Oct. 20, 2007
COACH Charlie Weis
COACH WEIS: Before we get to the serious stuff, did you see how quick I popped up? You guys didn’t see me get run over on the special teams play? You’re going to have some fun with this one, this is brutal. I got run over on a special teams play, the next thing I know my head was hitting against the ground. So go back and have some fun at my expense tomorrow. Now that I’ve got the comedy out of the way, let’s get down to business.
Q. It was a light week of practice. You said you had reached the point of diminishing returns. Do you second guess that now?
COACH WEIS: No, because for the first quarter of the game, the game was going the way I wanted the game to be going. Well, I can’t say that. Not trying to score, but I thought this was going to be a ball control game. Hey, look, you guys have been talking for three years; would you ever defer I defer because I thought this game was going to be a defensive game, and I thought our defense was going to be able to play fairly stout against them. I know that defense is the strength of their team and they’re darned good, and I just thought that was the way the game was going to go. Really the game starts to swing a little bit on a crummy punt. A crummy punt, the ball hits up in the air, they recover the ball at the 10 yard line and the floodgates open from there.
Q. Do you take anything positive out of this, or are you at the stage of the season when the last two and a half quarters go like that can you take anything
COACH WEIS: No. As a matter of fact, there weren’t a lot of positives that came out of there, which was basically what I said. Probably the best thing for this team is they don’t play this week. That’s probably the best thing for this team because they’ll practice through Wednesday and they’ll get a weekend away from here, and we’ll get an extra day of practice the week of the Navy game. Of course we’ll start on them on Monday. But they’ll get an extra day of practice the week of the Navy game, and it gives the coaching staff and the players time to regroup after that. I mean, before you sit there, and I’ll gladly take the hits for our program, but USC is a good football team, they’re well coached, they have good players that played well today, and my hats off to them because you see where they are and you see where we are, and we’re at different ends of the spectrum at this point right there. They are where we want to be, and that’s what we’re going to shoot for and that’s what we’re going to drive for until we get to that point. And I will work till the ends of the earth until that ends up happening.
Q. After the game you had your arm around Jimmy Clausen. Could you share that conversation?
COACH WEIS: Yeah, I explained to him how much easier it is to sit there and see how much the game slows down when you’re not in the center, and he said that he couldn’t believe the difference because he’s been playing every snap his whole life. Since he was a little kid he’s got every snap, and this is the first time he’s got to be able to sit back and watch the offensive formation come out of the huddle because he already knows the play, instead of having to look at everything offensively, being able to look at the defense and watch them stem into a diamond or watch them rotate the coverage from two to blitz zone three. There’s a lot of things when you’re standing on the sideline and you’re not in the center the game slows down tremendously. And what I said to him is if you ever want to be a good quarterback, how much it slows down when you’re on the sideline, that’s how slow it’s got to be when you’re playing because that’s what the great quarterbacks do. They see everything happening before it happens, and the game plays for them it’s a nice slow pace rather than a fast pace.
Q. Could you talk about Evan’s play today? It looked like it was a pretty quick pace for him.
COACH WEIS: Yeah, we tried to throw some shots down the field. He could only play about half his passes. He was under duress, sometimes we were gap protecting, which should have given us a better shot. There was a couple times we just got beat one on one and it wasn’t man protection because we were gapping everything. So I was a little disappointed with that. I was disappointed early on one play because we had Carlson running wide open down the middle of the field but the kid never had an opportunity on the play. I think when he had an opportunity to step and throw, the kid made some decent throws.
Q. Is there any single theme to the problems that you guys have had this season that you can narrow it down to?
COACH WEIS: I’d say that not being able to stay on the field on offense, specifically on 3rd down, not being able to convert on 3rd down in the first half I think we were like I don’t know the first half stats, but in my mind I think we were like 1 of 8 on 3rd downs in the first half. I think that’s what it was. Now, USC I think was like I’d say 2 of 9 in the first half, so they weren’t converting on 3rd down, either. The big difference was they were getting production on 1st down, okay, 1st and 2nd down, which put them in where they didn’t have as many problems as we had as it got into the second quarter. I mean, until about the 3:00 mark of the first quarter, though, it was a slow paced game, going about the way I anticipated it going, and then they started converting and we stopped.
