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Anchors aweigh

We all knew the season was a wash, and most of us were just looking for signs of improvement anymore. Nevertheless, the frustrating thing about Saturday's loss to Navy was that the Irish appeared quite capable of winning - i.e., the production from our running backs was strong enough to have produced a win - but didn't show enough improvement where it would have counted to actually win. I think it came down to three things, two of which I already had zeroed in on during the game itself:

- Evan Sharpley isn't really a good quarterback. If he had the skills to be the clear-cut starter, he would have built on his experience as a backup to Quinn and seized the opportunity last spring to beat out the competition - or seized the opportunity against USC, or seized it Saturday. But he doesn't, and he didn't. The positives were that he completed a few clutch passes, and some of the misses weren't his fault (receiver drops). But the negatives, which far outweighed these in my mind, were the mistakes. Sacks that did NOT need to be taken, general lack of mobility (the few scrambles were all right, but more like Drew Bledsoe than Steve Young), poor ball protection when it counted (the fumble was absolutely the gamebreaker - see #3 below), and passes that seemed to float a bit. I would rate Sharpley "competent" even for all that, since he was good enough at handing off the ball and he did make some plays happen, but overall I was so frustrated by his lack of vision (and did I mention the killer sacks?) that I wanted to yank him after the first half, much less after the fumble. At this point, I will be extremely disappointed if he is the starter this week, even though Weis has said several times about Clausen and Sharpley that "they're both in the running." Still, he does realize at this point that you have to start looking ahead:

I think the number one thing is who is going to play the best versus -- who's going to play the best for you down the stretch. I don't think what you want to be doing here is each week say, well, who's going to play the best for us against Air Force, who's going to play the best for us against Duke, who's going to play the best for us against Stanford.

I'm at the point right now where I want to win this game, and simultaneously, I want to start -- I want to start building some upward momentum. So they go together.

So the decision isn't as simple as, okay, over the last half dozen weeks who's done what better. It's who gives you the best chance to win this week and the next two weeks and moving forward.

- Back to Navy, the second critical thing was the playcalling that really just seemed indefensible on several plays, particularly given that Weis told everyone ahead of time what he was going to have to do to win this game: essentially, score on every drive because it will be so hard to get Navy's offense off the field. We scored on three of four first half drives, but the key miss was calling for a fake field goal on fourth-and-fifteen. More comprehensively, the play sequence was, after three successful runs following a critical turnover by Navy, a pass for a loss, then two incompletions, and THEN a fake field goal on fourth-and-fifteen at the twenty. Weis said after the game, in a way that made it all sound reasonable, that Navy had given a certain look on such field goals eight times previously so the play should have worked - but they gave a different look this time and were able to stop the fake. It still seemed wrong not to take advantage of a gift scoring opportunity first by going away from what was working (steady running plays), then losing yards, and then not trying for at least a field goal. Because if possessions were going to come few and far between, surely turnovers even fewer? I acknowledge the Irish also had a missed field goal later in the game, so maybe that's why Weis didn't want to try it at 37 yards early on and at the end of the game - but it seems that you want to give the kicker an attempt, especially where every point is going to matter. So: calling no attempts on field goals at the times Weis did, and calling passes at inopportune times, made for a frustrating game to watch.

- Leading back to the third point, turnovers. We didn't capitalize on their turnover, and they did capitalize on ours - 0 and 7, and setting aside everything else, you could mark that alone as the difference in the game in regulation. And ARRRGGGGHHHH, but that turnover was a killer. Absolutely inexcusable for Sharpley not only to have so little presence facing the rush but also not to protect the ball if he was going to take a sack. The one thing he just couldn't do in Irish territory is give up a fumble for a touchdown, especially when all he had to do was wrap up, but he did. It obviously didn't lose the game all by itself, but that play was about as critical as they come. Making fewer mistakes than the other guy, in a game as close as this, is going to be the edge needed to win. (Note that it's good to be in a position where the game is close enough that turnovers matter, as opposed to games that are so unbalanced that turnovers barely seem a factor. But still.) ND isn't good enough to win without playing error-free. We came closer this week and by all rights could have scraped out a win anyway, but we didn't, and we lost the game and the streak.

So now it's time for Air Force. I was pretty pleased with the running game last week, all things considered (although that was more a testament to the backs than to the line, which still doesn't get much of a push), so hopefully they'll do well again this week. The good news is the players are focused and determined to keep improving. I'll still be with them watching. Go Irish.

Full post as published by Irish Law on November 07, 2007 (boomark / email).