The Franchise
03-21-2010, 08:56 PM
http://www.walterfootball.com/jimmyclausenhate.php
EDITOR'S NOTE: Joseph Hoffman posted a great article on the forums about Jimmy Clausen, and why the hatred toward him is completely unfounded. He granted me permission to post his article on the site.
The original title of this article was "Jimmy Clausen Raped My Mother and Killed My Father," but I didn't want Google picking up anything like that and putting it into its search engine. Plus, it's always good to get a South Park reference in. Damn alien wizards causing sexual addiction.
At any rate, as blue5213 indicated, if you're in the "too long; didn't read" crowd, scroll down to the "in conclusion" portion of this article.
To be perfectly honest, I don't expect to convince anyone. At this point, if you still aren't a Jimmy Clausen fan, you just have some irrational hatred either for him personally or for Notre Dame, because there is no logical reason not to have him as a top-10 player in the 2010 NFL Draft and easily the most sure-fire quarterback in the class. Really, I just want one post to point to that says "You're stupid" whenever I read the same, tired, dumb arguments for why Clausen doesn't deserve a first-round grade.
Let's begin with the situation he was in during his college years. He comes from a pro-style offense, which gives him some big points right off the bat. He was coached by Charlie Weis, who is easily one of the most highly respected quarterback coaches and offensive minds in the NFL, let alone college.
Let's discuss Clausen's running game, or lack thereof. Consider the following facts:
# Clausen never shared a backfield with a 1,000-yard rusher.
# No running back eclipsed 700 rushing yards while Clausen was at Notre Dame.
# No running back had a run longer than 27 yards during Clausen's final two years at Notre Dame.
# No running back topped five rushing touchdowns during Clausen's career.
# The team as a whole never scored more than 13 rushing touchdowns.
# Non-quarterbacks never accounted for more than 11 touchdowns in a season.
# Clausen's running game (excluding quarterbacks) averaged 3.56, 3.57, and 4.8 YPC during his career.
Personally, I don't think it's a coincidence the running game miraculously took off just as Clausen had one of the best seasons by a junior quarterback in NCAA history.
Let's discuss Clausen's horrid offensive line:
# Clausen's offensive line gave up a school-record 58 sacks in 2007.
# At least three members of that offensive line were still starting his junior year.
# Clausen had three different left tackles and three different centers over his collegiate career.
# Barring some front office's idiocy, two of those left tackles will never play a down in the NFL, let alone be drafted, and the third (Sam Young) was not only moved to the right side after Clausen's freshman season, but will almost assuredly be a Day 3 pick at the earliest.
# Given the offensive line's production throughout Clausen's career, it is HIGHLY unlikely that Chris Stewart or Dan Wenger will be drafted earlier than the fifth round, giving Eric Olsen the chance to be the highest-drafted offensive lineman of Clausen's tenure at around the third or fourth round. Trevor Robinson at right guard may have that honor in a year or two, but, he's still a guard.
Thus, we can rather safely say that Clausen had little to no talent on his offensive line. There will be video evidence of this offensive line - one that was starting four seniors - getting completely abused later on in this article to further hammer home the point.
At the skill positions, Clausen had a substantial amount of talent - but that talent was constantly hurt. Consider the following points:
# When Clausen was a freshman, Duval Kamara broke school receiving records for a freshman. Of the top six receivers on that 2007 team, three have gone/will go undrafted (Robby Parris, David Givens, and George West), one was a true freshman running back (Armando Allen), while the top receiver was tight end John Carlson.
# As a sophomore, Clausen had true freshmen starting at tight end and wide receiver, while a pair of true sophomores started at the other receiver spot and at running back. Michael Floyd shattered Kamara's records despite missing three games.
# As a junior, Floyd missed five games (during which Notre Dame was 4-1). Kyle Rudolph missed three games (all of which Notre Dame lost), and the likely undrafted Robby Parris was fifth on the team in catches and (for all intents and purposes) started in place of Floyd.
# In all, Floyd missed eight of the 25 games (a third, for those of you who can't count) in which both he and Clausen were Domers. During the 2009 season, by far Clausen's best as a college player, Floyd and Rudolph were on the field together for four games.
Having said all this, let it be established that Clausen did not have a substantially good supporting cast around him - and even at the positions where he had talent, those players were either extremely young and inexperienced, or injured. His production in spite of this should speak for itself.
