Going into camp we heard pronouncements like "everyone's good to go", and "this is as good as it gets" in terms of health.
No more.
In last week's narrow win, the injury bug bit ND hard, and in the worst places. Floyd goes down for the season. That alone is a huge blow to this Irish offense.
But, a matured Jimmy Clausen is really playing great and can help mitigate the loss. Clausen gets hurt.
But, Armando Allen and the oline have developed a ton this year, and a solid run game can help make up for a somewhat reduced passing game, due to the loss of Floyd and the injury to Clausen. Allen gets hurt.
F.
The latest has Jimmy playing, with the help of plates and customized shoes, a little grit and a lot of talent. Great news. But Allen is game-time, and if he plays he'll probably see limited action. This alone is a concern for the offense, as ND really needs Allen to produce to take some of the pressure off Tate and the group-that-is-now-Floyd. But with Allen unlikely to be 100%, that means reduced carries and more reliance on the rest of the RBs.
And while ND is deep at RB, the distance between Allen and the rest has become pretty obvious this year. Allen has started, and performed well with both running and blitz pickup assignments.
Aldridge was switched to FB, and is out with an injury. Gray has shown flashes, but puts the ball on the ground way too much for my liking, and has trouble with the pickups. Hughes, once my favorite back, has slid down the depth chart and is now a glorified FB (which isn't a bad thing necessarily), which means he was not close to earning the starting halfback job. Riddick shows a flash, but is super young and struggles mightily with blitz pickups, and Cierre Wood is a likely ND-style-redshirt.
With a Purdue defense that struggles agains the pass, we'd love to be able to fling it all over the place. But with Clausen hurt, Purdue will bring heat, and our backfield's ability to block in this game will be key. So we'll be depending on our deep, but somewhat flawed, backfield to deliver. Here's hoping that Alford has them ready to go.
One other concern is that using backups reduces the sets and plays that Weis can choose from. While it would seem that this should not be a huge problem, we saw what the lack of personnel did to Weis' playcalling last year (when we only had 1 TE).
I'm hoping Allen can go for 15-20 carries, and that our backups can handle the rest without putting the ball on the ground, and without major mix-ups in the blocking assignments. And hopefully Jimmy and the new WR mix will keep Purdue from being in the backfield much in the first place.
But to be sure, the injury bug makes this week's game a lot more interesting. That bug brings a lot more to the table than Purdue does, that's for sure.
