UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 18, 2005

Charlie Weis

COACH WEIS: As we begin the second half of our season, we're approaching it that way, the message to the team this week is this is the start, it's the first game of the second half of the season. As you talk to our players and coaches this week, they're only going to be talking about the second half of the season; they're not going to be talking about the first half of the season. So don't bother asking the questions on that because they won't be talking about it. As we get ready for BYU this week, Coach Mendenhall, he took over the program after the two previous years being defensive coordinator. He's still, from what I gather, still the defensive coordinator. On offense, Coach Anae had played at BYU, has returned there after a stint at Texas Tech where he'd been the offensive line coach. When he played, I believed he was on the national championship team in 1984. Their offense is averaging 423 yards a game, 317 in the air. And although they're only averaging 115 yards rushing, if you watch the Colorado State game last week where they rushed about 52 times for 274 yards, they definitely went to a ground attack last week after being more of a passing team previous to that game. They have two experienced quarterbacks. The starter back, obviously last year, Berry, the guy who led BYU in a victory over Notre Dame is still there. Beck, their starter, is averaging that 317 we were just talking about, which is seventh nationally. He's completing about I think just under 65% of his passes. He's made 20 career starts. They play two runningbacks. They're quite different in their approach. Brown last week, he had an 800-yard rushing game versus Colorado State where he rushed the ball 31 times for 147 yards and a couple scores. The thing that scares me, I'm going to talk about him and Tahi, who is the big back for them, they're two of their five receivers. Two of their five have made 20 catches or more. In this case, Brown has 29 catches and Tahi, the big guy who is 6', 240, who is their second leading rusher, including the game they had against Colorado State last week, he also is a leader on the team in receptions. He's fourth on the team with receptions with 21 catches. They have two tightends they play a bunch. Our line is a little bit smaller. But he's their leading pass receiver, he's got 29 catches for 450 yards, which is just over 15 yards a catch. He had four last week for 81 yards. Then they had a bigger guy, No. 20. Although he was an inch shorter on the program, he was definitely bigger by size. They really play three wide receivers. Rather than talk about two, the first two guys are the guys that give you that total of five that have caught 20 or more. You've got Watkins, a senior, who was Team All Mountain West last year. Third on the team with passes for 23, averaging just under 16 yards a catch, had five touchdowns. Then you have Meikle, who is a little smaller, but he's also their punt returner. He also has 25 catches. You know, Allen is the third wide receiver. What I just basically showed you is how they have five different guys that have already caught 20 balls or more which has to make you worry about a lot of different weapons they have on offense. They have a very, very big offensive line. They all weigh over 300 pounds. They average 325, which might be a modest program estimate. If you're watching them on tape, I think it might be significantly more than that. Especially, you know, Kuresa, the right tackle, who is listed as 6'4", 339, started 28 out of 29, looking at Kuresa, I think that he might be a little bit bigger than 339 just watching him on tape. They have some big men on that offensive line. Coach Mendenhall has quite a unique scheme on defense. It's different than anything we've gone against this year. They basically playing 3-3-5, which means they have three down linemen in Brown, Paongo and (indiscernible). Getting pretty good at this stuff, these names. They have three bigger linebackers who all make a lot of plays. Watkins is 266 pounds, definitely a big man who started 38 career games. The little guy who leads the team in tackles with 39. Luettgerodt, okay, who is the other linebacker, like last week, had two and a half sacks, eight tackles. In addition, Luettgerodt is also I believe the long snapper so you can see a lot of confidence in there linebacker corps. Their secondary on a regular basis, five DBs out there. They've got the two corners, Robinson and Buchanan. Soelberg was starting, but he's hurt. It will be Robinson and Buchanan at the corner. The three safeties, they rotate all over the place. Gabriel and White. Either Gooch or Bills will be the third safety. They both are chewed up there. Special teams, there's the McLaughlin boys, do both the kicking and the punting. Sometimes I can't really tell, but because of the altitude, I just know when they kick off, about half the time the ball's about five, 10 yards deep in the end zone. I see that on a regular basis. I think today at least going into our press conference, now I have a pretty good idea of who we're going against, what they do.

COACH WEIS: I basically have broke the season into two halves. I think that they're ready to start the second half of the season. Their home-opener is against BYU this week.

