:: Notre Dame Football ::
Notre Dame takes on Michigan State
Notre Dame showing flashes of brilliance, looking to take game-day results over the top
Sept. 18, 2009
In a game featuring two quarterbacks ranked in the top-10 nationally in passing efficiency, Notre Dame welcomes Michigan State to the House that Rockne Built, Saturday, Sept. 19, 2009, at 3:30 ET on NBC. The match-up is one of the longest series for Notre Dame Football, with the two teams playing for the 73rd time since their first game in 1897, a rain-soaked Notre Dame home victory.
In the week leading up to the game, Notre Dame Head Coach Charlie Weis had high praise for his opponent and the value both schools place on the series:
COACH WEIS: Well, I think the two teams like playing each other. We like playing Michigan State and they obviously like playing us, too. We have a lot of respect for their team and we know they are a tough, hard nosed team and know they always have been and always will be.
If you follow the lead of their head coach who I think is a pretty darned good head coach; I think you know one thing when you play Michigan State, they are going to show up. You never have to worry about whether they are going to show up or not. They are always going to be there. And we'll be there, too.
Notre Dame Head Coach Charlie Weis Press Conference,
Sept. 15, 2009 (click here for full transcript)
The Irish will need to sustain and build upon what was, at many times, outstanding play against Michigan, repair a swarming defense with patches of vulnerability on the ground up the middle, and deliver a knock-out punch to a solid but reloading Michigan State program reeling from a wild upset loss to Central Michigan.
Notre Dame played hard and showed a lot of flashes of brilliance in an intense, high-flying game against Michigan that the record books will tally as a 38-34 loss. It is possible, if not likely, that on the field Notre Dame actually did win, but not well enough to overcome at times-baffling road-game officiating and the loss of the nation's top receiver late in the game to what appeared to be a dangerous, possibly tortious stadium faulty-design hazard.
Against the Spartans there are enormous institutional memory issues at stake, with Michigan State being the only team to ever win six games in a row at Notre Dame Stadium, stretching back across three head coaching tenures. The last Irish home win in the series was under Lou Holtz in Notre Dame's last de facto national championship season in 1993.
At the same time, during Notre Dame Head Coach Charlie Weis's second year, a furious Notre Dame comeback in the rain in East Lansing prompted a season-long skid and coaching change for Michigan State, resulting in the hiring of current Spartan Head Coach Mark Dantonio. Michigan State reputedly was nearly traumatized by that loss, providing added motivation when they blew out Notre Dame in Weis's 3-9 season, the season-long balloon payment for the Bob Davie-Tyrone Willingham downturn that had decimated Notre Dame's talent levels.
Michigan State currently is reloading somewhat, including at skilled positions, but is a solid program with high talent level, under a seemingly bread-and-butter old-time coach. The Spartans are well-coached and play hard, have something to prove, and believe they can play well against the Irish, with recent history bearing them out.
Notre Dame Football, Michigan State Football Links
:: Notre Dame vs. Michigan State short game notes (html)
:: Notre Dame vs. Michigan State extended game notes (PDF)
:: Notre Dame Football official site
:: Notre Dame 2009 Media Guide
:: Notre Dame statistical rankings from the NCAA database
:: Michigan State Football Home Page
:: Michigan State statistical rankings from the NCAA database
:: Michigan State Depth Chart against Notre Dame
Fighting Back
Notre Dame comes off a wild game in Ann Arbor featuring nearly 1000 yards in combined offense, with all-purpose running taking the yardage total over 1200 yards. The Notre Dame-Michigan game will go down in the record books as a 38-34 loss, while on the field the Irish probably actually won. In any event, Notre Dame did not play well enough to overcome somewhat shadowy calls from the officials, including some that altered the outcome of the game, or the loss of the nation's leading wide receiver late in the game with a gashed knee requiring 15 stitches, solely due to what appeared to be an arguably bizarre Michigan Stadium design hazard.
Whether Michigan is this year's North Carolina or suddenly the Southern Cal of the Big Ten/11 is beside the point, since in either case the key for Notre Dame, as with last year's North Carolina aftermath, is how Notre Dame responds heading forward.