But, just to really hammer home the point, let's look at some other quarterbacks with stellar supporting casts who were high draft picks:
Matt Leinart: Reggie Bush, LenDale White, Dwayne Jarrett, Steve Smith, Winston Justice, Deuce Lutui, Ryan Kalil, Mike Williams, Lofa Tatupu, Shaun Cody and Mike Patterson - these are just the players selected in the first two rounds of the 2005-2007 NFL Drafts.
Mark Sanchez: Brian Cushing, Clay Matthews, Rey Maualuga and Fili Moala all went in the first two rounds in the 2009 NFL Draft. Patrick Turner was also selected in the third round. Damian Williams, Kris O'Dowd, Everson Griffen, Taylor Mays and Charles Brown all stand very good chances of being no later than second-round picks.
Matthew Stafford: Knowshon Moreno, Mohammed Massaquoi, Asher Allen and Corey Irvin were all selected in the first three rounds of the 2009 NFL Draft.
JaMarcus Russell: LaRon Landry, Dwayne Bowe and Craig Davis went in the first round of the same draft as Russell. Glenn Dorsey, Early Doucet, Jacob Hester and Chevis Jackson were all selected in the first three rounds of the 2008 NFL Draft.
Why did these four get passes for TONS of talent around them, while Clausen gets trashed repeatedly because of a supposedly elite receiver group? Russell had two first-round picks at receiver the same year he came out and still went No. 1 overall! All three of the other quarterbacks had at least a third-round pick at receiver the exact same year they declared for the NFL Draft, as well.
Now, for Clausen's actual performance. We're talking 34 career starts in his career, along with an additional six attempts against Georgia Tech in the 2007 season opener. In those 34 starts, Clausen threw for:
# At least 240 yards 18 times.
# More than 300 yards 10 times.
# Greater than 400 yards 3 times.
# Three-plus touchdowns 10 times (seven of which came in his first 22 starts - his freshman and sophomore seasons).
# At least one touchdown in 13 consecutive games.
# At least 246 yards in 13 of his last 15 games, including a current streak of eight straight games.
Clausen has completed at least 70 percent of his passes nine times (min. 18 attempts), including twice with 40-plus passing attempts. He has also thrown more touchdowns than incompletions twice in his career.
Let's compare those stats to his interception numbers. Clausen has had eight multiple-interception games. He has not had more than one interception in a game since Nov. 29, 2008, giving him a 13-game streak of having one or fewer interceptions per contest. He has not had a multiple-interception home game since Sept. 13, 2008, a stretch of 11 games; during that period, he has thrown two interceptions in true home games.
Let's look at Clausen's overall performance. Since his freshman year, his quarterback rating has improved by a whopping 29 points every season (103.85 to 132.49 to 161.43). Keep in mind that Clausen was not given a redshirt at any point during his career; these are true freshman/sophomore/junior numbers.
To put Clausen's performance in perspective, his true sophomore numbers are roughly the same or better than Matt Ryan's senior season in every category except sacks (dead even at 21), attempts (Ryan had roughly 200 more), total passing yardage (Ryan had 700-plus yards more than any other pro-style quarterback drafted in the first round since 2004), and touchdowns (Ryan had 6 more TDs than Clausen). Yes, Clausen had fewer interceptions, a better completion percentage and more yards per attempt as a true sophomore than Ryan, the senior, No. 3 overall pick in 2008.
If nothing else, this ought to show Clausen's coachibility; he notably improved every season in college, and actually outperformed a senior top-five pick, which should quiet the strange murmurs that he was a "one-year wonder" (which, naturally, didn't hurt Mark Sanchez any, even though Clausen outperformed Sanchez in every statistical category except touchdowns, of which he had six fewer in one less game - a nearly insignificant difference when one realizes Sanchez had four touchdowns in that final game).
Clausen's junior year performance hardly needs to be put in better perspective than WalterFootball.com already has, but just to drill home the point, Clausen's stats across the board are tied for fourth-best amongst the 10 pro-style quarterbacks selected in the first round since 2004.
Clausen is first in fewest interceptions with half as many picks as the next-best quarterbacks, and is 2.9 percent more accurate than the third-most accurate quarterback out of that group, Aaron Rodgers (JaMarcus Russell, hilariously enough, is the only guy in Clausen's time zone in this regard with a 67.8 completion percentage).
