Going For It

by CW on Sep 24, 2006 3:43 PM EDT in Notre Dame Football Comment 3 comments

Sorry for leaving Mike Richardson off of the poll, as he did have a helluva game last night. The post/poll this morning were done in the glaze of sleep and hangover. This quote is from the fantastic UCLA site BruinsNation in relating their loathed Karl Dorrell to Pete Carroll:

On this blog we are hard on Pom Pom every day. But you know what - the dude goes for it. He makes those tough calls. He goes for it on 4th downs. He gives clear cut signals that he believes in his team. And his players feed off that energy. We can say what we want to about Chetey Petey but we can't be in denial about the fact that he plays to win and his players feed off it.

I think that also applies to Charlie Weis, who coaches the game like I play NCAA Football: if you even consider going for it on 4th down, just go for it. Early on in the Michigan State game our team looked the same as they did against Michigan: lethargic, out-of-sync, listless. But it took another huge second half deficit to Sparty and some big plays from Carlson and Samardjiza to rally the team to a victory. Maybe Charlie doesn't make the right decisions all the time on 4th down, but at least he has a standard he goes by, which is significantly better than wishy-washing your way through the season.

SMQ also addresses our propensity for going for it in his post today:

SMQ isn't sure, for example, that Notre Dame can win a big game without fourth downs, as it hit two more critical conversions in its comeback in the rain-soaked yet defensively barren thriller Saturday night: when he says they have a very small margin of error, it's because the Irish always seem to be against the wall - on plays like the 27-yard fourth-and-one connection to John Carlson in the second quarter, immediately preceding a Jeff Samardzisosopo touchdown, and later the fourth quarter, fourth-and-five that Samaradzizjaija singlehandedly took 43 yards against flailing defenders to kick off the comeback - and delivering. ND was perfect on four fourth downs against Penn State, remember, and scored after all of them. Many teams wouldn't attempt or wouldn't convert those plays, especially not in such dramatic fashion, and difference in those teams and Notre Dame is often only that the Irish thrive on those crunch plays. Certainly they wouldn't have been anywhere near the victory without them Saturday.

I one hundred percent agree. For us to succeed against quality teams, our execution needs to be high in all phases of the game, especially on 4th down plays where we can keep our offense on the field and protect/rest our defense. I'm not sure if it's impossible for us to win games without 4th down conversions, but they certainly help the cause.

If you haven't seen the rollercoaster of emotion from commenters at BlueGraySky, check that out now. HouseRockBuilt was at the game, as well as Kelly Green. Notre Dame stays solid at number 12 in the polls, and the AP voters actually dropped UGA after a victory. Granted, it was only one spot, but I'm still surprised. I think Va Tech is mucho overrated at the 11-spot, but Saturday night against OMGZ Calvin Johnson will be a nice test.

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