Sept. 10, 2001
The Notre Dame football team gathered on the practice field for the first time since the season opening loss to Nebraska.
Irish head coach Bob Davie stated that no major changes were made to the line-up.
“What we did today was try to eliminate some mistakes,” Davie said. “We also spent today trying to identify mistakes as well. This week we are going to get the game plan in as early as we can.”
The Purdue game will be the first game that the Irish will only have one week to prepare for. Davie reports that the team will have to adjust to that.
“We are back to preparing in just one week,” Davie said. “The way our execution was on Saturday, it is really important that we get the game plan in early. This way we can be as efficient as we can be.”
LAST 15 MINUTES
Davie took a new approach to the last 15 minutes of practice. He wanted to take the final minutes to see exactly how the Irish look.
“Today we took the last 15 minutes of practices . . .to see where we are on Monday,” Davie said.
Irish coaches watched to see what the team felt comfortable with and were doing well. It provided the team and coaches a chance to workout some of the communication problems.
BRIGHT SPOT
If one bright spot can come from the tough loss to Nebraska, Davie believes that the Irish mistakes can be fixed.
“You can’t get this game back,” Davie said. “On the same hand, it is kind of encouraging because there is not a problem that we don’t think we can eliminate, especially if coaches do a great job coaching and the players believe in it.”
The Coach reminded his team that while they can’t take back the last game, they still have 10 more Saturdays to play.