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Five things we learned: Notre Dame vs. UConn

Nov 21, 2009, 6:45 PM EDT

146 Comments

When UConn kicker Dave Teggart’s field goal hooked wide left as time expired, it looked as if the scene was set for a dramatic escape for the Irish and another heart-breaking loss for Randy Edsall’s hard luck Huskies. But the Huskies marched down the field in overtime, and on a critical 3rd and 7, former Notre Dame quarterback Zach Frazer hit wide receiver Kashif Moore for a touchdown in the corner of the end zone, and the Huskies scored first to swing the momentum back in their favor.

Even though the Irish responded with a touchdown of their own, they settled for a field goal to start the second overtime, and gave the Huskies a chance to win with a touchdown. Five plays later, Andre Dixon rumbled off the left side of the fatigued Irish defensive line for a touchdown and the victory, leaving the Notre Dame stunned and a senior class heartbroken in their final game at home for the second time in as many seasons.

Here’s what we learned today:

1) Emotions and heart are an integral part of college football.

Say what you will about recruiting rankings, but today’s game showed that emotions and momentum are just as important as personnel in college football. Even after the Irish jumped out to an early 14-0 lead, it never felt safe, especially with the tidal wave of negativity surrounding the Irish. The tipping point of this game came early in the second quarter, when Sergio Brown inexplicably hit a wide receiver after the pass sailed out of bounds, giving UConn new life. On cue, Jordan Todman darted 43 yards for a touchdown, cutting the lead in half, and changing the complexity of the game.

As we’re seeing in Ann Arbor, once the ball starts rolling it’s tough to get things back in control. With two fanbases as entitled and accustomed to winning as the programs at Michigan and Notre Dame, tradition and past excellence no longer seems like assets, but harbingers of doom. At high profile schools like these, there’s enough pressure put on the players by the swarming national media, but when the grumbling festers and permeates from within the faithful, it’s easy to see why these two proud programs are cracking at the seams, regardless of the head coach.

2) Notre Dame was decimated by the run.

Both Jordan Todman and Andre Dixon ran for over 100 yards, and even with a quarterback that was lost, UConn won the football game.  Todman’s explosive day didn’t end at the line of scrimmage, he also returned a back-breaking kickoff 96 yards for a touchdown that knotted the game at 17. As I mentioned earlier in the week, the Irish’s lack of a veteran front-seven leaves them incredibly susceptible to a hard-nosed running attack, which has many Irish fans already walking the plank with Toby Gerhart and Stanford on deck.

3) Mistakes kill every team… especially the Irish.

No team is impervious to mistakes, and once again the Irish have themselves to blame for this loss. Even worse, Notre Dame has it’s best players to blame. Costly fumbles by two of the Notre Dame’s premiere skill players killed scoring drives. Missed tackles by everyone, even stalwart safety Kyle McCarthy killed the defense. And boneheaded decisions by veteran players like Sergio Brown were enough to cost the Irish the game.

Like I’ve said before, coaches coach and players play. While it’s going to be difficult for Irish players to look at their senior teammates and embattled coaching staff one last time in Notre Dame Stadium, it may be even tougher to look in the mirror.

4) We may have just seen the end of an era.

With a transition probably inevitable, we may have just seen the end of an offensive era at Notre Dame Stadium. It makes little sense for Jimmy Clausen or Golden Tate to stay through a coaching change, and combining that with the attrition along the offensive line, we may have seen the last of the most explosive offense in modern Notre Dame history. 

If that’s the case, let’s just take a moment and reflect upon how incredible this group of skill players are, and try to imagine what it would’ve been like if they could’ve all be healthy at the same time. Whether it was Michael Floyd’s broken collarbone, Jimmy Clausen’s turf toe, Armando Allen’s ankle, or Kyle Rudolph’s shoulder, this unit never had the chance to mold together, and that lack of cohesion showed up in the one area of the field where the offense just wasn’t dynamic: the red zone.

If this is the end, at the very least Charlie Weis disproved the myth that Notre Dame couldn’t run an explosive pro-style offense.

5) Coaching changes won’t solve all the Irish’s problems.

To all the Notre Dame fans so adamant about a coaching change, please realize that a switch won’t solve all the problems.