A Fighting Irish offense firing on all cylinders and ranked among the top-10 passing teams in the country, top-20 for overall offense, and a blitz-happy Jon Tenuta/Corwin Brown-coached Notre Dame defense that is swarming, intense, and nevertheless periodically vulnerable to gashing runs up the middle, welcome a Spartan team smarting from a 29-27 deja vu loss to their old nemesis from the 1990's, the Central Michigan Chippewas. To be fair, the Spartan's opponent are actually a fairly solid MAC team, a bowl team in 2008 that finished 8-5 and lost a close Motor City Bowl to Howard Schnellenberger's Florida Atlantic from the Sun Belt Conference.
Notre Dame on Offense: Big Passing, Power Running
Against Michigan State, as was the case heading into the Michigan game, Notre Dame on paper might be expected to emphasize the pass against a defense presumably stout against the run. But, as against Michigan, a now-strong Notre Dame running attack, with a veteran, mammoth, revitalized offensive line, probably also will show some power running to complement one of the nation's more potent passing games.
Notre Dame has a top-20 offense overall, averaging 500 yards per game, 334 through the air and a now highly respectable 166 on the ground. The Irish have a top-10 passing offense with junior quarterback Jimmy Clausen emerging as one of the best quarterbacks in America and deserving early Heisman consideration.
Jimmy Clausen national rankings:
:: #3 passing efficiency, 196.31
:: #4 points responsible for, 21 points per game
:: #8 passing yards per game, 325 yards per game
:: #11 individual total offense, 326 yards per game
Against a Michigan team that might have the potential to win the Big Ten/11 and contend for a BCS bowl bid, if not the broader national title mix, Clausen was 25 of 42 for 336 yards and 3 touchdowns, with no interceptions. The numbers would have been bigger if not for the officiating.
(The numbers would have been bigger had not the Big Ten/11 officiating crew not wrongfully called back a long touchdown off a screen pass to sophomore halfback speedster Armando Allen. The play was called a touchdown on the field, only to have booth review declare Allen out-of-bounds during his run. Not only did the video replay not meet the NCAA rules standard of providing a definitive basis to overturn the on-field call, the video replay definitively sustained the on-field call, clearly showing some green turf between the edge of Allen's shoe and the sideline. WNDU would later report that the Big East office of officials, reviewing the play, confirmed what was obvious, that there was no basis for what the booth official did. That one bad call, by itself, did indeed alter the outcome of the game, in addition to Notre Dame's passing statistics.
As an aside, the Big Ten/11 head of officials apparently is no longer in the practice of publicly declaring bad calls to have been bad, as has been done in the past. But to their credit, the Big Ten/11 did take what action it can still take on the game, after reviewing another incidenti, one involving thuggish unsportsmanlike behavior, and suspending a Michigan linebacker for one game for punching a Notre Dame offensive lineman.)
In two games, in the official record books, Clausen has seven touchdown passes to zero interceptions.
Notre Dame's receiving corps is one of the premier units in the country, paced by sophomore wide receiver Michael Floyd, junior wide receiver Golden Tate, and sophomore tight end Kyle Rudolph, all three deep threats to varying degrees. They are joined by solid wide-outs Duval Kamara and Robbie Parris, among others.
Weis also already has played freshman speedster Shaquelle Evans, who looked slightly tentative against Michigan when thrown into the teeth of an intense game late after Floyd's injury. However, Weis reportedly is intrigued by getting multiple speedsters on the field at once, and showed confidence in true freshman Evans just by playing him. If Evans can play with enough confidence to showcase his speed, and quick attentiveness to Clausen's timing, it might be even more difficult for defenders to account for all Notre Dame receiving threats if he is part of a four-receiver set with Floyd, Tate, and Rudolph, or a five-receiver set including Kamara or Parris.
Michael Floyd, despite being injured by Michigan Stadium having a hard, wide surface shockingly close to the playing field, still is one of the top receivers in the country statistically.
Michael Floyd national rankings:
:: #1 yards per catch, 29.1
:: #1 (tie) receiving touchdowns, 4
:: #2 passing yards per game, 160.0
:: #10 scoring, 12 points per game
Against Michigan, Floyd had 9 catches for 115 yards and two touchdowns, but was knocked out of the game late with the Michigan Stadium-induced gash to the knee requiring 15 stitches.
Weis has said Floyd will be ready to go against Michigan State, and in fact had been ready to play, stitches and all, if Notre Dame had gone into overtime against Michigan.
Golden Tate, also a top receiver in his own right, led receiving yardage against the Wolverines, with 7 catches for 131 yards and a touchdown, including Notre Dame's game-high 37-yard catch.
