Berry, Irish Defense Lift It Up Against Huskies

By Heather Cocks

Bert Berry

Among the many things lacking in Notre Dame's 29-16 loss to Ohio State were a dominating defensive front seven and a consistently loud and enthusiastic crowd.

Rush linebacker Bert Berry and the rest of the Irish defense made sure both were plenty present in Saturday's 54-20 thrashing of the Washington Huskies. In fact, they "raised it to another level".

The Irish defensive front which had been manhandled at times by Orlando Pace and Co. two weeks ago did a little manhandling of their own Saturday. And they did it early and often.

Berry led the Irish onslaught with three sacks, but it wasn't just his play that set the tone for the day. On numerous occasions after a key stop, the senior sack specialist would -- with palms facing up as if he was lifting something to the sky -- gesture to the crowd to raise it up. "It's just a Texas thing," Berry explained regarding the motion. "It's just to get the crowd going and excited."

It couldn't have worked more perfectly, as a majority of the student section began to join Berry's symbolic display as the game wore on. "I didn't realize the crowd would pick it up like they did," Berry said. "They helped."

While the actual derivation of the gesture may be related to African-American organizations who view it as raising or lifting off the yoke of discrimination, it's symbolic application to the 1996 Notre Dame football team is simply to raise the pressure on the defense to a new level.

"Defensively, we played an outstanding game," head coach Lou Holtz said. "I was surprised our defense did as good of a job as they did."

But the front seven regaining their form of dominance should really come as no surpise. "We wanted to make a statement," said Berry. "This is the team we're used to seeing."

"The game is won or lost at the line of scrimmage and they did a great job of controlling that line of scrimmage," Husky coach Jim Lambright said. "Brock Huard was knocked a little silly and did not know where he was," Lambright revealed.

"They took things away from us," Lambright admitted. "We couldn't establish anything at the line of scrimmage."