In fact, there may not be a less desirable job in all of college coaching. If Charlie Weis is fired, Notre Dame will have run its last four coaches out of town. (You can argue five with the situation that surrounded Lou Holtz’s “retirement.”) The terms “good will” and “growing pains” mean nothing to a fan base stuck in the past, and they will expect greatness immediately, as the cupboard is far from bare.

You’ll be installing a new offense with a quarterback sidelined with a torn ACL, and inheriting a defense that’s flopped between a 3-4 and a 4-3, and has failed to stop either the run or pass with any efficiency.

More over, you’ll run into all the roadblocks that the past head coach embraced. Academic standards, demanding alumni, and an administration that wants the glory of the past without sacrificing the aspirations of the future. Your home field advantage will be neutered by four-quadrant branding and over-the-top hospitality, and there’s a very large segment of college football fans and the national media that will immediately be rooting for you to fail.

Notre Dame has made the bold choice before, cutting ties with Tyrone Willingham after three seasons, and opening themselves up to the fair and unfair criticism that comes along with replacing the most high-profile African-American head coach in college football’s most high-profile position.

Now athletic director Jack Swarbrick and president Father Jenkins are saddled with an equally difficult decision, trying to find a coach that’s better suited for a job that the current coach seemingly fits perfectly.

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  1. David86 - Nov 23, 2009 at 12:33 AM

    As an ND alum, I would have to say that robertg is so delusional and distorted in his perspective that I am beginning to think he’s a phantom–someone striving to make ND fans look even worse than they already do in this pathetic situation. In any case, SOT is mostly reasonable. Keith is irrational for defending the indefensible. Mike, who argues for traditional ND values, is spot on. Stephen, the issue isn’t with ND being a place where people can learn ABOUT other worldviews. The issue is ND violating her own principles as she drifts towards abject secularism, actually teaching faithless worldviews as truth. Other schools can be true to their own identity and do that, but not ND. As “Chariots of Fire” described Eric Liddell as the “true athlete” whose prowess on the track was an extension of his faith, and the two could not be separated successfully, so was Notre Dame once. Can she field a team successfulyl as a purely secular school? Sure–others do. But that will require an even greater shift. And for those of faith, perhaps success under such circumstances would be more expensive than all the buyouts and network contracts combined.

  2. robertg - Nov 23, 2009 at 12:34 AM

    1. although these sats are available online for confirmation, we post them here to make things easier for those with open minds.
    2. although his severely talent depeleted cleveland team lost by one point to detroit, notre dame own brady quinn threw 4 td passes and no picks to earn the highest nfl qb rating of this week and one of the highest of this season at 133.1.
    3. a few comparables are tom brady of new england at 98.3, carson palmer of a cincinnati team loaded wsith taslen at every position, except for qb, at 75.4, with 0 tds and 1 pick in cincy’s loss to hopeless oakland, matt leinart of arizona at 83.6, with zero picks and zero tds, during junk time, not as starting qb, and mark sanchez of the jets at 27.1 with 1 td and 4 picks( yes, in new york, sanchez is now the word for turnover).
    4. did charlie weis have something to do with training brady quinn and tom brady? he most certainly did.
    5. are the others all products of pete carroll’s crooked usc football program whom petey sold to nfl teams, along with many other nfl busts at grossly inflated prices? they most certainly are, along with nfl bust and con artist reggie bush who has done bupkis for the saints in achieving their current undefeated nfl record.
    6. officiating in ther nfl? by no means perfect, but with more than sufficient safeguards built in so that not one of the college officials cwho have been cheating notre dame this season would still have a job.
    GO IRISH!!!

  3. David86 - Nov 23, 2009 at 12:34 AM

    As an ND alum, I would have to say that robertg is so delusional and distorted in his perspective that I am beginning to think he’s a phantom–someone striving to make ND fans look even worse than they already do in this pathetic situation. In any case, SOT is mostly reasonable. Keith is irrational for defending the indefensible. Mike, who argues for traditional ND values, is spot on. Stephen, the issue isn’t with ND being a place where people can learn ABOUT other worldviews. The issue is ND violating her own principles as she drifts towards abject secularism, actually teaching faithless worldviews as truth. Other schools can be true to their own identity and do that, but not ND. As “Chariots of Fire” described Eric Liddell as the “true athlete” whose prowess on the track was an extension of his faith, and the two could not be separated successfully, so was Notre Dame once. Can she field a team successfulyl as a purely secular school? Sure–others do. But that will require an even greater shift. And for those of faith, perhaps success under such circumstances would be more expensive than all the buyouts and network contracts combined.

