I think the defense will continue to improve, but it played at a level last year that has been usually associated with ND national championship and major bowl teams. All the blather from the Davie apologists on ESPN about how he "left behind a great defense" is just that, blather. There was a great deal of talent there, but no Davie team EVER held the opposition to less than 3 yards per rush OR to less than 6 yards per pass. The 2002 defense did BOTH of those things: about 2.8 per rush and about 5.9 per pass. The allegedly similar defense in 2001 was at 3.5 and 6.9, figures that were just barely better than average. In fact (and I'll check this later to be sure), I believe that the last time an ND defense held the opposition to less than 3 per rush and 6 per pass was 1989.

So, I don't think that there's any reason to think that the combination of excellent defensive talent and the current staff is going to yield anything other than terrific results. Hopefully, it will be even better this year.

A lot of attention has been paid to the passing game both here and elsewhere. I am far less concerned about this portion of the offense. The passing game made remarkable strides last year, improving from 5.1 per pass in 2001 (the worst in the Division I-A) to a quite respectable 6.6 last year (7.0 when Holiday was the QB). A lot of worry has been devoted to whether Holiday can make this throw or that throw and whether he'll get his completion percentage up. For those of you hoping to tune in this year and see Holiday complete 62% of his passes, I have some advice: Don't watch the games then.

Stanford QB's running this offense never came close to those levels. Here are the completion percentages of Stanford QB's getting significant action for the last three years of Diedrick and Willingham:

2001
Fasani: 51.5%
Lewis: 55.2%

2000
Fasani: 51.7%
Lewis: 45.1%

1999
Husak: 57.1%

Holiday's 50.2% last year would've been a little on the low end, but hardly off the scale. This offense just requires too many deep throws to WR's to expect the QB to have a completion percentage like, say, Kingsbury at Texas Tech last year.

Now, that's not to say that there isn't a ways to go in the passing game. A lot could stand to be improved, including getting rid of the ball more quickly (and thus cutting down on the 3 sacks per game we suffered last year, plus uncounted hurries, batted balls and the like) and making the correct reads. But it's probably fortunate that the offense relies on deep throws. Holiday has a strong arm and seems to make those throws better, and if you think about many of the big plays last year (Michigan, FSU, the last few minutes of Navy), the key plays were on balls caught more than 20 yards from the line of scrimmage. To me, the single most impressive play of last year on offense was the ball that Holiday threw to Jenkins in the back corner of the endzone to make it 27-10 against FSU. That ball was thrown at least 30 yards and was right on the money.

But the running game, now this is a different matter. Last year's rushing attack was one of the worst in modern ND history. To a certain degree, though, this was a result of taking the QB out of the rushing equation. Rushing production by tailbacks last year was almost identical to 2001. In 2001 ND tailbacks averaged 29.4 carries per game for 124.5 yards per game and in 2002 it was 29.7 carries per game for 123.5 yards per game. The rushing numbers is 2001 look better largely because Holiday ran for 660 yards that year, but ran for only a little over 200 last year (and remember sacks are counted against rushing totals).

But the 2001 offense is hardly anything to which to aspire and Diedrick should know that running the ball has proved to be the key to success in his offense. Observe the following totals for the 4 years Diedrick was Stanford's OC:

1998 (3-8)

Points per game: 23.7
Rushing yards per game: 75.5
Yards per carry: 2.4
Passing yards per game: 320
Yards per attempt: 6.9
% rushing plays: 40.3

1999 (8-3)

Points per game: 34.8
Rushing yards per game: 154.0
Yards per carry: 4.1
Passing yards per game: 314
Yards per attempt: 9.0
% rushing plays: 51.4

2000 (5-6)

Points per game: 23.7
Rushing yards per game: 139.0
Yards per carry: 3.4
Passing yards per game: 237
Yards per attempt: 6.8
% rushing plays: 54.0

2001 (9-2)

Points per game: 37.0
Rushing yards per game: 201.0
Yards per carry: 4.4
Passing yards per game: 251.0
Yards per attempt: 8.3
% rushing plays: 60.5

Notice the tight fit between rushing prowess and winning games. In the years where Stanford was over 4 per carry, the Cardinal was 17-5 in the regular season. In years under 4 per carry, Stanford was 8-14. In fact, Stanford's 2000 offense looked on paper a lot like ND's 2002 offense. The difference in record was attributable to ND's stellar defense.

Further confirmation of the need to run the ball effectively comes from last year. To my mind, last year there were four teams that proved to physically on a par with ND: those were Michigan, FSU, USC and NC State. ND was 2-2 in those games, and look at the ND rushing totals:

v. Michigan: 50-157 (Grant 28-132) (won)
v. FSU: 32-116 (Grant 19-94) (won)
v. USC: 22-39 (Grant 10-16) (loss)
v. NC State: 38-86 (Grant 21-68) (loss)

Because ND actually had a passing game last year, the Irish didn't need to run for 250 yards to win games like those, but they sure needed to be able to run the ball reasonably well. In fact, only once to ND run the ball with any effectiveness and lose. Against BC we ran 44-122 (Grant 27-107), which should've been good enough, but the fumbles and the inability to pick up short yardage killed us in that game. (ND actually outpassed BC 235 yards to 77 in that game).

What ND needs is one more yard per carry. A couple of times per game, Grant, JJ or somebody has to make a couple of people miss and turn a 3 yard run into a 30 yard run. The OL has to move people back often enough that RPN or Nate S. running out of the FB position can get 2 yards before they get hit, not after.

I think we have the players to do it. With Grant, JJ and perhaps improvement by Wilson or emergence by Jenkins or Travis Thomas, we're not short of good TB's. We've got running threats at FB in RPN, Nate S. and perhaps even Ashley McConnell this year. I think the OL can do it, we've got the bodies and the talent to do it, and most offensive linemen prefer to run block. But the Irish, the staff and the players, they've got to want to do it. Anybody who thinks that we're going to get to the promised land without an effective running game is just dreaming.