Sunday, September 25, 2005

Week 4 in a Nutshell | by Dylan

That slam you heard yesterday was the sound of the door closing, mercifully, on the Tyrone Willingham era. All that's left is to turn the lock, which we will do later with a final "goodbye" to Ty, reacting to his disgraceful performance with John Saunders yesterday.

The game itself was disappointing, from the Irish perspective. Our offensive line seems to have reverted to its 2004 mode of absorbing, rather than delivering, contact. Our defensive line was not much better.Without more consistent pressure on opposing QBs, we will lose to all of the better teams on the schedule. 400 yards passing to Washington and their "5 games worth of experience" quarterback should result in night sweats in South Bend and deep, peaceful sleep in West Lafayette and Compton.

Southern Cal looks great even when they look bad. There is no reason, outside of some wishful thinking, to believe they will lose this year, despite their inconsistent defense. The good news for ND is that, of all the teams left on their schedule, ours is the best suited to beat them. Think Colts vs. Patriots. A shootout would be suicide. The only way to beat SC is to keep their offense off the field. Count on Charlie to put in a game plan that resists the urge to knock them out down the field (which we could), opting instead for short passes and generally maddening, clock-eating ball-control. Our only shot is to give Leinart enough time between series to get another pedicure.

Poor Purdue. The Boilers were giddy in the pre-season due to a once-in-a-blue-moon scheduling quirk that guaranteed they would not have to play what were thought to be the two best teams in their conference. Visions of a Big 1? championship danced through Pete's enormous plastic head. Then unranked Minnesota ran for 300 yards on their "We've got everybody back" defense and sent them to the first of their traditional three losses, and before the Notre Dame game! The humanity! Lawrence (Roman) Maroney shredded the bastages for 217 yards and left Boiler Nation wondering how, with their non-existent pass defense and now-suspect run stopping, they would manage to put anyone's farging bells in a sling.

Michigan lost. The early word from Madison is that it was not fair. It will be really unfair when Sparty (49 ppg) embarasses the unranked Wolverines by three touchdowns and drops them below .500. We must have a Presidential Commission to look into the unfairness of it all, before things get out of hand Michigan loses five games. Unfairly.

Louisville was exposed. They need to fire their AD for getting them into the powerhouse Big East and scheduling so many tough non-con games. Luckily for the Cardinals, for every South Florida, there's a Florida Atlantic to hit on the rebound. Lousiville might finish 10-1. Even if they do, they should not be ranked. Their schedule is worse than a joke. An unranked team in the BCS is something we should all root for. Burn it down.

Texas Tech spent another week gorging on the dessert cart, swallowing 1-AA confection Indiana State whole, 63-7. Don't let anyone tell you the Red Raiders aren't for real. Just ask the Sycamores, Sam Houston State, and Florida Effing International if Tech is worthy. Next up for TT is Kansas, led by Mike Mangino, the one guy in college football who knows more about devouring cupcakes than Tech A.D Bill Byrne.

While Purdue, Iowa, and Lousiville fell off our enigma-tacking radar, Georgia, Miami, and Cal remain. Are any of those teams any good? Flip a coin, and you'll be as well informed as the Harris Poll.