The Irish Roundup

A phantom personal foul after a long completion just outside the goal line. A missed field goal. An inefficient drive following a defensive stand, and then a late hit in punt coverage that gets flagged for 15 yards. These are the kinds of plays that have killed the Irish offense all year long, and for a while on Saturday they did the same.

Mistakes breed mistakes like rabbits in the Spring: a false start on fourth-and-two, a beautiful pass on fourth-and-17 that goes through the receiver’s hands, and suddenly you’re staring at 0-0 halftime score against one of the worst teams in college football.

And then, the momentum changes: the defense forces turnovers on consecutive drives, and each of them is turned quickly into seven points. It’s 14-0 at the half. You’ve got things back under control.

THAT’S the storyline that matters from Saturday’s game. Not the 400 yards of total offense, not the three touchdown passes by Jimmy Clausen, not even the explosive emergence of Robert Hughes or the always-gratifying Senior Day win. For once, this team showed a bit of resiliency: they didn’t let themselves get overwhelmed when things went badly. And say what you will about the quality of their opponent, but a 28-7 win (which could very well have been more like 42-0 if not for mental mistakes and bad calls) is a 28-7 win. Suddenly the future looks a lot brighter.

A few numbers to take away from the game:

• Hughes (17 carries for 110 net yards, and a reception for another 13) obviously earned that game ball, though Armando Allen (nine rushes for 43 yards, and two receptions for 17) and James Aldridge (eight carries for 28 yards, plus a catch for another seven) had solid days as well. One of the biggest challenges facing Charlie Weis (or whoever is calling the plays) in 2008 will be finding a way to get enough carries for each of his three horsemen, together with throwing enough balls in the direction of Duval Kamara, George West, Robby Parris, and Golden Tate, not to mention David Grimes, Will Yeatman, Mike Ragone, and Michael Floyd. The talent is there; I imagine they’ll enjoy letting the spotlight fall where it may.
• Clausen’s numbers (16-of-32 for 194 yards and three touchdowns) don’t speak to how well he played, especially given that at least four or five catchable balls were dropped. He also showed some good presence in the pocket, and did a good job of avoiding pressure, picking up 25 yards on his six scrambles.
• The offensive line continued to show some signs of improvement, though pass protection was still a bit spotty at times. It was especially nice to see the screen game start to click.
• Joe Brockington, David Bruton, Trevor Laws, and Darrin Walls each had a half-dozen tackles, and the defense on a whole played very well. This was the first time this year we saw freshmen Kerry Neal and Brian Smith both starting at the outside linebacker position, and they had quiet but solid days with three tackles a piece. Freshman Ian Williams getting his first start at the nose guard position, also played well, picking up three tackles and generally doing a good job of clogging up the middle.
• The Irish possessed the ball for over 35 minutes, the first time all year they’ve really managed to control the clock - their previous high had been 32:02 against UCLA.

Finally, a few areas where a good deal of work is still needed:

•  I’ve already mentioned the troubles in pass protection, as well as the dropped balls by the wide receivers. Clausen’s never going to be able to win those seven Heismans if his teammates don’t help him out.
• While the Irish pass defense was largely sound, giving up only 138 total passing yards, there were still some blown coverages, and Duke could have picked up some more yardage if open receivers hadn’t been missed.
• J.J. Jansen’s long-snapping was iffy once again, though Eric Maust made a remarkable play to bail him out and get the punt away under pressure.
• Notre Dame continues to lack any semblance of consistency in the kicking game, as Brandon Walker missed his lone field goal attempt, from 30 yards out. It may have had something to do with the weather, but those are the kind of kicks you’ve got to make. It will be a shame if the Irish continue to cripple themselves by having to go for broke on fourth down instead of putting points on the board the cheap way.
• Lastly, penalties were a problem once again: the Irish were whistled eleven times for 103 yards, after committing only nine penalties in their previous three games combined.

All in all, a solid day against an undermanned opponent. There should be plenty more of those in the future as this team continues to develop.

