Okay, enough about last week and the coaching and all that. We face a very serious challenge this week in Purdue, a game which I feel will determine the fate of our season. I think the last two games have finally put this issue of Notre Dame not having talent to rest, and I think if we can find a way to win this weekend, we might just be able to run the table.

To win this weekend we are going to have to find a way to slow down Drew Brees, and I really don't know how. I am not a football coach so I am not going to pretend like I know what to do, but I think there are two ways to go about stopping this "basketball on grass" offense.

I believe it was in the Sports Illustrated season preview that I read a Big Ten coach saying the way to beat Purdue is to "keep their offense on the field . . . give them short passes, make them make 15 play drives, don't let them beat you deep, and hope they make some mistakes." I think there is some merit to this strategy. If you make a team go 15 plays to score, they are very likely to make a mistake at some point--not necessarily an interception, but a bad throw or a penalty or something that puts them in a difficult down and distance situation. This in fact may be the best strategy for the Irish to take this weekend, as I don't really think we can man up on Purdue and keep them from making big plays.

Another philosophy about Purdue is that "they will nickel and dime you to death." I also think there is merit to this solution. If you play in a rather soft zone, one of their 4 or 5 receivers is bound to find an open spot and Brees will hit him. I don't think Brees is one to make very many mistakes, so allowing him to complete short passes all day may not work. But if the Boilers are going to "nickel and dime you to death," then what do you do? Blitzing is rather ineffective against them, as Brees gets the ball off very quickly. Plus, if you blitz, that means either someone is going to be open or a receiver is going to be covered man to man by a linebacker, who is at a speed disadvantage. I am not sure that I am totally comfortable with leaving our secondary in man to man coverage vs. them either. So, basically what I am saying is that I don't have a clue how to stop them.

So what are we going to have to do to win? I think the answer is to score some points, and given our quarterback situation, I am not sure how we will do this either. We don't know anything about Godsey or any of the freshmen, and who knows, maybe they'll turn out to be great passers. The problem we face is that Purdue is going to do the same thing that Nebraska did in the second half, and that is put the "run stoppers" in and stack the line. I think in a normal situation we would be able to run the ball very effectively against Purdue or against just about any defense we face. But against an eight man front, almost no one can effectively run the ball. Basically, I think whoever the quarterback is going to be (I would bet on Godsey, but who knows) is going to have to make some plays in the passing game to force Purdue to respect it and back off on the eight man fronts.

I think we have some talented receivers and we need to get them the ball. Perhaps the best thing to do would be to launch the ball down the field a few times early and see what happens. Unless the throws are just awful, that will force Purdue to respect the passing game and we may then be able to run. Aside from throwing the ball down the field, I think we need to look at throwing it to our running backs out of the backfield. I hope all you people who said that Julius Jones had lost a step are eating crow right now, because that guy is a stud, an absolute stud. Fisher was open and dropped it once on a wheel route on Saturday, and I think this pass will be open again. We also need to get it to the tight ends, but everyone already knows that.

We are going to once again need a fantastic special team effort to have a chance in this one. We don't necessarily need touchdowns, though that would be damn nice, but good returns and good kicks will allow us to win the battle of field position, and if we do that, I think we have a chance.