Tate had an uncharacteristic long-ball drop against Michigan, but also was denied what could have been another long ball catch, to put the game away and secure a Notre Dame win, when he was interfered with on Notre Dame's final drive. In one of multiple shaky calls or non-calls by the Big Ten/11 officials that helped alter the game's outcome, it appeared the Michigan defender was in sustained solid contact with Tate, with his forearm, if not, at times, also part of his torso, for the latter part of Tate's route.
For its part, while Michigan State was stingy against the run against Central Michigan, giving up only 66 yards on 29 rushes, 2.3 yards per carry, the Spartans also gave up 352 yards on 34 of 47 passing by the Chippewas, a 72% completion rate, including three touchdowns against only one interception.
So unless Michigan State somehow tightens up against the pass, one can expect Clausen and the Irish to have a field day through the air, strengthening Clausen's claim to a Heisman candidacy.
At the same time, however, recall that Michigan had appeared to be stronger against the run heading the Notre Dame game, raising expectations for Notre Dame to emphasize passing last week. But then Notre Dame still rushed for a robust 154 yards on 30 carries, a strong 5.1 yards per carry, including halfback Allen ripping off a startling 139 yards on just 20 carries, at 6.6 yards per carry.
It turned out that the mammoth Notre Dame offensive line out-manned a smaller Michigan defensive front.
As an aside, the bad officiating in the Michigan game also was characterized by some bad holding calls against Notre Dame senior offensive lineman Sam Young. On one of them, Young pancaked a Michigan defender and was called for holding. The replay appeared to show no instances of Young grasping with his hands or hooking with his arms. Instead, the only thing unusual about the play was a Big Ten/11 defensive lineman getting flattened into the turf like a ragdoll.
In another play, the officials failed to throw a flag when, while a Michigan defender was trying to grapple with Young, Young's helmet got ripped off. Young responded by continuing to block, bare-headed with a look of righteous fury on his face, driving the startled Michigan defensive lineman backwards another five yards, driving him into the end zone in fact, and then standing there holding court not unlike an enraged Tyrannosaurus.
This week against Michigan State's defensive front, it appears Notre Dame's offensive line will once again have a size and height advantage. Depending on the match-ups, Notre Dame could have an advantage of roughly 20 to 60 pounds or more per man, and a height advantage of several inches.
One factor that might be hard to pinpoint, however, is just how big Young is. When Young came in as a freshman, he was around 6-8, 310. As a sophomore he had an injury, not discussed publicly until after the season, and he dropped to around 6-8, 290. The following spring, after recovering and engaging in a big weight training campaign, Young was reported to have gone up to around 6-8, 340, only to be listed at around 6-8, 330 for his junior season. The thing is, at 6-8, 330, seeing him live Young did not actually even look especially stocky, but more like an overly tall tight-end. He looked as if, if he were as stocky as, for example Trevor Robinson, who looked so built up he was like a tick about to burst, Young might be able to carry 360 or 380.
And this year, Young looks heftier than last year. This might lead one to speculate whether, despite being listed at 6-8, 320, Young might actually be around an NFL-supersized 6-8, 350 or 360.
For his part, senior left guard Chris Stewart presumably really is 6-5, 330 or perhaps a bit more.
Notre Dame's fullback-sized junior halfback Robert Hughes apparently will continue playing fullback, and is indeed listed on the weekly depth chart at fullback. Senior halfback-turned fullback James Aldridge, injured against Nevada, continues to be left off of Notre Dame's weekly depth chart.
So expect to see Notre Dame have the potential to dominate both in the air and on the ground against the Spartans. But the Irish will have to bring their best game, and build on the high level of play against Michigan, not wallow in the on-paper loss, and be prepared to answer Michigan State's hard-playing style and self-confidence.
Notre Dame on Defense
Michigan State sophomore quarterback Kirk Cousins joins Jimmy Clausen among the nation's top-10 quarterbacks in passing efficiency, but Michigan State might still play two quarterbacks, with the second being another sophomore, Keith Nichol, a transfer from Oklahoma. And while Cousins has a high efficiency rating, neither quarterback was overly prolific with yardage production against Central Michigan.
Against the Chippewas, Michigan State threw for 215 yards and rushed for 101 yards. Cousins was 13 of 18 for 164 yards and a touchdown with no interceptions, while Nichol was 3 of 8 for 51 yards, another touchdown, and no interceptions.
