Sad News for Notre Dame’s Hughes
Notre Dame running back Robert Hughes has been granted a leave from the team indefinitely because of the shooting death of his brother, Earl. Robert Hughes, who had rushed for a touchdown and 46 total yards on the season, might not play in the upcoming Notre Dame football game against Navy this weekend in order to be with his family and friends during such a difficult time. Earl Hughes was only 24-years old. According to reports filed in Cook County, Earl was shot following a dispute with someone else. The crime is still being investigated.
According to the Chicago Tribune, Charlie Weis, the Notre Dame coach, said, “I told him to come back when he’s ready to come back. Something like that, how can you give him a time frame?” And he’s right, of course. We should all keep Robert Hughes and his family in our thoughts this week, as they go through what must be a very difficult time. The Irish will miss Hughes in the game, but sometimes there are more important things in life than football.
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Comparing Notre Dame and Navy
The Fighting Irish will play the U.S. Naval Academy this next Saturday. With Notre Dame off to a stumbling start, everybody is anxious for a win, especially since the game will be played at home in South Bend before a sold-out Notre Dame Stadium. But how likely is it that the Irish will win? What advantages do they have over the Navy Midshipmen? In what areas will they have to succeed in order to counter Navy’s strengths? Well, you can look at a tool that FoxSports.com has to determine the specific places where the Irish are better, and the areas where Navy is better.
Looking at the breakdowns, we can see that Navy clearly has many advantages, statistically speaking, on offense. In fact, Navy is the number one team in the whole United States when it comes to running the ball. They average a whomping 342.9 yards rushing every game. The next closest would be West Virginia, which only averages 297.9 yards per game. The Irish run defense has been giving up close to 200 yards per game, so that is an area that needs focus. When you run the football like Navy, you don’t rely on the pass much, and that’s why the Irish are superior in that respect. Another place to look for Irish advantage is if you compare the two teams’ defenses. Notre Dame is statistically superior in every category except rushing yards per game and carries per game.
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Navy Will Come to South Bend off Loss to Delaware
Navy lost to Delaware in college football action this past Saturday. The Midshipmen are set to come to Notre Dame for a game against the Fighting Irish this next weekend, but they will be coming off two straight loses, the latest an offensive frenzy that saw Navy lose 59-52 in a game where a combined 1087 yards were gained. To a certain extent, the result is frightening for the Irish, who have had problems putting their own points on the board, and might not be able to keep pace with Navy this upcoming weekend. On the other hand, Navy has clearly shown that it can give up a lot of points on defense as well, so there might be hope that the Irish can come up with their best offensive effort of the season.
Probably the best thing about the Navy game was that the Midshipmen let one get away from them that they could have and should have won. The Delaware Fightin’ Blue Hens are in the Bowl Subdivision I-AA, and thus entered the game as the underdogs even though they are now 7-1 and Navy is now 4-4. Notre Dame will be the underdogs this weekend, but they know that it’s still possible to get an upset out of the quick-scoring Midshipmen. Stay tuned for more analysis about how ND and Navy stack up.
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Take Shots at Notre Dame While You Can, World
If you are one of the millions of college football fans out there who is just loving life now that the Notre Dame Fighting Irish aren’t doing so well this season, then you need to get the most out of it now while the Domers are on a bye week between the rough part of their schedule and the easy part, because you are about to become cliché. Are you one of those people who insist on using the phrase “really??” once every three sentences? Well, you might just be one of the countless hipster fashionables who needs to listen up to this blog. Get the most out of your trendy, unoriginal mantras while you can, frat boy, because the days of you getting away with such things will be over faster than “lates” disappeared from your vocabulary.
Right about now it’s cooler than smoking to lambaste the Fighting Irish and their troubles. Of course, I remember when it was cool to make fun of the French for not supporting the Iraq War. Can you remember nodding along to the reassuring lectures by Bill O’Reilly about how we should boycott French wine and facts? How smart do you feel, now? About as smart as you will feel when you are faced with a 7-1 Fighting Irish team at this point next year, and your claims that Notre Dame MUST join a conference are brought up. Of course, that won’t happen, because by then you will be dominating the water cooler with whatever Craig Wilbon said on PTI that week.
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Defending Notre Dame Football Fans
Oftentimes a sports writer will get up enough nerve to write an article about the problem he has with fans of various sports teams. You get this kind of thing every once in a while and the articles are pretty much always just excuses to get revenge for a bad expereicne or two. It would be pretty hard to accurately assess the exact level of hatred that people have for certain sports fans, or to get an actual number on the annoyance of certain fans in college football because so much is perception, rumor and jealousy. I mean, if you had to rank the most annoying fans in the college football world, you would probably not have a great amount of experience to fall back upon, because you probably saw the majority of your games at one stadium, and are the supporter of one team. When a college football writer goes to enough games, he feels that he has the ability to assess the entire situation.
As you will see with one of the latest examples, Waillele Sallas’ Accuscore article, bias overwhelms whoever writes one of these things. I like how everyone says that the Notre Dame fans (usually the Notre Dame bloggers, though Waillele claims “the Irish faithful” as a whole are the perpetrators) are blaming Ty Willingham for the mess this year. Well, Waillele, this is a Notre Dame blog. There doesn’t appear to be any blaming of Wilingham going on. In fact, I have yet to see any actual Ty-blaming on the internet or otherwise. All I ever see is writers lambasting the nameless and reference-less community out there that is, somewhere, blaming Ty for not recruiting. It’s a clever trick, but you Notre Dame haters need to cite your sources when you make claims that implement the entire Notre Dame nation. Oh, and Waillele, who should I blame for your name? I just want to have some actual data for my next blog, because otherwise Ty takes the fall for “Waillele,” too.