I’ll have a proper recap of the Duke game some time this weekend, but for now here are twenty questions that have been on my mind:

1. Is THAT what a D-I football team is supposed to look like? ‘Cause I almost thought it was …
2. Is it just me, or does Duke head coach Ted Roof look an awful lot like Steve Martin?
3. They were saying “Huuuuuuughes,” right?
4. What in the world does Dan Wenger do with his helmet? It looks like he’s been using it as a hammer. Do they not repaint these things after losses?
5. What’s up with all the empty seats at midfield? Do these people not even have the courtesy to find somebody who’ll take their tickets? What an embarrassment …
6. Did anybody else find it morbidly fitting that Travis Thomas ended his Irish career with a fumble?
7. How serious was Tom Zbikowski about the whole quarterback thing? Can you imagine how annoying that must’ve been for Charlie Weis to put up with his pestering for three straight years?
8. Has there ever been a more absurd penalty call than the excessive celebration flag on John Carlson for giving the “first down” signal?
9. I don’t mind instant replay, but do they really have to take so long with it? It was OBVIOUS that Thaddeus Lewis hadn’t fumbled that ball; why spend ten minutes coming to a decision?
10. Does anybody else feel a weird desire for the NBC contract to come to an end, just so that we could see a halfway competent broadcast crew during a home game?
11. Speaking of NBC, what in the world was that sideline reporter wearing? He looked like he was off to give a seminar at Cambridge.
12. Did it seem to everyone like we saw a lot less of Asaph Schwapp?
13. How in the world is this team going to find ways to get carries for all three of their tailbacks next year?
14. Can someone get Weis a handkerchief?
15. And maybe a field goal kicker as well?
16. So, Notre Dame > Duke > Northwestern > Michigan State > Penn State > Wisconsin > Michigan > Illinois > Ohio State, right?
17. How satisfying was it to see plays run out of the shotgun, and without the ball flying over the quarterback’s head?
18. Wasn’t it great to see Chris Stewart get so much playing time?
19. And how about Kerry Neal and Brian Smith as the two starting outside linebackers?
20. Doesn’t winning feel wonderful?

With his team at 1-9 and its offense mired in the pits of Division I-A, Charlie Weis has taken a lot of much-deserved (and some undeserved) flack for the job he’s been doing as head coach of the Fighting Irish. And since I’ve been about as negative as anyone - well, maybe not quite ANYONE - about Weis, I think it’s time for me to come clean and make it known that my opinion of him is by no means exhaustively negative. Hence here are 100 reasons why I love Charlie Weis and am glad he’s our coach:

1. He’s a Jersey guy. Me too, or at least I was until I moved to California. And Jersey guys stick with Jersey guys.

2. He’s a Notre Dame alum. Again, me too, though I only got a lousy graduate degree. And if I love the place this much never having lived on campus for an extended period of time or gone through all the rest of the crazy brain-washing (an ND logo stamped into the middle of your WAFFLES?!), think of how much he cares about it.

3. He’s a family man. Seeing the way he relates to his wife, son, and daughter is really heartwarming. And say what you will about having Charlie Jr. on the sidelines: the fact is that it shows a level of attachment and devotion to his son that’s remarkable in a guy who works 20-hour days. Speaking of which …

4. He works like all hell. Want to catch Coach Weis on his way to work in the morning? Try tripping past the Gug on your way back from closing down the ‘Backer. In any case, be flexible with your definition of “morning,” and DEFINITELY don’t wait for the sun to rise.

5. He’s as pained by the losing as anyone. Do not - I repeat, do NOT - mistake his occasional press-conference brashness for a lack of awareness of how bad things have been this year, let alone a glib attitude about it. If your team got its butt hammered in, you got booed, and then you were dragged in front of an audience of overeager reporters with lots of dumb questions, you’d get pretty pissy as well. And hey, what do you want him to say? “We suck, we have sucked, we will suck, and I quit”? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

6. He gives back. Lots of ND football coaches have started charitable organizations after they’ve retired, but Hannah and Friends has been running from day one. And a lot of Weis’s efforts have been tied directly to the local community, which is admirable given the touchy history of town-gown relations between South Bend and the university. Even his lawsuit, which I must admit wasn’t my favorite decision (you know, high cost of medical services due to malpractice insurance, lawyers = scum of the Earth, etc.), was going to be used to help others rather than pad his own pockets.

7. He cares about his players. Weis got a lot of praise for driving Robert Hughes back to Chicago after his brother was killed, and rightly so. But the fact of the matter is that this fits right into a much more overarching pattern: sure, he manages to anger or even alienate some of his players, but at the end of the day they know it’s just because he’s trying to push them to do well, like an overbearing dad making his kid practice the piano because he really, really, REALLY wants him to be good at it. Peel away those layers, my friends, and you’ll find love at the core.