  4. StephenOfTroy - Nov 23, 2009 at 12:51 AM

    David86: Good post. I appreciate your rationale re: ND violating her own principles. As I’ve said before, to other posters who rationally and in good faith articulated views I do not agree with, reasonable minds can differ.
    Also, I previously considered and discarded the notion that robertg is an anti-ND person who is trying to bring the operation down from the inside, by making ND look worse than it is. If someone wanted to do that, I doubt they’d go to the fanatical extreme that robertg goes to. And they wouldn’t be nearly as petulant. You’ll notice that he tries his best to respond to every little perceived slight, and he tries to incorporate phrases being used by others (e.g., “extreme prejudice”) but he’s so immature that it just comes off as more whining. Add 21 to ND’s score, subtract 14 from UConn. Why? Because otherwise ND loses, as they did. Hitting a player out of bounds in college football equals a late hit penalty except when an ND player tackles Joe McKnight of USC after McKnight took four long strides out of bounds.
    Now he’s trying to say that Reggie Bush isn’t responsible for any of New Orleans’s success. Hello? Earth? Two touchdowns last week. Inconsequential? Six yard leap into the end zone? Ho-hum. But if it was one of ND’s running backs, he’d be telling us how New Orleans would be 0-10 without him. Yawn.
    And I agree with you that Keith is defending the indefensible. But I don’t think he’s irrational for doing so. He doesn’t want to bite the hand that feeds him in any way. Coming out against Weis could put him in an untenable position with his bosses. But I’ll bet you that he comes out in support of the decision to fire Weis, and that he cheers loudly for whoever Weis’s replacement will be. He apparently thinks he needs to be the rah-rah guy but he’s losing his credibility in the process. ND already has enough NBC cheerleaders. Oh well. As I said initially, good post.

  5. robertg - Nov 23, 2009 at 1:10 AM

    1. we have had the delusional and distorted comments thrown at us before by people hiding behind phony internet identities and claiming to be notre dame fans or graduates.we also got the same trash thrown at us by the con artists at enron and mci worldcom.
    2. we invite you to put your real names and addresses on these comments and send them, via us mail, to your local ap headquarters. we will get them and respond in the civil courts since such statements constitute libel per se.
    3. to the extent that any real nd fans or graduates have fallen into the weis and staff and notre dame student athlete bashing traps set for them by notre dame’s enemies and refuse to look at the facts, then yes, it is our intent to expose them as the mindless idiots that they have been.
    4. however, our primary intent is to present the evidence and links therto to real notre dame fans so that they can educate themselves and stop allowing themselves to be used as tools of notre dame’s enemies.
    5. now, we already know that no one is going to put his or her real name and address on any such comments and send them to ap headquarters through the us mails.
    6. on those issues, we have no additional comments.
    7. we find it amazing that our posts have brought so much traffic to nd central which, until, as we promised we would, we got rid of the jerks who ran nd central before this season(with eric hansen of the south bend tribune being one of them and, in fact, the key player).
    8. before this season, nd central was an internet dead zone.
    GO IRISH!!!

  6. StephenOfTroy - Nov 23, 2009 at 1:37 AM

    Libel, robertg? Ahem. People who live in glass houses and don’t know jack sh*t about law shouldn’t throw stones. Truth is a defense. Thus we have nothing to fear from you.
    What would YOUR defense be if someone from the NCAA, or someone connected with collegiate officiating or one of the football factories, or the Roman Catholic Church, or Enron, or MCI WorldCom, or, following David86′s theory, someone who hates to see how you’ve tarnished the ND name with your asinine ranting, decides to sue you for the various and sundry gibberish you post here?
    And, holy schizophrenia, Batman! You keep telling us, via the royal we, that “we” will do so-and-so in the civil courts, but then you go and tell us that you “will not be a plaintiff or attorney” in any of the cases you’re threatening. Make up your mind, doofus. (Hint: We already know you’re not going to be a plaintiff, because there won’t be any cases, and we know you won’t be an attorney in any of the non-existent cases, because you’re not an attorney.)

