The Irish Roundup

As noted by BGS, Michael Rothstein reported yesterday that freshman Andrew Nuss has moved from the defensive line, where he started the season, to the offensive line. This may have something to do with the injury to Dan Wenger, who Charlie Weis said will not be playing against Purdue:

“I’d say, optimistically, it looks like maybe UCLA,” Weis said. “He’s not going to be a go this week, but he’s out there running around now. (UCLA is) what he’s shooting for right now.”

In other news on the injury front, defensive end Justin Brown still seems a bit hobbled in practice. Weis admitted that he “still doesn’t look full speed,” but insisted that Brown “looks a heck of a lot better than any time last week.”

[UPDATE: Rumors abound that sophomore offensive lineman Chris Stewart is going to be the latest player to transfer from ND. This could have something to do with Nuss's move to the OL, though I didn't see Ford or Rothstein mention Stewart being absent from practice yesterday. We'll have to see.]

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In other d-line related news, Derrell Hand spoke to the media yesterday for the first time since his arrest for solicitation:

He expressed regret and knew he did a bad thing. And more than anything else, Derrell Hand thanks those who stuck by him as he went through his suspension from the beginning of training camp until last weekend.And in that time, the junior from Philadelphia went from suspended to starter. Hand had been suspended the day before Notre Dame training camp started in August for soliciting a prostitute in South Bend.

“I think I survived it pretty well,” Hand said. “I have a huge supporting cast. What happened was unfortunate. I learned a huge life lesson and I’m just happy I got a second chance to be a part of this Notre Dame family.

“These first four weeks couldn’t have happened any better.”

An injury to starter Justin Brown placed Hand in the lineup in his first game back. He said it was difficult to hear himself associated as someone with bad character but had a bunch of people helping him out.

And he wasn’t surprised with the way Notre Dame chose to handle it, by allowing him to stay in school.

“I feel as though I’m a good kid. I made a lot of close friends, students and faculty, and I just feel like what happened was bad but I feel Notre Dame handled it the way Notre Dame handles these things.”

Best of luck to Derrell as he works to get things back in order. ND can certainly use him on the field, especially if Justin Brown is not 100%.

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According to the Cincinnati Post’s Jeff Katzowitz, former Irish QB Demetrius Jones might end up at the University of Cincinnati - Jones was at the Bearcats’ practice on Wednesday, and UC coach Brian Kelly, who recruited Jones out of high school when he was the head coach at Central Michigan, said that he and Jones had been in contact:

We had a good conversation. We talked about the situation here and what we think our strengths are. He’s in that evaluation process now. He’s looking at his options. We’re one of a few of the options he has. He thinks highly enough of us to drive five hours to come up and visit.

When Katzowitz got Jones on the phone yesterday evening, Jones denied rumors that he’d made a final decision, but said that watching the UC practice was “nice.” More on this story as it comes in.

[UPDATE: It's official. Jones walked into Kelly's office this afternoon and told him he wants to play for the Bearcats. Apparently Notre Dame has given UC the go-ahead. Jones will pay his own way for the coming fall quarter, and then will be on scholarship starting in January once several seniors have graduated.]

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Meanwhile, want another example of the difference between a respectful sports journalist and an inflammatory hack? Compare Al Lesar’s article about the Purdue offense (it’s a “work of art,” the headline tells us) in today’s South Bend Tribune with the latest screed from the Indianapolis Star’s Bob Kravitz, who was recently, and rightfully, named “Asshat of the Week” by KGreen:

Here was Purdue football coach Joe Tiller’s challenge for Tuesday’s media briefing: Find something nice to say about this week’s opponent, Notre Dame. Try to convince the media and, by extension, his players, that Notre Dame is still Notre Dame and not Apalachicola Junior College.

“They have the fourth-ranked pass defense in the nation,” Tiller said flatly.Give the guy credit: He said it with a straight face.

Holding up Notre Dame’s pass defense is like complimenting the movie “Beer League” on its soundtrack.

Are you kidding me?

