Purdue Review: Fits and Starts For a Start Leave Me Sleeping Poorly

I'm on vacation. Despite this being the first weekend of college football, aside from taking brief peeks at a few games here and there, I've only spent 2 hours or more actually sitting down and devoting my attention to 2 things. Both of those things provided me with fairly similar experiences. I found the feature figures in both things rather unfamiliar, neither turned out at all like I expected, both were uniquely ugly, I was convinced something terrible would happen during the durations of both, and by the end of each, I was left with a sense of ambiguity and only a marginal notion that I may have actually liked what I just saw, and neither experience has left me sleeping well since. The first such experience occured while I watched the movie "The American" on Friday night, and unfortunately it was the only one of the two that heavily featured a stunning Italian actress. The second such experience, of course, was the premier of the head coaching career of Brian Kelly at Notre Dame.

Before we get too far back down the road of what already did happen, let's take a peak at the road ahead and at what could happen: Specifically, let's take a look at a QB we'll face next after the Fabulous Mr. Marve: One Denard Robinson, who just set a QB rushing record at Michigan with 197 yards against a team that held ND to 20 regulation time points last year. Suddenly Mr. Robinson has made RichRod look competent. Just realize that pretty much all of my commentary on the Purdue game is crafted with an eye on Mr. Robinson.

If you actually plotted out the results of each ND drive (Punt, Punt, TD, FG, FG, Half, TD, Fumble, Safety, Punt, FG, Game) what would it look like on your graph paper? For me, I think it looks something like this...

Now, for a positive, there was a point in the game where ND was taking over. It was so blatantly clear that Mike Mayock's dispensible sidekick on the NBC telecast even took note of it. There were 8 minutes left in the 3rd quarter, ND had just finished their last 5 possessions on a high-note with 2 TDs, 2 FGs, and a lead at the half, and they were knocking on the door of Purdue's end zone once again, with a 2nd and 10 at the Purdue 16. And... fumble. Fumble by the premier wide receiver in the country, Mike Floyd. And just like that, thing went to hell. Things went from likely being 27-3, Irish to a bizarre milieu of "Purdue-drives-89-yards-in-15-plays-GARY-GRAY-TIP-DRILL-INTERCEPTION-YES-SAFETY-WHO-THE-HELL-WERE-WE-BLOCKING!?-SOMEBODY-TACKLE-THEIR-WHITE-RUNNING-BACK-20-12-DAMMIT!" Yes, that safety sucked, but that was effectively a trade of 2 points for 7 in the midst of a momentum swing. And that pendulum was initially pushed by that damned fumble by our All-World Wide Receiver. ...and I'm irritated again and need to take a breather. Excuse me.

Okay. I'm back. And I feel I've made the obvious point that this entire cookie nearly crumbled because of that fumble, so onto a positive or two...

Mike Floyd lead the receivers. That is, he lead the receivers in terms of catches, yards receiving, and exemplary blocking on rushing plays. Granted, the one or two highlights NBC showed of Floyd's blocking probably could have been called for a hold (and will be when the B10 refs are back in ND Stadium to call a game for one of their "marquee" programs next week), but his effort was excellent. It's just a shame that a single error could detract from an otherwise excellent game in which it didn't even feel like the game-plan was to give Floyd a leading role. 5 receptions for 82 yards means 16.4 yards/catch for Mr. Floyd, which means Michigan's walk-on heavy defensive backfield gets to practice in pretend mode this week, as in "pretend you can do a damned thing about him." More worrisome for any Michigan defender: The 1st time starter QB, Dayne Crist, completed passes to 7 different receivers on Saturday. Certainly TJ Jones made his presence known to the fans and opposing coaches with his 3 grabs for 41 yards and a TD. Kelly said Jones can "take the top off a defense like nobody else" on the Irish roster. That's coaching speak for, "have fun chasing him while we throw the shallow posts to Floyd and Rudolph, clowns." And now opposing coaches have to actually do it because A) Jones showed he can make the catches and B) because F them.

Also on a positive note: The running game, when it's not giving me a mini-stroke as it develops post-snap and pre-breakthrough to the second level. My heart stopped every time the RBs were running laterally to the line of scrimmage on Saturday, which meant my heart stopped about 33 times on Saturday. Not counting sacks, I believe there were 33 rushing attempts by the Irish balanced (and I do mean balanced - yay!) by 29 actual pass attempts. Cierre Wood's abilities were clearly on display, showcasing that ideal "role player" yards per rushing average of 8.3. That' takes him right over the "pain in the ass" threshold for opposing defenses of about 7 yds/rush. Irish fans are familiar with this number only due to the fact that it's usually the opponent's backup RB who crosses this threshold. Saturday, it was ND and only ND that featured a true PITA backup rusher. Even that white dude only had 6.2 yds/rush for Purdue.

The datapoints become most muddled for the offensive line. Certainly, there are plenty of highlights (9 rushing plays for 10 or more yards) where a color-commentator of lesser substance than Mike Mayock (who I really liked) could have simply said, "well, the ND offensive line set up a wall, and the ND running back just ran around it all" would have sufficed. And hooray for that, as it was so alien to my own eyes as to warrant critical skepticism and doubt as to whether that was a "wall by design" or a "mass of jumbled bodies." By the 7th rush of over 10 yards, I decided to just go with it. Still, there are 3 sacks and a safety harnessed around the OL's neck today, and while Taylor Dever did a pretty good job against that NFL-level defensive end of Purdue, I myself would have called holding on 2 of the highlights NBC showed of Dever. I worry what the tape the B10 and Purdue has sent to their refs looks like today. I worry more of what worms RichRod will put in the ears of the refs before Saturday.