8-26. Nineteen wins in two years. Say what you will about ‘06 having been a disappointing campaign, but ten wins is ten wins. Say what you will about the quality of the opponents he beat, but you can only win the games you play (and it’s not as if Michigan, Tennessee, Georgia Tech, Penn State, and UCLA are a bunch of nobodies). Say what you will about losing the “big games,” but he’s run into some downright juggernauts, especially in the postseason. If his teams had had any semblance of a D-I defense, not to mention better offensive lines and maybe some more talent at the tailback position, they very well might have won a pair of national titles. After the misery of the decade or so that preceded ‘05-’06, those wins were glorious to behold.

27-30. Four Super Bowl rings. Yeah, I know he wasn’t the head coach, and I know he was able to ride the coattails of Parcells, Belichick, et al, but championships are championships, and I’ll take a guy who’s won them over a guy who hasn’t.

31-98. Jimmy Clausen, Armando Allen, James Aldridge, Duval Kamara, Omar Hunter, Kerry Neal, … well, you get the point. That’s 68 recruits in three years, with a bunch more on the ‘08 “big board” who still have lots of interest in the Irish. Compare that to his illustrious predecessor, who recruited a total of 52 in his three seasons, barely more than Weis & Co. brought in through their first TWO. It’s not just about the rankings, either: you can’t win with an empty cupboard, and trust me, Ty left it BARE.

99. His players believe in him. Make no mistake about it: you don’t have top-notch recruits with offers from Everywhere breaking down the doors to play for you the week after being present for a 38-0 spanking if you’ve “lost the team.” Nor do insomniac offensive linemen pad over to your office in rainbow flip-flops and knock on your door at 5:30am to ask how to be a better leader unless they think that leading is a worthwhile endeavor. Sure, there may be some players, especially among the upper classes, who’ve sort of thrown in the towel, and there’s no doubt that this team has often played tentatively and has had a tendency to get discouraged when things have gone wrong, but a lot of them seem genuinely excited about the future of the program. And that’s a hell of an accomplishment when you’re 1-9.

100. The glimmers of hope. Clausen dropping a beautiful pass over two defenders. Kamara stiff-arming an undersized defensive back and plowing through a pair of tacklers to pick up eight yards. Armando Allen bursting around the outside for a gain of eleven. James Aldridge running over a would-be tackler at the line of scrimmage. Golden Tate snagging a touchdown bomb, with his FINGERNAILS. Kerry Neal and Brain Smith playing like men possessed on the outside. Darrin Walls looking more and more like a shut-down corner every week. Chris Stewart crushing defensive linemen to open up holes for his tailbacks. And on and on the list goes … no doubt this year’s team has been a HUGE disappointment, but the flashes we’ve seen (and yes, they’ve only been flashes, and have been few and far between the lengthy stretches of awfulness) have made it clear that Weis and his staff have brought in some extraordinary talent. At this point it’s about developing these kids and teaching them to win.

Of course, none of this counts as evidence that Weis will definitely, or even probably, be able to accomplish what he needs to in order to right this oh-so-sunken ship. But just as he’s responsible for a big portion of the damage, it’s also going to be his task to repair it, at least for the time being. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

From Charlie Weis’s Tuesday press conference:

I think the younger guys are trying to put themselves in a position to step up, and I think that there will be guys who will probably send us a message here in the next couple weeks of which direction they intend to go.

Not getting into one player, but it was probably one of the most enjoyable parts of my entire week, happened yesterday morning at 5:30. Yesterday morning at 5:30 I’m sitting in my office and I keep the door locked because I don’t like just anyone walking in at 5:30, and my phone rings and one of the players on our team is outside. I said, oh, no, here we go again. He wants to talk to me so he knocks on my door. I thought we had another person that was looking to pack his bags and go.

And it was just the opposite. He said he hasn’t slept all night. He’s an under classman. He hadn’t slept all night and he felt he needed to step up and take on more of a leadership role, and he was asking for some advice on how to do that. I mean, that’s the type of guys you want on your team, guys that aren’t sleeping because they’re worrying about how they can - he’s a regular player, but how they can step up and take on more of a leadership role. I thought that was a good way to start the week.

…

it’s a great way to start your week, a great way to start your week after you get through the grinds of the game and the aftermath of the game and recruiting and all those things that go on through Sunday, to be in your office early and you’re watching tape and you’re watching some Duke and getting ready for your meetings and everything and have a kid — your double secret probation line that no one knows rings and you think my wife is calling with something wrong, and it’s one of your players outside, hey, can I talk to you. You think, here we go. And he wants to talk to you about how he can be a better leader.

We talked for a few minutes, and I said let me think about it. I set up an appointment and he came back last night and we followed up after I had a whole day to think about it. They’re the rewarding moments, you know, in life, when you see a young man kind of take the bull by the horns.

