November 2008 Entries
Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick spent about five minutes talking to the media at the L.A. Coliseum after Saturday night's 38-3 loss to USC. Here's a transcript:
Q: What is the process?
A: We sit down with the sports administrators and the people involved in the sport, and we review all elements of each of our sports at the end of the season. That is what we'll do.
Q: The end of the season, is that the end of the regular season?
A: Yeah, we do it at the conclusion at the end of the regular season.
Q: Before the bowl game?
A: Yeah, but...
Technical issues kept me from making a public prediction last week, and that's probably a good thing, because I was thinking 35-10 Irish. Oops!
This week, the game pick is secondary to the Charlie Weis prediction. Suffice it to say, I'm a lot more confident in picking USC to win on Saturday night than I am taking a stab at predicting Weis' job status afterward. I think Notre Dame's defense is good enough to keep this from turning into a complete disaster, though there won't be much doubt as to which is the better team. The Irish hang around for a...
Well, folks, this is it — the last practice report of the regular season. I'm going out on a bit of a whimper here, I'm afraid, but here's what I got:
Offensive lineman Chris Stewart (knee) and cornerback Terrail Lambert (ankle) were back at practice, though Stewart was a lot more involved in the offensive line's drills than Lambert was with the defensive backs. Stewart was in his regular spot at right guard, but Lambert stood off to the side as the other DBs talked a blocking sled and practiced wrapping up their teammates. Not sure how Lambert's going to be...
A press release from Notre Dame:
Football fans are encouraged to arrive early and/or utilize off-campus parking alternatives for the Notre Dame versus Syracuse football game Saturday November 22nd. Nearly 12 inches of snow were on the ground as of early Friday morning in the White Field gameday drive-up parking lot on the north side of the Notre Dame campus. Reserved parking lots will NOT be affected; those with parking hangtags should try to arrive early if possible.
Efforts are underway to make as much parking as possible available for gameday. In addition, off-campus alternative include the following locations that provide shuttle...
With temperatures hovering around the freezing mark outside, it was back to the Loftus Center Thursday afternoon for the final practice of Syracuse week.
Because the Irish are coming up on the final game at Notre Dame Stadium this season, you would expect some nostalgia by the players, but it was a little surprising to hear Golden Tate leading the chorus: "This is my last home game ... of my sophomore year," Tate said during stretching.
Among today's guests at practice was a man with a nametag declaring him "Mr. Jansen" — and the Green Bay Packers sweatshirt he was wearing gave...
You know it was cold because Corwin Brown traded in his extremely distressed baseball cap for a skull cap for Wednesday's practice. The baseball cap was back for Brown's press conference later.
Actually, it was about 40 degrees, much warmer than it's been lately. Most of Monday's snow has melted, and that snow that didn't melt was plowed between or to the side of the practice fields at the LaBar Complex. After stretching, the offensive players had to hop over some snow drifts to get to the other field for their drills. There was a moment of trepidation when offensive lineman...
With snow on the ground and temperatures in the 30s outside, Notre Dame (thankfully) went inside the Loftus Center for Tuesday's practice.
Offensive coordinator Mike Haywood was on hand to guide the running backs, though he's expected to miss one or two practices this week to take care of some personal business. Charlie Weis will call the plays against Syracuse Saturday, and at USC in the regular-season finale.
Signs of people being banged-up were everywhere:
• Jimmy Clausen had either a wrap or a really long sock on his left calf.
• Asaph Schwapp skipped the drill where the running backs ran laterally through...
From the ND athletic department:
A limited number of tickets for the Nov. 22 Notre Dame-Syracuse football game at Notre Dame Stadium will go on sale at 8:30 a.m. EST Monday (Nov. 18) through the Notre Dame ticket office.
The sale is a result of Syracuse returning a portion of its allotment. Tickets are contiguous; limits and availability are to be determined.
