by omahadomer

Let's reflect a little on the past season and try to evaluate the upcoming one. Of course, this will require an examination of both the pleasant and the painful aspects of the 2002 season.

The Gator Bowl

You know, of course, that the score was 28-6 in favor of North Carolina State. Congratulations to theWolfpack and Coach Amato. I hope that if any of their fans wander by this site that they'll take anything I say as an effort to minimize their accomplishments.

The key play in the Gator Bowl, however, was Holiday's injury. At the time Holiday went out of thegame. N.D. had outgained N.C. State 57 yards to two and had 3rd and goal on the State one-yard linewith the score 0-0. The running game had been effective to that point. N.D. had 35 yards on 10 carries and Grant was off to a nice start with 6 carries for 29 yards. Holiday, who had thrown three incompletions on N.D.'s opening drive, was three for three on the second drive, including a key first down completion to Godsey (who also left the game with an injury) and a 12-yard strike to Battle on theState two-yard line on what would be his final pass of the game.

When Holiday left the game after the fateful second down play, the Irish were forced to bring in a cold Dillingham, a certain sign that N.D. would run the ball and a run blitz stuffed Grant, forcing a field goal. For the rest of the game, N.C. State outgained N.D. 315 yards to 229 and outscored N.D. 28-3. N.D.'s rushing attack, which was off to the promising start mentioned above, floundered with 28 carries for 51 yards for the rest of the game. Grant, who (as noted above) started with 6 carries for 29 yards, had 15 carries for just 39 yards for the rest of the game. N.D.'s defense gave up three successive touchdown drives after that. Although Dillingham gave it a gritty effort, and deserves kudos for his brave play, he was 19 of 37 for 166 yards with three interceptions. Holiday threw only five interceptions in about 200 attempts for the season.

Now, one might fairly ask, what does Holiday's injury have to do with the rushing attack and the defense? First, there's the emotional aspect of the game. The Irish were clearly deflated when Holiday had to be helped off the field and the Wolfpack was clearly energized. In fact the N.C. State defender who made the hit said after the game that once he realized that Holiday was hurt he felt that he had "turned the game around." Second, Dillingham's limited experience and physical abilities constrain what can be run in the offense. For example, his relatively slight stature (he's probably in truth under six feet tall) and his modest arm strength force almost every passing play to be a rollout to the right, making credible play action a near impossibility. Given that, the defense knows almost from his first step whether the play is a pass or a run. He's also not the running threat that Holiday is. In several games defenses were forced to commit a linebacker to spy on Holiday, particularly after he burned Air Force on a 53-yard touchdown scramble. Third, the defense, sensing that it would probably take a defensive score or two to win the game, began to over run plays. Duff and Walton both tried to "jump" routes to get an interception and got burnt by double moves (often an out and up), setting up big plays for N.C. State.

Note that the same thing happened in the Michigan State game. With N.D. leading 14-3 in that game Holiday got hurt and an energized M.S.U. offense and a slightly flustered N.D. defense combined to give the Spartans two successive touchdowns. Only Dillingham-to-Battle-to-immortality saved the day.  Now perhaps, maybe even probably, N.C. State would've won the game anyway. But even with Holiday, Godsey, Lopienski, Black, Curtin and Godsey missing from the offense, the Irish got inside the N.C. State 25-yard line four times. And on defense, while Hoyte is a fine player, he is not yet the player that Watson is, particularly when it comes to pass coverage. At a minimum, had Notre Dame been able to play Holiday and even a couple of the other players for the entire game, it would've been a very competitive contest.

U.S.C.

Let's turn to another painful subject, which it this year's Trojan football team.

U.S.C.'s team this year reminded me a great deal of N.D.'s 1977 team. That Irish team had a nearly inexplicable loss early in the season (to Mississippi) but by the end of the season was rolling over opponents, including victories of 49-19 over U.S.C. and 38-10 over Texas in the Cotton Bowl. U.S.C. followed a similar course. The Trojans lost early to Kansas St. and Washington St. on the road and could well have lost to California, but then caught fire. Of course, teams don't stay hot like this forever. The 1978 edition of N.D. opened with two losses even with Montana returning at quarterback and the Trojans lose Heisman winner Palmer.

I think there's little question but that U.S.C. as it played in the second half of the season would've beaten Kansas St., Washington St. and California by three or more touchdowns. K.S.U. was very lucky to beat a weak A.S.U. team in the Holiday Bowl, W.S.U. was completely overmatched by Oklahoma in the Rose Bowl and California (on probation) finished 7-5 and didn't play in a bowl. If national champion Ohio State and U.S.C. were scheduled to play next week U.S.C. would be favored.

