Is it? Well, we tried to define progress for the team last week. At least, we tried to define some “measurables” if you will. Whatever the hell that means. I had 16 items listed – 16 things I wanted to see ND do not just “better,” but well. And I said that if ND accomplishes 12 of these items, I’d consider it “progress.” So how did they do? Let’s take a look and see how the ND Football Team progressed, if at all. I admit, I set the bar pretty high, but, hey, this is Notre Dame.

1. In over 90% of offensive snaps, the Irish offensive line maintains their blocks until the the whistle is blown. I’d say it’s safe to say this didn’t happen. From the looks of things (and I don’t have the benefit of replay this week), on just about every snap, someone achieved this, but the unit as a whole always had someone fail at this, so… Fail
2. The Irish offensive line allows fewer than 3 QB sacks. I believe they allowed 6, so this is an out-and-out failure. Sure, Claussen didn’t get rid of the ball at times, and you could call a few of those sacks “coverage sacks,” but even allowing for that, they “allowed” 3 sacks all on their lonesome. Fail
3. The Irish QB connects on 60+% of his passes. Unfortunately, this didn’t happen. It really looked like it would for a while, but then things got a little shaky late in the game. The 3 incompletions late, in the red zone, were really a bummer for JC because he put the ball where it needed to be. Ultimately, it was just young guys not making the plays. They will eventually. Incomplete
4. ND running backs break at least 4 runs for more than 15 yards apiece. Heh. No. And by the way, we’re dead last in rushing offense in the nation today. Fail
5. No stupid “anger” penalties. Nope. Travis Thomas decided to cause all of ND Nation to wonder why he’s ever been a captain on this team. Way to take your anger out in a stupid fight rather than, you know, in game play, Travis. We hear a ton of stories about what a great leader Travis is, and yet one of the most glaring holes for this young ND offense is any sort of leadership. If the reason Charlie keeps putting Travis on the field is “leadership,” then Charlie should give up. Travis isn’t producing, and given that idiotic penalty that an ill-tempered 6th grader wouldn’t have incurred, I’d say he’s not exactly “leading” anyone anywhere I’d want to go. Fail
6. ND Fullbacks find their blocking target and whiff no more than 2 times. Survey Says: Brrr. No go here. Oh sure, Asaph finally destroyed someone, but that was during a QB scramble on a guy that never saw it coming. Still yet to see him destory a LB that’s trying to take him on man-to-man. Fail
7. When the PSU defense blitzes, the ND QB will have enough presence to at least find the open man and attempt a throw. I’d say the QB has all the “presence” in the world for a true frosh. But we kept having a nasty combination of things occur. Either the OL would wiff, and JC was running for his life, or JC couldn’t find the open man because there may not have been an open man. Remember, PSU’s defensive backs may be the best squad in the country. A tough assignment for the ND receivers, but still a disappointing performance overall. Still, since this item was about the QB… Pass
8. No PSU defenders will be able to blitz the QB while a ND “blocker,” be it OL, TE, or RB is “blocking air.” I’ll say this, the O-Line actually did look “better.” Problem is, they usually didn’t look “good.” If you want to blitz the ND QB, just go right up the 2 gap with your NT taking on the C and G for 1 second. The hole will be there. And if that doesn’t work out, just run around the Left Tackle. It may be poor “technique,” but you’ll get around him fast enough that you can run back down to the QB without any issue. Fail
9. The ND OLB/DEs “set the edge” against outside run bouncing by PSU. This is hard to judge. The defense actually looked very good thru much of the game. But when the guys got tired, there was just nothing they could do. Still, I saw far too many technique mistakes here too. The 2 OLB are still taking the lead blocker on their outside shoulder too often. This causes a lot of problems. First, it enables the ball carrier to “get the edge,” meaning they now have a clear lane to the outside of the defense. It also means the two ILB, in pursuit, now have more traffic in front of them to go and “clean up” the play. It’s a really simple technique, but it takes a while to fight back your instincts. (You’d be amazed at what your instinct tells you on the field in that situation, especially if you’re a right handed guy playing Right End or ROLB.) A DE/OLB needs to hold the edge, and take lead blockers with their outside shoulder. When that happens, the RB is forced back inside, into the teeth of the defense (here, our 2 ILB). Fail (but only barely)
10. The ND defense allows fewer than 125 yards rushing. Didn’t happen, obviously. You could argue that it’s not on the defense. That’s partially true. It’s also probably true that Penn State’s rushing attack is not very good, so even as tired as the Defense most certainly was, they’ve got work to do. Correcting the issue I have in item #9 would go a long way toward doing that. Fail
11. The ND defense records 2+ turnovers. Bingo. Actually a very good effort here. When we got that first pick, I thought to myself about all the horrid DB play we’ve seen in the last 8 years. That play said to me, “It’s going to be ok. We’re going to kick some ass in the future.” I really believe that. Not only was the play a good INT, but the display of talent and physicality in the form of that long return was a thing of beauty. Pass
12. The PSU QB connects on fewer than 60% of his pass attempts. Again, very good effort here. PSU connected on only 54% of their passes. And I was absolutely floored this morning when I discovered they threw the ball 22 times. I really thought it was more like 12. My guess is it didn’t seem like they threw it much because they really had very little success in in doing so. We had almost no blown coverages. The one glaring mistake was a combination of a magnificent throw by Morelli (kid’s got a cannon), and a young safety being in position to make a great play, but taking a poor angle. He had the opportunity to either pick the pass or put the wide receiver in traction, but he took a bad angle. And, really, I think that happened because he didn’t expect that pass to be thrown on a rope. Most guys would have put much more air under that ball. Pass
13. The ND kickoff return men make the correct read at the point of attack and break on the correct window each and every opportunity. Tough to say. The blocking looked a lot worse against PSU than it did against GaTech. That’s not really surprising. GaTech is sort of notorious for poor kickoff coverage. Still, there were a few times that the ND return men took a bad angle. It may be youth meeting the “speed of the game” early on. These guys need to trust their own speed a little more. Look at Zibby on punt returns. His most effective returns look like they might not work, but he just flat out runs until someone can stop him. Amazing how few people can stop him. Fail
14. Charlie Weis identifies and exploits a weakness in the PSU defense until PSU shows they can stop it (meaning exploitations occur at least 5+ times). Eh. I can’t say this happened. I really liked Charlie’s “openers” (the first 15 or so plays that he scripts ahead of time). He knew that Penn State would try to blitz and see if ND corrected their problems from last week. So he got the ball into Armando Allen’s hands on quick tosses in space. Very good plan. The problem here is, unlike Georgia Tech, Penn State, when they go back to their “bread and butter,” just simply cover the field in nice, base defenses and count on every man to do his job. It’s not nearly as exotic as a Georgia Tech scheme, and as a result, it’s terribly hard to scheme against. They don’t leave any holes open. Even Charlie has said as much in the past. And their guys, especially the back 7, are so good that the field really is covered. Charlie has always made his money by “taking what they give you,” but Penn State doesn’t give much. Their linebackers are good enough to play in base sets and cover the run and the pass. That’s a real problem. Last year, that base was a bit of a liability because we could release our All World tight end into the LB zones, forcing the LB (including Pozluszny with a bum knee) to run all over the field. And Quinn’s ability to make great decisions enabled him to pick the base defense apart. This year, Penn State’s Connor may actually be a better LB than Poz, especially in coverage, and ND wasn’t able to release the TE quite as often because of our blocking problems. That’s a nasty little combination from ND’s perspective. Now, there were a few times that I saw the TE or Slot wide open, but Claussen didn’t see it. That’s correctable, and probably due to youth. At the very least, it was good to see that the scheme did find some holes in that very tough defense. Incomplete
15. Schwapp finally destroys someone with a block. As HLS Expert DNeelan was quick to point out via text last night, we finally saw Schwapp destroy someone. Nice, heads-up play. Still, it wasn’t on a LB that saw it coming. I’m still waiting for that. Incomplete
16. Oh yeah, Charlie puts the damn ball in Armando’s hands! He certainly tried to do that, at least early on. Still, I really am mystified why Armando is leaving the field as often as he does. Pass (but only barely)

