Charlie Weis with the media Tuesday, Sept. 29 as the Irish prepare for Washington.
There was only one major change on the depth chart released by Notre Dame on Tuesday morning, but it was a notable one – and not an altogether unexpected one.
After providing consistently solid work for the past two seasons, senior punter Eric Maust has been struggling thus far in 2009, averaging less than 40 yards a kick. A pair of short punts that were returned for big gains at Purdue proved to be the final straw, and freshman Ben Turk will take over the No. 1 spot, at least for now, beginning this week.
“We’ve gone for the last several weeks with Eric,” Irish head coach Charlie Weis said on Tuesday afternoon, “and it’s been kind of close in practice, so we went with the experience. But I think the only facet of special teams that we were disappointed with in last week’s game was our punt team. Now, it’s not all Eric’s fault, but we were disappointed with the punt team, so based off of the fact that it’s been pretty even in practice between the two of them, we figured we’d give the freshman a chance.”
Turk will be the eighth player in the freshman class to see action this season.
Purple Haze
Despite Washington’s 34-14 loss at Stanford last weekend, Weis isn’t overlooking the Huskies at all. If anything, he seems to view that implosion against the Cardinal – not Washington’s upset win over USC a week earlier – as the fluke.
“They opened up with LSU, who’s a tough team, and they played them tough,” Weis recalled. “Then they go and whooped up on Idaho, then they go beat USC. Then they go out to Stanford, and as a young team often will have after having such an emotional win over USC, they had some things that didn’t happen so well.”
Needless to say, the Irish coach will be using the Huskies’ 16-13 win over the Trojans to keep his team’s eye on the ball this week.
“It’s pretty easy with players when you have an attention-getter,” he said, “and them beating USC is definitely an attention-getter.”
Washington’s primary weapon is still quarterback Jake Locker, who had missed last year’s game against Notre Dame with an injury. Locker has completed 58.1 percent of his passes this season for 1,002 yards and six touchdowns, while still providing a threat on the ground (74 yards rushing and two scores through four games).
“He’s settled in nicely into the old USC system that they have right now,” Weis said, “and I think he’s a heck of a player.”
The “old USC system” is a reference to first-year Washington coach Steve Sarkisian, who was the Trojans’ offensive coordinator the past two seasons. USC’s old defensive coordinator, Nick Holt, is serving in the same capacity this year with the Huskies.
Given the Trojans’ recent run of success, it stands to reason that Sarkisian would implement a lot of the same packages at his new job.
“He’s not going there to be USC North,” Weis said of Sarkisian, “but there are things that they did…that they had great success with, so why would you change that? You take the things you had great success with, and then you apply it to the players you currently have. They’ll definitely branch off like everyone else does, and I think that there’s a bright future there.”
All Systems Go
Weis didn’t waste a lot of time with a nuanced injury report on Tuesday – and apparently, there was no need to. Junior quarterback Jimmy Clausen and junior tailback Armando Allen were both expected to be fully available during Tuesday’s practice.
“Jimmy’s ready to go today,” Weis stated. “Jimmy’s back, Armando’s back. We’re ready to go.”
With Allen expected back in the mix, the running backs who carried the load in the Purdue game – junior Robert Hughes, sophomore Jonas Gray and freshman Theo Riddick – will have to battle for the leftover reps again.
“The one thing he’s going to have to fight is Armando’s back and going,” Weis said of Hughes, “but I don’t think Armando’s going to be able to play every play, so he’s really now fighting with Jonas to get the rest of those reps. Based off of last week’s performance, he’s earned the right to fight for those reps.”
No More Drama, Please
When asked if he would almost prefer to see his team win some close games instead of just rolling past all of its opponents, Weis was pretty clear about preferring the easy route.
“I’d rather be on that program,” he said with a grin.
At the same time, the coach acknowledged that there are positives to be taken from the heart-stopper games as well.
