Had I not seen the game and only looked at the 34-27 final score from Saturday’s Notre Dame contest, I think I would have been pretty pleased with the outcome. But I did see the game and walked away with the same dreadful feeling I had following the Virginia Tech loss last season – the Hoos had it.

But I like the trajectory of this team.

There are still things that need to be corrected starting with eliminating the insanely exasperating, no-talent, pre-or-post snap penalties. The defense must find a way to stop big plays and despite the fact that the Irish put up 15 (using the NCAA definition of explosive plays), I think the defense made some progress at getting better at limiting these types of plays.

The obvious change, however, was the offense as Steve Fairchild had an out-of-body experience or some conversion with diverse alignments, shifts and motion, misdirection, taking what the defense gave him, and throwing on first down. It’s obvious the offensive coordinator is reading TheSabre.com because he obviously read my response to a poster regarding my UCLA grade and trend report last week.

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