The contest against Utah wasn’t decided by production. For the most part, it wasn’t decided by efficiency either. The Irish won because they created opportunities and took advantage of them. Notre Dame was able to force two turnovers—one that turned into seven points on the next play—block a punt for a touchdown, and string together […]

Saturday marks the midpoint of head coach Brian Kelly’s inaugural season. To date the Irish have posted a 3-3 record against the 4th most difficult AVR strength of  schedule, with two of the losses coming by narrow margins to top 25 teams. Fortunately, the next three games feature three very winnable contests. The first is […]

Turning a ship around is a long and arduous task. It takes time to get the vessel corrected. After Charlie Weis left the Notre Dame program, it had all the tools to head in the right direction, but the helm was turned the wrong way. Jack Swarbrick, Notre Dame’s Athletic Director, was charged with the […]

For most Notre Dame Football fans this off-season has been a whirlwind of news—a somewhat reserved excitement and hopeful optimism for what the 2010 season holds for the Fighting Irish. Notre Dame let a coach go, hired a promising replacement, said goodbye to a handful of players who are currently demonstrating their abilities for the […]

Christmas came early this year in South Bend. Notre Dame squeezed out a victory at the expense of the visiting Spartans Saturday, a game Michigan State had ample opportunity to win. To be certain, the Irish did not win the game as much as Michigan State lost it. All of the strategic coaching decisions favored […]

The momentum from the Hawaii Bowl certainly carried over for the Irish offense. Head coach Charlie Weis couldn’t have written a better script for the first game of 2009 as Notre Dame amassed better than 500 yards of offense while shutting out a Nevada squad that averaged over 37 points per game in 2008. It […]

With the Blue-Gold game over and the football team taking time-off until June, the staff of Clashmore Mike sat down to determine several key players in this year’s team. Some are needed for the Irish to have a great season. Others have been named as players to watch and are expected to put up record […]

The 2009 Blue-Gold Game at Notre Dame Stadium threatened to turn into a snooze-fest for the fans and it appeared, for a significant number of those in attendance, that this ended up being the case. As numerous publications and pundits cautioned before the game, it can be futile to infer too much about the status […]

At times during the 2008 season the Irish offense looked like a passing juggernaut. Other times Notre Dame sputtered when faced with a short field, frequently failing to produce an effective rushing attack. This led to poor red zone and third down efficiency that cost the Irish more than one game. In fact, many of […]

Notre Dame owned an edge in nearly every statistical category in their 33-7 win over the Washington Huskies. The Irish offense didn’t punt once, and the defense limited the Huskies to only a few first downs through every meaningful minute of play. The Irish had nearly a 15 minute edge in time of possession, was […]