Notre Dame

 So, you are sitting in your castle in Northern Italy and over the last few years, you have built up the walls, deepened the moat, and sharpened all the iron on your massive parapets. You know the redhaired invaders from the North are coming, and you want to be ready. King Adam has been insistent that you study their tactics, and not buy into the hype that all these traveling minstrels are selling about these huge Irish monsters bearing down on you. Well, on a gorgeous Fall day, the freckled fat men started rolling down the hill towards your impregnable defensive stronghold. King Adam sees them coming as well, and sends a quick message down to the bulky boys at the gate. Drop the drawbridge, and let em roll through. That's right, don't take a chance on getting hurt. Simply get the hell out of the way and let these overstuffed leprechauns just roll through unscathed. They have God on their side, gold in their helmets, and let's save ourselves for another day. 

Thank goodness we knew the strategy or I would have been concerned that we were just awful. Those were the biggest holes I have seen this side of the Grand Canyon. When the Irish ran that counter play, it was like the steak eating biker club of Montana steamrolling the middle school anorexic dancing pixies. Those backs were not close to being touched as they cruised to the end zone. Our ends were incapable of setting any kind of edge, our fabled interior were just leveraged into submission, and the linebacker level is honestly so damn bad I wonder if they should refund their scholarship money. I do understand that Notre Dame has the best OL we will see all season, but what in the last three games of film convinced Coach Fuller that we could win the battle against this ground game with 6 guys. He had Gainer outside the box on their TE, and until the second half never brought a safety into the picture. The bodies we have are not very good apparently, so we need more of them near the line of scrimmage. Take your chances with Asante and Dotson or Dent taking their guys press man, and give your kids a chance to just stop...the...run.

Someone find out who those dudes in the 21 and 16 jerseys are. They might be my fat cousins from Long Island, because they simply can not be Durden and Wilson. Those two guys were supposed to be NFL-ready stars, clogging the middle and wreaking havoc with double teams. They matched Pippi Longstocking this week with their final stat lines. No, sacks, tackles, or pressures, but can indeed sail the seven seas. There is also no rational reason to ever play Warner again. Just take your lumps with Dix and Lundy. They make take bad angles too, but at least they are in a hurry to make a mistake. Watching Leonard not moving at all 5 yards from the line and then still finding a way to pick Rice on a crossing route had to be the E ticket ride to Benchville.  

The defense gets my attention, because the offense was good enough to win Saturday night. An offense with all those freshman lineman, three new backs, and a QB making his first start was good enough to beat the 5th ranked team on the road with a truckload of NFL defensive talent. Jordan actually (gasp) got better again this week and even Terry has bought into what this staff is selling. There were times when the young OL pushed the balding, grey bearded Irish around. If Toafili catches that one dart, or if Jordan and Camren got on the same page as McDonald was 6 yards ahead of the defense cruising towards a TD, this is a Nole lead in the 4th. Every time the offense fought their way down the field for a closing score, the defense would come out skipping with a tray of molasses cookies and a warm milk to welcome the Irish through the gates. Maybe LaDamian Webb can play linebacker, because that is one tough hombre in between the tackles.

Travis makes the line better, because he actually feels the rush. But, Coach Dugans needs to spend some time on the scramble drill this week. Jordan is on skates nailing a double lutz and triple salchow while looking downfield while our three wideouts are on their phones checking their credit score. These backs make the line better because they block for each other, and just imagine when Coach gets more than one scholarship TE to work with in short yardage. Again, if Travis and Chubba can stay healthy, we will win some games this year against teams that right now seem improbable. We may have to win in the fifties (all the great ones are in the 50's!), but it will happen.

How about the timeouts at the end of the game, paired with the salty attitude of the head man after the game? If you didn't like that, then get off the train. This guy wants to win, and coached like it. There may not be a better kid on the team than Jaiden, but I heard Jessica Simpson scream out "That was stupid!" when he pushed that QB 5 yards out of bounds. Ouch. Well, CMN justifiably unloaded on him and gave him a tour of the bench. It needed to happen. That one idiot play handed the Irish a half closing touchdown after we had snatched momentum and had the second half kickoff coming...November is almost here folks. The kids will catch up to the message eventually, one painful Saturday after another. When we close 3-1, it will be followed by an offseason of justified hope.

The team that rolled out there Saturday night beats GT by 24 points. Believe me, if Norvell can't find the right personnel on and off the field on defense soon, there will be changes there too. He wants to win as bad as we do, and we will. Close the damn drawbridge Adam and turn off the oven. Those molasses cookies are stale. Get a fresh batch warm...quick.