There you have it. Don't need to watch the game that starts at 8 eastern with kickoff at 8:06pm. I will tell you what will happen right here. A win by 14 points no less. And if you read the email comments I get directly from the readers of my post on fannation, you know that I am setting myself up for a busy night of reading hate mail.
In a game in which the Huskies will show the most emotion all season, the end result will eventually come down to execution and leadership in the locker room. Notre Dame will execute to their plan flawlessly and the Huskies, with Ty Willingham trying not to be part of the story, will be lifeless comes the 2nd half and surrender to a stronger, much stronger opponent.
There were a number of press conferences this week at Notre Dame after the bye week and here are a few "nuggets" that will constitue some basis to my emotional analysis. By now, you know how I work. I put the numbers down, the key stats and try to see who has the swagger and how it should unfold.
So before putting up the numbers, here is some of what was said yesterday and today in South Bend.
Golden Tate: "........the Huskies have pretty fast corners....we have to win on the road, the coming stretch is on the road so we have to win on the road." Notre Dame plays four of the remaining 6 games on the road, thus the need to start winning away from home.
Armando Allen: "....anybody can be beaten on any given day and we need to prepare, they're a pretty good team". Maybe they are, maybe they were, but you don't want to be the one win that Ty Willingham gets this year.
Offensive Coordinator Mike Haywood on how he fared in his first 6 games of the season: "NOT AS GOOD AS I SHOULD"
Charlie Weis, on the potential easy win against an 0-6 team: "...We can't worry about UW, we have enough problems worrying about us...."
OK, so what do we see here? The team is taking this game very seriously and will be coming out of the gate rapidly to establish the tempo. Nothing is taken for granted. The fact that the bye week came after the loss to North Carolina is also good because they had time to recalibrate their offense.
When Washington's quarterback Jake Locker broke his thumb on September 27th, not only did the Huskies lost their quarterback but they also lost their best runner on their offence. To say that they have been struggling since would be an understatement. Of the 119 teams in the Division 1 teams, Washington ranks 95th in total offense and 118th on defense. For the Huskies offense, it has become pretty much a one dimension affair on offense going through the air for 276 yards against Oregon State last week, while running for only 100 yards.
The only thing that Ty Willingham can hang is hat on is the respect his players have for him. If they decide to play for him, so that he can walk pride at the end of the game, the Huskies have a chance. The Irish are too well prepared, too eager to prove themselves on the road and have the perfect victim to do so in Washington. You can count on Clausen being close to near perfect, on Michael Floyd having another big game, and seeing a very mechanical 4th quarter as the Fighting Irish put this one away after 3.


Cheney Larschied
Tatiana Golovin



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