Now, in a new Rivals.com video feature, we learn that the “mystery player” was none other than second-year offensive tackle Sam Young:

With the line the way it is right now, I’m trying to put myself in a position to help us get better, more than anything, and whatever that role entails for me, I’m more than willing to fill it.

…

I was there and I just decided, you know, just go up and talk to him, and he was available, so we just talked about a bunch of different things. I think it was a good decision, and just talking back and forth and bouncing stuff off each other - I think how it plays out is yet to be seen, but I think it was a good conversation.

Watch the whole thing - Young (as well as James Aldridge, who is also interviewed) comes off as intelligent and remarkably articulate, and gives you a good feeling about the direction this team is heading. There’s apparently no doubt in the players’ minds about whether they’re going to right this ship and who the coach is who’s going to help them do that - hopefully we fans can be as patient, and really work to understand the difficulty of the situation they’re facing.

***

Later on in his presser, in a different context, Weis did actually talk about the kind of player and leader that Young is capable of becoming:

Q. With Sam, going back to the question I asked you Sunday about leadership, and you mentioned the offense, not really sure who’s going to step up and be a leader there, is Sam a guy that could do that?

COACH WEIS: Yeah, he’s a contender. See, the one thing about Sam, he’s played more football than anyone else on the offensive line, once Sully leaves. Sully is such a domineering personality that you would never really notice the other guys’ leadership ability while he’s there because it’s almost like overstepping your bounds. So it’ll be kind of interesting how that matriculates after he’s not there because that’s exactly what you’re looking for because you want to see who are those people that are going to start assuming that because I don’t think leadership is something you can try to fake or create. Either you have it or you don’t have it. Now, in the offensive line position we really don’t know what the answer is because Sully has really been the man all year long.

Q. As far as the season that Sam had, how would you kind of evaluate where he is now?

COACH WEIS: I think that ever since he settled — after he moved over and then settled down or settled into the position, I think that from about the midway part of the year on, he’s gotten progressively better.

Q. Comment on the expectations for him being off the chart. You described him as an NFL looking offensive tackle when you signed him. Did you ever have to talk to him about his expectations?

COACH WEIS: Actually we’re trying to get him to gain weight. How many times do you hear you’re trying to get a guy who weighs 317 to gain weight, but he’s actually on a program where he’s drinking extra shakes and things like that. He’s so big that he can carry a lot more weight than he’s carrying right now. Some of those guys as the season goes on have a tough time keeping weight on. I think that he’s at the stage now, the offensive linemen are at a stage, there’s really a couple different stages in their development, one in between their freshman and sophomore year when they become more physically ready to play on a regular basis where they came in with some brute strength, now they become more physically ready, and then between the sophomore and the junior year, I think that becomes more where they start to develop into like front line players.

Next year, of course, Young will be the most experienced member along the offensive line, so it would definitely be great to see a peak in his development.

***

Finally, a few more notes from the presser, while we’re at it:

• John Sullivan, Pat Kuntz, and Sergio Brown will all miss this week’s game, and Mike Ragone and Geoff Price are doubtful. Obviously the most important of these losses are those of Sullivan, who will be replaced by sophomore Dan Wenger, and Kuntz, whose replacement will be true freshman Ian Williams, who is actually seventh on the team in tackles and had 17 in the last two games, when he played significant minutes in place of the banged-up Kuntz. Weis said, though, that while Sullivan has a chance to be back next week, Kuntz probably won’t.
• Weis also talked about the development of sophomore offensive lineman Chris Stewart, who’s played significant minutes in each of the past couple of games. He said Stewart has been doing a good job of keeping his weight down, and that he’s starting to put himself in a position where he can be a more regular player. Weis also said he plans to give Stewart playing time at both tackle and guard against Duke.
• Because of Ragone’s injury, sophomore fullback Luke Schmidt will be “cross-trained” at both fullback and tight end this week, and will have a chance to see the field as a “tweener guy.”

Let’s hope the team can get out there and win one - in convincing fashion, preferably! - for the seniors.

From a commenter, identified as “Hal,” on a post at Blue-Gray Sky:

I’d like to do an experiment:

Take a team like Michigan and put them in ND’s shoes. Remove Hart and Henne for the whole season, and replace them with Frosh and Sophs. Take away Manningham and replace him with a Frosh. Then, remove a couple of O-line starters. Lastly, take the junior and senior classes and remove a dozen of the most talented guys, including those who might fill those holes in the O-line. Throw in a bit more inexperience at some key positions on D.

What’s Michigan’s record now? I’d say 3-8, 4-7.

