Notre Dame Summary

[CoachKen]

How do you spell "talent?" The biggest question is not how did they put a whipping on us, but how did this team go 6-6 regular season? A few observations from the sixth row and reviewing the game:

1. Man for man, they were far more talented. Their big guys were not just big, they were lean and big. On the flight back one of their defensive tackles was on the flight....had to be 6'7" and over 300 but not much fat on this guy.
2. I am tired of the offensive line getting all the abuse for sacks. A couple of things here:

A. When Farmer is in the game its kind of obvious what the defense did, ignore the run.
B. In our three wide and empty sets there were open receivers, we just waited too long to throw the ball.
C. Once any QB gets crushed a few times, he will be panicky in the pocket. A few times we did not stay in the pocket
long enough to make the right decisions.
D. Based on the single season he had to learn the offense, I still like Alexander. Rolo will have him ready for next year.
This was not his best game and had some bad throws but lots of good plays also.

3. I think the receivers did all they could and played well. Congrats to Aaron Bain for the Outstanding Player for Hawaii. We needed to get Salas the ball more by running more square ins and putting him inside on some plays. He is a play maker and he has to be utilized to a higher degree.

4. What running game? Pilares did well given his limited time. I don't think we attacked where they were giving us open space. I would like to have seen outside screens not to the receivers but to the running back based on the hard outside rush. This is technically a pass but it is part of a great running game.

5. We gave up way to many big plays on defense but when the QB has all day to throw you cannot completely fault the secondary. Our pass rush was not there. When you are going against superior talent you have to take chances, period. We cannot put four on the line and expect to come out on top. When they had a single running back we needed to be more aware of the screens, draws and back in the flat. They hurt us with him.

6. The game was lost at the line of scrimmage. Notre Dame was very good up front and created a surge on offense that at times cut off our linebackers.

Could we beat a time like this? Not when they are operating on full strength and with confidence. They came to play!

CoachKen

[LoneWarrior]

Do you think Ron Lee's playcalling will improve next year? some of his calls are questionable

[BigWave96744]

How do you spell "talent?" The biggest question is not how did they put a whipping on us, but how did this team go 6-6 regular season? A few observations from the sixth row and reviewing the game:

1. Man for man, they were far more talented. Their big guys were not just big, they were lean and big. On the flight back one of their defensive tackles was on the flight....had to be 6'7" and over 300 but not much fat on this guy.

Funny I just posted the below on Tsai's Blog about ND's Talent

It was at last year’s US Army High School All-Star game, that 5 star stud Solomon Koehler of Castle High School announced his intent to play for Arizona.

While Hawaii fans would have loved to land Sol or any of the other athletes in that game, Notre Dame landed the most of all colleges (I think it was 9 or 10 - 5 star players). In the previous 4 years, Notre Dame also had recruiting classes that was up there with the USC’s, Florida’s, Texas, etc

[poidog]

coachken, why does this year's team have so much trouble executing screens and shovel passes? to me it seems that they don't know how to set them up correctly. you'd know much better than me. please share your thoughts...

[RedZone]

Yep UH blew all my keys to the game. And I knew with the talent ND had it was just a matter of time before they woke up and put a complete game together. I was hoping that UH would try to control the ball and keep it away from NDs offense. It did not happen. I thought one of the keys would be to use Pilares and Libre more. It did not happen.

Ironically ND did a great job with the outside screen. UH running the wheel route to Pilares would have been nice.

To me and I might be wrong it seems as though Alexander has no pocket presence. When people used to talk to JJ about Colt's side arm he used to say that it was the qbs job to find the throwing lanes. You have to be able to move in the pocket to do that. I don't see it happening with Greg. People can grumble about the oline but as JJ used to say you have to go with what you got. You can teach but it is the players who have to execute.