  7. robertg - Nov 23, 2009 at 2:34 AM

    1. so, now back to the old desperate you are not an attorney and do not know jack about the law defense. anyone who has the guts can try that one in a real court and find out what happens to him or her.
    2. yes, i am an attorney with a long and very successful record in civil trials and have never been defeated in a jury trial in over 30 years. i graduated from the nation’s no.1 law school and did extremely well there, as i have in the courts for over 30 years.
    3. since i have acted as the internet point man for these cases and have been so deeply involved in the discovery process that i will be a factual witness at every single trial invlving these matters, i will not be acting as the attorney of record in any of these cases, but the other attorneys who will be have the same levels of expertise and success that i do.
    4. everyone who has posted here at nd central has agreed in writing that”You are posting this comment to a publicly viewable discussion.”
    5. each person has had to submit a name and a valid email address and, by law, keith and his staff cannot destroy any of that data or sucessfully resist any subpoenas for all of that information.
    6. we are not going to target for civil lawsuits any innocent individuals who are simply victimes of other fraudulent information received from other sources.
    7. however, for the people who have posted comments at nd central this season who are just shills for notre dame’s enemies or connected in any way with crooked college sports enterprises thinking that their identities could be kept from us, start thinking about brazil.
    8. none of you can erase or delete your posts. we have printed them all out.
    9. for those who deserve what they have coming in the civil courts, this post will serve as a well earned and very painful rude awakening.
    10. if anyone has used a phony name to obtain access to this website or an email address which you think we cannot track down the true owner of, you are each very very wrong.
    11. for the innocent people who have simply been the victims of fraudulent information from other sources, you have nothing to fear from us.
    GO IRISH!!!

  8. StephenOfTroy - Nov 23, 2009 at 4:15 AM

    robertg, if you were old enough to do any sort of critical thinking, you’d probably feel guilty. If your family canceled its internet access, they’d have the money to get you the medication you need. And present-day you is cheating future-you out of the chance to be employable in a job that has a dress code.
    Instead of pretending to have printed out every post, just print this one out and put it in a safe place. When you reach the age of majority, take it out and read it. Then you’ll finally be old enough to understand that I heard your desperate cry for help in time to do something about it….and laughed my ass off at you for being such a tool.

  9. robertg - Nov 23, 2009 at 5:00 AM

    stephen of troy,
    1. we thank thank for for being the 1st at nd central foolish and stupid enough to put his material assets on the block.
    2. we have printed out your post and you will be seeing us in the civil courts.
    3. if you had checked with a competent attorney in this area of law, you would know that the laws and rules of jurisdiction and venue covering actionable conduct on the internet allow us to bring the civil actions against you and others in whatever court we want.
    4. we do not have to bring such civil actions in the local courts near which you currently live and will not do so.
    5. although we know that your attorneys’ fees alone will force you into bk long before your case ever gets to trial, in the unlikely event that you do get that far, you will see me in person at your trial( i am an extremely healthy 63 year old) both selecting the jury and as a factual witness.
    6. in your case, i will also be the plaintiff. we will let a relative rookie attorney handle your case and we could care less if we end up getting none of your material possesions if yopu choose to pay them all out to some attorneys who taske up your defense until you are broke.
    7. you remind us of ken lay of enron and bernie ebbers on mci worldcom. they also laughed on their expensive chairs in their expensive houses until we took all of their material possessions away in the civil courts.
    8. you may have heard of the lsat test, a type of iq test which is taken by every applicant to a us law school. very few people get perfect scores. a few more get scores that indicate that they were one or two questions away from perfection. i scored in that second category and was heavily recruited by every law school in the us, especially since i had the college grades to match my lsat score.
    GO IRISH!!

  10. David86 - Nov 23, 2009 at 8:16 AM

    Who needs football when you’ve got this? Robertg, Barnum and Bailey have also generated some pretty decent traffic in their day, so… Keith, can’t you work out a way to sell some ‘dogs, popcorn, and soda while we observe all this? Stephen, I guess I have to buy your position on the identity thing: You just can’t make this stuff up!