Of course the Irish have impressive pass defense numbers. It’s because they have the 111th-ranked running defense in the nation. Nobody passes on Notre Dame because nobody needs to pass on Notre Dame. Opponents get huge early leads, then run off tackle the rest of the game.

Next thing, we’ll hear that Notre Dame has a sparkling personality and practices good hygiene.

I’ll let that one speak for itself.

Bob Kravitz: Still an asshat.

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There’s also a bit of recruiting news to report. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Irish DL commit Omar Hunter received an official offer from USC on Tuesday, and expressed some excitement about it:

When Pete Carroll talks, recruits listen. Even ones already committed to Notre Dame. Buford’s Omar Hunter visited with Carroll over the phone Tuesday and received an offer from the coach of top-ranked Southern Cal.

“It was pretty exciting. Southern Cal, that’s pretty big,” said Hunter, who verbally committed to Notre Dame in June.

That doesn’t mean the blue-chip defensive tackle has changed his mind about heading to South Bend.

“I’m sticking with Notre Dame for right now,” Hunter said.

At this point, there’s no reason to worry too much about this, since Hunter has said that his commitment to the Irish is solid, and this sort of thing is really a normal part of the recruiting cycle. But it’s certainly a situation worth keeping an eye on, and I can guarantee you that Weis and the coaching staff will be doing just that.

According to both Ben Ford and Michael Rothstein, Irish offensive lineman Dan Wenger was absent from practice once again on Tuesday. Wenger suffered an undisclosed injury and has reportedly been seen around campus with a cast on his leg. ND head coach Charlie Weis didn’t address this in his press conference on Tuesday, but he did say on Sunday that Matt Carufel looked “decent” playing in Wenger’s place against Michigan State.

Another worrisome bit of news on the injury front comes from Rothstein’s remarks on Justin Brown, who as noted earlier missed the MSU game with an injury:

Defensive end Justin Brown stretched with a trainer again and when the rest of the linemen were doing drills, he was off to the side, clearly hobbled. If we were to guess, we wouldn’t think he’ll be ready for Saturday, but it is still early in the week.

Weis said on Sunday that sitting Brown was a “game time decision,” and that he’d be “able to go” in practice that day. ND is far too cagey about things like this to think we’ll know anything about Brown’s status before the Irish take the field against Purdue.

One other notable thing from Tuesday’s practice reports is that, as Ford notes, it was “extremely physical at the start,” much as it reportedly was through all of last week. Weis spoke to this issue in his press conference on Tuesday, saying that they planned to find a sort of middle ground this week:

Q. Could you kind of outline your practice week in terms of compared to what you tried last week and what you did last week?

COACH WEIS: We still have to have elements of last week in there, because I think last week helped us — what we did last week helped us in the game. So today the first half of practice is going to be dedicated to ones versus ones, full speed, take them to the ground. What I didn’t do was I didn’t do full speed, take them to the ground on Sunday, because I had a bunch of guys beat up. So it becomes counter productive. You have to be objective, too. And you want to be tough, and you want to have a mentality at the same time you want to be intelligent and not do something stupid.

So today, they all know that we’re going ones against ones and it will be the first hour of practice. Then we’ll have a break and we’ll practice special teams. And then after that break, the rest of the practice will be dedicated to Purdue first and second down.

Q. From that point, it’s kind of Purdue the rest of the way?

COACH WEIS: I think it will be a little bit closer to a normal schedule come tomorrow [i.e., Wednesday].

Most of the press conference, as well as what’s been said about practices so far this week, has been pretty standard stuff.

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One other bit of news worth noting, though: according to the Chicago Sun-Times, former Irish QB Demetrius Jones has had a brief telephone conversation with Northern Illinois football coach Joe Novak, but he hasn’t been practicing with the Huskies football team and in fact isn’t even enrolled at NIU:

”The last I heard, he’s not [enrolled],” Novak said Tuesday at his weekly news conference. ”He has got a lot of things available to him.”

