Eric Hansen

SOUTH BEND, Ind. - OK, so San Diego State head football coach Chuck Long waxed longingly about seeing the (largely non-existent) ivy on the Notre Dame campus this week and mistakenly called Irish linebackers coach Jon Tenuta ND’s “defensive coordinator.”

At least he seemed to nail what Tenuta’s influence on ND second-year defensive coordinator Corwin Brown’s blueprint is likely to look like Saturday, when the two schools clash in football for the first time ever.

"Now with this team, they blitz,” Long said. “(Tenuta) will blitz getting off the bus.”

And the Irish will do it likely even more than usual, since SDSU starts a redshirt freshman quarterback in Ryan Lindley.

“There are certain things he hasn’t seen, he hasn’t experienced. We’ll magnify that,” said Brown, who watched how teams came after Irish starting QB Jimmy Clausen last season when he was a true freshman, and with a bum elbow, no less. “We want him to feel uncomfortable. When he leaves the stadium, we want him to feel a certain way.”

Brown declined to go into specifics, but given Notre Dame’s 3-9 sagging bottom line last season, it’s safe to say he knows the feeling.

Here then are five keys, beyond the massive blitzing, that could make Long’s disappointment over not seeing ivy seem trivial in comparison:

Don’t save it all for Michigan
The Irish face the Wolverines in a season-defining game next Saturday, and there may be a temptation to just play vanilla this Saturday against the Aztecs, a team that got nipped 29-27 at home by Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo last weekend.

Notre Dame at the very least needs to be Neapolitan. Here’s why. This is an Irish team that needs to build confidence, even if it is against a three-touchdown underdog. Offensively, this was the nation’s worst team in 2007. Defensively, it couldn’t stop the run. The ND players need to see all the hard work and all the changes this offseason really did amount to something.

And it’s not a bad thing necessarily for Michigan’s inexperienced quarterback and rebuilding offensive line to see on film pressure coming from every angle. Sure, save a few surprises, a few wrinkles, but this is an ND team that needs to assert its new ornery personality from Game 1.

Go Deep
Deep as in depth, not necessarily in the passing game. If the game gets lopsided, backup quarterback Evan Sharpley needs to play. So do the freshmen like defensive end Ethan Johnson and linebackers Steve Filer and Darius Fleming, all of whom could be major contributors in October if they’re brought along in low-pressure moments instead of being asked to ferment, then magically blossom.

One mistake ND head coach Charlie Weis did make with his last Brady Quinn-led team in 2006, he tended to leave the starters in too long when he could have been building for that season’s stretch run as well as 2007.

Special Delivery
Weis tried having two special teams coaches when he first rolled into South Bend three seasons ago, then last year took a stab at having every coach on the staff involved in special teams. Both approaches yielded uneven, if not unspectacular, results. Now he has injected himself into the mix to complement special teams coordinator Brian Polian.

Weis has a breathtakingly athletic freshman class. He has veterans who know how special teams can make the difference between winning and losing. There’s a combination there using both groups that could pay off nicely.

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Weis has always made special teams a priority, even though sometimes in games they look like an afterthought. He needs to make a statement in this area on Saturday.

Balance the books
Given that San Diego State was one of the worst rushing defense teams in 2007 and appears to be headed down the same ugly statistical road in 2008 (a spate of injuries along the defensive front isn’t helping matters), the tendency for the Irish would seem to be to simply play smash-mouth football all day long

It’s one way to make all three co-starting running backs happy and to avoid a four-hour game. Beyond that, it’s just wrong.

What makes the Weis/Michael Haywood offense sing, though, are balance and unpredictability. So if you’re going to be a balanced offense in weeks, 2, 3, and 4, then don’t change your personality completely in the opener.

That’s not to say the Irish shouldn’t expose and pound a weakness, but they need to play to their strengths, too.

Don’t led the drama build
The good Weis teams strike early and often. The Irish, under Weis, are 15-4 when scoring first, 7-11 when they don’t. ND, in the Weis Era, is 18-2 when leading or tied at the half, 4-13 when trailing at the half.

Haywood, in his first game at calling the plays, needs to be bold, but not silly (like going for it on fourth down inside his own 30-yard line). He needs to set an offensive tempo that will complement the ND defense’s blitzing, whoever is orchestrating them.

He needs to give the Aztec defense that same feeling Brown hopes to leave SDSU’s Lindley with.

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