Charlie Weis Presser Notes – 9/8/09

Here are some notes from Charlie Weis’s weekly Tuesday press conference.

• As noted in an earlier post on UHND, James Aldridge is out for this weekend and Robert Hughes will get the nod in his place.  Check out the article we posted earlier for more details.
• With regards to what Weis can take away from last year’s Syracuse game in terms of what Michigan DC Greg Robinson might do, Weis said that he’s going back and watching last year’s game and the 2005 Syracuse game as well as Michigan’s games to study their personnel.
• On Notre Dame’s last trip to Ann Arbor (a 38-0 loss for Notre Dame) Weis described it as going from “bad to worse” for Notre Dame.
• Weis said that Manti Te’o was one step closer to being on the field on a regular basis this week after getting his feet wet last week.  Given the athletic ability of Michigan’s running backs and a quarterbacks, I can’t imagine Weis leaving him off the field very long.
• On Jonas Gray’s ascent up the depth chart, Weis said that Gray never looked at the Notre Dame depth chart when he was getting recruited – he figured he would be good enough to play anyway.  Weis joked that even if Notre Dame still had Jerome Bettis is wouldn’t have stopped Gray and joked that Gray might have even thought he was better than Bettis.
• Weis noted that Notre Dame will be facing a much different situation at quarterback this week after facing a very experienced QB in Colin Kaepernick last week and facing a true freshman in Tate Forcier this week.  He said that it will be interesting to see how Foricer handles all of the different looks the Irish defense will give him this week.
• Speaking of Forcier, he camped with Notre Dame a couple summers ago.  Weis said he remembered him as being very athletic and that’s what he is seeing from him in his limited action thus far.
• Weis dismissed Michigan’s off the field distractions in terms of them affecting their performance since they came out and took care of business in their first game.
• According to Weis, all of the Smiths – Toryan, Harrison, Scott, and Brian – have gone out of their way to help Manti Te’o get ready for playing this season.
• Weis said he has Corwin Brown to help talk to the team about the rivalry.  “That’s one advantage of having a proud Michigan alum as your associate head coach at Notre Dame.”
• Weis said that Jimmy Clausen is more prepared in every aspect for this trip to Ann Arbor than he was in 2007 when he was making just his second career start (and his second consecutive start in front of 100,000+ fans).
• The team is treating this weekend’s game – like all away games – with a business trip mentality.  Weis said that they weren’t making it just like the pros, but that they are going to Ann Arbor to work, not for a vacation.
• There isn’t any bets between Weis and Michigan alum Tom Brady this year, but the two have traded text messages.
• Weis said that Armando Allen would be capable of putting up the kind of production that Darius Walker put up for Notre Dame from 2005-2006 if he was given all of the reps the way Walker was.  Weis said that the drop off between Walker and the rest of the running backs was so significant that they had to give him the bulk of the carries.  This isn’t the case now since the drop off between Armando and Jonas isn’t anywhere near as significant.
• Weis talked about the defense being out of position on the run stunts again Tuesday as he did on Sunday.  He mentioned that he defense was not stunting to the right gaps and it let open some big holes for the Nevada backs to run through.