“You gain something from every game you play,” Weis explained. “What you didn’t gain by putting Purdue away when you’re up 17-7, what you lost there by doing that, you gained with having to run a two-minute drive at the end of the game to win a game. So there’s always something lost and something gained.
“We had to fight right to the end of the game, but now we’re starting to win those games. So that’s one thing now, the next time this team’s on the road in a close game, we don’t have to question whether or not we’re going to win…we already have that experience to fall back on. And I think that’s part of turning the corner. I think it was a critical lesson learned.”
If You Can’t Beat ’Em… Randy Hart served as the defensive line coach at Washington for two decades before coming to Notre Dame in the same capacity.
Hart returns to Washington this weekend where he coached for 21 seasons before joining the Irish staff.
Weis said that while graduate assistant Bryant Young may end up being hired as a full-time coach someday, he wanted to guard against the possibility that Young might not be too fond of coaching once he got into it – so having an old hand to break in the new guy was critical, and it just so happened that Hart became available at the right time.
“I wanted to go find a veteran defensive line coach that was a fundamental technique guy with a lot of energy,” Weis said, “and if you look under Webster’s in the dictionary, I think that would come back ‘Randy Hart.’ He’s exactly what I was looking for. I couldn’t have asked for anything more.
“I’ve never been around a guy any more energetic than this guy. Sign me up to have his energy at any time the rest of my life – and he’s eight years older than me.”
The Elephant In The Room
With Clausen playing so well this season, it was only a matter of time before questions about a possible early departure to the NFL came up. On Tuesday, Weis faced a couple of those questions, and handled them deftly.
“In Jimmy’s case, if you move yourself up so high in the draft that it’s an offer you can’t refuse, then you have to seriously consider it,” he said. “But I think that you never want to walk away from a Notre Dame education, to complete a Notre Dame education at that time, unless that were presented to you.
“I’d love to have Jimmy here for this year and next year, but if he ends up playing so well this year that it warrants him making that decision, that probably would be a good thing for the success of our football team this year.”
Safety Dance
Weis was asked whether he is concerned about the disparity between the number of tackles being made by senior safety Kyle McCarthy and by the Irish linebackers. The level of concern, the coach said, depends greatly upon the location of McCarthy’s tackles.
“One of the answers is where they attack you,” Weis explained. “If they attack you to the edge and he’s the down safety to where they’re attacking you, you’d hope that’s where they’re making plays. The bigger problem is when he’s making tackles when they’re inside plays.”
Overall, Weis didn’t seem too alarmed with the defensive performance – he’s seen the arrow turn upward the past two weeks.
“I think the linebackers are starting to make more plays, and the defensive linemen are starting to make more plays,” he said, “and hopefully as this thing grows, we’re moving this in the right direction.”
More Manti
With his first career sack coming at the end of the Purdue win, freshman Manti Te’o has been hearing more calls for increased playing time from Irish fans. Weis repeated his assertion from Sunday evening that Te’o will start seeing more time as the year goes on.
“I’m not going to go over the game plan to tell you how we’re going to play him more, but he will play more,” Weis said. “As he’s gone through this learning process, I think he’s getting close to really getting the trust of the defensive coaches to be able to put him on the field more.”
Crumbs On The Table…
• Weis was asked why he was so upset on the play where a Purdue player was whistled for a late hit at the end of a Boilermaker kickoff return. As it turns out, it was something at the other end of the field that caught the coach’s attention.
“I thought that they should have thrown the guy out of the game for hitting the kicker behind the play,” Weis stated. “(Freshman kicker Nick Tausch) was 20 yards behind the play. He got annihilated.”
• A question or two resurfaced about Weis’ definition of “commitment” on the recruiting trail, and how he would handle a committed player taking other visits. The inquiries were an obvious reference to 2010 defensive end verbal Chris Martin, and the Irish coach didn’t miss it.
“I know the person in particular you’re getting at,” Weis said. “I’ll just say the communication between us has been very good. Let’s just leave it at that.”
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