Jones was listed in NIU’s online student directory two weeks ago, then wasn’t listed last week. To transfer directly from Notre Dame to NIU and be eligible to play in 2008, he would have to have been enrolled by the 12th day of classes (Sept. 12) for this semester to count toward the year he would have to sit out.

He does have the option of enrolling in a school, such as Northwestern or Ohio State, that uses the quarter system and started fall classes this week.

A source familiar with the situation said Jones might have another option to be eligible to play for the Huskies next fall. The source said Jones has accumulated 40 credit hours at Notre Dame and could earn an associate’s degree at a junior college by completing 20 hours by the end of next summer, then enroll at NIU.

This is a bit puzzling, since as the Sun-Times notes it contradicts much of what has been said in the media. It is unclear whether this has anything to do with ND’s refusal to release Jones from his scholarship to play for NIU. Look for more details to come out on this soon.

The transcript is now up from Charlie Weis’s press conference on Sunday, Sept. 23. Here are some of the key points.

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On the status of Justin Brown, who sat out Saturday’s game: “Justin is going to be able to go today [i.e., in Sunday's practice]. That was a game time decision where we just didn’t feel — he had rolled his ankle a little bit earlier in practice, earlier in the week, and it was a day to day type of thing where we weren’t really sure whether or not he could go or not. But even right to game day, he just didn’t feel that he could just push off enough on that day. It was close. It was close to him being able to go on Saturday, but according to both Justin and Jim (Russ, head trainer), he’ll be back and ready to go. That’s the answer to Justin.”

On Geoff Price’s struggles: “It was a tough day at the office. He’s not bothered by an injury.”

On freshmen linebackers Kerry Neal and Brian Smith, who played a lot in passing situations, and whether they’ll see the field more on run downs:

“[They're] spotty on run downs. I see them being in the two deep on run downs. I don’t think that right now they’re ready to be prime time every down players, but I think their progress has grown at a much higher pace than a lot of other people. One thing they’ve both shown is they can get after the passer. We definitely needed some edge pressure, which both those guys provide. And then different roles, I think they not only played themselves into the two deep on regular defense but put themselves close to being on the field on a more regular basis.”

On problems with kick coverage:

“The first thing that’s got to happen is we’ve got to kick it better. That helps. Once you kick it better, the guys that are in one on one situations, which when you go back and watch it, you’re going to see some guys unblocked at the point right there to make a tackle that are unblocked. I mean, when you have an opportunity to make a play, you’ve got to make a play.”

On Jimmy Clausen:

“Well, the two things that he does the best is he can read coverages and he can make every throw. They’re the two things he can do, okay. Now, at this point, for example, and we had this conversation this week, at this point in his career what he’s doing is calling plays in the huddle more than running the offense. … And this is part of the evolution of a quarterback. When they first start playing early in their career, they relay the plays from the sideline to the guys in the huddle and then go to the line of scrimmage and run the play. That will grow while he’s here, okay, from calling the plays to running the offense, and that is a natural transition that takes place over time. With any quarterback that’s when everything changes.”

On Matt Carufel, who made his first career start:

“… he was decent. We were pretty good at the point of attack with the straight on physical stuff. Where we had a little bit more problem is with movement, you know, and I know you’ll go back and watch it the way I do, but you’ll see movement creating some more problems than just lining up. When we were just lining up smacking people in the mouth, I thought he held up fine.”

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Another topic that figured prominently in the discussion today was the level of emotion that the team showed in the locker room after the loss. This was a big area of concern for many fans, given the rumors that started to circulate after the loss to Michigan that the ND players may have given up caring. But according to Coach Weis, this is far from the case. Here are some of the highlights of what he said:

I think probably the thing that encouraged me the most of anything was how many people in the locker room after the game showed obvious emotion on the outcome of the game. It’s probably the first time this year that I saw so many players that were moved by the game, and that is, more than anything else, the one thing that people don’t get a chance to see, and it’s probably the greatest reason for optimism — how much they really care.

