Notre Dame Poised to Bounce Back

As disappointing as it is to accept, the only thing for the Notre Dame football program to do after the loss to Ohio State is to move on. Despite questions and concerns, problems and pessimism, the Irish must treat the game as a history lesson: something to learn from. "I would be shocked if this football team closed shop," head coach Lou Holtz announced. "And it isn't going to close shop. There is no way that is going to happen."

There are lots of questions that the team needs to answer. Questions about intensity. Questions about mental errors. Questions about coaching decisions.

"The game, you still felt in the fourth quarter we had a chance to win," Holtz recalled. "Hindsight, I look back on fourth down and 11 from their 26, probably should've kicked a field goal, but at that time I thought we needed a touchdown. We came up a yard short." "I did not really give our players as good a chance as what they should have had."

The team wasn't sharp in pre-game warm-up drills. The opening kickoff return was a slap in the face revealing immediate problems on coverage; special teams coverage was a focus of last week's practices. The inability of the offense to make changes when faced with unexpected stunts, blitzes, and twists showed hesitation and confusion. But these are all lessons to be studied.

"You are concerned any time you set your goals high and you lose them this early; yeah it is devastating, but I tell you this... we will address that," Holtz said.

So now the plan is to regroup. The season is far from over. The coaching staff has every intention of making positive changes, especially on the offensive side of the ball. That means one thing: back to the basics. Goodbye "Blarney," hello smash-mouth.

The team will resume practice today after having the weekend off from contact drills, and will not practice this weekend. The key to the season may lie in how the Irish mentally and emotionally get back on track this week.

No excuses allowed. It's time to put the pieces back together. Holtz and his staff realize this, and the Irish head coach displayed his usual knack for putting things in perspective. "(Skip Holtz, Connecticut's football coach) called me (Saturday) night and he didn't feel they played particularly well. He got mad and he went home and my grandson is there and he is watching a video called King Lion. He just told me one little phrase of it that I think is applicable. "The lion is standing there and the monkey takes a bat and hits him in the head. The lion says why did you do that? The monkey says, it doesn't matter, it's in the past.

"And a few minutes later the monkey took the bat and swung it at the lion again; the lion ducked this time. The lion said, why did you do that? The monkey said, doesn't matter, it is in the past, but you learn from the past."