I ... <t>Have been sweating that side of the ball for two weeks then today the guy I love to hate A. Wooden rears his ugly head. At least I know the day is coming his sorry rear end will run out of games to play. The entire defense has taken the day off. Give Mich.credit along with Carlson and his half ass effort to catch the intercption that set the tone for the loss today. Here is what is looming for next week, Staton lighting that defense up just like today. <br/> <br/> What an ugly Saturday.</t>
excuse me but <t>the reason this team lost the game is the offense and the execution of Michigan. You can't stay on the field all day and that is exactly what the defense had to do in both halves of the game today.<br/> <br/> that isn't to say that they played well, however, they opened the game fine and were put behind the 8 ball with bad field position and/or constantly being on the field.<br/> <br/> If you were watching this game, and I assume you were, you'd have to make that same assesment.<br/> <br/> Btw- Has a team been called for offensive holding while playing ND yet?</t>
Corey... <t>I ask you and I know you know he game on the first walk in the park offensive TD for Mich have you ever seen a corner play a receiver worse than Wooden did on that play? It was the Bowl game last year all over again. The kid is awful. <br/> Whe CW get the time to get enough players on defense is when the program reall gets good not before.<br/> <br/> Quinn and the offense were just as bad. I give credit to Mich as they were ready to play today, ND was not. Sad a performance as I've seen by a Weis coached team.</t>
ND defense is not the type of defense that can take over a game and win it by itself like some of those Oklahoma defenses or Ohio State defenses. I think our defense even with it's flaws can be good enough to allow us to win a lot of games, but not when the offense plays like it did today.
Remember who was the opposing coach in second half who also had a big lead. Heck, even Spurrier much less Carr would have sat on the ball in that situation.
Larry et all <t>Just as ND did to Penn State last week, Michigan kept ND's defense on the field all day long in the 2nd half.<br/> <br/> I don't really buy this bullsh*t that Michigan was sitting on the lead. Because, quite honestly, Henne missed a few wide open WRs and Breaston dropped at least one TD. So that's garbage.<br/> <br/> <br/> Oh for Larry, yes, Wooden was terrible today. However, we are going to have to leave him exposed because we have to blitz to get pressure because we can't get a flipping holding call against an opponent. we have to manufacture pressure since our front 4 cant get it (with 3 guys who will play on Sunday). If we pressure with safeties or LBs, those CBs are going to be on an island. Since they spent all day on the field (thanks offense!!), they spent a lot of time on the island.<br/> <br/> I dont buy this crap that the defense is bad. That's garbage. Its not a top 10 defense, but its not bad.</t>
"I don't really buy this bullsh*t that Michigan was sitting on the lead. Because, quite honestly, Henne missed a few wide open WRs and Breaston dropped at least one TD. So that's garbage" I dunno.....if the receivers are so wide open and they are dropping TD passes to boot is that great defense?
Corey...... <t>I think its real average and sadly will get torched again this weekend versus Stanton. I have writer friend here in Houston that actually covered ND before coming to Houston to work for this pitiful excuse for a newspapere the H-Chronicle. He covered a certain game last night at Texas A &M where the local school had to hang on to beat a bad ARMY team. <br/> I discuss ND football with him and he has told me in no uncertain terms from his contacts that cover the current Irish team our coaches basically hold their collective chests when we fae teams that can throw the football as we do not have the players in the program "Yet" to perform at the level CW knows he needs. That is why we get the performance like yesterday. Once we can get some D-Linemen that have some size and speed to go w/ some young secondary kids coming in the program we have a chace to get real good. Take Tommy Z, I love the kid but when does he ever get over and give quality safety help? Always a step slow or out of position IMO.<br/> As fo the entire game sure the offense was pitiful yesterday and the negative tone was set by Carlson and that gift TD he provided. I have to credit the guys wih the ugly helments for the job they did there in spite of the turnovers as we were not doing squat against them. THEY DESERVE CREDIT.<br/> Very disappointing day at the office but CW will get it done just not this year for all the marbles.</t>
because <t>they were on the field all game and in bad field position all day. <br/> <br/> you do understand the game of football, right?<br/> <br/> Larry,<br/> <br/> You and your writer friend make a good point. Whenever the Irish win, there's a lot of people that want to remind you that these are 'Ty's guys' but when we get our ass kicked, its all about how "Charlie doesn't really have a football factory does he?"<br/> <br/> It can't be both things. Looking at the crazy number of TRUE freshman playing at ND, I am going to say that the cupboard was more bare than we think. Ty had one recruiting class of any substance. Charlie is loading up with freshmen behind them.</t>
MCG I think you are missing the point. Nobody here, even me, has said we had a great defense. But our defense is good enough to help us win a lot of games. But inorder for our defense to be effective they have to have help from the offense, with long scoring drives. We aren't likely to pitch a shutout and we will give up some big plays, but over all if our offense performs up to expectations we should have a good enough defense to win the rest of our games except USC.
All I have said Terry is that in all the NC hype and the #2 ranking the ND defensive concerns were everpresent and had not just disappeared with the opening two game performance vs. either GaTech or PSU...especially PSU. I kept getting the feeling that offensively PSU was going to score some points until things finally stacked against them and they didn't respond very well. UM just revealed that those defensive concerns were valid.
The defense is good enough, they are not the 2005 Ohio State defense or the 2006 Michigan defense but they are better than last year. If you'd have told me before the game that they would hold Mich to 23 points and give up less than 350 total yards, I would have figured that we beat them. They didn't give up 47 point, 24 points you can't put on them.
The defensive line got manhandled. Michigan did the one thing I feared the most... they ran right at us. Our little LBs looked like bugs on the windshield of a tractor trailer. By the way, was the South Bend Fire Dept. able to extinguish the flames engulfing Terrail Lambert yet? 8) I don't entirely blame him... our free saftey TZ was AWOL again on the deep patterns. He always hangs our CBs out to dry.
George TZ is supposed to give run support. With the D line being manhandled and the LBs ineffective don't you think that the safeties had an awful lot of field to cover, especially on play action passes?
Is TZ a free safety or a 4th LB? If its the former then he is supposed to be helping out on the deep ball.