I’m not picking on Michigan, and I’m not saying we should be losing to Navy and Air Force. I’m just saying that there are some pretty serious extenuating circumstances going on here. This is hard to stomach, but it’s not inexplicable.

It’s not time to panic.

At this point in the season I’m about as despondent as one can be about the future, and pretty much fed up with excuse-making, but something about this really speaks to me. A few other variables not mentioned here include:

• Playing an insanely difficult schedule, composed almost entirely of away games, to start the season.
• Having your best quarterback trying to recover from off-season elbow surgery, with your top two tailbacks coming off of injuries as well.
• Seeing lots of key players (Aldridge, Grimes, Wenger, Kuntz, Bruton, etc.) go down with injuries at various points during the season itself.
• Bringing in a brand-new defensive coordinator who’s trying to implement a new scheme using personnel recruited for the old one.

Add to this distractions like the Demetrius Jones situation and the (rumored, though perfectly predictable) tensions between the upper and lower classes, and you’ve got a recipe for a season that starts badly and quickly snowballs into mind-numbing awfulness. No doubt the coaching staff has failed MISERABLY in getting things back on track, but that doesn’t change the fact that the circumstances they’re dealing with have been, as Hal says, “serious[ly] extenuating.”

THAT’S why Charlie Weis will be back in 2008, this year’s suckitude notwithstanding. And it’s also why I’m done complaining about 2007 … unless we lose to Duke, that is.

For me, it all started with the Michigan State game in 2006. The Irish had started off the season with a pair of relatively lackluster wins - a 14-10 squeaker at Georgia Tech, a 41-17 win against Penn State in South Bend that was frankly much closer than the scoreboard made it out to be (the Nittany Lions kept pace with the Irish in terms of overall yardage, but turned the ball over three times) - and then suffered an absolutely inexplicable 47-21 spanking at the hands of the Michigan Wolverines, the first genuine blowout loss in Charlie Weis’s young career as a head coach.

Now it was late September, the fourth week of the season. My wife and I were watching the game in the lounge area of a Northern California restaurant, since we don’t have cable at home and ABC was showing the stupid USC game. We were eager to see our Irish rebound from the last week’s tough loss. Let’s just say they came out a bit flat. As the Spartan lead grew from 7-0, to 14-0, to 17-0 at the end of the first quarter, then stayed in the high teens as MSU matched the Irish score-for-score through the end of the third, a chorus of voices resounded in my head: first quietly, then louder and louder as the situation grew more desperate.

What if this is the beginning of the end? What if last season was a fluke? What if Weis really just isn’t a good gameday coach?

Each time I’d find myself asking one of those questions, I’d abruptly shut it down with a well-placed excuse: it was Rick Minter’s defense that couldn’t stop the Spartan attack; MSU had a 3-0 record coming in; it wasn’t Weis’s fault if his players couldn’t motivate themselves. As the voices persisted, the excuses matched them blow-for-blow.

Then, of course, it was time for the BIG excuse: a stirring, inspiring, exhilarating, insert­­-­­­­your-word-here-just-know-it-was-awesome fourth­-quarter comeback led by the unparalleled Brady Quinn and a suddenly revitalized defense. The Irish rattled off 19 straight points in the rain in East Lansing, moved their record to 4-1, and kept the whatifs at bay for the time being.

Three weeks later, though, they were back: after another pair of sloppy performances against inferior opponents (easily blameable, of course, on Minter’s defensive schemes), the Irish found themselves trailing again, this time late in the fourth quarter against UCLA. The voices were screaming, my heart was pounding, the rage inside was building up … and then … AN UNBELIEVABLE PLAY BY QUINN AND SAMARDZIJA! THE IRISH WIN! TAKE THAT, VOICES!

Never mind the fact that the only reason the offense got the chance to pull that rabbit out was that Bruin frontman Karl Dorrell failed to run out the clock on the preceding drive; never mind that finding yourself in a position where you need to go 80 yards in 34 seconds against a 4-2 team is hardly evidence of great coaching; and never mind that this sort of hole-digging - anybody remember Stanford in 2005? - had been one of the trademarks of the Weis era. We WON. The voices were WRONG. Charlie Weis was the BEST.

Fast-forward to November 2007. The excuses have had their day. Sure, the team is young - but we’re three months into the season now, and there’s little doubt in my mind that the squad we saw yesterday would STILL lose 33-3 to Georgia Tech, 31-10 to Penn State, 38-0 to Michigan and USC, and so on. Sure, the defense has given up some serious points in the last couple of weeks - but it’s hard to blame them for getting discouraged when their offense can’t even move the ball against AIR FORCE. And yes, I’m well aware that this program is dealing with overcoming a stretch of really bad recruiting, that there’s very little talent (or leadership) among the upper classes, that injuries have been a problem, that there’s a learning curve - for coaches and players alike - in adjusting to the college game, and so on and so on.