Q. After the Michigan game you said that you wanted to keep running to see who had their heads up and who had their heads down. What did you see today at the end of that last drive when you were moving the ball?
COACH WEIS: Well, I basically told them that we’re not worrying about what the score is, and I made some substitutions of some of the younger guys that haven’t been playing too much were in there, as well, and I said we’re just going to run the ball down the field and we’ll take a couple shots. If we get down into the scoring zone, okay, because scoring a touchdown was important, but actually letting them get an opportunity to try to get some kind of momentum to end the game was just as important. It was no longer obviously a question of whether you were going to win or not, but I think that we had some young guys in there, and they need to feel some moderate success, which they got some on that last drive.
Q. What’s going to be your process in terms of the quarterbacks as you move forward here determining who’s going to start?
COACH WEIS: It’s too early to tell. Like right now I’m not trashing Evan now after one game. I would imagine Evan would be the guy going into the next game because just like I don’t think when I go back and watch the tape, I don’t think I’m going to find enough evidence that he’s the sole responsibility for us splitting the bid on offense, and I’ve never been big on sacrificial lambs. I’ll have to wait and see. It’ll take me a little time. Tomorrow I’ll be scrambling a little bit, but by the time I see you guys, media at lunchtime on Monday, I think I’ll be I’ll have gathered my thoughts on that.
Q. As you move forward from this game, what do you need to see from your team as it gets toward the end of the season?
COACH WEIS: Well, you’re coming to a different stretch of the season. Although it wasn’t like 2005 where we kind of split the season in half, and if that was the plan going in, I really think that you’re in a mode now, you’re sitting at 1 and 7, you’re going into the bye, you’ve got four games coming up, three in a row at home, and now you’re looking at these four games as if you can’t do anything, you’re already out of Bowl contention, that’s not an issue. So that’s not like, oh, you’re going to go to the toiletbowl.com. You’re sitting right here 1 and 7, you’ve got four games left, and I think that the players and the coaching staff have an ethical responsibility to go ahead and do everything they can to try to win those four games, and I think that that’s exactly what we’re going to try to do.
Q. At this point in the season with four games to go, does it become a consideration to maybe start playing a lot of the young guys like major league baseball teams with a 40 man roster in September?
COACH WEIS: I think that is a consideration. I think it’s a consideration. But I think that there’s also there’s probably some of those older guys, especially those fifth year guys, who probably played pretty well, and if they played pretty well, do you sit there and say, okay, thanks for your eight games and now you’re done? I just don’t think it’s the right way of treating people. Now, conversely, I think you have to start getting more guys into the mix that are going to be playing, and I think what you’re not going to do is go through four games and not have worked on developing guys to get ready for next year. I think that that’s a very important point.
Q. (No microphone.)
COACH WEIS: It was hard to take mainly because when we went into the game we thought first of all, we have a lot of respect for USC, and we always will, okay, but we thought coming into the game that we could play try to play a low scoring game. Now, Mark ended up having a good day. They made a big deal about the quarterback deal, but Mark looked pretty good to me. We talked about Booty and Mark and how that was going to go, but I think that he stood up there and had a pretty nice day. But we thought the best chance for us to win this game was going to be a game 17 to 14, somewhere in that range right there, a ball control type of game because I wasn’t going to sit there and throw the ball up and down the field against them the whole game. That just wasn’t the type of game you wanted to try to play.
Q. You said that USC is where you want to be. Do you feel like they are 38 points better than you? How would you assess that?
COACH WEIS: I would say today they were definitely 38 points better because let’s not whine about their last touchdown. It was Joe McKnight, a handoff that goes 50 yards or whatever. It wasn’t like that was a run up the score type of play with ten minutes left to go in the game, or 10:57 left to go in the game. Could we have maybe mustered up a touchdown at the end of the game? Yeah, maybe. But today they were the far superior team, and give them credit. The problem you have sometimes with USC is I think that people take them for granted. This team has been good for a long time, okay, and they don’t get their just due. They lose to Stanford by a point, they have a tough one with Arizona, all of a sudden everyone is ready to throw in the towel on USC. Those players and coaches have a lot of pride and you ought to give them credit.