COACH WEIS: Well, obviously if you're starting the season over and you're treating it like your home-opener, you put in more of a training camp mentality. Not that we're going two-a-days, but maybe (inaudible) morning. I let them sleep in some. Give them a lunch. We're starting earlier than we normally do. Start at (inaudible) instead of starting at 2:30. Because there's no school this week, you have no restrictions on how much time you can have them. We're using that time wisely. That does some unique things, both offensively and defensively, especially the punt formation that they use.

COACH WEIS: I'm not talking about last week. I'm not talking about last week. We're only talking about BYU.

COACH WEIS: Go ahead and get some practice. We had the home-opener coming up. We're ready to go. And, like I said yesterday, Brandon Hoyt was the person I was talking to at the time, I said, "If I told you we were opening up this week against BYU at home, how fired up would you be?" He said, "Pretty fired up." I said, "That's what's happening. That's the way we're approaching this week." You always want to know what my message is. That's my message. My message is we're getting ready for the first game of the second half the season. BYU is our opponent.

COACH WEIS: We're opening up against BYU. I'm only worried about BYU. Talk to me about it if we lose on Saturday. We're trying to win on Saturday. That's what we're shooting for. We have enough problems on the different things. This team is unique. They have a different defense, in this 3-3-5. They have a different offense. Very similar to what Texas Tech is doing, tearing it up, being undefeated right now. This is where the offensive coordinator's background is. We have enough of a challenge getting used to two totally different schemes than what we see week in and week out.

COACH WEIS: What just happened? I think you need to have an approach, okay? I think you need to have a theme and a message. I told you I was going to have a message. I just wanted to get it to them first. And the message is we're breaking our season in half, okay? The first half, you know, we could sit there and give midterm grades, okay? But the first half is gone, so now we're starting a second half, okay? There's midterms, right? Didn't we just finish midterms last week? This is a mid semester break. We're fired up about the second half.

COACH WEIS: Incomplete.

COACH WEIS: I think we might just wear them every game. You know, what the heck? But I told you that using the green jersey a payback to our players. That's what it was. It was a reward for a job well done. Unfortunately, as a coach, staff and a team, you know, that didn't work out. You know, we're not worrying about that right now. We're just worrying about Saturday at 1:30.

COACH WEIS: I think there will be a full house on Saturday. I don't think that will be an issue.

COACH WEIS: I think the biggest challenge is you're going against an opponent that's schematically is that much drastically different than what you normally see. There's usually elements in different people's offense and defense that are very similar two weeks ago, three weeks ago, last week. But this is quite a drastic change on both sides of the ball, for that matter, on special teams. You're going to watch a team, from center to guard, they're three yards away. You're going to see a lot of things that are a little bit different. I'm sitting there watching. You hear about some of this stuff. Until you start watching it, you say, that's something. I think that we'll have attention to detail solely on the fact, if for no other reason, a team who has beaten Notre Dame in the past. Coming into this game right here, there's a lot of things different X and O wise than any opponent we have faced this year. That grabs your attention.

COACH WEIS: We'll be fortunate if we get them back at all. Not, not until after I know if it's season-ending. I know he's having a procedure done today. When I know.

COACH WEIS: It's not a training camp as in beating them down twice a day or being with them for 24 hours a day, but I think it's more to know what's going on, so it gives them an opportunity to get going. That's what we need to do. We need to get going.

COACH WEIS: Yup. We want to beat BYU. Big opener. We want to be 1-0.

COACH WEIS: I think that any time a program plays hard for 60 minutes with a lot of guts and a lot of effort, they become favorite sons. I think that people know -- people can recognize giving it all. I think that that's what the guys here do. I think they're high-character guys, that it's important to them and they're intelligent guys. I think they all realize the task we have at hand. I think the No. 1 thing we need to do is come to our place this week and win at our own stadium on our own field in front of our own fans and get this program headed in the right direction.

COACH WEIS: Very good question. Being it was worded like that, I will respond. I think that you'll notice this team takes very, very large splits, so you have to be very careful on how you play inside with your inside players because they almost bait you into just taking the gaps. As they bait you into taking these extremely large splits that they're taking, a lot of times, if you don't play the fundamentals and techniques, you find yourself out of position. We're worrying about this one. We'll worry about the next one after that. Right now we only have one game. Remember now, the following week we get a chance to go back into training camp again. So we get two weeks of training camp. We have this week, we play a game, then we have a whole 'nother two weeks to go back into training camp because we don't play the following week. Right now it's one game that we can put all our energy into because there's not a game after that for another two weeks.

