what i think.....

[ND4life]

in some aspects i think we needed a loss, but not like this. all the hype for ND and all the bandwagon fans seem overwhelming. i knew coming into this year we werent the best football team in the country but since this is ND, the expectations are far too much, especially from where we were under TY.

just like svo said look at our juniors that were supposed to "step up". only 2 from the list are starters.

whats worse than a loss like this was, this weekend was our biggest recruiting weekend and we flopped. these kids are 17-19 yrs old and hopefully they dont jump ship.there was no intensity at all in the stadium, especially compared to the PSU game.

this loss will take a while to digest but, this year isnt over.

GO IRISH!!! BEAT MSU!!!

 

[ant80]

I get the feeling that the ND secondary was again exposed. I thought Weis had worked that out after watching the PSU game...

 

[marv81s]

hard to cover guys for more than 5+ seconds. I didn't see any type of consistent preassure on Henne. Any good QB will tear you apart when you give them that kinda time to work with. But, our corners came off that field smelling like burnt toast on a lot of plays, and giving the opposing teams D 21 points doesn't help either, just a really f'n piss poor performance today. Hope this team plays with some emotion next saturday and gets payback on Sparty.

 

[polishdomer]

Quinn was the weakness today

Quinn was the weakness today

hard to cover guys for more than 5+ seconds. I didn't see any type of consistent preassure on Henne. Any good QB will tear you apart when you give them that kinda time to work with. But, our corners came off that field smelling like burnt toast on a lot of plays, and giving the opposing teams D 21 points doesn't help either, just a really f'n piss poor performance today. Hope this team plays with some emotion next saturday and gets payback on Sparty.

I really do think Quinn is overrated, and I have been thinking about it lately...I think he has had excellent receivers in the past (McKnight, Shelton in 04, Samardzija & Stovall in 05, and now Samardzija & McKnight) along with consistent TEs. I do believe that Brady's numbers have been supported by some excellent catches. He is very inconsistent in his passes, and even in most games, his passes are not very crisp. He throws a very line-drive pass that we saw what happened today...even over the ;last 2 years he has had problems throwing screens at times...

But the main reason for the fallout has been the lack of true QB pressure by ND on its opponents...our lack of QB pressure has been frustrating. I rarely saw a blitz put on today, and our inexperience LB crew was exposed today. Everyone sings the praises of Mo Crum, but he was pushed around today, and was not a factor. The most consistent player on defense was Victor Abiamiri, but again he was held, which brings me to my last point...

What was the deal with F&^^%$G refs? Holy crap, were they bad today! They really screwed up the flow of the game, and the penalties were very one-sided...there were several penalties called on ND that gave either Michigan a 1st down, or cost us a 1st down...

Alright, I am done venting, and can't wait for MSU...

 

[Óglaigh_na_hÉireann]

When you are ranked #2, the last thing you need is a loss

Idk, I guess maybe my expectations were too high. Svo pointed out in the other thread the utter lack of talent in the junior class (with the exceptions of Walker and Crum)..and it's hard to be contenders when you have the huge disadvantage we do and you're pretty much relying entirely on your senior class to get you to Arizona.

 

[solo]

It can still be a good season. I think too many people bought into all the hype created by the media. To start the season, I predicted a 10-3 season with losses to Michigan, USC, and a bowl loss. And to accomplish that would still make me happy as a fan. That is still very obtainable.

We simply don't have the players that we need to hang with the best of the best. They are coming as CW had been doing a great job of recruiting. So the future still looks bright, though the immediate future doesn't measure up to the hype.

 

[Vince Young]

If this had been "just a loss," I wouldn't be all that worried right now. Last year's losses to Michigan State, USC and Ohio State were all somewhat disappointing, but we were competitive in all three games and had a reasonable chance of winning all 3 in the end. In all 3 cases, I came away with a real sense that progress was being made, and that it would be quite some time before we saw a crushing completely-out-of-the-game sort of defeat.

Gentlemen? There was absolutely nothing good about yesterday's loss. I can't point to a single aspect of that performance that gives me even a glimmer of hope. All of our strengths were absolutely negated, and all of our weaknesses were completely and totally exposed. And worst of all, every single one of our boys out there looked very rattled, as if they'd lost all confidence in their own considerable talent and just plain gave up. They looked very much afraid, and that sort of fear is what allows a good team to lose to, say, Stanford. This is the sort of loss that can derail an entire season.

This is rock-bottom. Nowhere to go from here but up.

 

[A2McGowan]

Ummmmm.....the most points scored in that stadium in 46 years. That is what bothers me.

 

[Ant4NDIrish]

Quinn was not the weakness on saturday! I think the O-Line has been the weekness all 3 games. What is sad the freshman (Sam Young) has looked good. Everything starts up front offense and defense, and Michigan whipped our Ass! I didn't see any ND players playing with any intensity Michigan wanted it more than the Irish.

 

[guff]

Quinn was not the weakness on saturday! I think the O-Line has been the weekness all 3 games. What is sad the freshman (Sam Young) has looked good. Everything starts up front offense and defense, and Michigan whipped our Ass! I didn't see any ND players playing with any intensity Michigan wanted it more than the Irish.

Young looked ok but on many passing plays Carlson was kept in to block so he must not be good enough to go one on one.

 

[solo]

Quinn was not the weakness on saturday! I think the O-Line has been the weekness all 3 games. What is sad the freshman (Sam Young) has looked good. Everything starts up front offense and defense, and Michigan whipped our Ass! I didn't see any ND players playing with any intensity Michigan wanted it more than the Irish.

I don't like to point fingers at individual players, so I will use genral terms. We have one player in the secondary who is the teams weakest leak. Burnt for I think 3 TD passes yesterday.