But there are NO EXCUSES for what we saw in yesterday’s game:

• Drive 1: 1 play, 28 yards, fumble.
• Drive 2: 5 plays, 10 yards, punt.
• Drive 3: 4 plays, -9 yards, turnover on downs.
• Drive 4: 2 plays, -1 yard, fumble.
• Drive 5: 3 plays, 3 yards, punt.
• Drive 6: 13 plays, 52 yards, field goal.
• Drive 7: 7 plays, 50 yards, touchdown. (Extended by personal foul penalty after failed conversion on third-and-long.)
• Drive 8: 3 plays, -4 yards, punt.
• Drive 9: 1 play, 0 yards, halftime.
• Drive 10: 5 plays, 11 yards, punt.
• Drive 11: 5 plays, 17 yards, punt.
• Drive 12: 10 plays, 57 yards, touchdown.
• Drive 13: 8 plays 71 yards, touchdown.
• Drive 14: 4 plays, 9 yards, turnover on downs.
• Drive 15: 8 plays, 40 yards, turnover on downs.

That’s FOURTEEN real drives, TEN of which failed to result in points, and another that should also have gone for zero if not for an idiotic hit out of bounds. It’s SIX sacks given up. It’s 58 rushing yards on the day, an average of ONE-POINT-FIVE per carry (factor out the sacks and you get 30 carries for 105 yards … still not sufficient). It’s … well hell, IT’S A SEVENTEEN POINT LOSS TO AIR FORCE, and it’s INEXCUSABLE.

Let me make one thing clear: I am NOT saying that Charlie Weis should be fired. Weis deserves the same treatment that Ty Willingham got: a chance to follow up a dreadful season (and the 5-7 campaign in 2004 was clearly that) with a good one. If the appeal to equity isn’t enough to convince you of this, then 19 wins in two years and a trio of top-ranked recruiting classes - not to mention the mass chaos that would ensue on his departure - ought to do the trick.

But come on, folks. It’s time to face facts. For two years now, the only thing consistent about this team has been its inconsistency. There have been - and still are - some great players, and they’ve made for some great moments. And maybe - MAYBE - getting to the light at the end of the tunnel (where we WILL get, mind you) won’t require changing things at the top. In the meantime, though, we need to be honest with ourselves about what’s been going on.

Through two years of sloppiness and inconsistent play, I stood firm. I accentuated the positives until the negatives faded from view. I drank the Kool-Aid like water, and shouted down the haters with the best of them. And whenever my wife would ask me, in her wide-eyed way, whether Charlie Weis was after all not that good of a coach, I’d squirm, shift my eyes, and stammer out another excuse.

I thought I was keeping the faith. It turns out I was only in denial.

Over at Kelly Green, Luke has a post with video of the failed two-point conversion attempt from the end of the Navy game, together with an analysis of a half-dozen things that went wrong with it. (WARNING: This is not suitable for the easily nauseated.) Ugh. Those of you who can watch that clip and be filled with anything other than outright anger at Charlie Weis, and SERIOUS doubts about his abilities as a head coach, offensive coordinator, and situational play-caller, need to give me some of what you’re drinking.

*sigh*

Go Irish, beat Falcons!

Why is it that every time I get good and mad at Charlie Weis - you know, mad enough to hop on the next flight to South Bend, march over to him and Charlie Jr. on the sidelines, grab them by their necks, and shove those stupid headsets up their asses - someone has to come along and say something stupid that makes me feel obligated to run to his defense?

Actually, wait. Before you answer that question, let me start you off with a hypothetical scenario.

Imagine you’re the general manager of a baseball team, and you have to choose between two players - call them “Smith” and “Jones” - whose numbers over a three-year stretch look pretty much identical:

• Smith: .278 avg., 87 HR, 282 RBI
• Jones: .274 avg., 88 HR, 289 RBI

Taking a look at those stats, you might conclude that Smith and Jones are players of pretty much the same caliber. If you did this, though, you’d be the biggest idiot to occupy a front office since, well, lots of the GM’s who apparently occupy them right now. Why do I say this? Because a judgment like that ought to be based, not just on a brute overall comparison of two three-year stretches, but on at least a year-by-year breakdown of their statistics. If you did such a thing, something like the following could very well turn up:

What these numbers would reveal was that Smith and Jones achieved those similar three-year statistics in very different ways: Smith did it with a single great year followed by two mediocre ones, while Jones had two solid years and a third terrible one. As a GM, you might come up with all sorts of possible explanations for these numbers, which you’d have to play off against each other to reach a final verdict: perhaps Smith was using steroids, or just got really lucky, in that Brady Anderson-esque first season; perhaps Jones was injured, or poorly protected in his lineup, or once again just really unlucky, in that third season; and so on. Obviously it would be tough to figure out which of these explanations was the right one - the only point is that looking only at un-parsed numbers that span three full years isn’t sufficient to make a judiciously informed decision.

