Michigan State Preview
UHND.com - Frank Vitovitch
September 20, 2000

Notre Dame, Ind - Notre Dame is now 2-1 with two winsover top 25 teams and is an overtime loss away from being 3-0 with three wins over top 25teams which would have included an upset of Nebraska.  Special teams and defense arewhat has kept Notre Dame in all three games while the offense has been sluggish and hasfailed to produce a touchdown (outside of the one the Irish scored when they got the ballon the four after a Glenn Earl blocked punt) since the first quarter of the Nebraska game.  For Notre Dame to be 3-1 after its yearly matchup with MSU, the offense has tocome alive.

Gary Godsey will be making his second start and should bemore confident.  With a more open offense the Irish can beat the Spartans who aremissing most of their offensive weapons from '99.  Godsey  showed he could passthe ball on the final drive of the Purdue drive.  A lot of his passes early lookedshaky and sometimes were too tall for the wide receivers.  If he can have bettercontrol this week, the passing game should be able to put up some yards early.

Notre Dame's offensive bread and butter, the running gamehas been weak this year.  The Irish failed to produce 100 overall rushing yardsagainst the Boilermakers.  For Notre Dame to beat Michigan State, they must rush fora bare minimum 100 yards.  Julius Jones is an explosive running game and needs theball.  He also needs holes to run through.  Notre Dame was extremely predictablelast week and Purdue stacked the lines and shut down Notre Dame's running game.

To expect Notre Dame's offense to put up 400 yards oftotal offense and score 40+ points all of a sudden this week is very unrealistic.  Notre Dame will need its special teams and defense to come up big again this weekwhile the offense develops.  Nick Setta and Joey Hildbold will have to continue tokeep kicking the crap out of the ball for Notre Dame to win this week.

Michigan State is missing Gari Scott and Plaxico Buressfrom their '99 offense as well as Tom Burke, their starter last year.  On top of thatJeff Smoker, a true freshman, might have to start again in place of injured startingquarterback Ryan Van Dyke.

TJ Duckett is a powerhouse back with great speed.  He is very hard to stop, but Notre Dame must contain him.  If the line canstuff the Michigan State running game early and force MSU to pass, the Irish will force atrue freshman to beat them. 

This is another very pivotal game for the Irish.  Ifthey win, they will be 3-1 heading into a schedule of Stanford, Navy, West Virginia,Rutgers, Boston College, and Air Force before traveling to Southern California to battlethe Trojans.  If the Irish can beat MSU, they have a decent chance to run the tableand enter the USC game 9-1.

Notre Dame must be unpredictable this week on offense.  If they continue to run up the middle on first and second down, they willcontinually put Gary Godsey into third and long situations.  Notre Dame must utilizethe play action and use some misdirection to keep the Michigan State defense on its toes.  If they can loosen the Michigan State defense up, Julius Jones and Tony Fishercould have break out games.

The offensive line also has to step up big time.  Ifthey give Godsey enough time to pass, he can make plays.  He has got a strong arm andcan be accurate.  The line has given sub par pass protection and has failed to createmany holes.  This could also be because Notre Dame isn't passing at all on first downletting defenses stack the line.

Gary Godsey showed a lot of promise last week.  Hestood strong in the pocket and didn't let adversity get to him.  When Notre Dame'sback was up against the wall, he rallied his troops and lead them to victory!

Kevin Rogers needs to open up the playbook this week andtake some chances with Godsey.  Occasionally passing on fist down is a must thisweek.  If Notre Dame can stop TJ Duckett early, I really like Notre Dame's chances.  They never quit and have a lot of heart and confidence.  I will predict a twotouchdwon victory for the Irish 31-17.