Q. You come in here and say a lot of the same things. Do the players get either desensitized or callous about what’s been going on this season?
COACH WEIS: I think that they understand the next four games are going to determine a lot of their futures. I think that’s what they understand. Whether it’s a fifth year guy that wants to go to the NFL or whether it’s any other guy that’s in the program that wants to set the tone to go into next year, either way they always have a motivational tool. You think about if you’re a fifth year guy and you’re trying to make a name for yourself, well, cashing in for the last four games, that’s not going to do you any good. And for anyone else that’s going to be part of the reason why Notre Dame fixed the problems, that gives someone a great opportunity to step up and show something about it.
Q. You had to feel that since the second half with Purdue that you guys were on the upswing a little bit. Regardless of how good USC might be, how much of a step backwards was this?
COACH WEIS: Well, it was a butt kicking today. You could say, well, the game was pretty competitive for the first half, but I didn’t feel the game was very competitive in the second half. Like I said, I’m not a big whiner. I’m the person responsible for all this stuff. I didn’t think we came out flat. I think that that was a concern of mine when I took pads off them this week, so how the game started really didn’t indicate that. But I certainly didn’t like the way it ended, at least for the last two quarters and change.
Q. What was your general reaction, maybe not X’s and O’s but just your general reaction to Hazelton’s touchdown where he seemed to beat a bunch of guys a couple times?
COACH WEIS: It would be nice if we tackled a little bit better. My general reaction probably would be the same reaction you probably had when you were watching it. It’s not like they’re not trying to tackle him. Hazelton is a fast kid and he’s elusive, but he just looked a little too elusive to me on that play.
Q. You’re 1 and 7 now, you haven’t lost at home by this much in like 50 years. Does this feel like a bottom to you? Do you ever see Notre Dame being at this point again while you’re here?
COACH WEIS: I’m going to answer that very cautiously, okay, because I don’t want to be called sarcastic using New Jersey rhetoric. So let me just say people better enjoy it now, have their fun now.
Q. Can you talk a little bit about the offensive line play, particularly some of the substitutions that happened in the game?
COACH WEIS: Well, we went into the game wanting to get Wanger back involved in the mix, and we also came into the game wanting to get Stewart some time at tackle to get another guy in the mix because really we’ve been playing the whole year with only two tackles. Danny really lost his job because he got hurt, so we wanted to get him back involved in the mix to have another interior guy, and we got Bemenderfer in there, too, got him some snaps, too, because we felt that we had really been although we had some guys that we played in the game, we hadn’t played them very much. We thought this was an opportunity to try to get them more involved in the mix.
Q. Offensively the first half obviously was tough. Were you disappointed that you couldn’t get anything going after halftime? There was the big turnover and then no real positive yards.
COACH WEIS: Well, I think the big thing is on 1st down we were getting negative yards more than 3rd down. You run a toss, you lose three; you run an inside run, you lose two; you run a screen pass, you lose eight. I mean, when you’re doing that, I mean, tell me which one you want to run? Do you want the inside run or the outside run or the pass when you have negative yardage on those plays. What you really have to do is avoid having negative yards on 1st down, and if you’re going to have success on 3rd down you need to have success on 1st down. There’s a direct correlation.
NOTRE DAME PLAYER QUOTES
Evan Sharpley
Q. Can you just kind of assess the struggles today, you guys trying to move the ball?
Evan Sharpley: That’s how I would assess it. It was a struggle. It was difficult. They’re a very good defense, kudos to them, and we had a tough time.
Q. Were you able to stay confident during the game?
Evan Sharpley: You have to if you want any shot at winning. We weren’t throwing in the towel, we still haven’t. Unfortunately it got out of hand and we just didn’t make any plays.
Q. Having a start under your belt, where do you go from here?
Evan Sharpley: I don’t think I’m really going to change anything. Unfortunately we lost today so we have to go and make some corrections and watch the tape and see how we can get better.
Q. What was most difficult for you out there, was it the pressure or the speed of their DBs?
Evan Sharpley: I don’t think it was really anything in particular. They are, they’re a great defense, they have a lot of great players, and when they have great players all across the board, it’s difficult to make plays, and unfortunately we didn’t get any.