When asked to give an example of what he meant by this, Weis replied:

Well, when you go in there and you’re talking to the team after game time, I think one of the things you have to do is make sure that you don’t tear them down because you already know they’re feeling bad. But when you look in guys’ — look in some of their faces and you see them to the point where — not losing it but like where it’s that important to them, where you look in their face and it’s that important to them, that’s when you know they’re the type of players you want playing on your team. And sometimes it’s one guy, sometimes it was two guys, but there was a bunch of them yesterday that looked like that. That is a very, very strong positive when it’s that important to that many people.

And again:

As I said to them in the locker room after the game, I said, “fellows, you’re either all in or all out, it’s one or the other. The boat is going to sail with or without you. It’s okay if you want to be out, but you’re either all in or all out.” And I’d say for the majority of the people, the majority of the people were all in.

When asked whether this last remark meant that there was also a minority that was “all out,” Weis replied:

Those people I don’t know yet. You don’t know the answer to that question yet because when you’re looking at 100 guys, you can’t read everybody. I mean, you’re trying to, but I’m not a mind reader, I can’t read everybody. But you can see — what you can see, you can see the guys that are undeniably all in.

Weis also said that it seemed to be specifically the “older guys” who were showing the most emotion. There’s no question in my mind that this is a good sign.

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So where do the Irish go from here? One thing Weis made clear is that he has no plans to abandon the “simple is better” strategy that the offense employed this past week:

 

Q. You talked last week about creating a niche. At least in the running game it looked like you made some good progress in that. Have you made enough where you feel like you can start getting creative and throwing in some more stuff?

COACH WEIS: Oh, I think that you — let’s not get to that creative (and) throw in too much more stuff. I think you have to put in breakers now. In other words, you can’t just say, “okay, here’s the handful of plays you ran last week. Let’s run the exact same plays the exact same way the next week.” Those coaches, they get the tape. They are not going to say “let’s run the exact same plays the exact same way.” I think you have to add on to it.

But I’m not trying to go overboard in anything we’re doing. I’m trying to grow this. I say we’re going to start with a core and go from there, and that’s what we’re doing. We established a core and we’re going to kind of grow from there.

Weis also said that while he didn’t think that this week’s extra-physical, “back to training camp” practices led to fatigue in the second half, he planned to cut things back a bit this week:

I think it’s important to make sure we work on being physical on both sides of the ball. The only way we can do that is ones against ones, which we’ll be doing elements of that this week. Now, we will not do as drastic as it was last week because you also don’t want to physically beat up your team. So there’s the fine line in there of working on being physical and tackling and taking to the ground, which we will do, and at the same time protecting your team and getting them ready to play Purdue.

He

also said that this week, unlike last week, the coaching staff and players will sit down at watch game tape:

One of the things we’re going to do different than last week — last week we didn’t watch the tape. So this week we are going to watch the tape because there’s plenty of — unlike last week, especially on offense, there wasn’t anything good to say. Now we can sit here and say, “hey, this is good, this is good, this is good, this is good. Okay, now, this is bad, this is bad, this is bad.” So you can differentiate the two.

And then we go out to practice and we’ll go ahead and work and clean up all the things that were bad, make sure we — not only do we see them visually but we go out and try to rectify them and then you can move on. Where last week when you went right into training camp, you weren’t even worrying about Michigan. You weren’t really worrying about Michigan State. We were just worried about ourselves.

But now this week is a little different because we get a chance to go back and correct — correct both visually and on the field what our problems were yesterday and then move on from there.

All in all, Weis said it was the “first time in a while” where a game left him with “several things I can walk out … feeling good about.” But at this point, all eyes are fixed on the future: “right now,” said Weis, “we’re trying to beat Purdue.”

Sounds about right to me.

Despite a “back to training camp” mentality in practice this week, Charlie Weis’s Fighting Irish came up short yet again this week, falling to 0-4 for the first time in Notre Dame’s illustrious history. Here’s my analysis of what went wrong (and, occasionally, right)

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The turning pointLooking back at a game like this - so close through the first half, then out of hand so quickly - the question of what went wrong is a natural one. The answer, though, is quite obvious: just take a look at the first two drives of the second half.

