Oct. 13, 2000
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – The past couple of weeks, the offensive unit has sputtered. This week, we focused on ways to prevent that from happening again. We need to find a way to provide success on a consistent basis.
Our worst nightmare coming into this season was that something would happen to (quarterback) Arnaz Battle. We were thin at the quarterback position anyway. What made the situation even more difficult was that Arnaz was a young quarterback and we wanted to give him as many reps as possible during the spring and preseason. We needed to get Arnaz ready to play because he was going to be our starting quarterback. This created little opportunity for a backup quarterback to emerge.
This season has really brought about a complex situation for us. With Arnaz being taken away from us, our offense almost became something it was not. We did what we had to do and tried different options.
We are at a point now where we are done searching for a quarterback. It looks like Matt LoVecchio will do some excellent things for us and will bring some continuity back to the offense. Now we are just trying to gather an idea of what we can do consistently for the rest of the season so the offense can build on things and get back on track.
One thing this team is not short on is depth, which allows us to use a variety of players. On Saturday, we got to use some of that depth, especially at fullback when Tom Lopienski did not play. Jason Murray filled the gap and played well, especially blocking.
(Tailback) Julius Jones has been bothered by a hamstring injury all year so we were able to use our depth at tailback as well. Tony Fisher, Terrance Howard and Julius all got their hands on the ball this past Saturday and contributed.