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Well, that's a relief

The Irish finally put one in the win column at the Rose Bowl last night, and that felt pretty good. It was fairly ugly on offense, but a win's a win. Go Irish! A few thoughts:

- What a fantastic night for the defense. They gave up 282 yards, but forced seven turnovers and played smart and aggressive all night. Crum's stat summary (two INTs, two fumbles forced and fumbles recovered, one sack, seven tackles and two pass break-ups) was incredible, and won him a defensive player of the week award. Trevor Laws was in the backfield quite a bit and continued to play tough. Kerry Neal had a role in breaking up several passes. Generally, the defense seemed to be in good positions. There were still a few examples of poor tackling technique but overall the effort was strong. This should be a great confidence-builder for the next few weeks, which are going to present much tougher challenges.

- My impression has been that we had a power running game two weeks ago, an effective passing game against Purdue, and now a very strong defensive night. Against BC, can we put it all together? That would be great.

- What happened to the slant? Clausen played a conservative, generally mistake-free game (17-27, no TDs, no INTs), and it was nice to see the return of the QB sneak. But total passing yards were only 84. That helps explain the low total of 12 first downs in the game, and continued horrendous third down conversion rate (3/17). Last week against Purdue, Clausen and then Sharpley were able to stretch the field a bit and engineer longer drives by making better use of mid-range passing patterns. Maybe UCLA took away the slant options yesterday, but did they take away all mid-range pass options, or were these just not called? Or is it just that the slightly improved pass protection for Clausen in the first place is happening only because receivers are being held in the backfield for blocking purposes, and not running routes. I'll be interested to see if Charlie discusses this at all in his press conference tomorrow.

- Some have commented that this game felt a bit like 2002 victories, where the team scraped by largely on defensive opportunism that masked poor play-calling and inept offensive play. I think the situation is somewhat different given the players we have now, and also again the evidence of the past few weeks, with at least a couple of legitimately good offensive drives in each game.

- Penalties are still hurting the team: eight for 61 yards, leading to three first downs for UCLA and stalling or hurting at least a few ND drives (the penalties on punt returns are still killers with regard to field position). A couple of the penalties were questionable calls, and ultimately they evened out since ND also made three first downs off UCLA penalties, but there is still room for improved discipline here.

- This may have been the first time in years I was more critical of the team than the network announcers, who struck me as both fair and unobtrusive in calling the game (as opposed to normally, when they seem usually to be rooting for the opposing team). In talking this over today, the thought was that maybe the B-team announcers can actually be better in some respects because they aren't as tied to the storylines the network is pushing for the main games. We were an 0-5 team, 21-point underdogs, lots of young players, in a game showing in only 17% of the country. Might as well just call the game straight, minus any hype - this was refreshing. But as I said, the announcers were actually even more sympathetic to the Irish than I was at times - they kept saying how well Clausen was managing the offense, when I thought it seemed much less effective than last week. Not complaining, though!

While I'm still happy about the Irish this weekend, I have to add a few thoughts on the NFL. First: Trent Dilfer?! The Niners may be doomed for the season (or at least the next month, until the younger players who had been starting to show more promise return from injuries). Watching today's 9-7 loss to the Ravens would have been a better experience if the impressive defensive effort hadn't been spoiled by utter offensive ineptitude and failure to score more than once. Ouch. Second: Could the networks get over their worshipfulness of Brett Favre already? You'd think they would feel embarrassed after awhile to keep fawning over him every time he steps on the field (or stands on the sidelines, or isn't even on camera) - but the swooning for St. Brett only continues. Good grief. I hope the Bears pull this one out. [pause] 2:05, Bears have the go ahead TD. Cameraman dutifully cuts to Favre for reaction shots. What's that - he's grim? Oh, so sad. NBC is sad, too. Al Michaels actually just said, "A night that started out so beautifully and brilliantly has ended up with the Bears winning." (!?!) Well, that was funny. Good riddance.

Full post as published by Irish Law on October 08, 2007 (boomark / email).