A few nuggets from Charlie Weis' day-after dissection of a 36-33, four-overtime loss to Pittsburgh on Saturday...
The Irish offensive line may be a man down, pending test results on Chris Stewart's knee. The junior guard mysteriously went down with the injury while running onto the field late in the Pitt game, and Weis said it could be a while before Stewart runs anywhere.
"Chris doesn't look very good,"
Weis said Sunday. "His knee locked out on the way out to the field. His knee just locked. He's going to get tested. If he did get 'scoped, it would probably be four weeks."
During a predictably restless night of sleep, Weis decided to shake up the Irish's schedule in order to shake the team out of whatever doldrums the Pitt loss caused.
The Irish will meet at 6 a.m. on Monday, and then lift weights and condition, which "gets things out of their system,"
Weis said. Then they will go over first- and second-down scouting for Boston College in the afternoon, a process that normally waits until Tuesday. That will allow Weis to get his team out on the field earlier Tuesday.
Basically, Weis is accelerating the preparation process in some areas so he doesn't wait until Wednesday to get the team back to normal.
"What I'm trying to do more than anything else is shock their system, get them out of a rut,"
Weis said. "I had to come up with a plan to make sure it wasn't business as usual."
The Irish lineup for the Boston College game could be different than the one that took the field against Pittsburgh, and it will have nothing to do with injury. Certain starters may be on notice.
"There will be some frontline players that will definitely be challenged this week,"
Weis said. "I'm not getting into particulars. If they don't know right now, which they should, they will certainly know (Monday)."
One player possibly climbing the ladder? Freshman cornerback Robert Blanton.
"(Blanton) did a fairly decent job in covering most of day,"
Weis said. "There are a couple tackles he would have liked to have done better. But he's not afraid to be out there. I could definitely see Blanton playing more."
Golden Tate may be on his way into Weis' doghouse -- for his off-field performance. After the loss on Saturday, Tate opined that the Irish got "too comfortable"
and therefore couldn't finish off the Panthers despite a two-touchdown halftime lead.
Weis did not appreciate Tate's candor, for one. In an unrelated discourse about second-half offensive issues, the Irish also specifically cited an obvious mental error by Tate -- without mentioning his name. Now, it's Enter: The Censor.
"Let's just say I'll talk with Golden and he won't be saying that anymore,"
Weis said. "Just like Michael Floyd was lateraling the ball in the North Carolina game."