  11. robertg - Nov 23, 2009 at 9:12 AM

    1. stephen of troy is a very bad choice for an internet name.
    2. rather than being low profile,this internet name tag stinks of being a shill for the crooked usc football program.
    3. an analysis of the postings made under the name stephen of troy( in addition to printing out every internet post, we scan every post into an offline data base which allows us to sort by poster name and content, words and phrases used, and by other criteria.
    4. the posts of stephen of troy reveal a split personality with some posts attempting to create the impression that stephen of troy is really a notre dame fan or alumnus and others revealing a real hatred of notre dame and even more of us.
    5. we will report on the progress of our civil action of stehpen of troy who may very well be a collection of different individuals sharing the same special purpose internet identity and special purpose email address which they think they incorrectly think that they can hide behind.
    6. keith and his staff do not block or delete any posts from nd central per the contracts with msnbc and nbc sports.
    7. there are quite a few other posters who have a lot in common with stephen of troy, both in the choice of words and in their wavering claims to be notre dame fans or alumni and expressions of real hatred of notre dame.
    8. the objectives and tactics of stephen of troy and those posters like him are quite simple. they are enemies of notre dame and will post whatever they think will cause notre dame fans and alumni to start bashing charlie and his staff and notre dame’s student athletes and directing their venom, with particualr ferocity at posters such as us who refuse to back down and keepp on pumping out those true facts about charlie and his staff, notre dame’s student athletes, and about the extremely serious and ongoing corruption problems at pete carroll’s crooked usc football program.
    9. for anyone who thinks that bushgate and usc’s many problems with illegal conduct in usc’s athletic department are over, try the official website of the california court of appeals, 4th district, div one, enter the names bush reginald on the 1st page under party search and you will find the the lake vs bush case is still alive and well with the california court of appeal ready to bounce bush’s completey frivolous appeal and send the case
    to the san diego superior court for a very public and very expedited jury trial.
    10. we understand that bush has offerred lake and his attorneys millions in hush money, but that lake and his attorneys have turned down all offers. we understand why that has happened.
    11. since our big disclosure win over the ncaa on 11/15/2009, the coverup and delay scams petey and mikey and the usc athletic department have been running with the ongoing ncaa investigations have been blown open by us and panic has set in at the usc football program and has reached the usc full time football players, accounting for the very minimal efforts and blowout losses to oregon and stanford( upcoming stanford was defeated by lowly cal this past week and has a record of 7-4( with zero wins or losses attributable to dishonest officiating crews), as opposed to notre dame’s 6-5 paper record, which is really 11-0.
    12. the fact that there will be yet another big east game crew does not inspire much confidence. however, as we have already learned, charlie and his staff and notre dame’s student athletes just never give up; no matter how many times they get shafted by dishonest officiating crews. a number of big east conferenve officials have already been served with our civil lawsuits and expressed desires to fes up, tell the truth and settle out of court and more will be served this week. the attitudes of the big east crew who will be at the notre dame/ stanford game are still unknown. however, word does get around.
    13. our process servers have also already served civil lawsuits on a number of other individuals, each of whom has expressed a desire to fess up, tell the truth, settle out of court, and preserve some of their material assets to try to make honest livings after college football.
    14. so far, each such person, unlike stephen of troy, does fall within our settlement possible category.
    15. this is how all of these projects work. 1st, we hit with civil lawsuits the people who are likely to settle and provide useful evidence against the real bad guys with whom we will never settle out of court under any circumstances.
    16. having fihished with that settlement stage, we then proceed on the the really bad players at the tops of the scams.
    17. our tactics always result in total victories.
    18. notre dame and charlie and his and notre dame’s student athletes had 2 key recruits and their families visiting notre dame for the uconn game.
    19. one recruit is currently a usc conmmit and the other is a recruit whom usc has been very actively pursuing.
    20. each recruit and their familues came away very much impressed
    with charlie and his staff and with notre dame. having played football in high school. each recruit knows dishonest officiating when he sees it and each saw plenty of that going on during the notre dame/uconn game.
    21. however, like many key 2010 recruits, they are waiting to see if the notre dame ad and admiistration can be trusted.
    22. if charlie and his staff leave,notre dame can forget about those recruits and most other key 2010 recruits, along with jimmy clausen and golden tate and many other current notre dame student athletes.
    GO IRISH!!!

  12. Bolsh - Nov 23, 2009 at 9:13 AM

    robertg – Which law school did you got to? What was your LSAT score? I have to admit, at least your posts are entertaining. They might be long winded and convoluted, but still entertaining.
    The last time I checked, Notre Dame playing soft is not a conspiracy.

