By Justin Albers
INDIANAPOLIS- I am embarrassed to be a Notre Dame fan. After a 41-14 blowout in the Sugar Bowl one thing is clear, Notre Dame was overrated.
The Fighting Irish should not of been in the Sugar Bowl, simple as that. Give that birth to Wisconsin, regardless of what the rest of the conference has done. They would have put up much better of a fight then Notre Dame did in this one. I am really scared for whatever NFL team drafts Brady Quinn because he is by no means ready for the pro game. He completed only 43% of his passes against the Tigers on Wednesday night (15-35), and couldn't even manage 200 yards. He was completely outplayed by LSU's JaMarcus Russel, who threw for 332 yards and 2 touchdowns.
Let me tell you what the stats were like from the 3 games in which Notre Dame took on a ranked team. In this game against LSU they were out gained 577-291. Not only is that bad, but at the half the Irish had out gained the Tigers 272-254. That means that Notre Dame only managed 19 total yards in the second half (323-19)!! In fact, the Irish never even had the ball in LSU territory in the second half. The final score was 41-14.
Now against USC. Each team had 404 yards, but that is kind of misleading. USC scored 3 touchdowns in the first quarter and had a 21-3 lead, meaning that the game was never close. Brady Quinn completed only 49% of his passes in this game (22-45) and had 274 yards in 3 touchdowns. The problem was that the scores came way too late. The final score was 44-24.
Finally against Michigan. The Wolverines outscored the Irish 340-245, but the key statistic was in the turnover department. Notre Dame turned it over 5 times, while Michigan only had one. Brady Quinn completed 50% of his passes (24-48) had 234 yards and 3 touchdowns, but he also had 3 interceptions. The Fighting Irish faced a 20 point halftime deficit. The final score was 47-21.
I have now come to the conclusion that Notre Dame should never have been ranked higher than No. 20 in the country. The only quality win that they recorded was against Penn State very early in the season. They played 3 teams that are still rated, losing all the games by 20 points or more. In those games the Irish opponent scored an average of 44 ppg while they only managed 19.9 points themselves. Brady Quinn was a combined 61-128 (47.6%) and had 8 TD and 5 INT. In the other 10 games Quinn was 228-339 (67%) with 29 TD and 2 INT. I think the numbers speak for themselves. Notre Dame could not compete with the big guns this season, partly because of a weak schedule. Why in the world would you schedule all 3 academies, Stanford, and North Carolina in the same season? All I can say is Weis better get his guys together in the offseason, because this is Notre Dame's 9th consecutive loss in a bowl game.
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