COACH WEIS: I think that you really have to -- we talked earlier this year about an us-against-the-world mentality on the road, okay? Well, you can kind of use a very similar analogy when you're playing at home or when you're a marked man, and it's just like, you know, they're all gunning for you. But we're all gunning for them, too, so it goes both ways. I think right now the players have all their attention on winning a game at this stadium right here to open up the second half of the year. I think that's the only thing we can shoot for because it will set the tone for the second half of the year.

COACH WEIS: I set higher expectations. That's how. I think what you have to do is each year, and the same thing is going to be true the first half of next year's season. I think each year you have to take your players and your team and keep on raising the bar. That's what my job is. My job is to raise the bar.

COACH WEIS: They understand now, I know Coach Oliver talked to them extensively yesterday and said, you know, this is your time, because now they're not just in the mix -- they're not in the background, they're in the mix. They're going to be out there and they're going to be playing and they're going to be playing a lot. We need for them to step up and make a bunch of plays. I think they're going to be up for the challenge. I'm excited about watching them play.

COACH WEIS: No, no. Here is the only thing I wish. This has nothing to do with Big 10 or PAC-10 or anyone. I just wish it was standardized, universally standardized with everybody. I wouldn't care whose crew it was. I just wish that everyone had the same set of rules. The one thing good about the NFL when it comes to things like that is it's one set of officials. You know, they can officiate anywhere, which I know you can't really do in college because there's so many more teams. One thing, there's one set of rules, like replay. Okay, replay isn't the -- the Big-10's interpretation and the PAC-10's interpretation and then the visiting team's decision on whether or not they want to have it or not have it. There isn't anything like that. Everyone has the same set of rules and that's what you have to abide by. You're not always happy with it there either, okay? But at least you know it's the same set of rules. I think that's the one thing. I can't worry about whether it's Big-10 or PAC-10 officials. I really can't. I mean, whoever is there at the game, that's who I have to deal with. You have to try to deal with them as best you can. I just wish the rules were standardized week in and week out, regardless of who you're playing. You know, like this week it's BYU's officials. Last week it was USC's officials. It all depends on where you are, who's playing and who has them. I have no problem with officiating crews. I really have more of a problem with the big picture that there's different rules at different places, not what's off-sides. I'm talking about, you know, things like replay.

COACH WEIS: I could care less. I really could. It sounds like I'm indifferent. If you start worrying about, well, that the officials are, okay... One thing I try to do, though, is I know who the officiating crews are, you know, I haven't been able to gather enough research at this time, what you like to do is try to find out who the officiating crews are and then find out statistically what they call the most. I haven't been able to get enough on them yet. But we used to do that week in and week out in the NFL. We'd say, Mark Wright is the referee this week. He likes to call roughing the passer. You'd warn your defensive line about roughing the passer. I think the sooner I can get a beat on not whose officials are reffing the game, but who the actual referee is, what their crew calls, you want to go one step more than just whether it's a Big-10 official. It's which crew in the Big-10? Because different crews call games differently. It's really different. You'd be really, really surprised.

COACH WEIS: I was joking (laughter).

COACH WEIS: Well, he used to have a big game every week. I think the most important thing that he has to do in a situation like this is to be able to identify -- you always have to identify the front, okay, in everything you're doing. It affects how you block plays. It affects sights and everything like that. I think the one thing he needs to do is have a good handle on the identification of what they're doing because you're going to see a lot of spinning around, you're going to see a lot of fronts where you'll see a lot of pressure, looks like they're coming off of one side, then they're coming off the other side, or it will look like it's going to be a soft zone and then they step up or vice versa. But I think it all starts with the identification of the front so you don't just turn people free on either the runningback or the quarterback. He's going to have to be more mentally sharp this week, okay, when it comes to identification purposes than anything else.

COACH WEIS: That's okay. I'm helping you out here (laughter).

COACH WEIS: No, he won't have to. We'll have the right play.