Only three of these quarterbacks threw more touchdowns than Clausen in their final seasons - Matt Ryan, Mark Sanchez, and Brady Quinn - one of whom actually tied Clausen for third if we only take the regular season into account (Ryan), even granting Ryan the 13th (ACC Championship) game (it's only fair to note that Ryan threw three of his 19 picks in the final two games of his 14-game season).
On to the claim that Clausen is not a "winner." Even though this is an arbitrary and rather pointless claim to make, we'll address it anyway:
# As a junior, Clausen led three straight game-winning drives on his final possession in Weeks 3-5.
# Clausen brought his team back from a 31-20 deficit to take the lead against Michigan in Week 2 with 5:13 left to go, only to watch his defense give up a touchdown with 11 seconds left; on his penultimate drive of the game, with Michael Floyd out with a leg injury, Golden Tate dropped a SLIGHTLY underthrown pass to ice the game, and Shaquelle Evans quit on a route (and perfectly thrown pass) that would have given Notre Dame a first down and again iced the game, in back-to-back plays (seen here at 8:54-9:12) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1t6gjzROLQ&feature=channel).
# Down 34-14 with 13:33 left to play against USC, Clausen led three drives down the field. Tausch missed an extra point, and Duval Kamara slipped on a route in the endzone on fourth down that, had he been where he was supposed to be, would have resulted in a touchdown and a chance to tie (or win, had Taush made the extra point).
# Against Navy, Clausen led Notre Dame to two touchdowns in the final 4:46, a game in which the Notre Dame punter did not step onto the field; the Irish turned the ball over 3 times, failed twice on fourth down, and the kicker missed two field goals, including one from within 40 yards.
# Against Stanford, Notre Dame did not trail from the final 40 seconds of the first quarter until the final minute of the fourth and held an 11-point lead twice; Notre Dame's defense gave up 15 points in the final nine minutes, including letting Stanford run almost the entire final six minutes off the clock; Clausen still drove the team down to the Stanford 24 before his final pass fell incomplete in the end zone.
Overall, Notre Dame's defense/special teams gave up 30-plus points five times. Notre Dame averaged 32.4 PPG in those games.
Now, to put an end to the claim that Clausen had a decent offensive line. Since it single-handedly made Everson Griffen's season, let's pull out the USC-ND game tape from this year. Use this video of Notre Dame-USC highlights for reference (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvR_rFKMJyU):
# At around :10 in, Clausen gets the ball snapped to him. Everson Griffen spins right around Paul Duncan at LT and Clausen is going to the ground at :12. Not his fault.
# At 1:25, Clausen gets the ball, has no one open, and goes down to a three-man rush by 1:30. That's a coverage sack that Clausen probably should have thrown away; sure, we'll give the haters that one even though it's three-on-five and no three-man rush should get to the quarterback ever.
# Now let's mix things up and focus on that stellar running game that got 2.6 YPC in this contest. At 1:54, Notre Dame tries to run up the middle on 4th-and-1 and fails miserably because a linebacker and safety just blow through the middle of the line.
# This next one at 2:31 is a personal favorite: Everson Griffen comes in through the middle on a stunt, forces Clausen to run for his life, and finally sacks him at 2:36. At 2:32, the tight end pulls a ridiculously half-hearted chip before running a route over the middle, the running back completely whiffs at 2:33, and right guard completely whiffs half a second later. Clausen is running for dear life by 2:34 because three guys completely fail to even slow down one guy.
# At 3:12, Clausen takes another snap, gets forced to step up into pressure at 3:14 because Sam Young is getting his a** handed to him, and finally gets sacked at 3:15 because he can't see out of the closet that one might optimistically call a "pocket."
# At 4:22, Clausen gets the ball and sees immediate pressure put on him from the right side, with the end taking him to the ground at 4:25. Note that on the very next play, Clausen threads the needle to Golden Tate for a touchdown while getting drilled AGAIN.
# At 5:01, Clausen is about to get totaled by a defender and is forced to scramble out of the pocket. He throws a great pass where only his receiver can catch it. All of this is even more astounding when one looks at the USC offense versus the Notre Dame defense; please, someone insult my intelligence by suggesting that Clausen didn't have to deal with one of the worst defenses in Division I football, and that the fact that he didn't lose by more than seven points his entire junior year is not absolutely shocking.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Joseph Hoffman posted a great article on the forums about Jimmy Clausen, and why the hatred toward him is completely unfounded. He granted me permission to post his article on the site.
