One day a football team that had been having a surprisingly good season, resuscitating old glory for the first time in nearly half a generation, came out flat, looked disengaged and made all kinds of mistakes—far more than they had all season.  They dropped passes, they threw short passes into the ground, they could not block the defenders with regularity, they ran the wrong pass routes, they let blitzing linebackers into the backfield repeatedly, they missed tackle after tackle especially when having a chance to sack the quarterback, they had a touchdown called back for a stupid penalty, the coach even lost his cool once (or was he trying to fire up the team?), they kicked field goals badly, they got one blocked, they kicked punts poorly and on and on.

Yet they pulled away from the opponent in the second quarter and never fumbled, not even once, and never had an interception.  They won the game 34 to 10, giving up a garbage touchdown while the second string defense was in the game at the end.  That such a scenario of seemingly disengaged football rife with stupid messy mistakes could lead to a 24 point win is a measure of just how far this program has come in just ten games.

Yes, it is the Fighting Irish.

At 10:39 of the second quarter, Syracuse had a first and ten at their own 15 yard line.  Rick Minter uncharacteristically called two consecutive blitzes by the outside linebackers (as I recall, he had Cory Mays stay home on both of these).  Both blitzes worked, and then the Irish played somewhat loose on third and long, stopping Syracuse and forcing them to punt from deep in their own territory.  NO PREVENT DEFENSE HERE. 

For those of you who have discovered that Charlie’s weis comments from his weekly press conference can be found on the ND website, you have discovered what may be the best source of information on Notre Dame football ever.  I have learned more about football since Charlie has come into our lives than I had in the past ten years! 

Do you wonder why ND has done so much better in the second quarter than the opposition?  Charlie simply says that “we do a pretty good job of figuring out what they are doing and then adjusting.” 

How about the recruiting?  Some of you are following prospects from the time they are born!  And, some of you cannot figure out how or why the Irish have not offered some pheenom whom you are absolutely convinced is already a consensus All-American.  I have always believed that ND cannot and should not have Miami’s players.  I have always believed that ND’s kids should know why they are at ND.  Even if a kid is not a life long ND fan, as long as he knows why he is at ND and not at Miami, once he is on campus, then we have a good chance to have great cohesiveness.  There are plenty of talent rich teams that don’t get it done, because there is a morale problem, or even a failure for it all to come together. 

Charlie addresses the larger issue of selectivity in recruiting:

COACH Charlie Weis: “We basically try to keep it a very simple philosophy when it comes to recruiting, and then you just have to see how it pans out four or five years later. You know, not every school is looking for the exact same thing that we're looking for. I try to keep it simple and it really comes down to you're looking for good football players but they have to be good students and they have to be good kids.”

“There are a lot of times people say, why isn't Notre Dame recruiting somebody? It isn't because we're stupid. We don't recruit somebody because we're stupid. Usually one of those three characteristics that I talked about usually just isn't up to par, so you just move on.”

So, you recruiting FAN-a-tics out there, take heed that there is a method to what you may perceive at times as madness.

Here is an update on recruiting from our Vice President of Research, Steve Zeber:

The Florida message board seems fairly solid that Daniel Wenger has verbaled to ND ... and also that Sam Young will be doing likewise.  Nothing verified in either case, however.  Konrad Reuland is expected to announce within a week & Toryan Smith will announce on Nov 27th.  A separate rumor has it that Reuland will be Irish AND will enroll early.  IMO, Smith will not be Irish but Micah Johnson will be -- only one slot there as I see it.  A rumor on the downside is that QB commit Zach Frazer is having second thoughts.

So, if West and Reuland join Aldridge and Stewart as early enrollees, we can take 29 plus Yeatman [lacrosse].  Even if none of the above rumors work out, what a pleasant scenario there is remaining [see below].  This quite possibly could be the best recruiting class ever since post-war Leahy.  Refute me, please.

23        OL  Matt Carufel        6-5    275    MN          5*   Silent Verbal we think  

24        OL  Daniel Wenger     6-4  285  FL   4*                Silent Verbal perhaps

25        TE  Konrad Reuland   6-6  235  4.7 CA    5*

26        OL  Sam Young           6-8  280  5.0  FL  R #8   5*  Silent Verbal perhaps

27        DT  Gerald McCoy      6-5  285  OK R 14    5*        Silent Verbal perhaps

28        LB  Micah Johnson     6-2  267  4.7  [RB]  KY  5*

29        DT  Butch Lewis          6-7  280 4.8  CO  [OL]  4*

30        LB  Anthony Lewis      6-2  220  4.60  TX   

31        WR Terrance Austin  5-10 165  CA 

32        TE  Will Yeatman         6-6   255    CA

As Urban Meyer's father told the Florida newspaper, his son felt he could win more quickly at Gainesville, where the roster ran deeper with talent than the one at Notre Dame, and many Notre Dame fans came to view this as yellow, gutless, spineless, weak.

 What about the bowl games?  This issue of Irish Musings may not arrive until this topic is old news, but here goes anyway:

The Fiesta gets to pick first and third.  They will pick Notre Dame because of the TV ratings the Irish have had this year on NBC, and because the Irish are simply the biggest draw in college football.  Then the Orange Bowl gets the second pick of the at large teams.  They will pick Penn State, because of their drawing power and because they are a great story this year.  Then, the Fiesta picks third, and we believe that they will pick Ohio State.  This scenario sets up a natural match between two of the premier programs in the country, spiced up by the fact that the two schools do not play one another regularly, by their proximity and by the way that the athletes will match up—power football up front for sure! 

The big question is how the Irish will cope with the best rushing defense in the land, and what is certainly a better defense than ND has faced all year.  Tennessee had the best defense of any team the Irish faced, and Ohio State is at a higher level.  Ironically, Southern Cal has an ordinary defense at best and if you stayed up late enough you saw them “hold” Fresno State to 42 points, while Reggie Bush assured himself of the Heisman trophy.

Speaking of which……….

Who out there besides Brady’s mom expected him to be going to New York for the award ceremonies?  

Who is the unsung hero here?  Well, it is Peter Vass, former head coach in Europe, incredibly successful in his career, and a man who dropped all of that to come and work at the third level on Charlie’s staff.  He straightened out the goofy stance of Brady under center and worked with Brady on his hip rotation when throwing to his left.  And much more……….that we will never know about.  Peter gets no ink on the national stage.

Of course, you noticed how badly Brady looked last week against the Orangemen.  And he did not exactly shine against the Midshipmen, compared to BYU and some of his other games.  Why?  The answer is in the Sports Illustrated curse.  There was an article on him in SI after the Tennessee game, the week before the Navy game.  Fortunately, he was not featured on the cover, or else he probably would have had ten interceptions, but he did show up in a little promo box in the upper left hand corner of the cover.  That alone was enough to take the edge off his game!!