PDF Insider for Tuesday, October 26, 2010

IRISH INSIDER

Monday, September 19, 2005

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

observer THE Michigan State 44 , Notre Dame 41

Navy 35,

Teich me how to Navy

Navy gashes Irish for 373 rushing yards, including 210 from fullback Teich

By DOUGLAS FARMER Sports Editor

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. —

When Notre Dame marched 71 yards down the field on its opening possession Saturday, the Irish sideline simply wished it had been a 72-yard drive.

Irish junior quarterback Dayne Crist could not gain the last yard of the drive, as the Midshipmen stopped his fourthdown dive inside the one-yard line to prevent Notre Dame from scoring first during Navy’s 35-17 victory.

“We outman them by 70 pounds on average up front,” Irish coach Brian Kelly said during his postgame press conference. “If you can’t get a foot on the one-half yard line, you get what you deserve.

“If you can’t punch it in to start the game from the foot-line with the big guys we have up front and a 230-pound quarterback, that says something right there.”

Navy took that opportunity to cover 99 yards in only six plays. Midshipmen fullback Alexander Teich accounted for 90 of those yards, 59 rushing and the remaining 31 on a touchdown pass from quarterback Ricky Dobbs. Teich ended the day with 210 rushing yards on only 26 carries and 31 receiving yards.

“We knew they were going to run the ball,” Irish sophomore linebacker Manti Te’o said. “We knew they were going to hand it to the fullback. We just needed to execute.”

Te’o led the Irish in tackling with 13 tackles, including one for a loss. Many of Te’o’s tackles came on plays when Teich ran up the middle, a maneuver not often seen in Navy’s version of the tripleoption offense.

Midshipmen coach Ken Niumatalolo and his staff altered that triple-option for the Irish, emphasizing the inside running game more than usual, while not forgetting about the outside pitch.

some wrinkles because they’re a good football team.”

Kelly said Navy’s aptitude at adjustments proved to be a deciding factor Saturday.

“Navy is well-schooled at all variations, and they needed to be credited for their execution today on a scheme that they haven’t run,” he said.

“We knew they were going to run the ball. We knew they were going to hand it to the fullback. We just needed to execute.”

Manti Te’o sophomore linebacker

“My hat goes off to coach Ken and his staff. We had no answer for them today.” Nonetheless, Kelly said Notre Dame should have been able to overcome any scheme with simple strength.

“We always have new wrinkles,” Niumatalolo said. “We do the same thing over and over but there is subtle stuff. That is what we are, an option team. Yes, we run the triple but we have a ton of different variations on running it. We had to have

player of the game

Alexander Teich Midshipmen fullback

“You still have to get over the one-on-one matchups. You still have to win some of those ... Scheme is one thing, but you still have to win one-on-one matchups. You get what you deserve. We got beat today. Navy was the better football team

Teich dominated the Irish defense all game long, gashing Notre Dame for 241 total yards on only 27 touches.

today.”

The Midshipmen scheme carried them to a 14-3 lead early in the second quarter, after Irish senior kicker David Ruffer converted a 45-yard field goal on Notre Dame’s second possession. Crist then led the Irish offense 72 yards on 13 plays — the final play a 16-yard touchdown pass to freshman receiver TJ Jones in which Jones broke two tackles to reach the endzone — to bring Notre Dame within four points.

“I was hoping that [score] would be a game-changer in a sense,” Jones said. “That we could get up and come back and win it.”

Crist’s touchdown pass was offset a few minutes later when he threw the first of his two interceptions with less than two minutes left in the first half. Navy only had to drive 30 yards to make the score 21-10 at halftime.

“I guess just trying to do too much,” Crist said of his two turnovers. “At the end of the day, it falls on me. I can’t get those back. You can’t give the ball back to Navy,a team that

stat of the game

367 yards rushing

367 of Navy’s 438 total yards came on the ground, as the Midshipmen averaged 6.1 yards per carry and scored four rushing touchdowns.

really shortens the game. Knowing that we needed to score on every possession, that falls on me.”

Navy received the opening kickoff in the second half, and proceeded to increase its lead to 28-10 on another Dobbs touchdown run. Dobbs added one more touchdown — to bring his total for the day to three rushing and one passing touchdown — before the end of the third quarter to set Notre Dame back by 25 points.

“They put 14 points on the board in the third quarter, which put us in a tough position,” Kelly said. “There’s going to be enough criticism for the coaches and players to go around.”

With 10 minutes left in the fourth quarter, Kelly sent freshman quarterback Tommy Rees out under center, electing to keep Crist on the sideline in the blowout. Rees led the Irish on a 76-yard scoring drive, capped by a one-yard run from sophomore running back Cierre Wood.

