With all the turmoil Charlie Weis and the Notre Dame football program has faced in recent weeks, maybe a trip to Hawaii and a more relaxed approach to bowl week is the perfect formula for these guys.
It was announced Friday night that Weis needs surgery on both of his knees in the coming weeks, so why not enjoy the stay and let the team do the same? It’s been a crazy season, and Weis told his team that this trip is a reward, and it needs to be treated as such, within reason, of course.
“The No. 1 thing we’re trying to do, is we’re going there to win, but at the same time, (Weis) understands we’re all college kids, and we’re going to Hawaii, it is what it is,” said sophomore Harrison Smith, one of many Irish making their first bowl trip. “He’s being realistic about it. When he told us how the schedule was going to go, that’s probably the best approach you can have, get business done first and go ahead and enjoy where you are after. As long as we have that mentality, I think we’ll be ready for the game.”
The outline Weis gave his team on how the trip and free time will be handled is in stark contrast to the heavy-handed approach the coach used during a trip to the Fiesta Bowl after the 2005 regular season.
Curfews were early, and free time was scarce, which led to a mini mutiny within certain team circles during bowl preparations in Arizona. Team dissention may have showed in the results on the field when the Irish were beaten 34-20 by Ohio State.
That bowl trip, the first for Weis, illustrated the balancing act every coach in a bowl faces, vacation versus business trip.
“I think it’s going to be a good balance as far as getting ready for the game and enjoying ourselves out there, and that’s how we want it,” said Irish junior Sam Young. “No matter where you go, except maybe Boise, Idaho, you’re going to have distractions. It’s just about minimizing those and keeping up on football.”
Practices in Hawaii are scheduled first thing in the morning so the team can get their preparations done early, and move on to some free time, both individually and within the many team functions that come along with any bowl trip. Those functions have not yet been laid out.
“Coach Weis said we are going to just embrace the distractions that are going to be down there and just make them team events,” Smith said. “He’s giving us free time to do things. I think that will be a good thing, so we’re not sitting around in practice wishing we were out, having half a mind in practice and half a mind wondering what’s going on outside.”
With the bowl on Dec. 24, the schedule will be a little frantic for the Irish players with final exams running Monday through Friday next week from Dec. 15-19. Young said he has a final exam in the latest possible time slot on Friday, so it will be out of the classroom and off to the airport, no dawdling in between.
“It will be hectic but I think it will be good in the fact that you kind of keep the rhythm, as opposed to going home and kind of relaxing,” Young said of the quick turnaround. “You don’t have to start and stop again.”
A favorable opinion of the quick turnaround seems to be the consensus among the Irish players. Get exams over with, get to Hawaii, and avoid the long breaks that the holidays and later bowl games can bring.
“When you have a break, where you go home, it’s good to get away from football, but that often times causes people to lose focus,” said senior Pat Kuntz, another of the large majority of Irish players never to have been to Hawaii. “As long as we are still around each other, grinding it out, I feel like it is a better situation for us to player earlier rather than later.”
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