Consider U.S.C.'s demolition of Iowa. Iowa, in fact, was no more of a match for U.S.C. than was N.D.  Iowa, which had been giving up 60 yards per game on the ground, allowed almost 250 to U.S.C. (N.D. gave up about 180). The N.D. and the Iowa games followed very similar courses. Both managed to keep it close (and actually lead for a while) on the back of a big special teams play, but the inability to mount any serious offense doomed them, because U.S.C.'s offense as it played in the second half of the year just cannot be stopped consistently by any college team. Iowa had more yards and 4 more points than N.D., but this was mostly cosmetic as having taken the lead 38-10 with about 4 minutes to go U.S.C.'s defense played intentionally soft and Iowa went 85 yards for a consolation touchdown.

Make no mistake: Iowa is a good team. The Hawks beat Michigan 34-9 in Ann Arbor in what was a huge game for both schools and beat Penn State on the road. Iowa's only loss was the result of a second-half collapse in a rivalry game against a very hot Iowa State squad. So the fact that Iowa didn't fare any better against U.S.C. than did N.D. ought to be some small comfort.

So how did U.S.C. get so good? There were only faint signs of it last year. Carroll took over a 5-7 team and went 6-6 his first year. U.S.C. played badly at the beginning of the year and was 2-5 after losing to N.D. The Trojans rallied with 4 straight wins to finish the regular season 6-5 but then looked completely hapless losing 10-6 to a 7-4 Utah team coached by the now-fired Ron McBride. U.S.C.'s offensive coordinator Norm Chow, now hailed as an offensive genius, did not make any headway at all with the offense his first year. Consider the following statistics from 2000 (Hackett's last year), 2001 (Carroll and Chow's first year) and 2002 for U.S.C.

2000

Yards per rush: 4.1

Yards per pass: 7.1

2001

Yards per rush: 2.6

Yards per pass: 7.2

2002

Yards per rush: 3.6

Yards per pass: 8.1

Actually, Notre Dame's offensive coordinator Bill Diedrick took over a much worse situation than did Chow, but did manage to improve it on the passing side. Here are N.D.'s numbers for 2001 and 2002:

2001

Yards per rush: 3.9

Yards per pass: 5.1

2002

Yards per rush: 3.5

Yards per pass: 6.9

Some of U.S.C.'s improvement was attributable to new personnel. Clearly Williams made a difference at wide receiver and Fargas at tailback. But, for example, McCullough was a vastly more effective running the ball this year than he was before he got hurt last year. Southern California has had, moreover, some of the same offensive line travails that the Irish have faced. This year U.S.C. started a true freshman at one of the offensive line positions and did not have much depth there. One player, for example, was listed as the primary back-up at three different offensive line positions. Despite all of this, by the end of the year the Trojans had a devastating attack both by land and by air.  The biggest reason for the improvement is, I think, the explanation offered in the story run on NDNation's front page recounting a conversation with an NFL scout about the Irish. This scout noted that the U.S.C. players finally started to feel comfortable in their system. It's obvious that Palmer is a completely different player than he was last year or the year before. As an N.D. fan, I feared Palmer not one bit until this year. Now I'm elated to see him graduate.

First and Second Year Coaches

It's clear that U.S.C. made a tremendous amount of progress, particularly on offense, between Carroll's first and second years. Note also that the coach of the national champion Ohio State team Jim Tressel is in this second year. Is this something unique to those schools?  Let's consider the track records of the coaches in the B.C.S. games in their first years compared to the year before they took over.

Richt (Georgia)

Prior year: 8-4

First year: 8-4 (bowl loss)

Bowden (F.S.U.)

Prior year: 3-8

First year: 5-6

Price (W.S.U.)

Prior year: 9-3

First year: 6-5

Tressel (O.S.U.)

Prior year; 8-4

First year: 7-5 (bowl loss)

Stoops (O.U.)

Prior year: 5-6

First year: 7-5 (bowl loss)

Carroll (U.S.C.)

Prior year: 5-7

First year: 6-6 (bowl loss)

Ferentz (Iowa)

Prior year: 3-8

First year: 1-10

Coker (Miami)

Prior year: 11-1

First year: 12-0 (bowl victory and national champions)

Interestingly, these eight coaches took over programs that, on average, won 6.5 games the year before and, on average, they won 6.5 games their first years, i.e., collectively they made on positive impact on their teams' win totals.  In their second years, however, they won on average almost 10 games.  Richt won 13 games his second year, Carroll 11, Stoops 13, Tressel 14 and so on.

None of them other than Coker really made any noise in their first years, and Coker had the good fortune to take over a team that probably should've played in the national championship game in 2000 and returned a huge number of important players.

Leaving Coker aside, most of these coaches managed only to hold things steady their first year or perhaps makes some small improvement in the record. Some of them even had a slight dip in the record the first year.

