Charlie Weis met with the media on Sunday to discuss the victory over Nevada. Here are some notes.
- Weis said that Jimmy Clausen’s growth is comparable to Brady Quinn’s at this stage in his career.
- Weis scripted the first 18 offensive plays of the game on Saturday.
- There wasn’t an update on James Aldridge’s health on Sunday, but Weis did say that he has a plan B if Aldridge is unable to go against Michigan. He said he’d have an update Tuesday.
- Other than Aldridge, Notre Dame came out of the Nevada game with no significant injuries.
- Weis talked about the defense missing four sacks that Colin Kaepernick avoided. He said that would a point of emphasis this week. Neither Michgan quarterback has near the size of Kaepernick, but both are just as fast if not faster so wrapping up will be critical this week.
- The defense will work on its inside run stunts to make sure that they don’t stunt themselves out of position as they did a number of times on Satuirday.
- Weis said that Kapron Lewis-Moore was a nervous wreck on Saturday, but now that he got his first start out of the way, he should be fine. He mentioned that Tausch was a bit nervous too.
- Speaking of Tausch, Weis said he was glad he got his feet wet kicking field goals to get him settled in. Weis was pleased with the hang time Tausch got on his kickoffs but said he was a bit inconsistent.
- Rob Ianello and Bernie Parmalee were up in the booth for the game with Ianello doing most of the communication with Weis. He said that the operation worked smoothly with Ianello getting him the information he needed quickly so that he could get the plays into Clausen in time.
- Weis was pleased with Eric Olsen’s play in his first game as the starting center. Olsen did move around well and was pretty impressive considering it was the first time he was playing the position in a game since he got to Notre Dame.
- Overall, 18 players got their first snaps of college football on Saturday.
- The staff made the decision to play Tyler Eifert last week after deciding that there wasn’t any way they would be able to make it through the season without playing him. Weis likes using multiple tight end sets so instead of worrying about burning a year of eligibility down the road, they decided to play him right away and get him ready.
- As for the freshman who didn’t play Saturday, Weis and the staff will make the decision on who will play this year after the bye week.
- Weis said that the support he got regarding last week’s billboard saga was the most positive showing of support he’s seen since he’s been at Notre Dame.
- Weis gave all of the credit from coming back from the bad back to back losses to end the 2008 regular season to win the bowl game and keep that momentum going into last weekend to the players.
- When asked if Michael Floyd has a chance to be the best wide receiver to ever come through Notre Dame, Weis joked that Golden would argue that.
- Weis said that the situation for correcting mistakes this week was perfect after a 35-0 win because the players are most open to constructive criticism after having a game like that.
- Weis referred to the holding call on Bobby Burger a phantom call. I would agree since replays showed that Burger’s hands weren’t even on the defender at the time the flag was thrown.
- The reason for having Dayne Crist’s first play come in the second half was because of a certain look Nevada showed Notre Dame. The play was designed to be a big gain, but ended up just being a modest gain.
- Weis said that Clausen told him to put in Crist when he told him that he could go in for another series if he wanted. Considering that Clausen was very encouraging of Crist as he ran onto the field that seems to make sense.
