Once again, offense drags down defense
By ANDREW SOUKUP
Associate Sports Editor
PALO ALTO, Calif.
A loud collision of flesh and metal echoed from behind the closed doors of the Notre Dame locker room. Seconds later, Tyreo Harrison stormed out of the Notre Dame locker room still wearing his uniform. Muttering and cursing, Harrison stalked off to a dark corner next to the building as linebacker coach Kirk Doll tried to console him.
"I am just sick. Everyone is pretty sick right now. I don't know what happened," he said a half-hour later after he calmed down. "[My outburst] was a lack of self-control. It was just a situation."
A situation in which a season's worth of pent-up frustration finally exploded in sheer anger. A situation where the reality of a second losing season in three years finally set in.
A situation in which the defense played outstanding and the offense played horribly.
Again.
"We're 114th in the nation in pass offense, and we looked like it tonight," Bob Davie said.
Take your pick of words to describe Notre Dame's offense.
Anemic has been used often. Ugly fits. So does pathetic.
Harrison, who led the Irish with 15 tackles, has every right to be upset. So does Anthony Weaver, who played every defensive snap with a busted elbow and finished with eight tackles.
They won't say it, but they have to be frustrated at the incompetence of the offense. After all, the offense wasted another outstanding defensive performance for the umpteenth time this year.
Stanford came into the game averaging 38.9 points a game. They scored just 17 on the Irish – and 14 of those points didn't come until the fourth quarter. The Irish defense held the Cardinal offense to 358 yards, more than 100 yards under its season average.
And while the defense was busy playing their hearts out, Carlyle Holiday was busy chucking away Notre Dame's hopes of a winning season.
Open receiver? Over his head. Easy throw? Incomplete. Shovel pass? Forget about it.
You know the offense is having a miserable night when a wide receiver throws as many passes as the quarterback completes.
"You saw it, anybody that was at the game saw it," offensive coordinator Kevin Rogers said. "The kid was not throwing the football. We had three-step drops with soft corners and he couldn't hit them."
In fact, Holiday's 1-for-16 masterpiece caused Rogers to insert Matt LoVecchio in the fourth quarter. Holiday wasn't hurt. He got benched.
"The game was in the offense's hands. I don't know if our defense could have played a better game," LoVecchio said. "All we had to do was drive down the field and kick a field goal … anything to make it easier on our defense. I was in, Carlyle was in, we just had to get some points for our defense."
They didn't.
Again.
To their credit, neither Holiday nor LoVecchio used excuses to explain their performance. No, the ball wasn't wet, they said. No, I didn't have trouble planting my feet. No, I wasn't hurt at all.
"It's one of those days that you dream and you think about, and you hope it doesn't happen to you," Holiday said. "It happened today."
Notre Dame started out fine. Through three quarters, the Irish offense produced more offensive yards than Stanford — more of a testament to Notre Dame's defense than their offense.
But as pass after pass flew into the muddy ground and Stanford brought their safeties closer and closer to the line of scrimmage, the Irish couldn't take any pressure off the rushing game. The Cardinal defense, which gave up 225 first half yards, limited Notre Dame to a mere 80 yards of offense in the second half.
And as the fourth quarter dragged on and Stanford's offense drove closer and closer to the goal line against a weary defense, everyone in Stanford Stadium knew that if the Cardinal scored, that would be the end of the game. Because Notre Dame's offense could not – and would not – rally.
Against Boston College, the final offensive drive ended in a sack. Against Tennessee, a late offensive drive ended in an interception. And against Stanford, LoVecchio pump-faked three times before throwing a pass into triple coverage for the game-clinching interception.
"The defense played well enough to win the game," Rogers said, "and we didn't give them any damn support."
Again.
Contact Andrew Soukup at asoukup@nd.edu. The opinions of this column are those of the author and are not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Sports Stories for Tuesday, November 27, 2001
