If ever there were an indictment of an offensive coaching staff, it has to be the fact that every quarterback got worse under their tutelage. Powlus, who actually had quite impressive statistics in 1996 (he broke the N.D. record for lowest percentage of interceptions in a season and averaged over 8 yards an attempt) was much less effective in 1997. Jarious Jackson was mostly good, though N.D. was 9-1 in the 1998 regular season when he played but 5-7 in 1999 (though this had more to do with defense). Battle never really got a chance due to injury and LoVecchio started off well in 2000 but by early 2001 he looked like he'd never played the position.

If we look at Holiday's passing statistics for the first 6 games in which he was firmly installed as the starter and played essentially the whole game (Pittsburgh, West Virginia, U.S.C., B.C., Tenn. and Navy) his passing statistics actually look decent. He was 53 of 91 for 587 yards for those six games. This works out to a 58.2% completion rate and 6.5 yards per attempt. He threw four interceptions and one touchdown. The interception rate (1 per 23 throws) is a little higher than desirable, but not horrible. The lack of touchdowns is easily explained by N.D.'s offensive philosophy. Last year N.D. almost never called passing plays in the opponent's red zone (and given that N.D. either punted or turned the ball over on 2/3 of its possessions last year, just getting into the red zone was a big accomplishment.) 6.5 yards per attempt is also a little low; the recipe for success is usually 7 or more. But given all of this was accomplished in Davie's and Roger's dorky offense, it isn't too bad. The quality of the opponents was also pretty reasonable. Four of these teams were bowl teams (Tenn., U.S.C., B.C. and Pitt.) and all but one (U.S.C.) won its bowl game.

In his last two games (Stanford and Purdue), however, Holiday fell apart in the passing department. He was 8 of 33 for 78 yards, and more than half the yardage (47) came from his one completion in the Stanford game. Of course, the weather conditions (particularly in the Stanford game) were not ideal for passing, but still this works out to less than a 25% completion rate and less than 2.5 yards per attempt.

Most of us more easily recall his poor performances at the end of the season, which obscures the reasonably promising start. Holiday is a long way from being a finished product. But with some coaching he may improve dramatically.

An addendum on Holiday's rushing statistics over this stretch and how they may relate to his passing production:

Here are Holiday's rushing statistics game by game through this stretch:

Pittsburgh: 19 carries, 122 yards, 6.4 per carry, 1 TD
West Virginia: 19 carries, 130 yards, 6.8 per carry, 0 TD
U.S.C.: 18 carries, 98 yards, 5.4 per carry, 1 TD
B.C.: 22 carries, 109 yards, 5.0 per carry, 0 TD
Tennessee: 12 carries, -8 yards, -0.7 per carry, 0 TD
Navy: 11 carries, 46 yards, 4.2 per carry, 0 TD
Stanford: 11 carries, 67 yards, 6.1 per carry, 0 TD
Purdue: 19 carries, 51 yards, 2.7 per carry, 0 TD

It's important to remember that in college, sacks count towards rushing statistics. (I believe that in pro football they count against passing yards.) So this may explain the negative yards against Tennessee. But it's interesting to see that starting with Tennessee, teams did a pretty good job of keeping Holiday bottled up, after he tore up the first four teams in this stretch.

There are lots of possible explanations, and some combination is probably the answer. Holiday was probably wearing down. Overall team execution, including along the offensive line, did not improve over the course of the season. Teams that faced Holiday earlier in the sequence were probably less prepared for his athleticism and he often burnt them by getting outside the tackle box and then just tucking the ball and running. Starting with Tennessee, teams figured out that he was pretty much N.D.'s only offensive threat, so they committed to stopping him, usually by having a linebacker "spy" on him -- i.e., that linebacker's primary responsibility would be to look into the backfield and watch Holiday and prevent him from scrambling for a big gain.

This "spy" defense that N.D. started to see may also explain some the drop off in passing production. Some of Holiday's best passing plays were broken plays on scrambles where he'd be running outside the tackle box and spot someone open. With a spy on him, his chances of getting a good look downfield in these situations would be greatly reduced. Essentially teams started forcing N.D. to run the dorky plays that Rogers actually called, rather than letting C.H. improvise. Hopefully with Willingham and Diedrick we'll actually have some plays that work all on their own.