The trouble started when ND’s opening kickoff of the second half was returned 52 yards to the Irish 45 yard line. It took MSU less than three minutes to march down the remainder of the field on a drive that included two long completions on 3rd-and-9 and 3rd-and-17 respectively, topped off by a 16-yard touchdown pass to Mark Dell that increased the Spartan lead to 24-14.

The next nail was driven in on ND’s very next drive. After an 18-yard rush by James Aldridge to the ND 42, the Irish picked up eight more yards on their next two plays and faced 3rd-and-2 from their own 50. But Aldridge and Robert Hughes were stopped short on consecutive carries, and the Irish turned the ball over to MSU at midfield.

The Spartans scored again two drives after this last big stop, to make the score 31-14, and the Irish didn’t complete another first down until the game’s final drive, long after the outcome was no longer in doubt.

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By the numbers

In lieu of a lot of amateurish analysis of such things as blocking schemes, missed tackles, and so on, I’ve pored over the box score to find a few statistics that I think are especially helpful in encapsulating today’s game from the ND perspective. The good

• With 18 carries for 104 net yards, sophomore James Aldridge became the first ND tailback to break the century mark this year. Aldridge and fellow underclassmen Robert Hughes (6 rushes, 33 yards, 1 TD) and Armando Allen (3 rushes, 13 yards) totaled 150 rushing yards between them, with an average of 5.6 yards/rush.
• Maurice Crum Jr. led the Irish with 16 total tackles (6 solo, 10 assisted). David Bruton was next with 15 (8 solo), followed by Trevor Laws with nine (all assisted, as well as a fumble recovery) and Joe Brockington with seven (3 solo). It was nice to see Crum have such a solid week after being so quiet in the UM game.
• Freshmen Kerry Neal - a sack, a batted pass, and two hits on the quarterback - and Brian Smith - three tackles, one for a loss - had solid games and showed a lot of energy. Look to see even more of them against Purdue. Fellow frosh Ian Williams - four tackles, one solo, from his DT position - also played well once again.

The bad

• Jimmy Clausen - 7-of-13 passing for only 53 yards and a fumble - had a really tough day. In his postgame press conference, Weis made it clear that the decision to pull Clausen in favor of Evan Sharpley near the start of the fourth quarter was not based on Clausen’s poor play or on a desire to “protect” the prized freshman, but was motivated by the fact that ND had to start passing the ball more and Sharpley was more experienced and so better equipped to run a “two-minute”-type of offense.
• Wideouts George West - three catches for 25 yards - and David Grimes - three catches, two of them really difficult ones, for 24 yards - both had decent days, given how quiet ND’s passing game was. But even given the continuing struggles of the offensive line, it’s hard to see how a large part of the burden for ND’s lethargic air attack doesn’t fall on the inability of our wide receivers and tight ends to get open.

The ugly

• Spartan tailbacks Javon Ringer and Jehuu Caulcrick shredded the Irish defense for 227 yards between them, on 46 carries.
• The Irish netted only nine total first downs, only three of them coming in the second half. Of those three, two of them came on long runs by James Aldridge in ND’s first two drives, and the last came on the last play of the game, a pass to John Carlson on 4th-and-6.
• While Spartan QB Brian Hoyer completed only eleven of his 24 passes, those completions went for a total of 135 yards (an average of 12.3 yds/comp) and FOUR touchdowns.

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The inexcusablesOne of the biggest problems the Irish have faced over the past few weeks is a tendency for stupid mistakes, bad penalties, and other sorts of errors that are frankly inexcusable for a top-flight team (think Justin Brown getting tossed out of the GT game, Travis Thomas getting into a fistfight against PSU, and so on). Here’s a rundown, based on my own back-of-the-envelope notes, of how ND did in these categories against Michigan State. (The moral in short: not well.)

Going nowhere on the ground

• The play-by-play shows six rushing plays (sacks not included) for negative yardage, two for no gain, and four for only one yard.