Crist was not alone on the sideline, as junior tight end Kyle Rudolph, junior receiver Michael

play of the game

Dayne Crist’s rush for no gain on fourth-and-goal on the one yard line

Crist’s inability to get into the end zone on the first drive of the game cost the Irish all signs of momentum

Floyd and sophomore receiver Theo Riddick did not play a single snap. Rudolph is out for the season after undergoing seasonending surgery on his hamstring nearly two weeks ago. Concerning Floyd, though, Kelly decided minutes before kickoff to only use Notre Dame’s leading receiver in an “emergency situation.”

“He didn’t practice very much at all this week, and we weren’t going to play a guy who wasn’t 100 percent,” Kelly said. “He wasn’t 100 percent.”

Even without the trio that accounted for 66.3 percent of Notre Dame’s receptions this season, Kelly said any failings Saturday were not a result of a negative attitude from the Irish.

“I didn’t sense at any point that our guys were not emotionally or enthusiastic or flat,” he said. “Last year [this team] lost to Navy, and then lost the rest. That means this football team broke apart. We aren’t going to let this team break apart.”

Contact Douglas Farmer at dfarmer1@nd.edu

quote of the game

“If you can’t get a foot on the onehalf yard line, you get what you deserve.”

report card

DDCBC-C-

D-

FBquarterbacks: Dayne Crist couldn’t get into the end zone when he needed to on the first possession, and then he simply tried to do too much the rest of the way, throwing two interceptions.

running backs: As usual, Notre Dame did not run the ball much, even though Armando Allen averaged 6 yards per carry, but Allen and Cierre Wood only got the ball 19 times combined.

receivers: Theo Riddick and Michael Floyd were on the sidelines Saturday, but TJ Jones, Duval Kamara and company dropped passes and ran sloppy routes, failing to give Crist much help.

offensive line: Crist was only sacked once, but the bigger failing by the linemen was their inability to garner a push against the Midshipmen, specifically on the opening possession.

defensive line: Much like the offensive line, the defensive line did not win the battle on the line of scrimmage at any point during the game. Without that push, the Irish didn’t stand a chance.

linebackers: Manti Te’o managed 13 tackles, but no other starting linebacker managed more than five. Thus, the Midshipmen routinely ran their way into the Notre Dame secondary.

defensive backs: Ricky Dobbs only dropped back to pass three times. Those three attempts yielded 71 yards, one touchdown and a pass interference penalty against Harrison Smith.

special teams: The special teams were largely irrelevant Saturday, but David Ruffer did convert a 45-yard field goal, and Bennett Jackson tallied 123 yards on six returns.

coaching: As Brian Kelly said after the game: “Defensively we didn’t have a great answer today ... My [staff] didn’t have the plan today.”

1.56

overall: From the end of the first possession, to the final few plays, Navy outplayed Notre Dame in every individual aspect of the game.

adding up the numbers

Irish kicker David Ruffer has now converted 18 straight field goals, the longest streak in school history, and the longest in the country.

Irish lose battle in the trenches

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — After a performance as abysmal as the one the Irish turned in Saturday, there is an incredible amount of criticism directed at, and blame to be shared among, both players and coaches.

You can point to any number of missed blocks, dropped balls, errant throws and whiffed tackles that contributed to Navy’s thrashing of Notre Dame. The offense’s continued refusal to run the ball and the defense’s game plan — whatever it was — were equally as maddening.

18

12 Navy has now scored a touchdown on 12 consecutive trips into the red zone, after scoring on its four trips inside the 20-yard line Saturday.

Only one penalty was called Saturday, a 15yard pass interference called against Irish safety Harrison Smith in the second quarter.

4

15

Notre Dame has punted a total of four times in its last six meetings with the Midshipmen. The Irish only called on Ben Turk once this Saturday, a 43-yarder.

50 Notre Dame only converted 50 percent of its third downs (6-for-12).

12

Notre Dame has now lost to Navy 12 times in history, as the Irish hold the series advantage at 71-12-1.

Michael Floyd, Theo Riddick and Kyle Rudolph, who accounted for 67.7 percent of Notre Dame’s receiving yards this season, remained on the sideline Saturday injured.

67.7

4:06 In the third quarter, Notre Dame only held the ball for 4:06, while Navy used its 10:54 to score two touchdowns.

We could continue like this, breaking down the beat down ad nauseam, but I’m not convinced it would get us anywhere. Can we define whether this loss was the fault of the coaches or the players? Can we pinpoint one adjustment or one play that, if made, would have meant an Irish victory?