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Things Could Change for Domers after Bye Week
As you might already know, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team in the middle of their Bye Week, which means that they will not have another official game until November 3rd. Many people have noticed that the four games coming up, the last regular season games this year, will be against teams that have a noticeable lack of victories. Notre Dame had a very ambitious schedule for most of the year, often playing ranked teams, or teams that would later become ranked. If you run through the numbers, you can see that the teams on the Notre Dame schedule before the break are a combined 46-15, good for a winning percentage of .754. After the break the Irish will face Navy, Air Force, Duke and Stanford. Even with Air Force’s nifty record, the combined record of the post-break Domer opponents is only 14-15 (.483). If you cancel out the Air Force game, the winning percentage drops to a very intriguing .381.
If you are thinking what this blogger is thinking, then you have to be excited about the chances of wining a few at the end here. The Navy, Duke and Stanford games are by far the most winnable. We have yet to see the Irish face any team that (currently) does not have a winning record, so you should be anxious to see how they compare to a team or two that has struggled this season.
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Charlie Weis Press Interview
If you are interested in hearing what head coach Charlie Weis has to say about the latest loss to USC or the upcoming game against the Navy Midshipmen, then you can check out the press conference transcript at UND.com. If you’ve been keeping up on the press conferences like this blogger, then you won’t notice anything too different in the way that Weis is looking at things about the game in retrospect. He starts off by focusing on the special teams that the Irish played in the USC game, which, in his estimation, did pretty well. Clearly it is hard to come up with positive things to say about a 0-38 loss at home, but that is the tough job that Weis has had to deal with all season long.
Weis’ practice strategy this week stands out as something a little out of the ordinary. Apparently he is going to try to focus on the seniors and the players who will not be back next year, at least for most of the practices. As the season winds down, you have to be looking forward to next year and allowing younger players to get valuable experience in the games. Of course, you probably feel obligated to give seniors a chance to play as well. We’ve all seen Rudy, so we know how important getting seniors involved can be.
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Notre Dame Falls to USC Trojans 38-0
Another game against a top team has ended in a loss for the Notre Dame football team. This past Saturday night the Fighting Irish lost to Pac-10 powerhouse USC, the current No. 9 (AP Poll) team in the nation. Entering the game the Trojans had been the No. 13, and they had been ranked as high as No. 1 for the first few weeks of the season. So, even though the loss was a bad one by all accounts, the Irish can take solace in knowing that they lost to a USC team that has national championship ambitions, and has already gotten its one shocking loss at the hands on an underdog. Even though the Trojans had received a rude welcoming into South bend, they were starting their backup quarterback, and they had been struggling against Pac-10 teams, they are, still, the University of Southern California.
The Irish started senior Evan Sharpley over “banged up” freshman Jimmy Clausen, but he did not fare much better than Clausen in his first career start. His stats weren’t horrible (17-33, 117 yards) but he did throw one interception, and had -31 rushing yards on the day, meaning that he was constantly under pressure from the USC line. While the Trojans are heading back to the top of the national polls, the Irish are reeling. The next Notre Dame opponent is the unranked but solid Navy Midshipmen.
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USC Gets Rude South Bend Welcoming
Last night during a storm the University of Southern California football team flew into South Bend for their upcoming game against Notre Dame. According to reports, the pilot of the plane abandoned his first attempt at landing the aircraft, was forced to circle the runway for about 20 minutes to wait out the turbulence, and then successfully landed the plane. Many of the passengers, which included USC coach Pete Carroll and possible starting quarterback John David Booty, reported that the incident was terrifying. Before the first attempted landing the plane made a large, rapid drop in altitude which sent some players and coaches flying out of their seats.
The way this will affect the game is not yet known, but it seems likely that the USC players all had a pretty big spook. Of course they will be in South Bend at their hotel all day, and any adrenaline from the flight will have long since passed through their system. It’s always an advantage to frighten, intimidate and harass your opponent when they are in your home, so you have to think that, if anything, this incident will work in the favor of Notre Dame. Hopefully the Irish will be the ones dropping USC for huge losses (in yardage) on Saturday.
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Trojans Have QB Switch of their Own
The USC Trojans will either start Mark Sanchez or John David Booty this weekend in their game against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, but right now it’s still up in the air. John David Booty was on the bench for USC’s last game, a victory over Arizona, because of a thumb injury. Mark Sanchez started for the Trojans versus the Wildcats and until recently he was the favorite to start behind the center versus Notre Dame. However, recent reports indicate that Booty might make the trip to South Bend, and if he does, he might see playing time or even start. John David Booty has been getting back into shape very quickly, and according to USC’s head coach Pete Carroll, Booty’s been looking good.
From the Irish perspective, this quarterback question comes down to one thing; who will the Irish play better against. We have already seen that the Irish do well when they get interceptions, so if Sanchez starts, that would be a good thing for the Irish. Sanchez threw two interceptions in his game last weekend, and against Washington State he only threw the ball three times yet managed to get picked off. Of course, if John David Booty is not at full capacity, it might be better to have him start, do poorly, and then have Sanchez throw some INTs in the second half. Whoever starts for the Trojans, we just hope that Evan Sharpley out plays him.
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