[Grinch]

The Irish had talent - agreed.
BUT, while not the same numbers-wise, we've played against some pretty big and talented teams - Alabama, Cinci, Arizona St., Michigan St. etc.
Is Notre Dame just that much more talented? Just like the Georgia game - the Warriors looked like they were in slow motion and unprepared for the game at hand. jmho

[808havok]

i'm just gonna' throw something else out there - weis called offensive plays rather than their regular OC.

i dunno what kind of preparation was done by the UH coaches and i dunno which games they watched, but weis called the previous games against navy, syracuse, usc.

i'd imagine depending on which tapes the coaches watched, you wouldn't have all the offensive tendencies. i'm sure after notre dame coaches saw david veikune, they said we're going max protect and gonna practice all our plays off of such a set. as we saw, no qb pressure = secondary picked apart.

just a thought.

[mega]

Personally I think the Cincy game took the wind out of our sails. We looked flat and uninspiring out there. ND gave us a good ole whipping.

[CoachKen]

Our problem executing screens and shovel passes this year I think relate to several things:

1. Some running backs do a better job than others at having their back to the line of scrimmage and immediately turning and finding the running lane. Nate was a master at that talent.
2. More teams were aware of the success of the shovel pass and used a "spy and grab" technique of as they rushed, look for the back.
3. More teams deployed a single spy linebacker to mirror the running back.
4. Too much penetration kills the shovel pass in that it squeezes the shovel lanes down and the ball can be knocked down more easily which happened this year.
5. If you cannot execute the shovel, it is unlikely you can execute a middle screen. The middle screen is very difficult to run anyway, I prefer outside screens to the running back since it draws the backer away from the middle and can open up a passing lane in the short middle.
6. It is about timing...our timing was not good. Don't expect the shovel pass to be as effective when it is expected!

Coach

[Duster]

Thanks, Coach Ken.

From my vantage point, I thought there was some holding going on. I am assuming that if holding is not flagged and big boys like the ones on ND's O-line do it, it will neutralize the pass rush. With MAC officials (a.k.a. junior Big-10 officials), we should have expected that there would be no such thing as holding. Remember John L. Smith and Michigan State bellyaching about that? How about Joe Tiller and Purdue? Probably no real impact on the outcome, but still aggravating to me.

Did the NCAA determine the bowl officiating crews and send us the MAC officials? I hope we get a Pac-10 or even (gasp) a Mountain West crew next time. Definitely no MAC or Big-10.

[rodfather]

The other thing is that Charlie Weis is familiar with the Run and Shoot. He used it as his offense when he was a high school coach, got it from the Oilers. When he was in the NFL, he helped the Defense develop schemes against it when they went against the run and shoot teams.

[poidog]

The other thing is that Charlie Weis is familiar with the Run and Shoot. He used it as his offense when he was a high school coach, got it from the Oilers. When he was in the NFL, he helped the Defense develop schemes against it when they went against the run and shoot teams.

ahhh... didn't know that.

[Duster]

The other thing is that Charlie Weis is familiar with the Run and Shoot. He used it as his offense when he was a high school coach, got it from the Oilers. When he was in the NFL, he helped the Defense develop schemes against it when they went against the run and shoot teams.

Thanks, Rodfather. JJ said in the past that New England ran the R&S with Tom Brady. Weis was the Belicheck's OC, right?

[dcwarrior]

I would say that ND is almost as talented as this year's Bama and more talented than the last one UH played. It is more talented than the others on your list - and again, almost as talented as UGA.

The Irish had talent - agreed.
BUT, while not the same numbers-wise, we've played against some pretty big and talented teams - Alabama, Cinci, Arizona St., Michigan St. etc.
Is Notre Dame just that much more talented? Just like the Georgia game - the Warriors looked like they were in slow motion and unprepared for the game at hand. jmho

[Grinch]

dcwarrior: what you say makes sense.
Now the question is - what does this mean? As someone else asked - have we peaked?
Was last year a "once in a life time" season (as JJ said - I think)?

If this was a "rebuilding" year - I hope we can recruit guys that can compete with Georgia, ND, Florida, etc.