Now imagine that you’re a sportswriter with an agenda, and you’re covering the free agency situations of Smith and Jones. Perhaps Jones is in fact offered the better contract because of the judgment that, well, he had two good seasons followed by what may very well have been a mere aberration, while Smith had just one good season before sliding into mediocrity. (Obviously there would be a risk here, since maybe Jones really is a .220-13-54 hitter after all: but hey, we can’t predict the future.) If you were a sportswriter with an agenda, you might gloss over the fact that Smith’s and Jones’s numbers look so different when you break them down into one-year chunks, and instead cook up some OTHER, more exciting explanation of Jones’s superior contract offer: perhaps he’s better-looking, or darker- or lighter-skinned. Maybe the fans like him more. Heck, maybe Jones is sleeping with the owner’s daughter. The details don’t matter - the point is, it would be very easy to use the Smith-Jones situation to make an argument like this:

1. Smith and Jones have nearly identical three-year numbers, so that can’t be the explanation of the difference in their contract offers; and
2. There’s this OTHER difference between Smith and Jones - appearance, skin color, fan preference, whatever - that’s pretty salient; so
3. That other difference must be what accounts for their different offers.

Such an argument, though, would be demonstrably faulty: for you’d have failed to take into account the many other less-newsworthy but still quite plausible explanations that might be given to account for their different offers - in this case, the most obvious one would be the different YEARLY statistics that the two players put up. But if you were a sportswriter with an agenda, this wouldn’t matter to you: you could gloss over these natural explanations in order to get on your moral high horse, and argue - or perhaps just insinuate - that something unjust was going on. You know, “Come and see the violence inherent in the system,” and all that.

Which brings me back to Charlie Weis. Here’s the illustrious Gene Wojciechowski, writing for ESPN.com:

When [Tyrone] Willingham finished 6-5 in his third year (by the way, he beat eighth-ranked Michigan, ninth-ranked Tennessee, Michigan State and Navy), [Notre Dame President Rev. John] Jenkins called for the punt formation. It is that glaring difference in treatment that legitimizes questions asking whether Willingham’s firing was racially motivated. If nothing else, it keeps alive the perception that racial undertones were at work.

Wojciechowski’s argument has exactly the same form as the inanely stupid one offered by our hypothetical journalist-with-an-agenda: since Explanation A (in this case, the coaches’ records in their third seasons) doesn’t account for the difference in treatment, it simply MUST be based on something MUCH more insidious, and the most reasonable candidate is skin color.

Of course, Wojciechowski doesn’t actually come out and SAY that it’s a matter of racism: he simply says that the situation “legitimizes questions” about such a possibility, and “keeps alive the perception” that this might be so. But the same could be said for, say, the government’s response to crazy conspiracy theories about 9/11 or the JFK assassination: MAYBE the reason they’re not addressing these theories is because of a huge cover-up, but it’s much more likely to be due to the inanity of the theories themselves.

The same point applies here: you can say all you want - and Wojciechowski damn near says it all - to paint a picture of Weis and Willingham as coaches with nearly identical tenures, but the fact is that there’s a completely race-independent explanation of why Willingham was fired after three years while Weis won’t be:

The obvious explanation for the Weis/Willingham situation is, in other words, just like that of the Smith/Jones one: namely that TWO IS GREATER THAN ONE. Willingham was fired in 2004 because he’d had TWO straight mediocre seasons (not to mention a prior record as a head coach) that strongly suggested that 2002, i.e. his ONE good year, was the same sort of aberration as our hypothetical Smith’s supposed breakout year, and Weis will be retained beyond 2007 because he has had ONE (very very very) bad season, and the TWO good ones that preceded it suggest that it may (though I stress MAY) be the current one that’s the aberration. When you actually look at the numbers, no explanation could be more obvious than that.

