Holiday Season Comes Early in South Bend
UHND.com - Frank Vitovitch
October 7, 2001

Notre Dame, Ind (UHND.com) - Carlyle Holiday guided Notre Dame to its first win of the season this weekend in a 24-7 victory over Pittsburgh.  Holiday lead an Irish offense that showed signs of life for the first time this season.  While the offense still has a long way to go in order to compete with top teams, it took a big step towards getting to that level.

Holiday wasn't asked to do too much passing the ball as he only had 13 attempts.  He did complete 10 of them however for 70 yards.  Notre Dame returned to traditional Notre Dame football against Pitt by running for 249 yards.  Holiday lead the way with 122 yards including a 67 yard touchdown run in the third quarter.

Holiday's long touchdown run came on a 99 yard drive that was set up by a freak fumble that was recovered by Abram Elam.  R.J. English was 4 yards away from a touchdown when the ball just popped out of his grasp.  Elam jumped on it and the Notre Dame offense responded with its longest drive of the season.  Earlier in the game Elam also picked off a David Priestly pass.

Before Holiday's long run however, the Irish nearly had a 99 yard touchdown run.  Tony Fisher broke through the line and was well on his way to taking it the distance when he pulled up lame with a hamstring injury.  Fisher's run went for 28 yards giving him the only two plays of 20 yards or more this season until Holiday's run.

The Notre Dame defense also turned in it's best performance of the season.  Abram Elam, Anthony Weaver,  and Shane Walton each picked off a pass, Notre Dame's first, second, and third interceptions of the season.  Shane Walton also forced a fumble that Courtney Watson recovered in the first half.  Add in the fumble recovery by Elam and the Irish defense created five Pitt turnovers.

On offense, Fisher and Holiday were the two players who impressed me the most.  Holiday looked more comfortable in there this week, but its clear that he is still not fully comfortable staying in the pocket and throwing downfield.  For now that is ok though.  He won't face a real tough defense until Tennessee comes to town and by that time he will have five starts under his belt.  Notre Dame definitely needs to pass the ball more next week though.  If Notre Dame continues to rely on the run, they will get beat badly by another top team when Tennessee visits.

The other play that impressed me was Tony Fisher.  He continues to be the most productive back on this offense, yet he is still getting less than half the carries that Julius Jones is getting.  Fisher is averaging 2.1 more yards a carry than Jones.  Right now Fisher is putting up the numbers and Jones is not.  It is time for Fisher to start getting the bulk of the carries.  As it is he has 48 more yards on 12 less carries than Jones (41 carries for 223 yards for Fisher, 53 carries for 175 yards for Jones).

On defense, Anthony Weaver continues to impress.  He is making his case week in and week out to be a first round pick.  He added three tackles for loss including a sack.  He also picked off a pass by making a great read on the quarterback.  He started off rushing in and then backed off when he read the play and picked it off.  Weaver now has seven tackles for loss, three of which were sacks. 

Abram Elam was also impressive in his first real stint of playing time.  He had a pick and the previously mentioned fumble recovery.  Elam's defensive backfield teammate Shane Walton also turned in a good game.  He also had an interception and he didn't let Antonio Bryant beat him that badly.  Bryant had 6 catches for 95 yards, but for the most part Walton had decent coverage on him. 

The defensive interior also had its best game of the season.  Cedric Hilliard made a nice spin move to record his first career sack and Darrell Campbell also showed some promise.  Both had their best games of the seasons and showed some potential. 

Overall this was a good game for Notre Dame.  They still have a long, long way to go, but this was a good start.  If the offense can make as much progress as it did from the A&M game to the Pitt again this week, Notre Dame could be in for a fun weekend.  The passing game is still non existent though.  This part of the offense needs to be worked on.  It appears that Notre Dame is going back to the option attack, which is fine with me because it is at least some kind of identity.  However, they will need a passing game to beat not only Tennessee but every other opponent who is going to be locking in on the run.