Notre Dame played a truly remarkable game Saturday.  After taking an incredible amount of heat since the Southern Cal game in 2006 Charlie Weis at least temporarily quieted his critics as his 2008 edition

of The Fighting Irish showed more spunk and emotion since the first game of 2006 against Penn State. 

For those who say the measure of a coach and a team can be taken by looking at the improvement from the first to the second game, the play of the Irish certainly validated that dictum.  The game saw some of the hardest hitting that we have seen by Irish squads in a long time.  The Irish never lost their spunk even as they appeared to lose their momentum in the second quarter.

If the team continues to improve, Irish fans will be delighted and Charlie Weis can be taken off the “Watch List” that some of the readers of Musings have placed him on.

Let’s look at the positives and the negatives:

The young players continue to improve and amaze with their fine play.  Brian Smith whom we cited after the San Diego State game emerged as one of the heroes, beating the Michigan receiver to a fumbled backwards pass in the shadow of the Wolverine goalposts and garnering the third quarter TD that nailed the coffin shut for the Wolverine corpse.  A ferocious Irish defense crashed through the line and swarmed to a pigskin that had squirted out of QB Treet’s grasp.  Brian scooped it up and ran faster through the torrential downpour than most tailbacks could ever hope to run, going straight into the end zone about 35 yards away, thereby putting the game’s final points on the board.  Smith’s dad played fullback for Gerry Faust’s teams in the early 80s.  Brain is one of the most talented players on the team and is now showing it on nearly every play.  He also dropped a pass that he could have easily run back for touchdown that would have made the score 28-0!!

Charlie’s severest critics should look at the rushing stats.  They are better than they seemed just by watching the game.  Robert Hughes averaged just over 4 yards a carry for the game, but the most important stat is that he carried the ball 15 times in the second half when the Irish just needed to run some time off the clock.  The running game is still not where it needs to be, but it is miles ahead of where it was last year at any time during the year and it is well ahead of where it was last week against an opponent that surely is inferior to an uncharacteristically weaker Michigan team. 

The special teams played superbly well in this game, converting all PATs, which is a near miracle after last year’s debacle, watching Michigan muff two consecutive kickoffs, punting for a 43 yard average and covering the Wolverine return game like a blanket.  Mike Anello, the Rudy with speed on the special teams, caused all kinds of heartache for Michigan on all the kicks until the fourth quarter, when Michigan put two of their best troublemakers out on the wing to double team him.

One piece of good news is that the safeties combined for 25 tackles.  And, the bad news is that the safeties combined for 25 tackles.  Clearly, David Bruton and Mike McCarthy protected the goal line and stopped the tailbacks and ends from scoring repeatedly, but even a blitzing team should not ever have to rely on the safeties for so many tackles.  It is clearly a sign that the D-line and the linebackers are allowing too many runners to slip by them. 

This observation leads to the discovery of a clear weakness up front.  The Irish have less talent in the D-line than anywhere else on the team.  Everyone knew about this relative shortcoming going into the season, but it is now painfully apparent.  No real pass rush!  No sacks!  Yes, they are disruptive, but most of the disruptions are instigated by a flock of blitzing linebackers.  The defense is not really designed so that the linemen stop the offense, but they need to neutralize the O-line of the opposition and too often they did not do that.  Justin Brown appears to be the weakest link in this group.  Mysteriously, Ian Williams played very little.  We have no idea why!