As the immortal Jules Winnfield said, "Well then allow me to retort."
1. Of course the trick to defending the option is figuring out who is going to run it. But, there's only three people who can possibly get it. Plus, it's a run and you know this going in. Sure, they can pass it, but it's not what they prefer to do. A good defense and defensive scheme forces the opposing offense to do what they aren't comfortable with. In this case, it's throwing the football a lot. What you want to hang your hat on, win or lose, is that if you lost you made them win it the hard way. Saturday, Navy got to do whatever they wanted within their comfort zone. If we had put the defensive backs up tight on their receivers, with an eye on run defense, and nine guys in the box we could have had a much better chance to stop the run. We could have even said "You know what? Screw their passing attack. Everyone key on the rushing game and let the chips fall where they may. If they beat us through the air then they truly are the better team and we cannot do anything about that." But, to let them do what they want on offense, within their comfort zone, is a fundamental breakdown in defense and shows a complete lack of preparation and refusal to make adjustments. Trust me, if Navy beat us by passing all over the place while we committed to completely stopping their run...give 'em credit. But their win was just a walk in the park as they executed their offense like our defense was the practice squad.
4. That wasn't the point...Army isn't the team Navy is or has been all the way around. The point is that this team is truly that bad that we may lose to Army. That's not being negative, I'm just saying...what do we do well? We don't really pass that effectively (and when we do, it's not consistent). We run the ball fairly well at times, but we're a pass first offense (that now is missing some key weapons). Our QB is a bit erratic in that sometimes he looks great, sometimes he looks terrible. Either way, we have no one behind him capable of doing much on field yet. Our defense has a few great play makers but as a whole is just not that great. These factors seem to point to a potential to lose to Army, and that's an even lower measuring stick game than Navy as Navy is actually a pretty good team.
5. A New Mexico State team should not beat Notre Dame in reality. I think most people would consider them an inferior team, with inferior talent and losing to them would be far, far more of an upset at this point than Navy. USC, while still decent, is no where near the Pete Carroll USC teams. If we had things more going our way, this game would at least be competitive and would quite possibly be a win for Notre Dame finally. But, with the way USC has been playing, coupled with how poorly we have been as well as our confusion on a real identity as a team, all signs point to another USC beating. That's unfortunate as this year more than most it would seem we are more even in terms of talent and coaching acumen.