After this one player, I would say that our LB corp is the next weakest link.

And after that, the water gets a little muddy.

But no way is BQ the weak link. He might not be as good as his press clippings, but he is one of our strengths.

 

[Ant4NDIrish]

Yes they kept Carlson in to help on some pass protection but think that was because of Michigan's stud d-Line. I just think as a whole the line offesive and defensive has been a bust. Quinn has been pressured more in the first three games as he was all last year. The defense has yet to get pressure from just the front four.

 

[Ant4NDIrish]

One last thought before Church. I thought the offensive line would be our strong point along with our defensive lines depth. Not so far! Hopefully they will get it together because it is a long season still yet. Go Irish!

 

[ND4life]

quinn is definitely not our weakness!!! on most of our pass plays i noticed max protect with carlson helping SY's side. walker going out as a dump off. UM had 4 rushing most of the time and that leaves 8 people to cover 3 wr's. another thing since we shot our selves in the foot so early down by 20, we couldnt get the run game going.

now on the defensive side of the ball, we all know our safeties are big hitters ala sean taylor and roy williams, but they just cant leave our cb's on an island like that. even though manningham had some good moves but all he did was go deep (no slants, no crosses). id rather have the cb's play a lil deeper give up the short stuff and hopefully have their offense make mistakes. our LB'S need to step it up. crum is always near the ball but, TT gets pushed around.

on recruiting, hopefully barksdale and blackwell notice that were in serious need of DL help and they want to come here to play.

this season is far from over, and CW wont let a 7 win season happen. i like what zibby said in his interview, our goals havent been diminshed. our goal from the start of the year was to win every week. lets go get MSU.

GO IRISH!!!

 

[VictorsValiant]

Ok, let's make something very clear. The refs had nothing to do with Nd's loss. If anything, I can argue that they were biased against Michigan. NBC actually did a good job (what!) by showing a replay after every penalty. In all cases where it was called against Nd, Pat Haden of all people completely agreed (and they were right for once), saying there was "no doubt about it" on numerous occasions. There may have been one or two questionable calls against Nd, but they were totally negated by all the calls that went against us. Shockingly, Haden was a little more mute on the calls against us. I think he even made the point that the holds were completely obvious (and don't give me the argument that everything looks like a hold, because the ones called against Nd and us were holds for at least 5 seconds). On numerous occasions, he actually questioned the ref's ruling against us, saying that there might not have been a penalty like on that "late hit" call and of course, on the interference call where the ball was thrown way out of bounds and it was obvious Quinn was just trying to get rid of it (resulted in an unwarranted TD on yet another bad call afterwards when both McKnight and Trent were pushing off of each other). So, if anything, the calls went against us, especially in the last Nd TD, which I thought were mercy calls designed to mollify the fans.

 

[KMac151993]

Ok, let's make something very clear. The refs had nothing to do with Nd's loss. If anything, I can argue that they were biased against Michigan. NBC actually did a good job (what!) by showing a replay after every penalty. In all cases where it was called against Nd, Pat Haden of all people completely agreed (and they were right for once), saying there was "no doubt about it" on numerous occasions. There may have been one or two questionable calls against Nd, but they were totally negated by all the calls that went against us. Shockingly, Haden was a little more mute on the calls against us. I think he even made the point that the holds were completely obvious (and don't give me the argument that everything looks like a hold, because the ones called against Nd and us were holds for at least 5 seconds). On numerous occasions, he actually questioned the ref's ruling against us, saying that there might not have been a penalty like on that "late hit" call and of course, on the interference call where the ball was thrown way out of bounds and it was obvious Quinn was just trying to get rid of it (resulted in an unwarranted TD on yet another bad call afterwards when both McKnight and Trent were pushing off of each other). So, if anything, the calls went against us, especially in the last Nd TD, which I thought were mercy calls designed to mollify the fans.

Most people aren't blaming the refs for anything...but in regards to your post and about Rhema's TD...both players were pushing but Rhema still caught the ball so the flag was a mute point....whats your complain there??

 

[nshope]

Young looked ok but on many passing plays Carlson was kept in to block so he must not be good enough to go one on one.

Yeah, I noticed this as well. I have to say that I AM disappointed in the line play so far this year on both sides. We have an awful lot of experience on the O-Line and D-Line to be playing so badly. Our offensive line has a TON of starts to their name. I cannot believe some of the problems there are having picking up blitzes. That type of thing should be like wiping your A** by this point. They've done it for 2+ years in some cases. The D-Line is just not putting pressure on the QB when it's needed either. A lot of times Henne had too much time to throw.

 

[LOVEMYIRISH]

I get the feeling that the ND secondary was again exposed. I thought Weis had worked that out after watching the PSU game...

Two mistakes do not a game make.

I think they did fine, but twice got beat.

We need a better pass rush...plain and simple.

 

[rontdtarchala]

OK lets get one thing straight michigan held our d alllllllllll fricken game without nary a flag being thrown. on one long run scum had the only thing the olineman didn't do to tt was hump him!!! God I hate michigan...team fans band state....
Don't come on my site with that crap I'm not blind...we lost cause we played like crap...but don't even tell me the refs did a good or fair job of calling that game.....period!!!!!!!!!
OK rant is over..................................................

 

[jiggafini19]

Either they have the best O linemen ever year in and year out or they never get called for holding. Maybe a combo of the two.

I love seeing the Green Bay Packers having a young, horrendous O line in front of Favre now. Makes up for over a decade of their front 5 NEVER getting called for holding.

I often feel the same way about Michigan.

But I'd give anything for the ND line to play like theirs. So far, it hasn't even been close.