bit of wisdom. We've been looking for this team to make steps. We'd been looking for them to stop thinking they can't, and move onto thinking they can. After that we looked for the Irish to know they can. They've clearly reached that point, perhaps surpassing it. In this case, perhaps a half-step back isn't the worst thing in the world. Full belief in yourself is great unless it breeds recklessness.

Now the Irish and we, the fans, must wait with a bitter taste in our mouths, but as obvious as the cause of this loss was, there are a lot of lessons that can be learned while the players sharpen their skills and develop their talents for 14 days. Luckily, the Irish can take another step forward in 14 days. Unfortunately, gaining any sort of respect, as the players have been discussing all season, will take far longer than that.

Various other things:

• Actually, they got that call right: I couldn't believe it either, but hell, when the refs decided to over-turn the ruling on the field and call UNC's final 3rd down pass incomplete, I was going to take it. For every one of those calls, a miraculous Irish TD grab is called incomplete, right? Well, actually, according the the rules, the ground can't cause a fumble, but the ground can cause the player to display a lack of control of the football when receiving a pass. In fact, a similar call was made to overturn an interception during the Oklahoma/Texas game earlier in the day. So as much as the call seemed like a gift to the Irish, it was really just the refs getting a call right (finally).
• They totally whiffed earlier though: The real crime, as so many Irish fans have already noted, was the lack of a review on the 3rd and 18 play during which UNC completed a pass for a first down and then fumbled the ball. It was so obvious you could hear that ABC crew choking down any mention of it. Why Weis didn't challenge the play, I don't know. Maybe he's remembering a nuance of the rules (or just an outright rule) that I'm forgetting.
• One giant step ahead, almost: Not to jump to conclusions using just one set of results, but we may have just observed the Irish debuting their real offensive identity. Then again, how often will Irish opponents only rush 3? You certainly got the feeling that the Irish were declaring that the no-back, 5 wide set was going to be used until UNC or anybody else could stop it well before UNC ever got around to responding. What was particularly encouraging was the fact that ND then went to various sets featuring a tailback and looked quite proficient doing it - both Allen and Aldridge averaged over 5 yards/carry. The game's a funny thing. It looks a heck of a lot different to the guys in the trenches than it does to us in the stands or in our living rooms. Even though the UNC D knew that the offensive sets had changed, it's really, really hard to just start responding differently to it. It was a great move by the Irish coaches, and it nearly worked. If only the Irish had protected the ball, this would have been a fun offensive performance to watch.
• This also nearly worked, just not so nearly: The Irish defensive tactics were also obvious, and given UNC's big-play ability they were quite smart. The Irish played to force UNC to have to "earn" points by driving the field over the course of many plays. Clearly the idea was that UNC's rather bland, 3rd string receiver would make at least one big mistake. Maybe the RBs and receivers would do something stupid as well. It nearly worked. The Tar Heels' biggest offensive play was a 31 yard pass to Nicks, and the first time the Irish faked a blitz and dropped back into coverage, Maurice Crum floated into an interception that no QB should throw. But Crum didn't make the play. That was a theme with the Irish D. They didn't make many plays at all. Perhaps the entire defensive strategy somehow infiltrated the Irish's defensive play-making ability, nullifying their penchant for turnovers. After all, as many interceptions as UNC may have had going into the game, the Irish actually had forced more turnovers to that point in the season. But in this game, the Irish didn't make any plays on defense, and the somewhat passive nature of the defense allowed that bland, 3rd team QB to look great. (In all fairness to the UNC QB, I was impressed that he took the opportunity given to him and stepped up.) Most problematic for the Irish D, however, was the lack of response to the changing tone of the game. The Irish sat back and the Tar Heels managed to get within 2 points in the second half. On the ensuing attempt for 2 points after the touchdown, the Irish threw nearly everything at UNC, and the QB responded poorly. You'd think after that the Irish would continue attacking the QB, particularly since one of the 2 biggest UNC play-makers had been knocked out of the game, but in a mystifying move, the Irish continued to be passive and the UNC QB continued to look good.
• It's time to drop it: The Irish weren't abused by the run in a statistical manner. The Tar Heels did only gain 121 yards on the ground with a 3.8 yrd/carry average. Still the Tar Heels did manage to "run when it counted," gashing ND enough to score. ND looked horrible while it was happening. It's one thing for the Irish to get beat at the point of attack because there are personnel problems on the defensive line, but ND opponents could be limited on the ground quite a bit more if the Irish defenders, who don't seem to mind hitting, would just go ahead and tackle the freaking ball carrier rather than get dragged along for 4 or 5 yards while they try and strip the ball. We don't know how much we can harp on this any longer. It's not as though the Irish coaching staff would listen to us - we hope they wouldn't listen to us - but this insistence that living for the stripped ball over good fundamental defensive play is killing our will to live.

We've got 13 days until the next Irish football game. 13 days to analyze every last play by the Irish this season. 13 days to try and not listen to that little voice in our head, reminding us that the worst possible scenario can happen. 13 days to insist loudly and forcibly that it's unfathomable that this Irish squad could or would lose to Ty Willingham and his merry band of football idiots. It's going to be a long 13 days.