Pete Carroll may run a program that gets a little shady around the edges, and he may drive me insane with his Southern Cal ‘tude, but he said something that a lot of Irish fans seem unable to admit. When asked if he expected the Irish to struggle this year, he said…

“Three years ago, you could see it coming,” Carroll said. “They had all the juniors that played and started, and they had a really good team. Then they were seniors the next year, and they were fortunate to keep a few of those seniors around.

“Now it’s all about recruiting. If you’re (not) able to restock, it’s hard to recover from all those losses.”

Now, I’m sure not even Carroll had expected the Irish to go 1-7, but it’s an interesting and surprisingly frank comment by the guy that leads ND’s rival program. I sure didn’t see 1-7 coming. I was thinking 4-4. I thought we’d beat Georgia Tech, Purdue, BC, and MSU. But I didn’t count on MSU and Purdue not sucking and BC getting a top-5 ranking. And I didn’t expect ND to suck so bad against Georgia Tech.