Ok, so they only got a passing grade on 2 of the 16 items. That’s not to say ND didn’t get “better,” from week 1 to week 2. It’s just to say that, of the 16 items at which I was looking, ND only performed 2 of them well. I’d actually say the Offensive Line looked better this week. I’d also say that there’s a lot to point to and say, “there’s a ton of upside there.” But as far as we defined “progress” last week, ND gets a failing grade in spectacular, almost Blutarsky-like fashion.
I’m not in panic mode right now. This schedule really is brutal. “Hey! Let’s play 3 brand new QBs against the most maniacal blitzers in the country!” followed by, “Let’s play a defense that gives you nothing and demands that you beat them man-to-man with our very young team.” That’s just rough. That doesn’t even give you much opportunity to show you learned anything from the previous week. This week, against Michigan (sucks!) will tell us quite a bit about the ability of the coaches and our young talent. Michigan (sucks!)’s defense has looked awful in 2 games against non-D1 competition and then non-top-25 competition (though, after watching them Satuday, the Ducks should get some votes). There will be holes to exploit against Michigan (sucks!), and it’s Charlie’s job to scheme for that and then coach the kids up to play that scheme. I truly believe he’ll do it because he’s done it many times before. (Don’t forget, this is the coaching staff that got us into 2 consecutive BCS games, upgraded at the DC position.)