COACH WEIS: Well, I think two things you have to understand. The red zone passing lanes are reduced significantly. You know, it isn't like passing out in the field. There's only the goal line, 10 yards past the goal line. That's the only area you have to cover. So the windows in the red zone for passing become much, much smaller, okay? They're -- it's tough. That's why it's easier to score in the red zone, okay, with a heavy diet of run and run-actions where they're biting on that. I think that what happens now is when your defense starts to have confidence that they can stop a team when they get down in the red zone because some positive things have happened, it becomes a psychological plus that they figure people aren't going to get in. I think that's a very good psyche to have. I think our defense at this point, that's the way they think.

COACH WEIS: I vaguely remember.

COACH WEIS: To be honest with you, Chris is really the only one that's in that boat. Chris is really the only guy. Everyone else, some things that looked significant didn't turn out to be significant. Chris is the only one that turned to that boat. A knee is a knee. It's a little different thing than getting hit in the head or getting a little wobbly. I don't think -- you know, we talked about Ronald and Justin here a couple minutes ago. It just pushed them up a spot. That's what it does. That's the way we think around here. One guy goes out, the next guy goes in. That's the way it is.

COACH WEIS: Just around the corner. Not over the hill.

COACH WEIS: Well, I think right now we're starting this new season with an experienced secondary. We have two corners who have been starters for a while. We have two safeties that have been starters for a while. I think it's a lot better situation than last season when we opened up with Pittsburgh.

COACH WEIS: Where is this one going (laughter)?

COACH WEIS: Okay.

COACH WEIS: Well, there's pros and cons with that. I mean, if you hit it right, you have an opportunity for plays. But the other thing that happens is you could hit it wrong in terms of people free. I worked back in the mid '80s for a guy by the name of Joe Lee Dunn. Joe Lee had a scheme not exactly like this, but he used to stack the 3-3 look a lot of times. I know one thing, sometimes people would hit us for big plays, but there were other times we would have people running free in the backfield all day long. There are pros and cons with that. You have to make sure you're very sound fundamentally. It goes back to the previous questions about Brady making sure he identifies the front so we don't turn people free.

COACH WEIS: Well, I've addressed that with the staff earlier this week. Actually we talked about it some last night. We talked about it some this morning. I think that they showed -- what they showed last week against Colorado State, they're very capable of going towards the heavy run over the heavy pass. Because they've shown both personalities, it allows them to pick their poison and decide which way they want to go ahead and attack us. Previous to this game, it had been much more heavily pass oriented, and I would have said no. But with the foundation that they laid last week against Colorado State, that is certainly an option.

COACH WEIS: I think any time you convert from one side of the ball to the other side of the ball, there's a continual learning process that goes on. I think you're going to find Ndu continue to get better. It's not always as instinctive to play the other side of the ball. Sometimes it has to be a more learned experience. And I think that's what's happening with Ndu. I think the more he plays, the more comfortable he feels out there on the defensive side. It isn't whether or not he has the capability, because we've seen him do that. It's just that he's a lot more comfortable than he was last year when we played Pittsburgh.

COACH WEIS: Well, why don't you sign me up for another half dozen of those this week where we're in the right place at the right time to take the ball away. It would lift my spirits.

COACH WEIS: I'm sorry to disappoint but I'm not talking about USC.

COACH WEIS: Well, the coverages are much simpler. There's certainly not the same type of double coverages within a single call that you see. One of the things with a high-tech nature of professional football, you could have zone on one side and man on the other side. You could have a call that's adjusted from a two-deep to a three-deep based off of a three-by-one versus a two-by-two. You could have them bait you into thinking it's going to be one thing and then doing another thing. All defenses disguise coverages now. I'm not talking about the disguising of coverage averages. I'm talking about the multiplicity of coverages you see are far fewer than what I've been dealing with. Now, conversely, most teams, they play on that level front-wise, they play an under, over, even, odd, or bear defense. They narrow it down to five. You don't see things like we're going to see this week. You don't see those things. So that forces you. It depends on whether you're talking about the front seven versus the back seven. The front seven, you see a lot of wild stuff that you don't normally see. The back seven, you don't see nearly as complex coverage schemes as you do on the next level.

COACH WEIS: I think we're going to have to beat BYU this week to see if we can't get in the mix. That's what I think. I think we better beat them because if we don't respect BYU, they're definitely a good enough team to come in here and beat us.