The Spartans had to replace multiple key skilled position players, and their starting tailback is sophomore/"redshirt freshman" Caulton Ray. Ray is only 5-9, but 195 pounds, so we will have to see if that makes him any harder to spot and tougher to hit with that frame, especially for a Notre Dame linebacker corps trying to fly into position and stop some of those gashing runs up the middle that turned up against Nevada and Michigan.
Against Central Michigan, Ray had 16 carries for 53 yards and a touchdown, with 3.2 average yards per carry. The Spartans as a whole had 30 rushes for the above-mentioned 101 net yards, at 3.4 yards per carry. Michigan State only gave up one sack.
Michigan State's offensive line, surprisingly for a Big Ten/11 team, is not all that huge, with the right side of the line only listed at 284 and 294, while the center and the left side of the line is between 300 and 310.
Notre Dame reportedly is looking forward to playing an opponent with more of a conventional offense, after opening against Nevada's Pistol Offense, which the Irish shut-out, and then giving 31 points to Michigan's Rodriguez spread offense (recall that Michigan's other touchdown was on special teams).
Against Michigan, Notre Dame gave up a moderate amount of passing yardage, 240, and 190 yards on the groud, the at 5 yards per carry.
On those instances against either Nevada or Michigan where Notre Dame gave up a strong run up the middle, it appeared that the Irish were not out-muscled, or necessarily out-hustled, but that they were not necessarily in perfect position to shut down the run immediately. In some cases, there were isolated missed tackles. Closer to the goal line, concentrating more on packing the line, Notre Dame does appear fairly stout.
At the same time, one troublesome moment against Michigan was when Michigan was able to create a hole, the linebackers were out of position perhaps due to however the play had been dialed up, and an Irish safety proved unable to run down the Michigan quarterback from behind.
At the same time, it may well turn out that Michigan is a BCS-bowl contender, or a contender for the broader national title mix.
But one looming question is how Notre Dame's stalwart veteran defensive play-caller Jon Tenuta balances the intensity and complex of its defensive attack, including the blitz, with guarding against leaving any gaps up the middle. The mix of speed on the field is another question, but truthfully Notre Dame does now have fairly good team speed on defense.
Another interesting question will be the extent which freshman linebacker Manti Te'o develops in the rotation. Te'o appears to have a lot of quickness, fluidity, and instinct for the ball, as do the more veteran linebackers he backs up.
Special Teams
Michigan State is the #4 net punting team in the nation, averaging more 48.9 yards per punt, and 43.9 yards for net punting yardage.
Ironically, at this year's Michigan State game, Notre Dame will be honoring 1987 Heisman Trophy Winner Tim Brown, who returned back-to-back punts for touchdowns against Michigan State during his Heisman run.
Notre Dame uncharacteristically gave up a kick-off for a touchdown against Michigan, and has gone from being #1 in the country in kick-off coverage last year to #96. When Michigan's return man was able to clear a line of blocking and cut inside, the freshman kicker, whose job it usually is to play safety on kick-offs, no longer had the return man between him in the sideline, to take an angle or shove him out.
Most kickers would not be able to run down from behind, in the open field, the kick returner from a major program.
Former Notre Dame Head Coach Lou Holtz later commented that his practice was to have three men playing safety on kick-offs, not one.
Weis commented, separately, how two other tacklers got slightly out of position on the return.
One speculates that perhaps Notre Dame, with its recent tradition of kick-off coverage excellence, might be gambling a bit, sending more manpower further downfield to try to nail that short return, rather than risk giving up a little more yardage by having some speedy tacklers hang back to help play safety. If the strategy works, Notre Dame might accumulative field position advantages, but against Michigan giving up the long one cost the game (i.e., along with some other plays, the officiating, and the injury to Floyd caused by the stadiums apparently hazardous design). On later kick-offs against Michigan, the Irish did clamp down like usual, but by then the horse was already out of the barn on the scoreboard.
Interestingly enough, when returning kick-offs, Notre Dame itself is among the top-10 nationally. And against Michigan, senior wide receiver Barry Gallup, Jr., showed tremendous flash with a 52-yard return, passing up freshman speedster Theo Riddick on the weekly depth chart.