The defense really does look much, much better with Corwin Brown at the helm, at least scheme wise. Smart, aggressive, and… tired. That’s the really worrying thing, despite all the very justifiable optimism about this squad: Not enough players to keep guys fresh. Penn State did something really smart at one point early in the game: They went to a no-huddle, hurry-up offense. And it was really effective. You could see our guys just dying for a clean breath of air and a little rest between snaps. Luckily, a few events conspired to stop PSU from doing that any more, but I’m not entirely sure why. I don’t expect to see it from Michigan this week because apparently Chad Henne is injured and doubtful for the start Saturday. They have a very talented true freshman, Lurch, ready to take his place. I’ll be shocked if he’s ready to run a no-huddle, hurry-up this week. That said, I’m not kidding about him having a lot of talent, or looking like Lurch.

One great thing about this past week: That was, from what I could tell, one rockin’ road-game crowd. I have a hunch Michigan wont be nearly as rockin’. Even when Michigan (sucks!) doesn’t suck, the Big House’s reputation as an intimidation factor is over-blown. Don’t worry too much about our young guys going in there with deer-in-headlights expressions on their faces. They probably wont be impressed.

Obviously, the crackling, eroding foundation to all of our offensive problems is the offensive line play. That’s just about all that ND fans can agree upon right now. The cause, however, seems to be dividing ND fans into two camps: Those who blame Charlie and those who blame Willingham. They’re both right. They’re both wrong. I do know one thing, if you argue “in 3 seasons, Charlie has never had a good offensive line,” and then think that, in and of itself, shows that Weis and Company can’t coach an offensive line, you’re failing to look at the cause of our symptoms. The previous 2 years, we had almost no depth at offensive line thanks to Willingham’s mistaken belief that offensive linemen don’t need recruiting. Good luck coaching that up. Rumors abound about how “entrenched” a few offensive linemen felt last year. Don’t kid yourself into thinking that every ND player gives a “Rudy effort,” every day in practice. It just doesn’t happen. Now, this year, we’ve got some real talent at OL, not just with the starters, but with the back-ups. But the starters are all very inexperienced, and the backups are even more inexperienced, not to mention even younger. So our offensive line traded one set of big problems for a new set of big problems. I expected Charlie to do a better job of overcoming this new set of problems. To be sure, I’ve been very disappointed, but I also think I understand it. Mental errors will happen with this squad. I can sort of live with that. What I can’t live with is guys on the OLine not making hustle plays, not going out and hitting someone in the mouth when they do know which guy they’re supposed to hit. Still, even that may play into a tentativeness resulting from lack of experience. Still, there are 2 guys on that offensive line with more than a dozen starts and a lot of talent. They, at least, need to start looking like it. And that plays into the coaching we have today. I expect this coaching staff to take that set of big problems and overcome them with a few bumps and scratches. Thus far, however, there’s been almost no overcoming of anything.

The really funny thing about problematic offensive line play is that it often involves really big guys making small mistakes that add up to huge problems. And that’s what we’ve seen a lot of in these first 2 games. Things like picking up a double team when you should be picking up a blitzer, or failing to realize that the DE on the TE side is going to use a speed technique if the TE releases without challenging the DE, or just failing to have your head on a swivel. Those are correctable, but it’s about time for this coaching staff to correct it or bench someone.

Alright. Catharsis achieved once again. I can’t wait to write up the Michigan (sucks!) Victory Lap next week! Michigan (sucks!) really does suck right now, and I think ND can and will win that game, but we’ll get to that in other posts.

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domer.mq

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