Attitude Adjustment
Notre Dame clearly was not fired up to play Navy on Saturday.
This is inexcusable. Navy embarrassed the Irish two years ago AT HOME. Everyone in the Stadium knows Navy is going to play 100% all the time. Yet, the Irish weren’t ready for it. Once again.
We’ve seen this pattern before in Weis. It is evident in his record against ranked opponents(4-11), at home(19-13), and his overall record(35-24)
The pattern is clearly discernible:
Last year against Washington: “I feel like we could have scored more, but we never want to embarrass a team,” – Golden Tate
Last Year against Pitt: “I think we were a little too comfortable and we didn’t come out hungry,” – Golden Tate
And now after Navy: “I think it did feel a little flat. I’m not sure why. I definitely did feel it, but I’m not sure why we felt that way, why I felt that way.” – Golden Tate
It has always been an issue for Weis. He has a hard time motivating young players. He talks of pushing the right buttons and staying on an even keel over the course of a season. Don’t let the highs get too high and the lows get too low. It doesn’t work that way.
You need to fire it up every week. Against every opponent. For 60 minutes every Saturday.
In five years Weis hasn’t figured that out. He might eventually, but, unfortunately for him, it is probably too late.
November 9th, 2009 at 8:22 am
I think the answer is clear: MORE WILDCAT
November 9th, 2009 at 8:57 am
I think you mean Leprecat.
You ever notice how Golden Tate never hands the ball off in the leprecat?
November 9th, 2009 at 9:01 am
It’s the perfect play: you take your best player (Clausen) out of position, use him to replace a WR (one of our most talented positions), and have Tate never, ever exercise the option to pass. Pure brilliance.
November 9th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
Tate is right they were not ready because they were looking ahead. It came back to bite them.
November 10th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
[...] Irish Round Table » Blog Archive » Attitude Adjustment [...]
November 11th, 2009 at 11:14 am
I thought this was an interesting comment from an AP article. As many of us have long suspected, he has no ability to adapt and has lost his players.
“I really hope this doesn’t come across wrong,” Navy coach Ken Niumatalolo said after Saturday’s 23-21 win, “but I think the thing that helped us this year was last year, because we knew they’d line up the same way.”
Notre Dame nose guard Ian Williams said much the same thing, which still had Weis fuming a day later. At his news conference Sunday, he pointed out that safety Kyle McCarthy said Navy’s success wasn’t the result of the Irish scheme. Then Weis added, “There’s a reason why one guy’s a captain and one guy’s not.”
Never mind that ripping one of your own players for stating the obvious is a low blow, or even that McCarthy, too, conceded the Irish “just tried to do the same stuff as we did last year.”