Q. Is it more pressure starting as opposed to coming in at halftime?
Evan Sharpley: No, not at all, no.
Q. Did you have more friends and family here than normal for a game?
Evan Sharpley: It was about the same. It really hadn’t changed much.
Q. (No microphone.)
Evan Sharpley: Well, you know, it was a short lived drive. Obviously we didn’t see it going that way, and those things happen in football. We needed to recover on the drive after that, and we didn’t.
Q. Did Charlie tell you guys before the game that he thought it would be a defensive game, that it would be low scoring?
Evan Sharpley: I don’t know if that was his reasoning, but he did tell us beforehand that that was why we were doing it. That was his choice.
Q. Did it seem like you got tossed around a lot out there?
Evan Sharpley: They’re very physical. The guys up front on their defense are very talented, like I’ve been saying. It’s tough to make plays when they have a lot of talented guys.
Q. (No microphone.)
Evan Sharpley: Well, they were also playing some pretty tough defense, so plays presented themselves and we just were taking what they were giving us.
Q. Could you talk about a game like this, an opponent like this, you have field position, you’re not able to capitalize, what does that do to you guys?
Evan Sharpley: Psychologically it’s very difficult. When you have the ball in plus territory you need to score, and we didn’t do that today, so it’s frustrating.
Q. (No microphone.)
Evan Sharpley: Well, I mean, I’m sure that that played into it. I haven’t watched the tape yet obviously, so I’m not sure. You know, 3rd downs are a big key. Obviously 3rd down production is huge, too.
Q. Coach Weis made a statement, somebody asked him about the losing streak, and he said, you’d better get us now. What do you see in this team that would lead him to believe that there’s going to be a turning point here soon?
Evan Sharpley: You know, all of our guys, they’re still going to come here and work hard here the next three practices and they’re going to get out there after we come back from our break on Monday, and that’s our goal.
Q. Do you expect or hope to start the next game based on today?
Evan Sharpley: You know, that’s totally not up to me. That’s not in my hands.
Q. What are you focused on these final four games?
Evan Sharpley: You know, our goal is to win the final four games, to get better as a team and also individually. It’s a great opportunity for some younger guys to solidify themselves as players for next year. And upper classmen, as well, they’re playing for personal reasons, as well, but we still want to win.
Q. What about you?
Evan Sharpley: I’m going to do the same thing. I’m going to try to get better and do the best I can to help our team win.
Q. Can you put a finger on (inaudible)?
Evan Sharpley: I’m not sure. I haven’t gone back and looked at the film yet. I’ve got a better chance to kind of possibly put my finger on that once I see the film.
Q. In general nothing worked; just seemed like before that you guys were moving the ball.
Evan Sharpley: I think you have to give a lot of credit to their defense. They had a good plan, a good scheme, and they played well.
Q. Coach Weis said that it’s probably good for this team that you have next week off. How do you feel about that?
Evan Sharpley: Yeah, psychologically it’ll be good. We’ve been through this first part of the season and it was rough on us. It’ll be good and positive for a lot of people to get away and regroup and refocus and come back strong to win our next four games.
Q. (No microphone.)
Evan Sharpley: It’s very frustrating. It’s frustrating any time you lose no matter who it is. Yeah, losing doesn’t get any easier.
Q. (No microphone.)
Evan Sharpley: Yeah, we thought we had a great game plan going into the game, and we have to make plays, and we take what the defense gives us. I’m going through my reads and the throws that I was throwing were based on what the defense gave us. So they did a great job. I’m going to tip my hat to them. They’re a great team.
Q. Is there a breaking point, or is it you just have to keep trying, people ask the same questions week after week?
Evan Sharpley: It is, but I don’t think there is a breaking point. I think we have a great group of guys that are going to keep working hard. It’s the type of character people that we have here.
Senior C John Sullivan
On the USC defensive line … “They have a great defensive line and a great defense. It was much more competitive in the first half, but as the game went on they got a lead and we were throwing the ball and they were teeing off on us. It just got worse as the day went on.”
On if the team can come back and salvage the rest of the season … “I am 100-percent sure that we can. We know the other fifth-years [seniors] are committed to doing that and we know the older guys are committed to that right on down to the younger guys. At this point, we are 1-7 and playing for these last four games. A personal goal is to get this team on a roll and send them off right and win the last four games.”