The original title of this article was "Jimmy Clausen Raped My Mother and Killed My Father," but I didn't want Google picking up anything like that and putting it into its search engine. Plus, it's always good to get a South Park reference in. Damn alien wizards causing sexual addiction.
At any rate, as blue5213 indicated, if you're in the "too long; didn't read" crowd, scroll down to the "in conclusion" portion of this article.
To be perfectly honest, I don't expect to convince anyone. At this point, if you still aren't a Jimmy Clausen fan, you just have some irrational hatred either for him personally or for Notre Dame, because there is no logical reason not to have him as a top-10 player in the 2010 NFL Draft and easily the most sure-fire quarterback in the class. Really, I just want one post to point to that says "You're stupid" whenever I read the same, tired, dumb arguments for why Clausen doesn't deserve a first-round grade.
Let's begin with the situation he was in during his college years. He comes from a pro-style offense, which gives him some big points right off the bat. He was coached by Charlie Weis, who is easily one of the most highly respected quarterback coaches and offensive minds in the NFL, let alone college.
Let's discuss Clausen's running game, or lack thereof. Consider the following facts:
# Clausen never shared a backfield with a 1,000-yard rusher.
# No running back eclipsed 700 rushing yards while Clausen was at Notre Dame.
# No running back had a run longer than 27 yards during Clausen's final two years at Notre Dame.
# No running back topped five rushing touchdowns during Clausen's career.
# The team as a whole never scored more than 13 rushing touchdowns.
# Non-quarterbacks never accounted for more than 11 touchdowns in a season.
# Clausen's running game (excluding quarterbacks) averaged 3.56, 3.57, and 4.8 YPC during his career.
Personally, I don't think it's a coincidence the running game miraculously took off just as Clausen had one of the best seasons by a junior quarterback in NCAA history.
Let's discuss Clausen's horrid offensive line:
# Clausen's offensive line gave up a school-record 58 sacks in 2007.
# At least three members of that offensive line were still starting his junior year.
# Clausen had three different left tackles and three different centers over his collegiate career.
# Barring some front office's idiocy, two of those left tackles will never play a down in the NFL, let alone be drafted, and the third (Sam Young) was not only moved to the right side after Clausen's freshman season, but will almost assuredly be a Day 3 pick at the earliest.
# Given the offensive line's production throughout Clausen's career, it is HIGHLY unlikely that Chris Stewart or Dan Wenger will be drafted earlier than the fifth round, giving Eric Olsen the chance to be the highest-drafted offensive lineman of Clausen's tenure at around the third or fourth round. Trevor Robinson at right guard may have that honor in a year or two, but, he's still a guard.
Thus, we can rather safely say that Clausen had little to no talent on his offensive line. There will be video evidence of this offensive line - one that was starting four seniors - getting completely abused later on in this article to further hammer home the point.
At the skill positions, Clausen had a substantial amount of talent - but that talent was constantly hurt. Consider the following points:
# When Clausen was a freshman, Duval Kamara broke school receiving records for a freshman. Of the top six receivers on that 2007 team, three have gone/will go undrafted (Robby Parris, David Givens, and George West), one was a true freshman running back (Armando Allen), while the top receiver was tight end John Carlson.
# As a sophomore, Clausen had true freshmen starting at tight end and wide receiver, while a pair of true sophomores started at the other receiver spot and at running back. Michael Floyd shattered Kamara's records despite missing three games.
# As a junior, Floyd missed five games (during which Notre Dame was 4-1). Kyle Rudolph missed three games (all of which Notre Dame lost), and the likely undrafted Robby Parris was fifth on the team in catches and (for all intents and purposes) started in place of Floyd.
# In all, Floyd missed eight of the 25 games (a third, for those of you who can't count) in which both he and Clausen were Domers. During the 2009 season, by far Clausen's best as a college player, Floyd and Rudolph were on the field together for four games.
Having said all this, let it be established that Clausen did not have a substantially good supporting cast around him - and even at the positions where he had talent, those players were either extremely young and inexperienced, or injured. His production in spite of this should speak for itself.