Also, Armando Allen looked like an elite player Saturday. He made a few mistakes, particularly in the passing game while trying to pick up blitzes, but he ran strong, through tacklers, and around lesser athletes. Hard not to get excited after seeing what he could do. Allen and Wood combined for 25 carries for 161 yards and a TD. It's been a while since ND's produced anything like that on the ground between 1 or 2 players.

Just about the entire world has already discussed the fact that Manti Te'o missed about as many tackles as he made Saturday, and that's not unfair, but I think it's worth couching that criticism in another fact: Te'o is a disruptive force unlike anything ND's had in about a decade. He's not limited directionally due to having to play out on the edge, probably covers more ground than any other defender, and despite all the misses, he tallied 9 tackles. Just wait until Manti couples all that instinct with some patience, it's going to be awesome.

A real shame that both Filer and Prince Shembo had to stay off the field due to cramps. That's 2 guys that much of the fanbase was excited to see perform unable to do it, and yet Purdue still only managed 10 offensive points. Both encouraging and discouraging. As for Neal and Brian Smith, I'm reserving judgement and assigning an "incomplete" at this point. The terms "blown contain" keep cropping up in my head, but, well, let's just wait and see what happens with Denard Robinson and his Band of Merry Skunkbears.

Same for Harrison Smith. I didn't notice him much, but when I did, I was thanking god that someone else took a much better angle to the ball than he did. Is there a way to transfer some of Manti's instincts to Harrison?

Speaking of Manti, he had 9 tackles, but he had fewer solo tackles than Gary Gray. After the first 5 great solo tackles by Gray, you'd think Purdue wouldn't have gone back his way to let him get 3 more. 8 solo tackles by a corner, and none of them were because he was out on an island and his receiver just caught a long ball.

With 4 sacks in the game, ND's set a "pace" to double (maybe even triple) their total of 19 sacks for the 2009 season, and again, that 10 points of Purdue offensive production was a positive, but there was something strangely unsettling about the defense. At one point I commented that Marve threw across his body on a roll-out 5 times without paying a penalty in the form of an interception. That causes me concern about the defensive middle, and their ability to flow with the play. Marve turned out to be, really, a very nice piece of preparation for Michigan and Denard Robinson, I think. I didn't recall that he was a pretty athletic kid, fully capable of getting the edge on our outside linebackers. Much of maintaining containment is a matter of positioning over speed, and frankly too often our positioning sucked. I put a lot of that on the players, but I wonder how much of that was a matter of the defense being instructed to crash down on the middle and collapse the pocket - a strange directive given Marve's athleticism, if that's the case.

And there's also something really unsettling about an opposing QB, who hasn't played a down of collegiate football in 2 years, and before that was a 55% passer managing to complete 73% of his passes. Yes, he gave up 2 interceptions. And they were huge, but still, 73% of his passes? Let's all try not to let that keep us up at night. Nope. Try not to let that eat at you while considering that Denard Robinson completed 19 of 22 passes this weekend. Stop it Cassandra, we're not listening to you.

Special teams were outstanding. That is all.

Fin.

That's how I'd like to finish this - suddenly and with ambiguity, much like The American and a bit like the way the game "ended" before time ran out on the clock sans any real heroics, but I lack the artistic sense of timing to pull it off, so let me just say a little more: The Notre Dame of the Weis Era, specifically, the Notre Dame of the Weis Era of the last three years, would have lost that game. The Notre Dame of the Weis Era, fairly or not, was often criticized for a lack of a killer instinct. I've often referred to it on this site as a lack of willingness to throat-stomp the opponent. And we've still not seen that here. Teams with real blood-lust don't drop their weapon - in this case the ball - just when the kill is primed. Saturday didn't result in a throat-stomp, though I doubt there was some deep-seeded moralistic mental block in Floyd's cranium that caused him to drop that ball and cancel a throat stomping. Purdue was about to get that throat stomping, and was saved by luck and gremlins. Who knows why, but I was still pleased, overall, to see Notre Dame respond to Purdue's potential uprising and comeback with, if not a throat stomping, at least a firmly applied noogie.

That throat-stomping probably wont come this weekend, at least not under the boot of ND. I'll pick ND to win the game over Michigan, but there are some habits that are hard to break, and I'm not convinced the Irish will break free of the habit of letting teams sneak back into games whilst the Shoelaceless Wonder is busy trying to assemble a Heisman campaign. Brian Kelly mentioned that they had some specific goals for the Purdue game. Doubtless they'll have specific goals for the Michigan game too, but perhaps it's best just to throw all that peripheral stuff out the window and "just win, baby." As completely un-indicative of the overall seasons of either program this next game will likely be, it's probably going to be a slog. If you are not already tense about this Michigan game, you've let the positives in a game against a maybe .500 team encase your eyes in rose colored glasses. Yes, Michigan will probably need to hold open try-outs to find enough DBs to fill their roster this weekend, but ND's not bringing Golden Tate or Jimmy Clausen back to play. No. Instead the Irish are marching out of the tunnel with the 63rd ranked passing offense and the 62nd ranked rushing offense. And yes the defense looked pretty solid against Purdue on Saturday, but they looked awesome against the most statistically prolific offense of 2009 in their first game last season too. Rest up. We're gonna need it.