09/01 #14 UCLA L 45-17

09/15 San Jose St W 37-0

09/22 #13 Oregon L 55-31

09/29 #23 Arizona St L 41-3

10/06 at #2 USC W 24-23

10/13 TCU L 38-36

10/20 at Arizona W 21-20

10/27 at Oregon St L 23-6

11/03 Washington L 27-9

11/10 at Wash St L 33-17

11/24 N Dame 3:30 PM

12/01 California 7:00 PM

this is going to be a tough game for the irish , maybe we need to get a pep talk from LOU again, as you can see they put up a lot of points on the board and lose to a few good teams like Oregon Ariz and so forth , they must be fairly good as the beat USC and lost because of a official boo boo. , irish need there A game

The fact that they put up 31 on Oregon and 24 on usc does make me nervous.

It looks like their offensive production has slowed down the last few weeks. They only scored 9 points against Washington's crappy defense. They've been giving up a ton of points as well. This could be a shoot out. Maybe that bodes well for us. Lets hope.

They are averaging 13 points over the last 4 weeks.

I'm sorry but Oregon's defense is not good. haha... There best player on D is the offense if you know what I mean. They force teams to play from behind and be one dimensional it gives there secondary a little bit of an advantage.

I think this game will show us if the Irish are taking a step in the right direction. There should be a lot of emotion, because it's the seniors last game/ last game of the year for every one. I'm hoping they play their tail off and show a good amount of improvement to build off for next year.

I would love to see a shootout.

Even if we lose, at least I can feel good in the fact that we put up some points. Right?

 

Wrong.

Let's burn these trees down!

Charlie needs to pound the ball on the ground and not try any kind of crazy plays that put us in the hole early. We could have won many more games this year by simply running the ball more. All those sacks, interceptions, and fumbles wouldnt have happened with the running game. If one of our backs goes over 100 yards I bet we win this one. Sometimes simplicity is best with a young team.

One more thing. I think the reason why we beat Duke is because we kept it scoreless almost the entire first half. If we would have gotten in a hole early the team probably would have quit and Duke would have been more pumped up.

If JC gets some time in the pocket, I am not worried about this game. His accuracy is so good...last weeks TD to Grimes was a thing of beauty and was Farve-sque..

We could have won many more games this year by simply running the ball more.

 

i'm sorry, but that is just not accurate. we were not a good running team for at least half of this year and with our qb play sub-par for most of the year, teams were ganging up on the run and daring us to pass, because we had no downfield WR threat to burn the D for stacking the box against the run.

 

factor in our still, at that point, very inexperienced RB's and i don't believe the evidence shows at all that we would've "won more games" if we tried to run more.

We could have won many more games this year by simply running the ball more.

 

i'm sorry, but that is just not accurate. we were not a good running team for at least half of this year and with our qb play sub-par for most of the year, teams were ganging up on the run and daring us to pass, because we had no downfield WR threat to burn the D for stacking the box against the run.

 

factor in our still, at that point, very inexperienced RB's and i don't believe the evidence shows at all that we would've "won more games" if we tried to run more.

 

I have to agree with BI here. Not only were defenses daring us to pass, and our RB's being young, but the O-line didn't give any help with our run game. Although I see your point here Germany, and yes it might have kept us in the game a little bit more, IMO, we wouldn't have won more games if we tried to run more

We might have won one or two more games people, you can't deny it.

There were more than a few instances this year that a played called for a run but Charlie got cute.

 

The defense is looking for the run too, which makes it all the worse that we couldn't convert some of those pass plays.

We might have won one or two more games people, you can't deny it.

There were more than a few instances this year that a played called for a run but Charlie got cute.

 

The defense is looking for the run too, which makes it all the worse that we couldn't convert some of those pass plays.

 

i'm sorry, that's not even close to presenting any convincing evidence that we would've won more games if we ran the ball what? three more times a game? which seems to be what you're saying, i think.

 

football games rarely hinge on one or two plays as many fans seem to think they do. so, thusly, a play call difference here or there, i'm sorry does not "add up" to two or three more wins. just not buying it...

 

now, you say we "might have" won i know, but again, i'm not convinced at all of that based on what i've seen on the field. and you seem to bolster my point point by pointing out that the defenses were frequently "looking for the run." well, if that's the case, your chances of having a successful run play goes down considerably, no?

Its hard to commit to the run when you are constantly playing from behind. Even if running the ball brought us 1-2 TD's per game, but we were never close enough for it to matter.

I must admit, I think that some of CW's play calling gets a little too cute sometimes and I'd like to see him jam it down someones throat, but I'm not sure if it would have won us 1 more game max.

We might have won one or two more games people, you can't deny it.

There were more than a few instances this year that a played called for a run but Charlie got cute.

 

The defense is looking for the run too, which makes it all the worse that we couldn't convert some of those pass plays.

 

i'm sorry, that's not even close to presenting any convincing evidence that we would've won more games if we ran the ball what? three more times a game? which seems to be what you're saying, i think.

 

football games rarely hinge on one or two plays as many fans seem to think they do. so, thusly, a play call difference here or there, i'm sorry does not "add up" to two or three more wins. just not buying it...

 

now, you say we "might have" won i know, but again, i'm not convinced at all of that based on what i've seen on the field. and you seem to bolster my point point by pointing out that the defenses were frequently "looking for the run." well, if that's the case, your chances of having a successful run play goes down considerably, no?

"Might have" being the key words here, because of course, who knows.

And I think we should have ran more often than just 3 more times a game.

I know it's a long battle not decided with a run sprinkled here and there.

 

It's a momentum thing here IMO more than anything else.

If we could have kept some momentum with pounding runs and first downs, it could have changed the outcomes of some games.

A few times we got in the red zone this year after runs and pass plays, only to go pass pass pass, then take the FG.

That can be demoraliziing, but the same thing could have happened if we went run run run too. We'll never know.

I'm not convinced either with this line that we could have ran more anyways.

 

It's also true that the teams were looking for runs in obvious run plays. That's why Charlie would throw on those downs, but in some cases he threw everytime and it didn't often work.

well, i think we can all say that we at least enjoyed seeing a running game last week and we sure as hell hope to see one again on saturday, eh?

 

happy thanksgiving and go irish!!

This week IS the bowl game. I want to think ND pounds Stanford. When was the last time we actually ended the season with a W though. Bowl or not, it has not been for a LONG time. I hope this is the year.

This week IS the bowl game. I want to think ND pounds Stanford. When was the last time we actually ended the season with a W though. Bowl or not, it has not been for a LONG time. I hope this is the year.

stanford 2005, and it wasn't pretty. quinn brought us back with 2 minutes to play. walker scored the winning td.........

well, i think we can all say that we at least enjoyed seeing a running game last week and we sure as hell hope to see one again on saturday, eh?

 

happy thanksgiving and go irish!!

Irish Eyes had a good article breaking down the Cardinal.

I think we will have success,especially with as good as Hughes looked.

 

Happy Thanksgiving, and Go Irish!

This week IS the bowl game. I want to think ND pounds Stanford. When was the last time we actually ended the season with a W though. Bowl or not, it has not been for a LONG time. I hope this is the year.

stanford 2005, and it wasn't pretty. quinn brought us back with 2 minutes to play. walker scored the winning td.........

 

i remember that game Shell, and you are right, that was the last time, but didn't we go to a bowl game that year? Thus us ending in a loss.