Irish putting pain away and healing wounds
By ANDREW SOUKUP
Sports Writer
Two days after Notre Dame lost to Boston College 14-7 and one day after the 8-1 Irish dropped at least four spots in both major polls, the Irish watched their team tumble again, this time from third to seventh in the Bowl Championship Series rankings.
The challenge now for the Irish is responding to their first loss of the season.
If you ask the Irish, they aren't looking back on Saturday's loss — as painful as it was. Instead, they're focused on the rest of the season, an attitude Tyrone Willingham made pointedly clear to a dejected Irish locker room Saturday.
"He told us there are still options for us," Arnaz Battle said Saturday. "We can still go 11-1 and compete to be the best team in the country. That's what our goal is."
Saturday's loss all but knocked the Irish out of the national championship picture, but the Irish still have a good shot at making one of the three other BCS bowls.
And if there was any change in Willingham's demeanor after the loss, the Irish players couldn't see it.
"He took it pretty well, as well as you could," Jeff Faine said. "It's pretty rough, it's his first loss here, but he stood strong and held his head high and he encouraged us to do the same."
Notre Dame looks to rebound this week against lowly 1-7 Navy, then has an off week, and then plays 1-8 Rutgers a week before a season-ending showdown at ninth-ranked USC.
Among the problems the Irish need to address are the seven fumbles that occurred during Saturday's loss to the Eagles — three of which were recovered by Boston College.
The Irish also need to improve their offense. Despite putting up 357 yards against the Eagles — nearly double Boston College's total offensive output — the Irish are still ranked 108th out of 117 Division I-A teams in terms of average number of offensive yards per game.
Notre Dame had difficulty moving the ball in its first eight games, but the Irish rarely turned over the ball. Against the Eagles, Notre Dame dominated most offensive categories — they controlled the ball nearly eight more minutes than the Eagles and picked up 13 more first downs.
Yet what killed the Irish was the five turnovers, coupled with a 1-for-6 scoring rate when the Irish got the ball inside the red zone.
"The key is to score points to win," Willingham said. "[Boston College] did it better than we did. Therefore all the yardage really doesn't mean anything."
The Irish have a good chance to improve their offensive statistics against the Midshipmen Saturday. Navy is the nation's 105th ranked defense, and Notre Dame should have little trouble moving the ball against the Midshipmen — provided the Irish hang on to the football.
Yet Willingham said after Saturday's loss that he firmly believed the Irish only lost a football game to the Eagles, not their focus for the season.
"We really, amazingly, don't have to change our focus," he said. "That may alarm some of you. But the truth of the matter is we work on not turning the ball over everyday. We work on creating turnovers every day. So I think the plan that we have in place for our football team, the fundamental structure that we've put in place, will serve us well.
"Now what we have to do is get back to that and execute that."
All Sports Stories for Tuesday, November 5, 2002