On not beating USC during his time at Notre Dame … “I’m not really focused on reflecting back on what teams we were able to beat during my career. It’s a 1-7 season so far, with a pretty bad loss today. There’s still stuff to play for, we have four games and those are four games left to win.”
Senior DE Trevor Laws
On there being a high ceiling for the younger guys at Notre Dame … “Yeah, I look down and see so much potential from all of the guys. One of the things I try to do is teach them how to play well because this is my school. You want to see them do well in the future and I’m excited because we have so much young talent on the team. It’s pretty exciting.”
On if winning the last four games will salvage the season … “I don’t think anything will satisfy the season even if we win these last four or not. Personally and with our team, it’s one of our goals so it would be nice to reach that goal.”
On not being bowl eligible … “It hurts a lot. It’s kind of what we play for here at Notre Dame. We’re not in a conference, so it hurts that we’re not bowl eligible. There are other things to play for like team and family.”
Senior TE John Carlson
On what was said in the locker room after the game … “It’s hard not to be disappointed and frustrated. Obviously the better team won today and we didn’t play well. We know it’s not acceptable and that’s something we want to get across.”
On what impressed him the most with the USC defense … “They’re big, they’re fast, they’re strong and they play physical. They have phenomenal athletes. You name it, they have it.”
On the balance between playing younger guys and older guys at this point of the season … “Knowing that we’re not bowl eligible right now, the coaches have a responsibility to look towards the future. That doesn’t mean that they are going to disregard this year’s team. I think first and foremost I would like to see improvement. We have some time to make adjustments and move forward.”
Junior NT Pat Kuntz
On if today was a step back for the defense … “I don’t think it was a step back as much as we didn’t make plays. We were leaving guys open and we weren’t tackling guys when we should have. In a sense we played bad, but there were times we stopped them but you really can’t tell that because of the score.”
On if the defense forgets about the score when they’re on the field … “I just try to beat the guy in front of me. That’s what it’s all about. If everyone does their job, we can stuff them. I just try to do my part.”
Senior HB Travis Thomas
On losing to USC for fourth time in career… “It’s tough, but no one is just throwing it into the bag. We’re out of bowl contention and I think that everyone is able to deal with that. We have four games left to play and I think that everyone wants to win-out and end the season on a positive note.”
On not being able to capitalize off the blocked punt… “That was a big play for us and momentum swung into our favor. Any time you want to get a big play on special teams – which is something that we wanted to do this week – we felt like we have to convert and get points on the board but we failed to do that.”
On how the team has (emotionally) responded to this season’s losses… “It’s been rough all year and it’s another loss on the record. It’s another disappointment, but yet again, not one is throwing in the towel – even more so now it’s about pride.
On how the team will bounce back from the USC defeat… “We have a lot of high-character guys in this program. Everyone is still sticking together. We had a great week of practice. We really felt good going in to the weekend. USC was just a better team today.”
Senior S Tom Zbikowski
On what future teams on the schedule should expect… “We have pretty good commitment with the younger guys. You don’t see any quit in them. Whether it’s the fourth quarter and we’re down by a lot or winning, we’re always playing hard in the fourth quarter. So I know there are not going to be any issues with the guys or with their character or commitment. We’re going to take it week-by-week as we always have. We’re just trying to get a good swing, good momentum for these guys to take into the upcoming year.”
On the coaches showing more emotion throughout the last few games… “The older guys have been around long enough to know how to prepare for the games. It shouldn’t be up to the coaches to get us pumped up or fired up to play.”
Junior S David Bruton
On the younger players gradually getting more playing time… “It’s a chance for young players to transition in and get some more experience. With next season coming, we’ll have to improve to do better than we’re doing this season. But I feel that giving gametime opportunities to these young guys will help us down the road.”
On his punt block… “I actually had the ball in my hand. He kicked it as the ball was in my hands, so I felt the force of his kick. It was a big emotional shift for the team. Just seeing everyone jumping up and down, you really felt momentum was going to swing our way.”
Senior LB Maurice Crum, Jr.