Failing to convert on third- or fourth- and short

• I marked down two key junctures where this happened: one on ND’s third drive of the game, where Asaph Schwapp got the ball on 3rd-and-1 and was brought down for no gain; and the other, mentioned above, on ND’s first drive of the second half, where Aldridge picked up one yard on 3rd-and-2 and Robert Hughes was then held to no gain on 4th-and-1.

Bad penalties

• On MSU’s second drive of the game, with ND leading 7-0, Brian Hoyer completed a 25-yard pass to the ND 24 yard line and was clearly pushed to the ground by Trevor Laws. The penalty was marked off half the distance to the goal, and the Spartans scored three plays later.
• After ND held MSU on their third drive of the game, with the score tied 7-7, MSU punter Aaron Bates sent a kick out of bounds at the ND 17 yard line. Travis Thomas, who has had a remarkable tendency to commit bad penalties this year, was called for holding, and the ball was brought back to the 9.

Old-fashioned mental mistakes

• On ND’s first drive after the first MSU touchdown, Irish punter Geoff Price dropped the snap and barely managed to get away a 27-yard kick.
• Inside two minutes to go in the first half, with ND facing 3rd-and-13 from their own 30 yard line, the Irish were called for delay of game.
• Toward the end of the third quarter, with MSU facing 4th-and-2 from the ND 34 yard line, the Irish were nearly whistled for an illegal substitution but managed to call a timeout beforehand. On the very next play, MSU tight end Kellen Davis blew by a flatfooted Maurice Crum for a 34-yard touchdown catch.
• Later in the third quarter, Price made yet another mistake, this time a punt that shanked off his foot and sailed out of bounds, for a net of only eleven yards.

Kick coverage

• We’ve already discussed the opening kick of the second half, which was returned 52 yards to the Irish 45 yard line by MSU’s Devin Thomas. The Spartans were in the end zone less than three minutes later, for a 24-14 lead.
• In the middle of the third quarter, a 54-yard Geoff Price punt that was caught at the MSU 15 yard line was returned 18 yards. Ten plays and 67 yards later, the Spartan lead stood at 31-14.

Not getting rid of the ball on time

• Jimmy Clausen seemed to have less of a problem in this area than in weeks past, but there were some times where he still held on for too long when he should have thrown it away. Obviously the key instance of this came near the start of the second quarter, when Clausen ran backwards as the pocket collapsed and had the ball taken right out of his hands by MSU’s Jonal Saint-Dic.

Pass protection

• ND only gave up four sacks for a total of 32 yards - an improvement after giving up 24 in their first three games, but still not satisfactory.

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Injury worriesAny Irish fan whose heart didn’t skip a beat when it looked like John Sullivan might have to leave the game mustn’t have been following the team too carefully. With backup center Dan Wenger out indefinitely with an undisclosed injury, junior walk-on Thomas “The Man, The Myth, The Legend” Bemenderfer was ND’s only remaining center. Thankfully, Sullivan was able to return.

One thing I didn’t see talked about was the fact that defensive end Justin Brown sat out today’s game with an undisclosed injury, with Derrell Hand taking his starting spot. It’s unclear how serious Brown’s injury is and from what I know it wasn’t talked about much before the game, but here’s what Michael Rothstein had to say about it earlier this week:

Justin Brown is looking a little bit hobbled these days. During a running lines drill the Irish typically do, every other player did side steps while Brown lugged along straight ahead. He also stretched with a trainer instead of another player and was doing calf and leg stretching maneuvers while the rest of the Irish were doing other stretches. And he looked very awkward doing so. As another reporter put it, he was the definition of ‘gingerly.’

Yikes. As we all said after the Hand “incident”, the last thing this team needs is a loss of bodies along the defensive line. We’ll have to keep an eye on this one.

