Notre Dame Poised to Bounce Back
By DAVE TREACY
As disappointing as it is to accept, the only thing for the
Notre Dame football program to do after the loss to Ohio State
is to move on. Despite questions and concerns, problems and
pessimism, the Irish must treat the game as a history lesson:
something to learn from. "I would be shocked if this football
team closed shop," head coach Lou Holtz announced. "And it isn't
going to close shop. There is no way that is going to happen."
There are lots of questions that the team needs to answer.
Questions about intensity. Questions about mental errors.
Questions about coaching decisions.
"The game, you still felt in the fourth quarter we had a
chance to win," Holtz recalled. "Hindsight, I look back on
fourth down and 11 from their 26, probably should've kicked a
field goal, but at that time I thought we needed a touchdown. We
came up a yard short." "I did not really give our players as
good a chance as what they should have had."
The team wasn't sharp in pre-game warm-up drills. The opening
kickoff return was a slap in the face revealing immediate
problems on coverage; special teams coverage was a focus of last
week's practices. The inability of the offense to make changes
when faced with unexpected stunts, blitzes, and twists showed
hesitation and confusion. But these are all lessons to be
studied.
"You are concerned any time you set your goals high and you
lose them this early; yeah it is devastating, but I tell you
this... we will address that," Holtz said.
So now the plan is to regroup. The season is far from over.
The coaching staff has every intention of making positive
changes, especially on the offensive side of the ball. That
means one thing: back to the basics. Goodbye "Blarney," hello
smash-mouth.
The team will resume practice today after having the weekend
off from contact drills, and will not practice this weekend. The
key to the season may lie in how the Irish mentally and
emotionally get back on track this week.
No excuses allowed. It's time to put the pieces back
together. Holtz and his staff realize this, and the Irish head
coach displayed his usual knack for putting things in
perspective. "(Skip Holtz, Connecticut's football coach) called
me (Saturday) night and he didn't feel they played particularly
well. He got mad and he went home and my grandson is there and
he is watching a video called King Lion. He just told me one
little phrase of it that I think is applicable. "The lion is
standing there and the monkey takes a bat and hits him in the
head. The lion says why did you do that? The monkey says, it
doesn't matter, it's in the past.
"And a few minutes later the monkey took the bat and swung it
at the lion again; the lion ducked this time. The lion said, why
did you do that? The monkey said, doesn't matter, it is in the
past, but you learn from the past."
