Well, every Mich. fan I know is rooting for ND tonight. And I'm pretty sure that every Fla. fan is rooting for ND too. On paper it shouldn't be close. But ya never know.
Notre Dame is playing hard and is outhitting SC imo. Looks like ND has the edge in the trenches, but why did ND use these run & shoot formations trying to play finesse ? You know the kind that Ware & Klinger ran? Tell Charlie to run the ball down their throats. He'll get more drive consistancy than trying to go via the air against some pretty good corners. SC defense is a tease with their zone coverage and mixing up man to man. SC's weakest part of the team is the trenches. Go after Booty with blitzes and cut the head off this monster. Run the ball down their throats. Play smash mouth , if you want to win! SC is far from invincible!
From what I've seen so far S. Cal looks like the better team. But Notre Dame keeps hanging around. They just made the first down by and inch on fourth down on the 3 yard line. The game isn't over but I think USC looks to be better at this point.
we lost to a clearly better team <t>After the Michigan game, I felt we lost to the better team but I sure do wish we hadn't shat the bed with the unforced turnovers.<br/> <br/> Tonight, we were soundly thumped by a superior team. They are better than us at every position except maybe 2.</t>
At times I thought our defense couldn't hold a fart. And while we're at it, thanks Rhema, I didn't realize how bad your hands were when the opponent was tough.
USC beat you with one element of their offensive game, passing. ND did not have an answer on D but could have slowed down the SC offense through sustained drives which in effect puts more pressure on the SC offense. Your defense did a great job stopping the run and did a good job pressuring Booty. What Notre Dame did was play into SC's strengths both on offense and defense. I thought Charlie out Charlied himself. They were running the ball effectively enough where they could have positioned themselves for more 3rd and shorts and less 3rd and longs and have more drive sustaining plays. Especially running BETWEEN the tackles N/S. SC's strength on D is it's speed not it's strength. Maybe a year from now that will not be the case, but Notre Dame was clearly superior in the trenches. I don't know if that would have been enough to win, but it looked to me that ND could have made a tougher game of it . It was like they missed, they missed, one great play kept the drive going and then they miss, miss, miss. I thought the game plan but tremendous pressure on Quinn to produce. It was like he had to go toe for toe with Booty. The better team won, but the better team does not always win. When you go back and look at SC's games, there was a good reason why they had so many close calls. Notre Dame played their hearts out, but didn't look like they played well as a team where different elements of the offense and defense can pick up the weaker ones.
The last five years for Notre Dame in this series has been 0-5. That would have to be tough for the seniors. Any hope of Quinn for the Heisman, went down the drain last night. (Actually he did not have a real bad night) He needed a good showing and a win to have any chance. Don
As Desmond Howard (a Heisman voter) said earlier in the day, Quinn "forfeited" his right to the Heisman when he lost to Michigan. Although that stats may not show it, I though Quinn played pretty well. His receivers, especially McKnight dropped some on the money passes at critical times. Some incompletes were just throw aways because no one was open. He didn't turn it over which was important. The first 3 Trojan possessions set the tone for the night. They shreded our D and it was catch up the rest of the night. I didn't think that we were that successful putting pressure on Booty. His receivers were wide open most of the evening. Even when he threw poorly, it seemed like Spider Man still was able to snare the rock with one hand. I thought that the effort was fine but the talent gap way too wide.
Larry, You don't think ND run defense played well? SC got 47 rushing yards on 3 carries during a meaningless end of the game drive, including Gables 31 yard run. I thought your front 7 played very well. It's your secondary that sucked although Jarrett is a handfull for any team.
Run defense was fine. Pass defense was, as usual, abominable. Kicking game was also non-existant which forces Charlie into all those do or die 4th down gambits.