thoughts on ND as a 3-4 defense....

[jiggafini19]

A travesty? I don't know if it is that dramatic. Pete Carroll had a defensive coordinator for the first time EVER this year since he took the job. Their defense didn't exactly crumble into a bunch of rag tags. The offense isn't broken. The defense is.

Charlie Weis is not offensive coordinator of the Patriots or Notre Dame. He is the head coach of Notre Dame football. The time has passed for him to just leave the defense to everyone else. He should be involved with EVERY apsect of the team. Offense, defense, special teams, recruiting. I think he has two of them down cold.

I don't care if Weis continues to call plays or not. He'd better start getting involved with the defense more or else they're going to keep hearing "no thanks" from the Ben Martins and Martez Wilsons and Chris Donalds and Will Blackwells.

Maybe his offensive genius can help with the defense a little bit?

[njuneardave]

what are you suggesting that Weis should do? Should he begin taking responsibility from Minter? I've heard Weis mention several times that he IS involved with the defense... sometimes, he will even call a play now and again. He listens to their communications on his headset... he isn't withdrawn from the defense.

I know that Charlie doesn't take the traditional head-coach role, but what he does, works. Yeah, our defense needs to be revamped, but this is not Charlie's specialty.... I know he has say into what and who our defense plays, but he isn't going to garner control of the whole operation. He shouldn't -- he needs to leave this to an expert. Charlie is an expert on offense, and he should therefore, retain control. He isn't so focused on offense that he is causing us to suddenly be an unbalanced team. We are trying to focus more on defense (obviously by recruiting), but we can't expect to compete with the other D-focused schools (ala tenn) just yet.... it takes time to build up a defense... it's not immediate.

[jiggafini19]

He gets paid a lot of money to be a head coach, not an offensive coordinator. His specialty is head coach. He is responsible for all of it, not just Brady and Jimmy.

[njuneardave]

do you think that the offense is the extent of Weis's control? I don't. Anyone else want to chime in on what they believe? Or if they think Weis should give up the reins of the offense to Haywood? It's a 2-person discussion as of now... what does everyone else think? I believe that Weis does a good job of handling personnel, recruiting, managing time clock, and focusing on all spectra of the games. I know that very few head coaches have the control of a certain facet of the game that is comparable to Weis... but look at Beamer... his Special Teams crew is his... and it works. Same thing with us and offense. We will only improve as time passes on the defensive side of the ball. Weis addressed our most pressing issue last year with recruiting (O-Line) and has been working incredibly hard this year on the defensive side (we will see the results in a few months). I think most people will agree that Weis doesn't simply focus on QB's and offense -- while the offense is our strength, Weis has taken great strides to address the defensive deficiencies.

Weis still manages to handle his HC position very well while still maintaining OC focus. He can do more than one thing.... and he does a great job at it, imo.

[jiggafini19]

Weis has taken great strides to address the defensive deficiencies.

And they have manifested themselves how?

[njuneardave]

is effort measured in commitments?


like I said, Weis has given an incredible amount of focus to recruiting the top defensive players around, and he has done his best to bring them to Notre Dame (anyone going to refute this?). Weis has no say in whether or not the kids CHOOSE Notre Dame -- he has no control over this.

[jiggafini19]

I'm not talking about recruiting as much as I am what is going on internally right now, in two years.

Here's why:

Run defense: 132.3 yards per game and 3.9 yards per carry last year. This year 127.8 and 3.6

YPC: Michigan 1.85 yards per carry, Texas (2.27), Florida (2.79), LSU (3.03), USC (3.15) and Ohio State (3.29).

Pass defense: Last year 264.6 yards per game and 7.7 yards per attempt. This year 192.7 yards per game (thank you service academies), yards per attempt 7.6.

Notre Dame intercepted 10 passes to 13 in 2005. The sacks were the same, 31 last year, 30 this season.

They will lose at least 3 DL and 2 DB. Depending on 5th years, 9 starters on defense could be gone. And Travis Thomas was invisible for a month at LB. So, we know half the unit will be gone for sure. The same unit that put up virtually identical numbers for two years. Now they have to replace half of these guys next year? This doesn't bode well.

The offense was also about the same and lost four starters, plus Schwapp during the second game of the season, from last year. They hardly skipped a beat. Maybe because the head coach has a specialty in offense?

While the defense is sitting on the bench, Weis is calling plays to the offense on the field as the defense is sitting around trying to figure out what the hell just happened to them. Of course now it might be too late because he's going into next season with a whole new O Line, WR corps, QB, etc. That means he'll have even less time to work with the defense than he has with Quinn.

All of his offensive wizardry should be able to shed some light on what the defense is doing wrong. CW has only been a head coach for two years. Hopefully he's easing himself into being more hands on with the rest of the facets of a football team than just the offense.