Working On The ‘D’

With the hard-fought 20-16 win over Boston College in the bank and Notre Dame able to overcome the hangover from the difficult loss to USC the previous week, Irish head coach Charlie Weis took some time Sunday to talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly going on within his team.

And being in the media business, the preference is always to start with the ugly.

The good news on the ugly side is for the first time this season, the Irish pass defense didn’t drop in the national rankings. The bad news is it didn’t improve any spots and remains No. 117 out of 120 teams at 282.43 yards per game.

For the second straight game, Notre Dame gave up double-digit “explosives” in the passing game – completions of more than 20 yards – but it countered with three interceptions of Boston College quarterback Dave Shinskie, two key ones in the fourth quarter.

Weis said the pass coverage problems continue to be addressed, but part of the deficiencies in that area may be stem from working to improve the run defense, which has shown dramatic improvement, up 13 spots this week to No 50 after holding the Eagles to 70 rushing yards.

“When you sell out to stop the run, you leave yourself vulnerable to the pass,” Weis said Sunday during his BC recap press conference. “But you have to find a happy medium because as much as our run defense has improved for the last four and a half games, now we have to get some things fixed in coverage because they’re not just getting yards, they’re getting too many easy yards.”

Weis found positives in some lineup juggling against Boston College. Most notably, moving junior Harrison Smith from safety to Sam linebacker – where he started and played last season – and having nickel back Sergio Brown move to free safety in Harrison’s absence.

Things have been so bad in pass coverage, baby steps mean a lot right now. The Eagles hit 10 pass plays of more than 20 yards, many on third-down and long situations, so Weis said just to “stabilize” the situation is the first step.

“We’ve been spinning around trying to find an answer,” said Weis, “…get it stabilized, where we’re not rolling so many people through trying to find an answer. I think now we have a much better idea where we want to go, the improvement with more stabilized positions in the secondary.”

And given a starting point, Weis believes his staff and players are equipped to make the fix because he is seeing improvement every week in the overall defensive package from the start of the season.

“We had problems stopping the run. We had problems giving up chunks. We were giving up a lot of points. We had a whole a bunch of problems,” Weis said of the first month. “Slowly but surely we are starting to solve some of these problems…l think our best defense is yet to come.”

Injury Notes

The overall health of the Irish remains in pretty good shape coming out of the Boston College game.

Junior tailback Robert Hughes suffered what may have been a mild concussion when he was stopped short of the end zone on a fourth-down play in the third quarter. Hughes in San Antonio against Washington State.

“Sometimes when you’re coming off woozy, you think it is because they are dejected that they didn’t get in, but that wasn’t the case with him,” Weis said.

Senior wide receiver Robby Parris started and played some against Boston College after getting banged up against USC. Weis expects the condition of Parris to improve more this week and he should be ready to go Saturday, though expect the staff to be cautious this weekend in a game they should be favored to win by at least three touchdowns.

And finally, sophomore wide receiver Michael Floyd was catching passes in the pregame Saturday as he continues to heal from a broken collarbone suffered in week three against Michigan State.

Weis said the schedule remains the same for Floyd. He will have the injury evaluated on Nov. 2 or 3, which will provide a timetable for Floyd’s return. Weis said last week Floyd could be back as early as the Navy game on Nov. 7.

“Knowing me, I’ll leave it on Michael, and knowing Michael, he’ll want to get out there as quick as he possibly can,” Weis said. “We’ll just have to wait and see how it goes, we don’t want to be stupid here.”

In The Meantime

While Floyd continues to make his return, Notre Dame continues to get some good work from a variety of receivers in his absence. Against Boston College, junior Duval Kamara, sophomore John Goodman, and surprise hit Roby Toma combined for 12 catches for 95 yards.

In his first career action, the freshman Toma had two catches for 13 yards, and Weis suggested there may be more snaps to come. At 5-foot-9 and 175 pounds, Toma isn’t the biggest target but his speed, shiftiness and toughness make him a nice option in the slot. Weis has noticed it all season during Toma’s work against the No. 1 defense on scout team.

“In the passing game, a constant every single week was this kid getting open,” Weis said. “He’d get open and catch the ball. He’s nifty and you’re going against the good guys. You’re going against all the starters, and they have trouble covering him.”

Couple of Leftovers

• A rumor has been gaining steam that freshman receiver Shaquelle Evans didn’t see any action the last two games because of some sort of disciplinary action. Weis stated clearly that is not the case. Evans was ill and missed most of practice before the USC game and with seven catches and 60 yards, Kamara played too well Saturday for Evans to find any reps.

“Duval actually had one of his better games so I wasn’t looking to get Duval off the field,” Weis said.

• With the struggles of Ben Turk in the punting game, Weis said he expects to open up the competition with senior Eric Maust again this week in practice. Turk averaged only 32.7 yards on his six kicks against Boston College.

• With its 5-0 advantage in turnovers Saturday, Notre Dame now ranks No. 4 in the country in turnover margin at +1.43 per game.

• With his two interceptions against Boston College – the fourth and fifth of the season – Irish senior safety Kyle McCarthy has moved to tied for third in the country with .71 interceptions per game.