Tickets may be purchased in person at the Gate 1 ticket window located on the second floor of the Joyce Center, by calling 574-631-7356 or visiting www.und.com/tickets Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. EST. Tickets are available...
Notre Dame's offense should be better this week for a couple of reasons. Having Charlie Weis back calling the plays can't hurt; I really think Jimmy Clausen has learned his lesson about patience and the phrase we've been hearing all week, "taking what the defense gives you"; and, well, the Irish are just bigger and faster than Navy. (I know, they were last year, too.)
Plus, Navy is bad on defense in many of the ways Notre Dame needs an opponent to be bad on defense right now. The Middies give up a lot of points, let teams convert on third...
The highlight of the Navy game two years ago was this "spirit spot" set to the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage." Hopefully they come up with something just as good this year.
Enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLZ3AsU8e1c
For the first Thursday since the start of the season, there was no music during the media portion of practice at the LaBar Complex. How am I going to get cranked up?
It was 52 degrees at 5:20 p.m., but the temperature was dropping rapidly as the sun descended. Evan Sharpley, for all his complaining yesterday, was not wearing long sleeves under his jersey today — one of the few non-lineman who went that route. The guy complaining today was apparently strength coach Ruben Mendoza, who was, as usual, wearing shorts as he presided over stretching.
"Ruben the tough guy's a little...
It was almost a roast of freshman quarterback Dayne Crist during the stretching part of Wednesday's workout at the LaBar Complex. Crist's high school team, Notre Dame of Sherman Oaks, Calif., is No. 1 in the MaxPreps national rankings, and Crist's teammates and coaches were making sure he knew about it.
"Want to win a championship at Notre Dame Sherman Oaks?" special teams coordinator Brian Polian asked. "Get rid of the quarterback."
Charlie Weis came by and told Crist, "That young quarterback must be a significant upgrade. You and (Anthony) McDonald did a lot for that program — set them up to...
That's Kyle McAlarney and Ashley Barlow on the cover of SI's college basketball preview issue. Or at least one of the covers — there are six in all, to be distributed regionally.
The Notre Dame men are ranked sixth to start the season by SI and the women 13th.
Despite Notre Dame's loss last week at Boston College, things were much the same on the Loftus Center turf today as rain forced practice indoors. There was a lot of chatter, Ron Powlus still talked to the quarterbacks all the way through stretching, Corwin Brown's hat still needs to be replaced, and John Latina still used the "Green! 18! Green! 18! Set! Hut!" cadence when running offensive line drills. The team didn't look fundamentally changed by this latest loss, but as I think I wrote sometime last year, what do you want them to do, walk around sobbing?
Actually, there was...
OFFENSE
Grade: D-
Charlie Weis was probably right when he said the offense hurt itself by trying to make too many plays, but things were going bad even before that point. Notre Dame’s longest drive before the fourth quarter was 37 yards. Again, the running game was a non-factor, and Jimmy Clausen played perhaps his worst game of the season. After the first half against North Carolina, Clausen just hasn’t been the same as he was early in the year.
DEFENSE
Grade: B
This was indeed a winning performance, but it still wasn’t a great one. The Irish allowed Montel Harris to rush for 120...
Q: How is it that a Charlie Weis-coached team can’t score against a defense that’s given up 31.5 points per game in the last four games with a quarterback who’s in his second year and who’s highly touted? Hard to believe.
A: Is that a rhetorical question?
Q: I’m asking how that can be.
A: I’m asking if that’s a rhetorical question. I’ll gladly address particulars, but is that a rhetorical question?
Q: I think it’s a good question.
A: The way I look at this game, and I’ll break it down into the third quarter. I think that early in the first quarter, we...
Boston College has lost two games in a row, but there's still no reason to think the Eagles won't be sharp Saturday night against Notre Dame, which needs to match them emotionally. Most of the pick this week is based off gut feeling and observations — my gut tells me BC will continue to have Notre Dame's number, and from what I've observed, I'm not sure the Irish are out of the proverbial tank after the four-overtime loss to Pittsburgh last week.