Gallup, who had been a prime recruit at wide receiver out of Massachusetts, and the son of one of Boston College's all-time legends, apparently is a great athlete and a great football, in and out of the depth chart, who somehow has never stepped up and gotten on the field as much, or been as spectacular as some of Notre Dame's other receivers. Weis apparenlty has moved him around a bit to try to find ways to get him on the hield, even listing him at halfback. Against Michigan, Gallup was put in as a return man, in part, to provide level-headed wise counsel to freshman Theo Riddick, including cautioning Riddick to settle down and take the touch-back on an early kick-back rather than run it out. But then Gallup himself turned out to be the burner on kick returns. So let's see what he does heading forward.
Notre Dame's freshman kicker Nick Tausch missed a 28-yard field goal kicking from an angle, but also looked good maing a 34-yarder, and so is rapidly gaining seasoning as a starter.
One key in the future might be the extent to which Notre Dame actually deliberately sets up field goals, such as by running a play designed to get the ball positioned closer to the middle of the field. In addition, on short field goals with tough angles, it is possible to deliberately take a delay of game penalty to move the ball back five yards to soften the angle.
Weis, naturally, presumably is playing for touch-downs, and if Tausch is good enough he needs to be able to make the tough angles. But at the same time, entire games have been won or lost by setting up that short field goal properly in a close, grind-it-out contest.
Notre Dame's punting, at around 40 yards per punt, is respectable, but we have seen senior Eric Maust do a bit more in the past. The average is still solid, and Weis has said he values Maust's level-headed experience taking those long snaps and getting the punt off, and properly placed. Maust's back-up is a freshman already adapting to being the starting kicker.
Insitutional Memory: Notre Dame vs. Michigan State
Both teams face absolutely huge institutional memory issues across the board, with Notre Dame addressing a baffling road winning streak by the Spartans in Notre Dame Stadium dating back across three Notre Dame head coaching tenures to the late-1990's. Michigan State is the only team to win six times in a row at Notre Dame, and the Spartans have won 9 of the last 12 meetings between the schools.
Notre Dame has not beaten Michigan State at Notre Dame Stadium since 1993, also the last time Notre Dame was de facto national champion (the Irish finished behind Florida State that year in the then-two leading polls, but actually beat Florida State late in the season).
The Michigan State streak at Notre Dame Stadium includes an OT victory by the Spartans in Charlie Weis's first year, a week after Notre Dame had beaten a top-5 Michigan team in Ann Arbor.
In Charlie Weis's second year, Michigan State, in turn, saw its previous coaching tenure essentially collapse after Notre Dame staged a furious, multiple-touchdown late rally in the rain in East Lansing for a fourth-quarter comeback win by the Irish. After that game, a previously strong Michigan State team went into a complete nose-dive, culminating in a losing season and a head coaching change.
Last week, a fairly solid Mark Dantonio Michigan State program got a true "blast from the past," losing a close one to the Spartans' old nemesis from the early 1990's, the Central Michigan Chippewas. (The Chippewas beat the Spartans twice in the 1990's.) To be fair, the MAC is a solid conference, and last year's Central Michigan ball club was a bowl team that beat Indiana, almost beat Purdue, and finished 8-5, losing a close Motor City Bowl to Howard Schnellenberger's Florida Atlantic of the Sun Belt Conference.
Saturday's meeting between Notre Dame and Michigan State will be the 73rd time the two schools have played, with Notre Dame leading the series 44-27-1. So Michigan State has quietly turned out to be one of Notre Dame's leading recurring rivals historically, with the Irish playing the Spartans more than any other opponent except Navy, Southern Cal, and Purdue.
The first meeting between the schools was another game in the rain, in 1897, which Notre Dame won 48-6 at Notre Dame, capping off a 4-1-1 season in Coach Frank E. Hering's second season.
That one tie in the Notre Dame Michigan State series, in 1966, might have been the most memorable game between the two teams. It was a #1 vs. #2 match-up that finished 10-10. Notre Dame, the road team, retained its #1 ranking and, to the chagrine of Alabama fans, was named national champion. To be fair, Notre Dame hung onto to the tie in East Lansing despite losing key players to injuries, including quarterback Terry Hanratty. And Notre Dame followed up by ratifying its #1 ranking with by then blowing out a top-10 Southern Cal team.
Key Words: Notre Dame Football, Fighting Irish, Jimmy Clausen, Michael Floyd, Golden Tate, Charlie Weis, Michigan State Football, Michigan State Spartans, Mark Dantonio, College Football, Quarterbacks
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