Notre Dame settles QB question with Clausen
In a season where Notre Dame had so many things go wrong, the Irish finally had something go right Saturday.
Irish coach Charlie Weis’ flip-flopping quarterbacks is over. Freshman Jimmy Clausen is his starter.
“If there is one thing that you walked out of that game saying it’s that we’ve got ourselves a quarterback,” Weis said. “Well, we got ourselves a quarterback.”
Jimmy Clausen completed 22 of 40 passes for 246 yards and three touchdowns without an interception.
Much of Jimmy Clausen’s success came in the second half of Notre Dame’s 41-24 loss to Air Force on Saturday when the Irish were very far behind and the Falcons were sagging off defensively.
His statistics would have been better Saturday, but Weis counted eight drops from Notre Dame’s running backs, wide receivers and tight ends.
“He threw it around pretty good,” sophomore running back James Aldridge said. “He made plays when he could.”
With eight dropped passes, the wide receivers could be looked to as a problem. Weis said they hadn’t dropped eight passes in practice all week.
“I wasn’t happy with the volume of dropped balls yesterday,” Weis said. “That’s for sure. So I’d stay very consistent with my message I’ve been talking about, I’d say very inconsistent.”
This and that
Weis didn’t have updates on the back injury to junior nose guard Pat Kuntz and the undisclosed injuries to sophomore defensive back Sergio Brown and freshman tight end Mike Ragone. Both Brown and Ragone left the field Saturday on crutches. … If Notre Dame loses to Duke, it will clinch the Irish’s first winless season at home since Knute Rockne’s first season in 1918, when they played one home game and tied Great Lakes 7-7.
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