  13. Joanie Loves Tchotchkes - Nov 23, 2009 at 10:04 AM

    Oh big Bobbie G. What’s a hyper-intelligent, super-wealthy high-powered attorney with a guaranteed lock of a case doing posting in the comments section of a sports blog? Where’s the media coverage? Where’s the press release? Where’s the press conference announcing these findings? If you are free to spill the beans here, why nothing official? Point to your practice’s web site where I can read your press releases announcing your success against WorldCom and Enron and your successful action against the PAC 10 that resulted in changes to their officiating oversight.
    While I agree the ND has been screwed by officials in a some cases (awarding a dead ball to Pitt to end ND’s final drive was a horrendous call) but ND lost to UConn and Navy, plain and simple. ND’s defense has been consistently outcoached and outplayed. ND’s offensive line (packed with experienced seniors) has underperformed against smaller 3 and 4 man defensive fronts.
    Sorry Bob, but until you can produce something more official than your anonymous rantings on an internet comments board, I’m reduced to relegating you to the crackpot bin for categorization.

  14. grandpashyena - Nov 23, 2009 at 10:08 AM

    robertg-
    1. we have printed out all your posts
    2. we have turned them over to the appropriate authorities at the Department of Mental Health
    3.We have captured all the frequencies that your fillings receive and are controlling what you receive
    4. Since your intretation of the rules of jurisdiction allows you to pick the “any court we want” please consider traffic court on Queens, New York. It’s in a nice building. Please note that they hold night court, so we can all attend and see how a real legal team operates.
    5. If you consider leaving Ken Lay with “only” 20 million dollars taking all his assets, I’d like to say that it was a hollow victory. especially in the light that his criminal case was dumped when he croaked.
    6.In reference to posting 109, #7, you remind us of Baron von Munchhausen.
    7. Who cares about your test scores. That’s history. Most normal folks leave that sort of “this is my identity” garbage behind when the grow up. You have not gotten past this and are mired in some sort of college aged nexus that has locked you into your twenties. Grow up, by your own admission you are 63. Get rid of the ole university rah, rah. and move on. It’s o.k. to like your old school and to root for it, but you are obsessed with ND. Get a hobby, travel,build a grotto, garden, but chill.

  15. David86 - Nov 23, 2009 at 10:19 AM

    JLT, you might add to that the very nature of the ravings. RG, by accident or design, is something of a strawman, but for the sake of the argument I’ll go along with it to address one thing “he” keeps bringing up: enmity. For all the rah rah about “waking up the echoes” (and for the record, my decision to attend ND was sealed after staring up at the Dome one night, sentimental fool that I am), let’s remember how all these rivalries began. Navy? ND’s best friend, keeping her doors open in the dark days of WW2. USC? Friendship between coaches’ wives. Michigan? Made a road trip way back when to help teach the ND boys how to play this new game–more friendship. Not only is all this talk of “enemies” and lawsuits tiresome and churlish, it’s definitely not the ND I was weaned on.
    A real ND lover would never talk that way.

  16. mrrandolph - Nov 23, 2009 at 10:48 AM

    Very well said. If more people understood why ND and Navy played, they would just congratulate Navy and move on. It hurt no doubt, but I am not upset over Navy. They may win 11 games this year. I am more upset that after five years it is doubtful we could beat any top 20 team.
    And, we need to go back to a more challenging schedule.

  17. James - Nov 23, 2009 at 11:20 AM

    robertg,
    Take some time off, man. Go somewhere isolated, no computer or contact other than a simple non-smart phone to reflect on things. Stay for a while until it really doesn’t matter what happens in ND football, that even if it were to go to hell, YOU would be ok.

  18. Joe - Nov 23, 2009 at 11:20 AM

    Take it from a guy who was at the game. Defense was slow off the snap. They looked like 5 year olds playing their first game and not knowing what to do against the pass. The offense played way to conservative. Floyd and Tate should have been going down field the whole game. I feel like Charlie just does not trust his offense like he did with Quinn, Samardzija, and McKnight. Clausen did not throw deep one time. He has got a cannon and the best one-two punch from WR position in college football. Wise made the mistake of being too conservative and in a do or die situation that he is in, he should’ve pulled the trigger and let the ball fly. Running three times in the red zone and then kicking a field goal is not going to lead the irish to a victory. They are 80% in the red zone this season. Unfortunately, 80% of those scores have been field goals. It’s embarrassing to watch the powerful offense of the Irish get stuffed by a mediocre at best UCONN defense. Stupid plays also killed Notre Dame. Sergio Brown’s personal foul on 3rd down turned an upcoming punt into a first down and then a touchdown for UCONN. The kick return was pathetic. Notre Dame’s kickoff team was 20 yards away when the ball reached the returner. Everything was slow and sloppy Saturday. Even Lou Holtz picked against the Irish and he turned out to be right. Hopefully they can turn it around next season.