But, just to really hammer home the point, let's look at some other quarterbacks with stellar supporting casts who were high draft picks:
Matt Leinart: Reggie Bush, LenDale White, Dwayne Jarrett, Steve Smith, Winston Justice, Deuce Lutui, Ryan Kalil, Mike Williams, Lofa Tatupu, Shaun Cody and Mike Patterson - these are just the players selected in the first two rounds of the 2005-2007 NFL Drafts.
Mark Sanchez: Brian Cushing, Clay Matthews, Rey Maualuga and Fili Moala all went in the first two rounds in the 2009 NFL Draft. Patrick Turner was also selected in the third round. Damian Williams, Kris O'Dowd, Everson Griffen, Taylor Mays and Charles Brown all stand very good chances of being no later than second-round picks.
Matthew Stafford: Knowshon Moreno, Mohammed Massaquoi, Asher Allen and Corey Irvin were all selected in the first three rounds of the 2009 NFL Draft.
JaMarcus Russell: LaRon Landry, Dwayne Bowe and Craig Davis went in the first round of the same draft as Russell. Glenn Dorsey, Early Doucet, Jacob Hester and Chevis Jackson were all selected in the first three rounds of the 2008 NFL Draft.
Why did these four get passes for TONS of talent around them, while Clausen gets trashed repeatedly because of a supposedly elite receiver group? Russell had two first-round picks at receiver the same year he came out and still went No. 1 overall! All three of the other quarterbacks had at least a third-round pick at receiver the exact same year they declared for the NFL Draft, as well.
Now, for Clausen's actual performance. We're talking 34 career starts in his career, along with an additional six attempts against Georgia Tech in the 2007 season opener. In those 34 starts, Clausen threw for:
# At least 240 yards 18 times.
# More than 300 yards 10 times.
# Greater than 400 yards 3 times.
# Three-plus touchdowns 10 times (seven of which came in his first 22 starts - his freshman and sophomore seasons).
# At least one touchdown in 13 consecutive games.
# At least 246 yards in 13 of his last 15 games, including a current streak of eight straight games.
Clausen has completed at least 70 percent of his passes nine times (min. 18 attempts), including twice with 40-plus passing attempts. He has also thrown more touchdowns than incompletions twice in his career.
Let's compare those stats to his interception numbers. Clausen has had eight multiple-interception games. He has not had more than one interception in a game since Nov. 29, 2008, giving him a 13-game streak of having one or fewer interceptions per contest. He has not had a multiple-interception home game since Sept. 13, 2008, a stretch of 11 games; during that period, he has thrown two interceptions in true home games.
Let's look at Clausen's overall performance. Since his freshman year, his quarterback rating has improved by a whopping 29 points every season (103.85 to 132.49 to 161.43). Keep in mind that Clausen was not given a redshirt at any point during his career; these are true freshman/sophomore/junior numbers.
To put Clausen's performance in perspective, his true sophomore numbers are roughly the same or better than Matt Ryan's senior season in every category except sacks (dead even at 21), attempts (Ryan had roughly 200 more), total passing yardage (Ryan had 700-plus yards more than any other pro-style quarterback drafted in the first round since 2004), and touchdowns (Ryan had 6 more TDs than Clausen). Yes, Clausen had fewer interceptions, a better completion percentage and more yards per attempt as a true sophomore than Ryan, the senior, No. 3 overall pick in 2008.
If nothing else, this ought to show Clausen's coachibility; he notably improved every season in college, and actually outperformed a senior top-five pick, which should quiet the strange murmurs that he was a "one-year wonder" (which, naturally, didn't hurt Mark Sanchez any, even though Clausen outperformed Sanchez in every statistical category except touchdowns, of which he had six fewer in one less game - a nearly insignificant difference when one realizes Sanchez had four touchdowns in that final game).
Clausen's junior year performance hardly needs to be put in better perspective than WalterFootball.com already has, but just to drill home the point, Clausen's stats across the board are tied for fourth-best amongst the 10 pro-style quarterbacks selected in the first round since 2004.
Clausen is first in fewest interceptions with half as many picks as the next-best quarterbacks, and is 2.9 percent more accurate than the third-most accurate quarterback out of that group, Aaron Rodgers (JaMarcus Russell, hilariously enough, is the only guy in Clausen's time zone in this regard with a 67.8 completion percentage).
