Irish Musings
December 7, 2003
After Losing to Syracuse 12 to 38
Last night I watched the semi final game of the Florida high
schools. Well, it was a much much better football game than the one
we watched in the oversized closet in Syracuse, NY. Both teams
showed up with fire in their bellies and played hard, very hard for the
entire game. No one gave up or slowed down, or sloughed off at any
point. Even when it was apparent that the undefeated Booker team
was going to lose, everyone of the Booker players gave it their all to
the last moment.
Contrast this to the note I received from a smart guy who does not follow
college or pro ball that closely, but since finding out about Irish
Musings, he has started to watch us play when he can, and he asked why
the guy who intercepted the pass in our game did not score. Well,
hello!! How many of you wondered what Courtney Watson was trying or
not trying to do after he found himself with the gift of a football in
the left defensive flank? Why did he keep looking back over his
shoulder on his way down the sideline, and then why did he try to turn
back across the field. I have never played linebacker, but I know
what to do: Run like hell straight down the sideline and don't ever
look back. By the way, Courtney was a running back in high school,
so he has no excuse.
Watson's run is a metaphor for our season and a metaphor for Ty's career
at Notre Dame!! The team and the coaches have been gun shy,
bamboozled and looking over their shoulders all season. The team
and the coaches are confused, unsure of themselves and never found an
identity all year.
What is worse is that they did not really show up today!! We have
argued with one former walk on about the internal fortitude of the
team----he maintaining that we fans cannot speak about the spirit or
motivation of the team, because we don't know what is inside them at any
moment or in any game. Nice try, but all of us have watched enough
football games and especially enough Irish teams to have some idea of the
emotional intensity of the team in a particular game, and in this one we
give the Irish a very low grade.
Either the coaches failed utterly to prepare the boys, or the boys showed
up physically, but not spiritually. Or both!! Because they
looked awful throughout the game, not at all times, but for the majority
of the plays. And in the late third quarter and early fourth
quarter as things turned against us so badly, it began to look like the
Irish were quitting. Ok, sorry----dare we say anything so harsh
about the players? Ok, then, let's blame the coaches for the
Chinese fire drill that the defensive backfield demonstrated, as it was
apparent to all that none of the backers or safeties or corners or subs
in the nickel and the dime had any idea of who to defend, where to play
or where to run to!!! For this heinous behavior we blame the
coaches, for it is clear that they installed a zone that could not adjust
to the devastating crossing patterns that the Orangemen ran.
For those of us interested in Celtic things, is it not the ultimate in
humiliation for the Orangemen to beat the Fighting Irish?
Bob Griese, in the middle of the worst of the chaos, was heard to say
that "Ty Willingham has the Irish program moving in the right
direction." This has to be one of the stupidest things any
announcer or color guy has had to say all year in one of our games.
In what way, Bob? We just watched a crash and burn that even the
most strident critics of this coaching staff and this team did not
anticipate. Both Blue and Gold and the Irish Sports Report
predicted a win!! Vegas had us as two point favorites!!
What evidence does he have? He is talking about a team that was in
the process of getting blown out by a team that had been flushing itself
down the toilet over its last three games----a team that is at best
ordinary!! Getting blown out by great college teams is one
thing----and we have three of those this year, but now we are getting
blown out by ordinary teams!! Wow, this is a disgrace and an
embarrassment.
Ty has had two seasons now at Notre Dame:
his first one he was 10 and 1
his second he was 5 and 9
This is progress, Bob? Well, yes, I guess it is if you are a Purdue
fan!! Sure, it has to be reassuring to Purdue fans.
If you wish to object, and claim that we are being unkind and too
critical of the players by saying that they did not really show up, then
look at the Jayhawks tonight to see what a team looks like that really
really WANTS a game. They sure came out fired up and stayed that
way. Then of course, you could also look at the Syracuse team which
came out fired up altho not with quite as much intensity as the Kansas
State team.
Too many of our guys seemed to be sleepwalking today. There is the
Watson fiasco. There is the Maurice Stovall lazy reaction when the
ball was thrown over his head----even the announcers were embarrassed for
him, for his failure to leap and try to bat the ball down. Time and
time again our defensive players were not even knocked down, but rather
merely pushed out of the way, as if they have not a clue as to how to
avoid a block. On one of Reyes' five million touchdown runs, both
our linebackers in view on the replay were blocked by the offensive
lineman who blocked the our defensive lineman straight on into
them----neither one filled the gap!!!! Is this physical laziness,
mental laziness or is it poor coaching? Actually, it is probably
all three. This is really bad stuff. During that bad stretch,
it looked like the Irish were not only just going through the motions,
but they looked like they had given up!!
On Sunday morning ESPN, the announcers were actually laughing at how bad
our defense looked.
The last time things were so bad----hmm, Gerry Faust losing to Penn State
and Miami by thirty and fifty points in his last two games. What
does this tell us?? And those teams were infinitely better than
this ordinary Syracuse team!!!
Bill Snyder, the Jayhawks venerable coach, has demonstrated the kind of
skill and leadership that Notre Dame needs. All he did was take the
worst program in the history of college football under his wing fifteen
years ago, and come within an ace of the national championship a few
years ago and now may be close again and on the verge of one of the
greatest victories ever, upsetting what many writer had claimed
incorrectly is the greatest team ever, this years edition of the
Sooners.
One former player objects to this type of criticism, saying that the
players believe in Ty. Well, fine, but then we must be recruiting
dimwits, and I do not think we are. In fact, I have met a number of
them and know for sure that this is not the case.
What I think is that a lot of people are in denial. I think that Ty
lost this team sometime between the Boston College fiasco last year and
sometime early this season. And I don't think that the players even
know it quite this way. The first and prime exhibit is last year's
defense which evaporated toward the end of last season, and disappeared
for good this year from the first game onward. We have seen none of
the intensity this year that was the hallmark of last year's remarkable
squad:
"Where
did you go, Vontez Duff?"
We noticed he was absent without leave from the first play of the
Washington State game----just not the same player. Lost a step, or
at least half a step. Maybe he is hurt and we do not know it.
But no matter the reason, as the loss of his edge is a mere symbol of the
death of a great defense.
Or, maybe they just seemed to be great. Sure, we all thought they
were at the time. But, they had luck, and did not play nearly the
tough schedule that this year's team has been fated to face.
How do you feel about prospects under Ty for the next three years?
We cannot see the light here!! This game proves that the
"progress" over the last part of the season is a chimera.
The team is no better now than at any time during the season. The
2004 schedule looks like it will be just as difficult, and so it is hard
to see how we can expect a winning season, and I do not think that any of
our losing seasons have come back to back.
What do you think that Malloy and White should do?
Charlie Kenny
Class of 1963
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