Georgia Tech Hands Notre Dame Its Worst Ever Opening Defeat

By John Mooney

Charlie Weis knew that replacing Brady Quinn as Notre Dame's quarterback would be difficult. He didn't expect his once formidable offense to be held to just a field goal in the Fighting Irish's season opener in South Bend.

Georgia Tech stymied all three of Notre Dame's new passers. The Yellow Jackets forced two fumbles by Demetrius Jones, sacked Evan Sharpley seven times, and kept Jimmy Clausen in check during a 33-3 victory Saturday. Notre Dame had no running game at all; Georgia Tech held the Irish to -8 yards rushing. After the game, head coach Charlie Weis said he couldn't remember the last time one of his teams had failed to score a touchdown.

"We thought that the best way to go against them was to run the football. And we felt that Demetrius as an additional runner could provide us some plays where we would be able to move the ball," Coach Weis said during his post-game press conference. "Unfortunately, obviously, Georgia Tech got the best of us all day."

Weis tried a two-minute offense run by Evan Sharpley that was equally ineffective. The Notre Dame coach did not announce his starter before the contest, which forced The "Rambling Wreck" to prepare for any of the three replacements to Brady Quinn, who is now with the Cleveland Browns.

Georgia Tech held the trio of quarterbacks -- Jones, Sharpley and Clausen -- to a combined 15-for-22 for 122 yards.

"We thought that their quarterbacks brought different things to the table. We knew we had to go out there and stop them from running the football," Georgia Tech coach Chan Gailey said. "I thought we would play pretty well defensively. I did not know we would run the ball as well as we ran it today."

The star of the game was RB Tashard Choice, who rushed for a career-high 196 yards and two touchdowns. For Choice, who gained 1,473 yards on the ground last season, it was his eighth consecutive 100-yard game. Georgia Tech had 386 yards total offense and frequently started drives in good field position.

Notre Dame's loss was the most lopsided season opener in history and just the 15th opening game loss in its glorious football history. It was also the first time the Irish failed to score a touchdown in a season opener since a 20-12 loss at Michigan in 1985. Notre Dame's previous low score under Coach Weis was last year's 14-10 victory against the same Georgia Tech team in last year's season opener. "We've had some rough games in the past, but it's been a while," he said.

Weis said he had not yet decided who the starting quarterback would be for next week's game against Penn State.

"I have to wait to see how many of those errors are quarterback-related and how many of them are protection-related, or route-related," he said. "I thought that we would have performed better than what we did. There's a whole litany of problems that we have to fix."

"I'll take full responsibility for a team coming out and losing 33-3. Obviously you have to give credit to Georgia Tech because they are a good football team.

"We have to put this game in the past and learn from our mistakes," said senior Defensive Back Tom Zbikowski reflecting on the loss. ""We've got to move on. It's a long season." Next week Notre Dame travels to Penn State to take on the Nittany Lions in a game that starts at 6:30 p.m. on NBC