Now, one might fairly ask, how does one distinguish these coaches from ones like Bob Davie who were doomed to failure? Davie, after all, won 7 games his first year and Holtz won 8 his last. First, there's the matter of the record. These coaches who were successful after their first years either improved or equaled the prior year's record or only hurt it slightly. Davie, however, took N.D. from 8-3 to 7-6, so the Irish. went from being five games over .500 to only one game over .500. Moreover, there's the matter of the season point differential. Stoops and Carroll, for instance, while making only slight improvements in the record improved the season's point differential by about 100 points. Tressel at Ohio State and Richt at Georgia hurt their point differential only slightly (fewer than 40 points). Encouragingly for N.D. fans, Willingham improved N.D.'s regular season point differential by 96 points. In general, coaches who will be successful after their first year either improved the team's point differential or kept it close to the same level in their first years.

Davie, however, cost N.D. over 200 points his first year. Ron Zook at Florida this year cost Florida over 300 points. The now-fired Bobby Williams at Michigan St. cost the Spartans almost 200 points his first year. All of these coaches were headed for disaster (or in Zook's case seem likely headed for disaster).  The fact that Willingham joins Leahy, Layden, Ara and Holtz as the only post-Rockne coaches at N.D. to improve N.D.'s point differential in the first year is another a very good sign..  The recently hired coaches, however, managed to generate impressive teams in their second, third or fourth years. Richt is now in his second year and won the Sugar Bowl and was one puzzling loss against Florida from perhaps making the Fiesta Bowl. Carroll has been discussed. Ferentz took over a very difficult situation and went 1-10, 3-8, 7-5 and then 11-2 this year with an Orange Bowl berth. Tressel, of course, won the national championship. Stoops, after his 7-5 rookie campaign capped off by a minor bowl loss won the national championship his second year and has had impressive teams in his third and fourth years, including his Rose Bowl champion team this year.

Looking at the less-recently-hired coaches, Bowden, of course, had a steady climb until he had the premier program in the 1990's and Price was eventually able to build a program that gave him two Rose Bowl berths in six years at a school that had played in only two Rose Bowls before he arrived. Neither produced an impressive record his first year.

Further, none of them came close to duplicating Willingham's 5-game improvement in his first year.Now, such big improvements in the first year do happen occasionally. Ralph Friedgen at Maryland and Urban Meyer at Bowling Green both had 5-plus game improvements their first years and have managed to continue at a high rate of success. The only N.D. coach to make a bigger improvement in the record in his first year was Ara and he, of course, was one of N.D.'s great coaches.

The point here is that fundamentally sound coaches are limited in what can be accomplished in the first year. There's essentially no opportunity to impact positively the quality of the personnel, coaches do not know all the personnel yet, the players have to learn the system and may play tentatively in it, and so on.   If they manage to make a big improvement in the record in the first year, as did Willingham, Friedgen and Meyer, that's a bonus. But the chances to make real improvements increase greatly in the second, third and fourth years.

The Future

Now, none of this guarantees that N.D. is going play next year like U.S.C., Georgia, Ohio State or Oklahoma did this year. But it certainly could happen and Willingham's first year performance is a very good sign that it will happen.

And while this has been a tough stretch for N.D. fans, there is no reason to think that N.D. has been down too long to come back. Notre Dame has had one 10-win and two 9-win seasons in the last five years. Prior to Richt's arrival, one had to look back to the period from 1992 to 2001 to find three seasons of nine or more wins at Georgia. U.S.C. from 1990 to 2001 won nine games only once (in 1995 in John Robinson's second tour); prior to Stoops's arrival at O.U. the Sooners had only one 9-win season (in 1993 under Gary Gibbs) from 1992 to 1999, and Ohio State was only 14-10 in the two years before Tressel's arrival, which was actually worse than N.D.'s 14-9 in the two years before Willingham's arrival.

Long term revival, of course, depends upon recruiting talented players who can play effectively in this system. And I'm familiar with the litany of reasons why this is supposed to be difficult to do at N.D.:  the weather, the academic demands, the transfer policy, etc. I suggest that we save these excuses for Bob Davie. Notre Dame has its own T.V. network, every game the Irish play gets national attention, freshman Maurice Stovall was on the cover of Sports Illustrated, Coach Willingham was the Sporting News Sportsman of the Year, N.D. had at the last count I saw the second-largest number of players in the N.F.L. (38, second only to F.S.U.'s 39), the academics are an attraction for many high quality recruitsand it's Notre Dame, darn it. We can get the players we need here. Heck, even someone as inept as Davie managed to put together a top 20 team.

Blind faith is not necessary to see that the Irish are on the right track. We know not the hour northe day, but Notre Dame will be back among the nation's elite.