Navy so thoroughly dominated this game that I believe the answer is no, we can’t. I certainly recognize there were some key plays — the failed 4thand-goal from the 1, Navy’s screenpass touchdown, the two Irish interceptions — and critical adjustments — to stop Navy’s fullback dive, to run the football with Notre Dame’s three best pass-catchers out — that simply weren’t made.

On the surface, it would seem the plays are the players’ fault, and the adjustments are the coaches’ fault. They are so connected, however, that there’s no way around the fact that this was a total team failure.

The 4th-and-goal play, for example, would have worked if the offensive line fired off and blew the defense off the

ball — but would a hand-off to Armando Allen or a play-action pass have been a better bet? Similarly, perhaps the defense would have stopped Navy’s inside run if the coaches would have called for the safeties to crowd the line of scrimmage — but if the Irish defensive linemen and linebackers would have played their keys and beat their blocks, would the original scheme have worked?

Regardless of to whom you attribute Saturday’s debacle, at the root of Notre Dame’s biggest issues is the fact that the Irish consistently fail to win the battle at the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball.

To me, one of Kelly’s postgame quotes said it all: “We outman them by 70 pounds on average up front. If you can’t get a foot on the one-half yard line, you get what you deserve.”

No matter the scheme, to win games, you need to win individual plays. To win those plays, your players need to beat the man, and sometimes men, in front of them. These matchups are most critical up front, as we saw yet again on Saturday. On offense, if you lose up front, there’s nowhere for your running back to run, or your quarterback gets hurried, sacked or has his pass deflected. Losing that same battle defensively not only gives the offense room to run or time to throw, but also creates a mess of bodies that limits the angles your linebackers can take to see, and then tackle, the ball carrier.

That’s exactly what happened Saturday. In truth, it’s happened far too often over the past several years, and it’s a major reason the Irish have a new coaching staff in place. And while it’s the staff’s job to prepare their guys to win those battles, through weight training and on-field repetition, at some point, the players have to go play.

Now, there are ways coaches can try to scheme around matchups their

players can’t or won’t win, and it’s the staff’s job to understand where those mismatches are. But could the staff have expected that its players, arguably more physically gifted with size and speed at nearly every position, could have lost such an overwhelming number of those matchups?

I’m not sure, but if you’d have asked me for mismatches going into the game, I would have offered several in Notre Dame’s favor, and none for Navy. So what was there to scheme around?

You’d be hard-pressed to find a good, let alone championship-caliber, team that can scheme around an inability to win the battles up front. You might win a game or two with a trick play or by catching an opponent off guard, but at some point, you’ve got to play the game of football, and that means beating teams at the point of attack. It’s why Notre Dame fired a coach who talked “schematic advantage” and hired one who wants “tough gentlemen.”

That doesn’t mean teams can’t win championships by favoring the pass or by spreading out the defense — those systems still demand the big guys do their jobs. It’s just a different job. Kelly’s No. 1 task as the Irish coach is to find guys who will win those matchups up front especially in critical situations — near the goal line and on 3rd- and 4th-downs. I’m not sure how he does it, and it’ll probably take a mix of approaches that include weight training, motivation, repetition and recruiting.

In any case, it’s not an overnight fix — again, that’s why Notre Dame hired Kelly. Now it’s time for him, along with his players and coaches, to go to work.

The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily The Observer. Contact Matt Gamber at mgamber@nd.edu

Injuries slow but don’t stop Irish

By MATT GAMBER Sports Writer

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — With tight end Kyle Rudolph and receivers Michael Floyd and Theo Riddick out for Saturday’s game against Navy, the Irish called upon the likes of Tyler Eifert, Duval Kamara and TJ Jones in primary roles where they hadn’t played much in live action this season.

While the result certainly wasn’t pretty in the 35-17 loss, junior quarterback Dayne Crist said his new targets weren’t the reason why.

“All those guys played well and I have great confidence in them,” Crist said after the game. “All week in practice we continued to develop the chemistry that was already there, so really it was just fine-tuning and preparing for your opponent like you do every week.”

The passing attack, however, did not look as crisp as it has at times this season. Crist threw two costly interceptions, with one leading to a Navy touchdown to end the first half and the other halting an Irish drive in Midshipmen territory in the second half.

“Just trying to do too much, but at the end of the day it falls on me,” Crist said of the turnovers. “I can’t get those back. You can’t give the ball back to

Navy, a team that really shortens the game. Knowing we needed to score on every possession, that falls on me.”

With the Irish down 35-10 midway through the fourth quarter, coach Brian Kelly pulled Crist in favor of freshman Tommy Rees, who promptly led Notre Dame on its only touchdown drive of the second half.