Only three of these quarterbacks threw more touchdowns than Clausen in their final seasons - Matt Ryan, Mark Sanchez, and Brady Quinn - one of whom actually tied Clausen for third if we only take the regular season into account (Ryan), even granting Ryan the 13th (ACC Championship) game (it's only fair to note that Ryan threw three of his 19 picks in the final two games of his 14-game season).
On to the claim that Clausen is not a "winner." Even though this is an arbitrary and rather pointless claim to make, we'll address it anyway:
# As a junior, Clausen led three straight game-winning drives on his final possession in Weeks 3-5.
# Clausen brought his team back from a 31-20 deficit to take the lead against Michigan in Week 2 with 5:13 left to go, only to watch his defense give up a touchdown with 11 seconds left; on his penultimate drive of the game, with Michael Floyd out with a leg injury, Golden Tate dropped a SLIGHTLY underthrown pass to ice the game, and Shaquelle Evans quit on a route (and perfectly thrown pass) that would have given Notre Dame a first down and again iced the game, in back-to-back plays (seen here at 8:54-9:12) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1t6gjzROLQ&feature=channel).
# Down 34-14 with 13:33 left to play against USC, Clausen led three drives down the field. Tausch missed an extra point, and Duval Kamara slipped on a route in the endzone on fourth down that, had he been where he was supposed to be, would have resulted in a touchdown and a chance to tie (or win, had Taush made the extra point).
# Against Navy, Clausen led Notre Dame to two touchdowns in the final 4:46, a game in which the Notre Dame punter did not step onto the field; the Irish turned the ball over 3 times, failed twice on fourth down, and the kicker missed two field goals, including one from within 40 yards.
# Against Stanford, Notre Dame did not trail from the final 40 seconds of the first quarter until the final minute of the fourth and held an 11-point lead twice; Notre Dame's defense gave up 15 points in the final nine minutes, including letting Stanford run almost the entire final six minutes off the clock; Clausen still drove the team down to the Stanford 24 before his final pass fell incomplete in the end zone.
Overall, Notre Dame's defense/special teams gave up 30-plus points five times. Notre Dame averaged 32.4 PPG in those games.
Now, to put an end to the claim that Clausen had a decent offensive line. Since it single-handedly made Everson Griffen's season, let's pull out the USC-ND game tape from this year. Use this video of Notre Dame-USC highlights for reference (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvR_rFKMJyU):
# At around :10 in, Clausen gets the ball snapped to him. Everson Griffen spins right around Paul Duncan at LT and Clausen is going to the ground at :12. Not his fault.
# At 1:25, Clausen gets the ball, has no one open, and goes down to a three-man rush by 1:30. That's a coverage sack that Clausen probably should have thrown away; sure, we'll give the haters that one even though it's three-on-five and no three-man rush should get to the quarterback ever.
# Now let's mix things up and focus on that stellar running game that got 2.6 YPC in this contest. At 1:54, Notre Dame tries to run up the middle on 4th-and-1 and fails miserably because a linebacker and safety just blow through the middle of the line.
# This next one at 2:31 is a personal favorite: Everson Griffen comes in through the middle on a stunt, forces Clausen to run for his life, and finally sacks him at 2:36. At 2:32, the tight end pulls a ridiculously half-hearted chip before running a route over the middle, the running back completely whiffs at 2:33, and right guard completely whiffs half a second later. Clausen is running for dear life by 2:34 because three guys completely fail to even slow down one guy.
# At 3:12, Clausen takes another snap, gets forced to step up into pressure at 3:14 because Sam Young is getting his a** handed to him, and finally gets sacked at 3:15 because he can't see out of the closet that one might optimistically call a "pocket."
# At 4:22, Clausen gets the ball and sees immediate pressure put on him from the right side, with the end taking him to the ground at 4:25. Note that on the very next play, Clausen threads the needle to Golden Tate for a touchdown while getting drilled AGAIN.
# At 5:01, Clausen is about to get totaled by a defender and is forced to scramble out of the pocket. He throws a great pass where only his receiver can catch it. All of this is even more astounding when one looks at the USC offense versus the Notre Dame defense; please, someone insult my intelligence by suggesting that Clausen didn't have to deal with one of the worst defenses in Division I football, and that the fact that he didn't lose by more than seven points his entire junior year is not absolutely shocking.