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October 8, 2010

Oh, Yeah ND on Saturday

Filed under: Football,Opponent(s) — Chas @ 11:47 am

This fall I started working in the offline world, outside of the house for the first time since this blog started. Crazy hours and I’m still not used to wearing pants. As many have probably noticed, the posting frequency has suffered. Still working on finding my time management footing. I mean, I haven’t even had a beer or bourbon since Saturday. Just not natural.

There will be a liveblog for the game on Saturday. Gametime is 3:30, so you can expect the liveblogging to start around then.

Lots of stuff to hit, and still little time to do so.

Tremendous info-dump by Paul Zeise in a blog post. The O-line. DeCicco at LB and other possibilities with the strongside LB — including a call to consider letting one of the younger players get in there since Williams has continued to play poorly (I believe that it could reasonably construed as a carefully couched criticism of Coach Wannstedt’d preference to play experience over talent). The issue of Sunseri’s play. Future on the lines and at WR. And of course Dion Lewis starting over Ray Graham. Lots to plow through so read it all.

Coach Wannstedt has tried to downplay any running back controversy. It really hasn’t worked, but both Lewis and Graham continue to be supportive of everything.

But Lewis laughed when asked about a “running back controversy,” because he said his approach is very similar to Graham’s in that if one is doing well, then the team is doing well and winning games.

“I was really happy for Ray, he had a great game and I always support him,” Lewis said. “At the same time, I wanted to be out there running around a little bit, too. But we won and that is the most important thing.

“[We complement each other well] because we’re both different kinds of running backs and we both have a lot of talent. But I think we’re both able to take a little pressure off the other because teams can’t just focus on one style or the other, so we can help each other a lot.”

If it sounds like Lewis is toeing the company party line, understand this — he is not. He and Graham truly are friends, and they do root for each other to do well and believe that they benefit greatly from the other’s presence.

Of course, who plays more is still the coach’s call. We will see if Coach Wannstedt follows his claim.

“We’re going to play the hot hand,” Wannstedt said. “They’re competing in practice. I wish we had the depth and talent to compete at every position like we have at tailback. We’ll see how it unfolds on Saturday, but there’s no plan designed to get one guy X amount compared to the other.”

A cynical, sarcastic bastard might just say that he simply meant “there’s no plan.”

The one area where Wannstedt freaks out is turnovers on offense. A close second, penalties. Pitt hasn’t had much in turnovers, but the penalties. Yeesh.

Wannstedt said the officials who work every Wednesday practice will inform the coaches of offsides, procedure, false start or interference penalties. Anyone who is flagged will run after practice.

“I think it’s just lack of concentration,” Wannstedt said. “You start talking about not being offsides the day you start playing football. There is really no excuse for it.”

Not sure, but there’s a chance Brandon Lindsey could end up doing the equivalent of a marathon in penalty runs by the season’s end.

Now, as for ND. Pitt has won two straight against Notre Dame. They have also lost two straight to Brian Kelly coached teams. One streak will end. In some ways, this is the best chance to get ND before the offense really gets up to, um, speed.

Wannstedt said the big difference between the Bearcats in 2007 and the Bearcats in ’09 was that they were much more comfortable with the offense two years later.

“Notre Dame is probably not playing at the same pace [as Cincinnati last year], but all of the routes, the formations and the plays are the things that Brian Kelly believe in,” Wannstedt said. “We went back and looked at the films and it looks like he is doing some of the same things that they did the first and second years at Cincinnati when he was there.

“Last year they were just so much more advanced in the tempo of the game and the plays that they ran, that if you compare the different years you do see some differences. But that is just because as the players grasp the system, you can add more.”

Wannstedt said the Panthers have spent a lot of time this week working against the no-huddle offense as well as trying to simulate the pace of the Irish game.

You can bet ND coaches saw what Miami did in the first possession against Pitt’s D by going no huddle. But Brian Kelly knows how to say the right things.

“We’ve had hard-fought games that have come down to the very end,” Kelly said. “You know that you’re going to be in a fight for four quarters against Pittsburgh.”

Kelly, who replaced Charlie Weis, brought both offensive and defensive coordinators from Cincinnati as he tries to return the Fighting Irish to their past glory. Notre Dame runs the same spread offense and 3-4 defense as Kelly’s Cincinnati teams, which went 33-6 in his three seasons.

“I think they know what we’re going to do offensively, and we kind of know what they’re going to do defensively,” Kelly said. “They’re like a conference opponent more than anything else.”

In everything but football.





Uconn admits to major rules violations in its Basketball program.

Comment by alcofan 10.08.10 @ 1:29 pm

Uconn admits to major rules violations in its Basketball program.

