Notre Dame coach Tyrone Willingham again will play his cards close to the vest this week.
Leading up to Notre Dame’s 31-7 victory over Stanford, Willingham refused to tip his hand about whether quarterback Carlyle Holiday, who injured his left (non-throwing) shoulder in the team’s previous game at Michigan State, or Pat Dillingham, the backup who tossed the game-winning pass against the Spartans, would start.
The nod went to Dillingham, who finished 14-for-27 for 129 yards, with one interception.
“We just wanted to be cautious,” Willingham said about the decision to hold out Holiday.
Will the caution extend to this weekend, when the Irish take on Pittsburgh (5-1) at Notre Dame Stadium?
“I will not even speculate on that at this moment,” Willingham said Saturday. “We have a whole week to go.”
When will he decide?
“Probably two minutes before the game works well,” he said.
Beating themselves
Against Stanford, as it has all season, the Notre Dame offense hurt itself with penalties and mistakes.
“What we’ve continued to do all year is to shoot ourselves in our foot at certain points,” Willingham said. “The plays that we can make, the plays that we should be making, we’re not getting them done. On occasion we’ll sprinkle in a penalty and it just stops a drive.
“We’ve not been good enough to overcome all of the mistakes for the situations we’ve put ourselves in, so if we can start to eliminate those, play a little smarter, we’ll be a much better offense.”
Plenty of practice
On Saturday, Notre Dame’s defense held a Stanford offense that came into the game averaging 38 points per game to just seven.
“We limited a very potent offense to, if I’m correct, maybe under 300 yards, and that is a heck of a day when you can do that,” Willingham said.
In fact, the unit held Stanford to just 262 total yards. And still, the players were not satisfied.
“We do not want our opponents to score any points,” linebacker Courtney Watson said.
Added strong safety Gerome Sapp, “We love having a challenge.”
Notre Dame will face another challenge Saturday when it faces a hot Pittsburgh team. The Panthers will spring into the game on the strength of a 48-24 pasting of Syracuse. After falling behind 3-0, Pitt put up 48 straight points.
Where they rank
Notre Dame’s statistical rank among 117 Division I-A teams:
CATEGORY YPG RANK
Total offense 314.6 104
Scoring offense 24.6 76
Rushing offense 163.2 51
Passing offense 151.4 105
Total defense 273.6 7
Scoring defense 12.8 4
Rushing defense 73.6 4
Passing defense 200.0 16