  19. Joe - Nov 23, 2009 at 11:21 AM

    Why would we go to a more challenging schedule when we cannot even beat the teams that are on our schedule now?

  20. John E. Orr - Nov 23, 2009 at 11:40 AM

    ONCE AGAIN THE WOLVES ARE HUNGRY. LETS FACE IT ND WILL NEVER BE THE POWER HOUSE BECAUSE 1. THEY HAVE HIGH ACADEMIC STANDARDS FOR THEIR ATHLETES AND RIGHTFULLY SO. THEY GRADUATE THEIRS. THAT IS WHAT THEY ARE THERE TO DO. SPORTS ARE AN AVENUE TO ACHIEVE A DEGREE. I REALIZE ALUMNI WANT TO GIVE $$$ TO WIN GAMES BUT THEY HAVE LOST FOCUS. MOST OF THEM DID NOT PLAY SPORTS, HOWEVER THEY DID RECEIVE A DEGREE. BE HAPPY WITH GRADUATING THE ATHLETES NOT TRAINING NFL PLAYERS. 2. THE SCHEDULE HAS ALWAYS BEEN A MAJOR PROBLEM. EVEN THOSE FOOTBALL SCHOOLS SUCH AS FLORIDA-MIAMI-ALABAMA ETC PLAY TWO TOUGH GAMES, SEVEN NOT SO TOUGH AND TWO AA TEAMS WHILE ND INSISTS ON PLAYING A TOUGH SCHEDULE EVERY YEAR. IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT ND TO BECOME? I PRAY NOT.
    WE HAVE DESTROYED THE IMAGE OF THE OLYMPICS BY FOLLOWING THE RUSSIAN LEAD AND ALLOWED HIGH PAID PROS PLAY. BY THE WAY WE BEAT THE RUSSIAN PROS IN HOCKEY WITH NON PROS AND OUR PRO BASKETBALL TEAM LOST SO WHY ALL THE FUSS?
    CHARLIE DID NOT DRAW THE 15 YARD PENALTY THAT REALLY WAS THE BEGINNING OF THE END AGAINST CONN. HE DID NOT FUMBLE EITHER. STOP LISTENING TO ALL THESE MEDIA JERKS, WHO REALLY WANT ND TO FAIL SO THEIR FLORIDA-MIAMI-ALABAMA-LSU ETC PREVAIL. WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND IT IS US. GET BEHIND THE PLAYERS/COACHES AND SUCK IT UP. WE WILL BE BETTER THAN 6&5 SOON. I GET UPSET AT THE PLAYERS AND COACHES BUT IN THE END THEY ARE HUMAN LIKE ME.
    LET WEISS STAY AT LEAST TWO YEARS MORE DO NOT MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE THE THIRD TIME BY GIVING IN TO THE MEDIA BULL SHIT. WHO KNOWS IF DAVIES OR WILLINGHAM WOULD HAVE PRODUCED A WINNER, IF THEY HAD BEEN GIVEN TWO MORE YEARS.

  21. mrrandolph - Nov 23, 2009 at 11:40 AM

    Because if you are playing against a more challenging schedule atleast you are getting beat by a superior team and not superior coaching.

  22. mrrandolph - Nov 23, 2009 at 11:51 AM

    The Sergio Brown personal foul was just one play. I would be more concerned that Connecticut was able to make the necessary adjustments to hold ND to 6 points the last three quarters (2-a quarter).

