I can’t seem to organize my thoughts about the Georgia Tech game and/or the state of the program into one long post, so I’m going to use a little device here, and interview myself.

I didn’t watch the ND/Georgia Tech game from the stands. I watched it from a living room in the middle of Maine. Which meant I never once got yelled at for standing up and cheering. I never got shouted down for being too loud and interrupting someone’s conversation. And I could see just about everything happening on the field because NBC decided not to utilize the zoom feature on any of its cameras. And I never got too upset either. I just got a lot drunker. As a result of these circumstances, and having sat on this for a few days, what you’re about to read is pretty darn calm, so you may want to go read something else for giggles. This may all just be more catharsis than content. It’s all about me, ultimately.

This may best be read as one of those Maxim interviews where the square writer dude interviews the smoking hot, up-and-coming, air-brushed to perfection actress, but with slightly less intellectual capital at play.

Did Charlie Weis wet the bed on Saturday when he tried to run the “Spread Option”?

Eh. See, we’ve all got the benefit of crystal clear, plasma displayed, TiVo recorded hindsight. Remember when we were all posting on various Notre Dame internet forums that we think Charlie’s a genius because, unlike so many failed ND coaches, he actually tailors his system to the abilities of his players? Remember Ron Powlus running option plays? Can you even recall Carlyle Holdiay helming the “West Coast Offense” without vomiting? I believe that it still holds that one of the great things about Weis is that he tailors his offense to the abilities of his players, and that’s exactly what he was trying to do on Saturday. Demetrius Jones just isn’t constructed to run the “Brady Quinn Offense.” Besides, other than a few new QB running plays, it doesn’t look like the system changed all that much. Weis did try to fend off the blitz using draws and screens. Those failed for various reasons, not the least of which was timid play by Jones, and an inability by the offensive line to read and react to some of John Tenuta’s very clever blitz schemes. But let me just go ahead and state it clearly: Weis did not try to run a “spread option” offense.

I mean, honestly, did we see much of this? Really?

Ok, so then was it a mistake to start Demetrius Jones over Clausen or Sharpley?

Given the information now coming to light about Clausen’s health during fall camp, I’d have to say no. It seems pretty clear that Sharpley is really just the backup, and the real competition, had Clausen been healthy, would have been between Clausen and Jones. But Clausen couldn’t take enough snaps in fall camp to become the starter. Heck, Charlie didn’t even know that Clausen could throw every snap in a game until last week.

Charlie looks to win “the next game,” and that’s really it. And he’s also stated that he’s looking to win “right now,” not “down the road,” so starting Sharpley wouldn’t be effective. Sharpley could probably manage a game if his team were full of seasoned veterans, and his job was “don’t lose the game,” but when the team is this young, the QB needed to be a guy that had some potential to do some damage, and Jones gives ND more potential rewards. Unfortunately, Jones probably also gave ND more potential risk. But Charlie’s a gambler, and he wants to win now. I’m not surprised that he made this pick, and if I had the guts that Charlie has, I’d make it too.

But Sharpley looked pretty good when he was playing, didn’t he?

Relative to what? To Jones? Sure. But you also have to consider when he came into the game. His first entrance in the game was around the 2-minute mark, as had been planned all along. I’ll bet Charlie knew darn well that Evan takes quite a while to make his reads and pull the trigger. I’ll also bet that Charlie was betting that in 2-minute scenarios, GT’s tendancy to go blitz-happy would be knocked down a notch in favor of fending off the deep ball.

Now, you may ask, why didn’t Charlie then put Jones back in to start the 3rd quarter? It’s a good question, and I have no idea. My guess is that it’s got a lot to do with the look in Jones’ eyes during half-time, some perceived momentum gained by the Sharpley-led offense, and a desire not to fumble the ball any more.

So why did the rest of the offense look so crappy?

Well, it all keys off of the offensive line. And I’ve got a feeling that has a lot to do with depth. These guys probably haven’t really been practicing at “game speed,” because of fear of injury, either to offensive linemen, or #1 guys on the defensive side of the ball. Remember, they are still about 10 men short of a full roster of scholarship players. And yes, I will continue to blame that on Willingham. 10 men could account for a number of missing D-Linemen, or Linebackers. And that really hurts when opening against a defense like Georgia Tech’s. If anything, “game speed” against a Georgia Tech defense is even faster than “game speed” against a vast majority of other teams. Did you see their middle linebacker? Will you be at all surprised when he’s playing free safety in the pros?

After reading some excellent analysis of the 9 sacks that ND coughed up, I’m not as upset about the offensive line as I had been. I’m still waiting to see marked improvement though. I can’t recall feeling like the offensive lines have improved a lot over the course of a year in quite a while. Now, the past 2 years, that seemed to be directly related to the fact that Willingham didn’t believe in recruiting offensive linemen. As a result, there wasn’t a lot of strong competition for playing time, and so quality suffered. This year I’m really looking for good coaching to improve this group. Weis has said himself that this group is finally deep enough to work like a group of offensive linemen should. They’ve got some real talent there. Young, but real. They should improve every week.

