The captains press conference usually isn’t good for much, as the guys are usually very well media trained, but I’ve really found myself enjoying Eric Olsen and Jimmy Clausen when they’re up in front of the microphones. Olsen has a pretty good sense of humor, and has made more than his share of jokes when he’s usually stuck sitting next to his more popular teammate as Clause answers a handful of questions for every one that Olsen gets asked.
Yesterday was a little bit different, as both Olsen and Clausen had plenty to discuss.
* Eric talked about his relationship with teammate Dan Wenger and what it was like to move over to center and take the starting job of your best friend.
It’s tough, because walking in the door here from day one, Danny and I became best friends, and we’ve been best friends since then. Everything from going to the dining hall, going to class, living together now, we’ve spent every minute of every day almost around each other, and being on the football team together it’s even more time than the time outside of football.
But I think we both understood that it wasn’t anything personal from me to him or from him to me, it was more of a thing to help the team. So we kind of got past that and it didn’t really affect our relationship.
Olsen went on to talk about how dedicated Wegner has been since the demotion, and how he’s basically the sixth starting lineman as far as being included in offseason work, conditioning, meetings, etc.
* Olsen was pretty candid about the last two matchups with Navy. Last season’s narrow escape after the team coasted when the score was 27-7, and the 2007 loss that broke the Notre Dame winning streak against the Midshipmen.
No offense to Navy, but that was kind of the low point of my career. I mean, obviously that season wasn’t a season that any of us really want to remember at all. But when you have a streak that long against a team, you hate to be the team that gives that streak up. Again, it’s nothing personal to them, but just so happened that they were the team that we had that streak against.
The past few years they’ve given us a pretty good game, so you can’t overlook effort as being something that has a significance in a football game. That’s what we’re expecting from them this weekend.
I fully expect the Irish to play all four quarters of this game. While it’s nice that the Irish and Coach Weis rarely run up the score against an opponent, I don’t expect Notre Dame to sit back and be complacent if the Irish find themselves in another almost three scores ballgame.
* Eric was asked for a “PG version” of what CW had to say after he was flagged for his second personal foul penalty last week against Washington State.
I knew this was coming. He said something along the lines of, “Eric, that was rude and unnecessary, and please don’t let it happen again.” And I said, “Yes, sir.”
I tried to play dumb and act I didn’t know what they called me for. You kind of see that in the NBC copy, slow motion, and it showed exactly what I did. But he saw right through it and he wasn’t having that, kind of put me in my place a little bit. That’s his feeling, so no hard feelings.
There were probably a thousand different Notre Dame fans sitting in front of their TV giving Olsen the same type of tongue-lashing, and I’m glad Olsen went with the buttoned-up and play stupid approach. That was always my M.O.
* Jimmy was asked about the injury to teammate and friend Dayne Crist. Predictably, he took it pretty hard.
For me it’s kind of different than everyone else because I’ve known Dayne since elementary school, and just seeing him go down like that was something I don’t want anyone to ever have to deal with. I know in the end Dayne is going to -- after he gets the surgery done, he’s going to be rehabbing every single day and get back a lot sooner than people expect. Just seeing what happened and having an ACL is something just bad and you never want that to happen to somebody else, and that’s just a real tough injury.
He’s doing all right. Obviously he’s in the quarterback room with us, and his spirits are up. But obviously he wants to be out there playing, but he knows he just has to have the surgery and get back as soon as he can. Like I said, he’s a real competitor and he’s going to want to get back out there as soon as he can, and he’ll be back real fast.
There have been a lot of people talking about this injury and whether or not it effects Jimmy’s future at Notre Dame, and I think we’re all just taking a guess right now. I could make about five arguments for staying or going if I wanted to, but they’d all by guesses.
* And just when the theme of toes was falling off the front page, Clausen had a bit of a setback when he was tripped up on his last play in the ballgame.
It’s all right. It’s a little sore right now, but I jammed it on that one play when the guy barely clipped my foot and I tripped over myself, but it feels all right. It’s going to linger on for the rest of the season. I’m going to have to deal with it. I’m just tolerating the pain right now.
To be honest my toe was feeling really good going into the Washington State game, and after that play it kind of set me back to a few weeks ago where I was hurting and dealing with the pain. But hopefully it’ll get back to where it was before the Washington State game.
Turf toe might take its place up there with nagging high ankle sprains at the most annoying injury you can suffer during a football season. At least with Clausen’s injury, it’s not as if it really takes away a weapon of his.
* And for those of you curious about Jimmy’s academic track, he’s basically one semester away from earning a degree.
Jimmy has earned a Notre Dame degree in three years. Good for him. That should be part of the recruiting package when you come and visit campus. If you’re really reading the tea leaves, Clausen’s schedule this Spring could be the biggest tell on whether he’s staying or going.