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In sum, this game was obviously a huge disappointment, though there were signs of improvement - in particular the running game and some signs of life along the offensive line - that give reason for hope. But the things the Irish did wrong - in particular the second straight week of shoddy defense and tackling, a startlingly inept passing game, an inability to pick up crucial first downs on short yardage, a once-again bad job of covering kick returns after an improvement in this area against Michigan, and several key mental mistakes in big spots, not to mention the way things completely derailed after a couple of bad sequences at the start of the second half - give reason to be seriously concerned.Charlie Weis and the rest of the coaching staff have got a lot of work to do. They’re out of free passes at this point.

(Cross-posting from Irish Envy.)

After this week’s free-for-all there were a few changes to ND’s depth chart, but nothing really major. Here’s a rundown, in what I take to be approximate order of significance and/or surprisingness.

• Dan Wenger’s undisclosed injury has him out for at least this week, with Matt Carufel starting in his place at RG and human planet Chris Stewart as the backup.
• Duval Kamara has moved ahead of D.J. Hord for the #2 “X” receiver spot, with George West still the #1. Grimes, Parris, Gallup, and Tate are listed in the “Z” spot, in that order. Sorry Tate fans, looks like you’ll have to wait a bit longer.
• Just like last week, Sam Young will be starting at LT rather than RT, with Taylor Dever as his backup. The Paul Duncan-Matt Romine combination is at RT, with Duncan still the #1, for now anyway. Mike Turkovich is still the starter at LG, with Eric Olsen behind him.
• Derrell Hand is listed behind #1a Justin Brown and #1b Dwight Stephenson Jr. at RDE.
• Kerry Neal is now the #2 LOLB. Morrice Richardson, who had been the #2 there, moves to ROLB, where Neal had been the co-#2, but Richardson is #3 behind #1 Anthony Vernaglia and #2 Brian Smith.
• The depth chart now lists Travis Thomas, James Aldridge, Armando Allen, and Junior Jabbie as all tied for the #1 RB spot, with Robert Hughes behind them. In week one, Thomas was listed as the lone starter.
• And of course, Jimmy Clausen is our #1 QB, with Evan Sharpley listed as his lone backup.

Everything else seems to be the same as it was in week one. Ben Ford has some more thoughts here - they are worth reading, as always.

UPDATE: This exchange from Charlie Weis’s Thursday press conference is worth noting in this connection:

Q. Not a lot of change in the depth chart. Did that mean the starters all showed you something this week?

COACH WEIS: The most important thing for us was not to create sacrificial lambs. That doesn’t mean that there won’t be quick hooks in some cases, okay? But if I all of a sudden start pulling people and say, `”this guy is going to start, this guy is going to start,” the obvious thing that goes with it is, “well, it’s their fault.” I think we’re all part of the problem. I think there’s a lot more bodies that you might see show up in the game this week.

As is this one, which was discussed at UHND:

Q. The physical practices, I would think, would lend themselves for some players to look better than others just based on their style of play being more physical. I would think James Aldridge is a back that this is a week where it would be a chance for him to shine.

COACH WEIS: This is a James Aldridge-type of week. That’s exactly right. I would expect to see James early and often.

Q. How has he relished this opportunity? Do you see him as a guy that knows this is his chance to step up and do something?

COACH WEIS: He knows that he’s going to get plenty of opportunity. That’s what he knows. So I would imagine he’s very excited.

And finally, a couple of questions about our kickoff returns, where Armando Allen has been notably absent the past couple of weeks:

Q. Armando Allen no longer returning kicks?

COACH WEIS: He might be back there some returning kicks. Most of these kickers kick it to one spot, like this guy usually kicks it to one spot. Golden (Tate) will get the brunt of it. And with Junior (Jabbie) back there, Junior is a good returner, but he’s also a very good blocker. So if you’re going to feature one guy, we’d rather not Golden or Armando be the lead blocker. We’d rather them be the guy with the ball in their hands.

Q. Do you always want to have one blocker?

COACH WEIS: No, you want two returners if the guy sprays the ball all over the place because you would like two equally good returners. I think with Armando and Golden, we have two guys that are explosive returners. If a guy is going to hit the ball one spot all the time, that’s when you use a returner back there with better blocking ability.