  23. StephenOfTroy - Nov 23, 2009 at 12:30 PM

    robertg, so you’re the latest person to think I’m more than one person? Wrong again. I’m one person. At least you don’t think I’m Keith Arnold…yet. But I bet he wishes he was free to tell you what he really thinks of you. And no, it’s not your absurd threats against writers you disagree with, like John Taylor at CFT, that keeps him from being honest with you. First off, he doesn’t want to be seen as picking on a commenter. Second, he doesn’t want to wound your hurt inner child’s fragile psyche. Third, he’s way too busy pretending Weis doesn’t need to get the Lou Holtz shove-out-the-door to be able to spend time telling you what your major malfunction is.
    And while you think I “very well may be a collection of different individuals,” I’m certain that you have a collection of different personalities trapped inside your head. Luckily, since you have no brain, there’s ample room for them all to co-exist, if not peacefully, then at least without much jostling.
    You may not like the moniker StephenOfTroy. But at least I’m not pretending to be someone I’m obviously not. *COUGH* 63 year old famous law professor *COUGH* robertg, you’re a phony AND a doofus. My earlier post was incomplete. Spare us the nonsense about your LSAT scores. grandpa was right.
    ND’s football team will win more games when it starts playing better. It has nothing to do with any conspiracy. Its team will play better when it hires a better coach. You blamed the ND AD for not sticking up for Weis, but the AD is the only reason Weis is still around.
    You’re confused and befuddled, Mister Impersonator. You have a better chance of convincing us that you’re jazz sax player Kenny G than you do of convincing us that you’re G Robert Blakey. For God’s sake, you don’t even understand the most basic rules of venue, let alone whether an athletic event is a justiciable controversy.
    When you go to junior high school today, robbie-the-lying-doofus, try not to daydream like you always do. Your remedial teacher really wants the class to finish its work on the letter “A” this week. (Nod to the Simpsons)

  24. robertg - Nov 23, 2009 at 12:58 PM

    stephen of troy,
    1. you claim to be one person.
    2. the whole world will find out everything about you at your civil trial or at your pretrial deposition if, as we suspect, you are forced into bk before trial.
    3.as keith well knows, keith is free to post anything he wants at this site and he often does and runs into many scathing attacks,including some very vicious attacks from stephen of troy, but not from us.
    4. are you claiming to be keith’s spokesperson? if keith or anyone else wants to join with you and adopt your posts and share your fate in the civil courts, then anyone who wants to is welcome to post away.
    5. however, we doubt that you can find anyone foolish or stupid enough to join you in the civil courts.
    6. i do not have to convince you of anything. i just have to convince a judge and a jury and i have all of the documents required to do so while you have zero defenses.
    7. keep digging yourself into an even deeper hole. at this point, what more do you have to lose?
    8. no doubt, you were expecting a mad rush of stephen of troy defenders to join in your posts.
    9. so far, there have been none at all. perhaps you really are all alone.
    10. based on your posts, we can fully understand why very few people would want anything to do with you.
    11. i do not believe in vacations nor do i need any time off. however, statements like those, unlike the stephen of troy trash do not contain grounds for civil actions.
    GO IRISH!!!

  25. StephenOfTroy - Nov 23, 2009 at 1:37 PM

    robertg: Wake me up when you learn to count, let alone when you learn to tell the truth. Half a dozen people on this thread alone have told you that you need to take your meds, or that you’re delusional, or some variant of that. I don’t need anyone to come to my defense. The worst thing that’s been written about me is that I’m “mostly reasonable” or that someone agreed with 85% of what I write.
    And I don’t see ANYONE telling you that they agree with what you write. They just say you’re entertaining. Which, of course, I have never disputed.
    You lie. I’ve never attacked Keith Arnold, viciously or otherwise. Nor have I claimed to be his spokesperson. YOU, on the other hand, claimed to have brought the Roman Catholic Church to its knees, which you did after you claimed to have sued WorldCom and Enron. And you made that claim after you claimed to be someone you’re not. But you claimed to be someone you’re not before you claimed to have done exceedingly well on the LSAT and to have been heavily recruited by law schools.
    Tell me, robertg, what color are the monsters that live under your bed, hidden by the dust ruffle? Is your fear of those monsters the reason you spend all your time posting numbered paragraphs of repetitive gibberish? If the Irish promise to win a game at some indefinite point in the future, will you promise to make it through the whole night without sneaking downstairs to sit up in the computer room? I’ll put in a good word for you on the “can-I-have-a-nightlight-at-least” issue. But only if you eat your vegetables.
    I don’t see that I have anything to lose by continuing to hold a mirror up to your idiocy. But I may be gaining something: a sense of pity. Not for you. You’re a tool. But David86 got me thinking. You ARE bringing down the collective credibility of ND fans. Shame on you. If ND’s punter was any good, I’d have him boot you out of here. But he’d shank the punt and you’d just end up 10 yards away, and we could still hear you alternately furiously pecking at your keyboard and rubbing your hands with delight at the delicious prospect of getting even with your imagined enemies.

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