But if, like Wojciechowski, you’re a journalist with an agenda, you can paper over those kinds of statistics. After all, you can’t dispute the numbers:

Weis is 20-14 after his first 34 games; Willingham was 21-13 after the same period and 21-15 when he was fired.

Oh, and in case you haven’t heard, Weis is WHITE, and Willingham is BLACK. Q.E.D.

[APPENDIX: Let me just add two things. (1) I'm NOT saying Charlie Weis is a good head coach, or even that he doesn't deserve to be fired. (2) NOR am I saying that the confidence I once had that Weis could turn this thing around is anything but very fragile right now (see here and here, for example). The ONLY point I was trying to make is that it is simply ridiculous to act as if the only relevant variable differentiating Weis's tenure from Willingham's is the color of their skin. It's not, and Wojciechowski should be ashamed of himself for trafficking in this sort of innuendo. His article embodies all the reasons why so many people in this country are unable to take the issue of racism seriously.]

Per the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette:

Freshman Jimmy Clausen will be Notre Dame’s starting quarterback for Saturday’s game against Air Force, Notre Dame football media relations director Brian Hardin said Wednesday evening.

Irish coach Charlie Weis was not available for comment and unlike in previous weeks did not speak after Wednesday’s practice.

…

“Whoever plays the best, that’s what you look for,” Weis said Tuesday when asked what he was looking for. “It really is not that difficult. Sometimes you make it more difficult than it is, just whoever plays the best.”

This, though, is likely a long-haul decision as Weis said Tuesday he would take into account who would be the best quarterback for his team through the final three games and beyond.

Anyone with questions about Clausen’s health might be interested to know that Michael Rothstein reported that Clausen “looked slower” than Evan Sharpley on Tuesday’s practice, and had poorer “extension” on his legs. It’s of course hard to know exactly what to make of something like this, though, and one imagines that he certainly wouldn’t be starting if he weren’t ready to go.

Weis is expected to speak to the media after Thursday’s practice. We’ll have more details as they become available.

It seems to me that a loss like this one is better left to message board rants (and hilariously angry blog posts - nice job, Jay) than detailed analyses of the sort I’ve usually given, but in lieu of another installment of Simon Smith and his Amazing Dancing Bear, let me just point out four crucial statistics that I think have been somewhat overlooked in the discussions I’ve been party to so far (both on IE and BGS).

338

That’s the total number of offensive yards that Navy had through four quarters and three overtime periods, their second-worst offensive output of the season. At the end of regulation, their rushing total was only 240 yards - a season-worst, and a full football field below their average through the first eight games - and their passing total stood at 38: a combined offensive output of 278 yards, their lowest of the year and over 170 yards below their season-long average coming in. Navy’s average gain of 3.9 yards per carry was also a season-worst, and by a considerable margin at that. The Midshipmen had to punt the ball twice yesterday, something that had happened only two other times all season, and they would have had to do it a third time if Joe Brockington hadn’t been called for a personal foul facemask penalty after a third-down stop on the second Navy possession. Add to that two forced fumbles (only one of which was recovered by the Irish, of course) and two drives where the Midshipmen were held to a field goal attempt - something that had been accomplished only once in each of their previous two games - and it becomes clear that anyone who wants to blame this loss on Corwin Brown’s defense has got another thing coming.

4

That’s the total number of sacks yielded by the Irish, to a defense that came in with only five sacks in their first EIGHT GAMES. Sorry folks, but all is not well with Notre Dame’s offensive line (on which see also “3.7,” below).

27

That’s the total number of passes thrown by Evan Sharpley, on a windy day when it was clear from the start that he was going to be woefully inaccurate. Add in the four sacks and the four (I think) other times where a pass play was called but Sharpley ended up scrambling for positive yardage, and you end up with what looks to have been about 35 pass plays called against a team that was obviously overwhelmed in the trenches when it came to stopping the Irish running game, a fact that Charlie Weis failed to exploit with any consistency until the end of the third quarter. Going through the play-by-play, I count NINE times that Sharpley was asked to throw the ball on first-and-ten. Offensive genius, my ass.

3.7

That’s the average yardage per carry picked up by the Notre Dame offense. It’s easy to look at the box score, see 235 net rushing yards, and conclude that the running game was a real bright spot yesterday. But it took SIXTY-THREE runs to get to that total, and nearly all of the Irish rushing efficiency seemed to be of the “fall forward” variety: the Irish offensive linemen stood up and shoved their massively undersized counterparts nice and hard, and the tailbacks ran through the wreckage they created. If you’re trying to build a D-I football program, that’s not much to hang your hat on.

The bell tolls, indeed. Now, off to find that fork …