Comment by alcofan 10.08.10 @ 1:29 pm

calhoun already on medical leave again…just had (another) stroke.

Comment by Pitt it IS 10.08.10 @ 2:31 pm

Hope I am wrong tomorrow…

ND 24
Pitt 10

Prove me wrong! Hail to PITT

Comment by Pitt it IS 10.08.10 @ 2:32 pm

Well, this cynical, sarcastic bastard might just say that he simply doesn’t know what “the hot hand” means if he can’t realize Graham already has it.

To quote Chas… “Yheese!” If a RB is averaging 9.5 yards per carry and coming off a 277 yard game, and that isn’t a “hot hand” then there is no such thing – especially compared to an RB who is barely scratching 3.0 YPC and just delivered the three worst games of his career.

It’s sort of a no-brainer folks, but only Wannstedt can come out right after the above referenced game and state that the other RB is the starter, then later come out and say this ridiculous ‘hot hand’ statement. It just doesn’t engender confidence that DW will do the best possible thing – whatever that is. I’d have felt much better if DW would have just said – “we’ll let them go through practice this week and see who best fits our gameplan for ND”.

PittitIS – that might be right about in the ballpark. I’ve not much optimism as PITT will have to improve almost across the board to win tomorrow, in South Bend, and that’s a lot to ask.

Comment by Reed 10.08.10 @ 4:36 pm

I am goimg to provide some optimism:

We had one pathetic outing due in large part to our young QB having ‘the deer in the headlights’ syndome, Our defense realy wasn’t as bad as the score indicated, providing they had to be on te field on a humid night almst the entire 1st half (and still only gave up 10 pts)

We went across country ina tough place to play and lost in OT to a team who hasn’t been challenged since and is now ranked 10th.

Our QB and O-line has shown some signs of progress.

I don’t believe it is a lost cause … yet.

Comment by wbb 10.08.10 @ 7:48 pm

Pitt will have to be vastly superior in talent to win at ND tomorrow. In fact, they will have to be that way just to keep from being blown out. We sure won’t be outcoaching anyone. Hoping for the best…..expecting a lot less. Been a rough last 2 weeks for us Pittsburgh Fans. Hockey game last night didn’t help. Maybe it’s all an omen that Pitt will be the one to turn around this nasty streak tomorrow.

Comment by Dan 72 10.08.10 @ 8:15 pm

The only way we win, is ND self destructs and Pitt capitalizes on those mistakes. Which is why ND is close to a 7 point favorite. If they stack the box(and they will), Sunseri won’t be passing against 3 lightly recruited FIU players. And if Wanny insists on 2 yards and cloud of dust Dion the whole 1rst quarter we’re going to be in big trouble.
And finally while it’s great to have two 6’5″ receivers and whatever Street is, it doesn’t really matter if they were 6’10” if the QB can’t get it to them before they break, not after. Oh and for once can we hit one receiver in stride (going forward hopefully) for a change.
Let’s go Pitt !

Comment by VirgilSollozzo 10.08.10 @ 8:42 pm

Aaaaaand Rutgers beats UConn.

Comment by Stoosh 10.08.10 @ 11:11 pm

I don’t know about everyone else, but I feel pretty good about the game tomorrow. Ha, just kidding of course. I will miss the chess match that Wanny and Weiss would put on. Ok, maybe not a chess match, maybe checkers. Ok, candy land. For Weiss probably Hungry Hungry Hippos. But I digress.

Comment by Jon C 10.08.10 @ 11:54 pm

This just in, Wannstedt experienced severe pain during the flight out to South Bend and had an urgent appointment with a proctologist this morning, who performed an emergency cranial extraction on him. Wannsstedt reports now in can see the light! Just maybe he can coach this team to a significant win now that he has his head out of his ass. We’ll see, beat the Irish!

Comment by Dr Tom 10.09.10 @ 8:07 am

Reed, right on. What a silly statement, sounds childish. Also, to the apologists: those that critcize any negative comments: Prove us wrong, here you go, South Bend, IN. 3:30………prove us all wrong, a huge oppurtunity, all on the table for you. Don’t care about the Big East. Don’t care about UCONN and Rutgers. Go win at least one of the 3 national games. Don’t want to hear any Wannisim’s after the game on why, how, shoulda, if they only. Go win the friggin’ game today, end of story. Oh, by the way, Notre Dame has freshmen, injuries, first year starters etc. etc. etc. NO EXCUSES!!!! Unless….we just stink, then, it’s understandable.

Comment by DAN 10.09.10 @ 9:35 am

thanks

Comment by hmm...? 10.13.10 @ 3:40 am

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