Hard to believe after the way I ripped Rich Rodriguez that I had to root for him to win on Saturday, but that was the case. People are saying the game was an instant classic and it surely was a good one, but was it as good as the Bush Push game? Not quite that good. Anyway, Charlie Weis is taking a ton of heat for throwing two passes at the end of the game while the Irish were trying to nurse a 34-31 lead.
They had the ball 2nd and 9 at their 30 when they threw two straight incompletions taking just 20 seconds off the clock, leaving 2:19 for the Wolverines who got the ball at their 43. Weis said he was just trying to win the game, “They loaded up the box and made it clear that they weren’t going to let us do that, so we had to throw the ball. On third down, we could have run and made them use a timeout, but we were trying to win the game.”
Forcier said that saving the timeouts for their final drive was key and there’s no doubt it was. By making Michigan burn their timeouts, the Wolverines would have had a much tougher time moving the ball in the final drive and they might have had to settle for a field goal. You telling me Weis wouldn’t have taken his chances in overtime? No doubt that was a tactical error and it was extremely costly. The only question is whether or not this leads to a tailspin and a new head coach for Notre Dame. I guess it was just another lesson in Weis’ coaching internship.
