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Inspirational Reads

Congratulations, Charlie...

September 15, 2007

...you're now worse than Duke.

Duke beat a Big Ten (+1) school. On the road.

You and your highly-touted offensive genius haven't managed to put the ball in the endzone this season. In fact, your players probably forget where the endzone is. Well, not your defensive players. They know it by where the opponents end up, largely thanks to your inept offense putting the ball on the ground, going three-and-out and penalizing themselves for continued losses. Well done. Bravo. Kudos. Now, what the fuck are you gonna do to fix it?

I'm willing to split the blame with Willingham. He fucked the team up good, I know. He left a talent drain in the last two classes you inherited. We get it. But there's no way that your offensive line should be this porous! There's no way that Sam Young should look like he's in high school. Last year, he looked solid. This year, he's inept, like the rest of your offensive line. Don't tell me Darius Walker was the only person who could understand the blocking schemes you set up for the past two years. But you know what? You're responsible for taking what few crumbs Willingham left you in the cupboard and at least make something out of it. You've done nothing.

Stop being cute. Stop being cunning. Stop trying to outthink the opponent. Get your linemen, put them in order, and teach them to stop letting defenders past them. Teach them smashmouth football. Teach them how to block without holding. You had all preseason to do this, and you didn't get it done. Instead, you sat down everyday and played an annoying mental game with the media about the starting quarterback...who isn't even on the team anymore. In fact, in the past couple of months, you've lost two quarterbacks (three if you count Quinn's graduation). I suggest you take the two open scholarships and find a couple more offensive linemen with them. Fill in the voids. You've got talent at the other positions running out your ears. Find some linemen.

And then, while you're at it, take the linemen you have, lock them in cages and poke sticks at them. Deprive them of sleep. Feed them bloody meat. Turn them into animals because right now, a litter of kittens would put up more of a fight than your offensive line.

You say you're going to start over from square one? Good. But don't pull this "let's pretend like we're not 0-3" bullshit. Remind your team that they're 0-3. Remind them what it's like to play for Notre Dame, how they need to be proud to put on the golden helmets, how they're supposed to win one for the Gipper, not shit one for him. March around that locker room and give them the speech about what it means to play football for Notre Dame, get fired up, and look each one of your players and coaches in the eye. If any of them flinch, put them out on the street. I don't care if his last name is Zibikowski or Clausen or what. If they're going to back down from the challenge of playing football at Notre Dame, then you don't need them. Clean house and start over tomorrow.

And then go out and beat Sparty.

And above all, remember one thing: the fans turned on Willingham when he lost to Michigan, 38-0.

3 comments:

Chemgeek said...

Maybe, Charlie could encourage his team by reminding them how fun and beneficial it is to score an offensive touchdown. That would be good.

Hap said...

I wouldn't be that picky - if your defense can score touchdowns (for your team), then I probably wouldn't care if I were you. Of course, being a defense able to score usually goes hand in hand with being able to stop the other team's offense from scoring, and they haven't been so good at that. You might try endurance training for the defense - if the offense sucks that much (and apparently they do), then they need to deal with the fact that they'll be spending more time on the field then the refs.

the iNDefatigable mjenks said...

This is a very valid point, hap. At least in the first two games (haven't really wanted to look at the stats for Michigan), the average yards from scrimmage for running was showing a trend of being higher and higher as the game wore on. That pretty much points to the defense being exhausted as the game dragged on and their effectiveness dwindling. I think the only endurance training they could do at this point is marathon-running.