“Coach wanted to give him some reps and some great experience,” Crist said.

“I think he did a heck of a job managing the game. He did everything he was asked to do and I was real proud of him.”

With Rudolph, Floyd and Riddick sidelined, and with Notre Dame’s distinct size advantage over Navy — after the game, Kelly said the Irish outweighed the Midshipmen by an average of 70 pounds along the offensive line — there was talk the Irish would try to run the ball more frequently than in previous weeks. Notre Dame ran the ball 30 times for 122 yards, but only 19 of those carries went to running backs — and only 11 to senior starter Armando Allen, who managed 66 yards but saw an almost even split with sophomore Cierre Wood.

“We know we can the run ball,” sophomore tackle Zack Martin said.

“Maybe our stats haven’t shown it this season, but we’re confident we can run the ball. With some key guys out, we

definitely wanted to establish the run game and get the clock on our side because we knew they were going to try to control the clock.”

The Irish run game had a chance to make an early statement on 4th-andgoal inside the 1-yard line on the game’s opening possession, but Crist’s sneak attempt was stuffed. That play gave Navy the momentum and the ball, and the Midshipmen promptly drove 99 yards to take a lead they never relinquished.

“I don’t know what happened, we just didn’t execute,” Martin said of the play. “We didn’t get the job done.”

Crist added: “We didn’t put the ball in the end zone. It’s pretty plan and simple, looking back on it. It falls on our shoulders for not scoring, and really mine for not finding a way in.”

Despite the disappointing performance, Martin said he and his linemates would continue to seek improvement as the Irish look to improve the ground game.

“There’s always things you can work on,” he said. “We’re not going to be content — keep working in practice to try and establish that run game. Running the ball will make it a lot easier on Dayne and on the line, too.”

Contact Matt Gamber at mgamber@nd.edu

Irish Insider Extra live blog highlights

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J.

— Sports writers Douglas Farmer and Matt Gamber blogged live from the press box at the New Meadowlands Stadium during Notre Dame’s 35-17 loss to Navy Saturday. Following are some of the highlights from their blog: After Navy drove 99 yards down the field in only six plays, Douglas and Matt received some input from the stands.

Douglas: The Observer’s Assistant Managing Editor Sam Werner, in the stands today, has texted me that he would like to ban the entire defense from team meetings this week after that drive.

Matt: It took a PA

announcement to remind that the last Navy drive was 99 yards. Man did they make it look easy.

Douglas: Sam references the banning of Ian Williams from meetings last season’s Navy game, of which he said, “We were outschemed.” Doesn’t look like a whole lot has changed as of now.

Irish freshman receiver TJ Jones pulled in a 16-yard touchdown pass from junior quarterback Dayne Crist, breaking two tackles on his way into the end zone, to bring Notre Dame within 14-10 in the second quarter.

Matt: That’s a big-time catch by TJ Jones. Even bigger than just hauling it

in and getting the first down is him getting into the end zone — not sure anybody would want to watch the circus that is Notre Dame’s goal line offense.

Comment from Tyler, a reader: This TJ Jones is the same as Tai-ler Jones that was recruited, right? Not sure why anyone would want to get rid of their hyphenated name!

Matt: Print is expensive these days, so he’s saving us some money. I’m sure he knew how often we’d be typing his name. Thanks for thinking of us, TJ.

Tyler: Haha, such an economist.

In the second half, when both senior defensive lineman Ian Williams and

sophomore linebacker Carlo Calabrese, were injured on the same play, Notre Dame’s lack of depth started to show on the field.

Comment from Brent Lidge, a reader: When are they going to make the call upstairs to bring you down due to lack of players?

Matt: I’ve got an interhall playoff game next Sunday. I don’t want to waste any energy on this one.

Douglas: I’m available as soon as the call is made.

For more from the live blog, or for live blogs during upcoming games, check the Irish Insider Extra at ndsmcobserver.com/sports/irishfootball/irish-insider-extra

Three out of four

After snapping a 43-year losing streak in the series against Notre Dame in 2007, Navy has now won three of the last four matchups between the two schools. Midshipmen fullback Alexander Teich and quarterback Ricky Dobbs led the way in the 35-17 Navy victory, combining 300 rushing yards and three touchdowns on the ground. Dobbs and Teich also connected for the Midshipmen’s first score of the game, a 31-yard touchdown pass in the first quarter.

Irish junior quarterback Dayne Crist threw for 178 yards for Notre Dame, on 19 completions, including a 16-yard touchdown pass to freshman receiver TJ Jones in the second quarter.