On whether or not the team has to show more emotion this year… “I don’t think so. I think the guys know what it takes. Playing games like this and just playing for Notre Dame, period, is enough to get us going.”
On not being able to beat USC during his career at Notre Dame… “To me, every loss feels the same.”
On the team’s morale at this point in the season… “Guys have bought in, and guys have been working hard. You can see that. You can see guys becoming more mature. We’re still seeing that. We’re just not getting the outcome that we want.”
On whether or not it’s getting tougher to “buy in” with each ensuing week… “When you’re in, you’re in. We don’t have those ‘jump ship’ kind of guys. They want to stay on board.”
USC PLAYER QUOTES
Sophomore QB Mark Sanchez
On his expectations for himself…
“I expected to play better than last week. I promised myself, before the game, no interceptions. It just can’t happen. That’s letting the team down- that’s taking them out of the game. I didn’t want it to happen. Thank God it didn’t. We came out with a big time team victory. The offense got rolling a little bit.”
On the difference between last week and this week…
“I felt really comfortable this week. . I was calm. I got the jitters out last week. I just felt like I could just go out and play this week. It was great. The team was behind me. The defense did an unbelievable job of just shutting them out. It was a total team effort. I mean, the guys up front… I think I only hit the ground once, maybe. Running backs were playing a great game. Receivers making huge plays.”
On a win against. Notre Dame…
“That [the win vs. ND] means so much. I wish there was more time for celebrating. But we’ve got to get going and get ready for the (Oregon) Ducks. I’ll celebrate on the plane home. I’ll think about it a little bit on Sunday. Then Sunday night, Monday, we’ve got to get ready for next week. I think later on, down the line, this one’s going to mean a lot to me. Because there’s a lot of players who come through here and come away with losses. So for us to get a big win like this and make a statement as an offense, and as a team, it means a ton.”
On playing next week…
“I don’t know what’s going on. Coach will evaluate my performance. There’s still things I need to improve on to be the starter. Hopefully it works out. If not, it will be a fierce competition. I don’t; want to let it go. Now that I have it, I don’t want to look back. I just want to keep rolling. All I can do is keep playing. I can’t influence him any more than what I’ve done today.”
On spreading the ball around…
“That was the game plan: get the snap and then get the ball out of my hands. We’ve got the talent to give the ball to guys and let them do whatever they want with it. So that’s exactly what we did. We had the protection, and the defense, behind it.”
On the ease of victory…
“I still don’t think it was easy. It might look easy. We still punted the ball seven times. That’s a bunch of times they stopped us. We still have a lot to learn, a lot of mistakes to learn from. We’ll clear them up and get ready for Oregon.” Junior LB Brian Cushing
Overall Comments …
“We were getting pressure were we needed to and we made plays when we had to. We were executing our defense well and playing up to our capabilities.”
On beating ND …
“We needed this to get back on track. Like coach Carroll was saying, we need to get guys healthy and start rolling. This is the time to turn it around.”
“Whether it was Clausen or Sharpley we knew what we had to do. It didn’t matter to us who started. We had a plan and we did what we had to do to execute that plan.”
Freshman SE David Ausberry
Play of USC Wide Receivers …
“We need we could beat their DB with their speed. Unfortunately we had a few drop balls but we were able get the win regardless of those mistakes and that’s all that matters.”
On USC QB Situation …
“We can do whatever we need to do no matter who the quarterback is. We are confident in our quarterbacks and in our line that they can pick up any blitz that comes their way.”
On USC’s depth …
“Our depth really helps. Especially at the running back position because we can change it up without missing a beat. As for as our offensive line is concerned, they are little thin right now but they come back it’s going to be tough for whoever we play.”
Senior MLB Thomas Williams
On Shutting Out ND …
“A win is a win whether you get it by one point or 50 points. It is just good to say that they last time you played Notre Dame you were able to shut them out. It’s great for confidence and great for memories when you talk with other players years from now.”
Freshman TB Joe McKnight
Overall Comments …
“Everyone could do whatever they wanted to do. We were just on our game today. They are good team but we just took advantage of what was given to us. Great coaches put the players in position to do good things and make plays and that’s what we did.”
On USC Quarterback …
“We are confident with whoever is at quarterback. We are the best team and still are the best team no matter who is at quarterback for us”