Irish ready for block party
By MIKE CONNOLLY
Sports Writer
There is only one word to describe Michigan State's punt protection in its 35-21 opening victory against Central Mich-igan: horrible.
James King tied an NCAA record with four blocked punts in a single game. On all four blocks, he used the same move to get to the punter.
"That's just unheard of," Irish linebacker Courtney Watson said. "I am sure our punt block team is just foaming at the mouth. The guy beat them on the same move every single time. I don't see why we can't do the same thing."
After blocking five punts in 2000, Shane Walton blocked a punt against Nebraska to set up Notre Dame's only touchdown. Walton is looking to get another block Saturday.
"Any time a team gets four punts blocked you are going to try to exploit that weakness," Walton said. But he also said he expected Michigan State to be better prepared this week.
"I know they had to be practicing that because special teams is one of our focuses."
Spartan coach Bobby Williams promised to prepare his punt protection better after its poor performance in the opener.
"The punt team was a big minus and unfortunately, the blocked punts overshadowed the team's overall performance," Williams said after the Central Michigan game. "The mistakes made in our punt protection are correctable."
After analyzing the film Irish head coach Bob Davie thinks the four blocks might have been the result of great plays by King than bad play by the Spartans. Nevertheless, he still plans to attack the Spartan punter.
"We're still going to go after those punts," he said. "There's no doubt about that. We'll probably go after the very first one."
And no matter how much Michigan State prepares for the Irish special teams assault, Walton still thinks Notre Dame will be better prepared,
"I don't think any team in the country invests as much in special teams as we do," he said. "We go out there everyday and practice it."
All Sports Stories for Wednesday, September 19, 2001