Still, there are some good signs for the Irish in BC's play the last couple of weeks. The Eagles'...
With rain starting to fall at 5 p.m., Notre Dame held its final pre-Boston College workout inside the Loftus Center, though we later learned that the Irish would have practiced indoors anyway, perhaps to pipe in some crowd noise in anticipation of the hostile environment this weekend at BC.
Speaking of noise, Thursday means loud music at practice, and today's selections included, for the first time, Eminem's "Lose Yourself," which had Pat Kuntz quite excited.
By the way, the musical omens couldn't be better for the Irish this weekend. There's a Bon Jovi tribute band playing in Boston Friday, and Bruce Springsteen's...
Bursts of emotions by Notre Dame players and coaches are pretty rare, at least in front of the media — some might say too rare. But defensive coordinator Corwin Brown was in rare form during his Wednesday press session.
Brown ended his 20-minute press conference with a nearly five-minute answer to a question about tackles for loss and the play calls that lead to them. Here's the transcript. You'll see Brown strays slightly off topic.
"I'll always take responsibility for what our guys do. Always. Always. Always. As a player, the one thing that the guys that coached me always did was...
Notre Dame practiced in 70-degree warmth under blue skies (and at home in a blue state for the first time since Ara Parseghian was the Irish coach).
The weather's been great, but there have been some illnesses going around, and Jimmy Clausen might have caught the bug because he asked trainers for some throat lozenges during stretching. (He also could have hurt his throat yelling out signals, of course.) I was amazed that trainers actually carry those things around, but Clausen had a couple lozenges in his hands within a minute.
Defensive backs did their backpedaling drill, with defensive coordinator Corwin Brown...
I don't remember the last time I broke a sweat covering a November practice (probably because it's never happened), but that was the case today as Notre Dame worked out at the LaBar Complex under brilliantly sunny skies with the temperature at a near-record 72 degrees. Whoever's in charge of the weather: More of this, please.
Golden Tate began today's workout by leaving the stretching lines, heading over to a trash can and, well, refunding. So either he had something bad to eat or he's really nervous about the outcome of the election. The trainers came over to help him out...
You sometimes hear about the Notre Dame game being Boston College's "Super Bowl," in a way, and maybe that's contributed to the Eagles' recent run of success against the Irish. Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis said today that the enthusiasm gap will be much narrower this year, if not non-existent.
"I'm putting a lot of importance on this game with the fellas this week," Weis said. "I don't think, by the time we play there, I don't think it's going to be any more important to them than it is to us."
Which brings us to this week's poll:
<a...
The former Irish star will finally take the reins from Derek Anderson Thursday night at home.
Notre Dame's Luke Harangody, already chosen as the preseason men's basketball player of the year in the Big East Conference, is also a member of the Associated Press' five-player preseason All-America team.
Here's the voting breakdown:
Tyler Hansbrough, North Carolina, 6-9, senior, 72 votes (22.6 ppg, 10.2 rpg)
Stephen Curry, Davidson, 6-2, junior, 66 (25.9 ppg, 4.6 rpg)
Luke Harangody, Notre Dame, 6-8, junior, 58 (20.4 ppg, 10.6 rpg)
Darren Collison, UCLA, 6-1, senior, 46 (14.5 ppg, 3.8 apg)
Blake Griffin, Oklahoma, 6-10, sophomore, 45 (14.7 ppg, 9.1 rpg)
Notre Dame starting right guard Chris Stewart, whose knee locked up as he ran onto the field for the start of overtime Saturday, could miss the rest of the regular season.
Coach Charlie Weis, after saying Stewart’s injury “doesn’t look very good,” said the junior will have tests done on his knee and may need to have it scoped. If that happens, Weis said, Stewart would probably miss four weeks. Notre Dame has four regular-season games remaining.
Freshman Trevor Robinson, who was also banged-up Saturday afternoon, is fine and would be the likely starter in Stewart’s absence.