The problem is, there were a few plays that really made me doubt if that improvement would occur. Go back and watch some of the chop-blocking. ND’s guys would just sort of kick out once, toward the opponent’s shins, and then they were on their stomachs. You aren’t supposed to just push out once. The defenders will just step back once, avoid the block, and then go make the sack. The O Line needs to learn to keep driving their feet, and that comes with practicing it again, and again, and again. So why didn’t that happen during fall camp? That doesn’t require overly-physical practices. Just make them push a sled until they puke. And then do it again. Hell, if there’s one blocking technique that this once paper-thin line should have mastered, it’s the chop.

How did the defense look?

Like it still has real depth issues. Things actually were pretty encouraging until Justin Brown got tossed. (And, frankly, that was a B.S. call. Dumb of Brown, but dumber of the ref.) Then we learned exactly what will happen against a good running team if any of our starting defensive line gets injured. And while I can put a lot of the blame for this situation on Willingham, it’s not like Weis hasn’t been trying to recruit defensive linemen the past few years. He’s just had no success until this year. Why? No idea. But thank God he’s having some success now.

Other than that, you almost can’t tell anything about our new defense. Yes, it’s more agressive, but can we say it’s more effective? Not entirely sure. Did the defense always know where they needed to be before the snap? Nope. Did they cover the pass well? For the most part, though there were scenarios where a GaTech receiver had nobody within 20 yards of him. Was that by design? Maybe, considering that receiver seemed to be the fullback, who touches the ball about as often as a GaTech undergrad touches a girl. So the vote is still out here.

Why can’t Notre Dame get a 1st down on a short-yardage down?

Because along with the O-Line’s troubles, Asaph Schwapp couldn’t block me, let alone Georgia Tech’s Wheeler. I don’t understand this guy at all. Weis seems enamoured with him. There are all sorts of stories about how much he likes to hit people. Somebody somewhere give me one example of a single play where Schwapp absolutely crushed a defender. Just one. I bet you can’t do it. I’ll be thrilled if I’m wrong. But I think it may be time for Weis to abandon the fullback concept entirely until he gets some new blood in there.

Any glimmers of hope?

If Armando Allen makes one guy miss, he’ll take it all the way. I kept catching my breath when he’d touch the ball. And the young guys at receiver looked pretty good too. We’ve got guys with speed, we’ve got guys with size, and we’ve got guys that will draw comparisons to Jeff Samardzjia. Seriously, of the skill guys, I’m feeling very, very good.

Also, I was pretty happy with David Bruton. He seemed like he knew where he was going, tackled well, and he’s an actual weapon on the punt team. An actual weapon. Other teams will have to plan how they’re going to handle him with their punt return teams.

And overall, the defense really did look more “fired up,” if you will. When they did hit a guy, I’m pretty sure that guy felt it. That was good to see. And as the season progresses, I expect that guy to get hit closer to or behind the line of scrimmage.

What concerns you the most?

Just the fundamentals. The crap that these guys practice every day, or should be. Our guys stunk at shedding blocks. They stunk at sliding their feet to get in space and take on an attacking defender. Our interior linebackers did a poor job of getting out of a jam and helping to clean up on the edges. Outside contain, what outside contain? Zibby doesn’t seem to be nearly as effective on blitzes as you might expect of him. Our offensive linemen don’t drive thru until the whistle. Our best running backs are apparently poor at blitz pick-up. One of our QBs takes 4 seconds to throw a ball. The other doesn’t give himself 2 seconds before trying to run instead. I could go on and on…

Is the “Honeymoon” over with Weis?

Yes, but why does that matter? Does the Honeymoon last forever in any relationship? Why is it that if the honeymoon is over, ND’s fans must immediately stop liking, or even loving, Charlie Weis as the Head Coach of ND Football? So he’s got some tendencies that bother us on occasion. Sure he does some things that we don’t understand. We’re still pretty fond of him. He’s still the most brilliant offensive mind ND has had since at least Lou Holtz’s glory days. He’s still a great recruiter. He still works tirelessly. He still “gets” ND as only people who feel a very deep connection with ND ever could. Why should we be wanting anyone else? It’s not like he’s out all the time, screwing around or working on his golf game.

So you have no concerns about Weis?

I have my concerns. I’m concerned that he’s treating college football a bit too much like the pros. The NFL is a business through and through, but college football has soul. You can’t treat it like a business all the time. You’ve got to recognize the soul of college football and embrace the emotions that result, otherwise I think you’ll never achieve greatness. I’m still hoping that Weis learns that, and learns to harness the emotion in order to improve a team’s effort each week.

I’m concerned that Weis can out-think himself at times. If the QB sneak almost always works, stick with it. Don’t call a run that develops 3 yards behind the LOS in order to gain a foot. Sure, everyone in the world is expecting it. So what? It works! Usually.

But other than that, I think we’ve got an excellent coach, and I see no reason to sound a panic alarm unless we have a truly terrible year. It’s time to wait and see.

That’s all I can really handle thinking about last weekend. It’s time to look forward to PSU and Photoshop some images of JoePa.

For now, just soothe yourself with delightful thoughts like Michigan paying a non-D1 team to come to it’s house and beat them.