FanHouse DemetriusJones

While Touchdown Jesus and the collective Notre Dame nation still weep from the loss to Navy, the Irish are focusing on their next opponent. More specifically, who is going to start at quarterback against Air Force this Saturday?

It's not exactly a new question for the Irish, as Charlie Weis has been trying to figure it out since last spring. Demetrius Jones started the season at quarterback, before he was benched in favor of Jimmy Clausen, and transferred. Clausen took his turn getting beat up for a while before turning the ball over to Evan Sharpley, a move I called for, and was in support of.

Ever since Sharpley took over the job though, nothing's changed in South Bend. So now, after nine games, Charlie Weis finds himself in the same position he started the season. Trying to figure out who the best quarterback for this team is.

"I think the No. 1 thing is: Who's going to play the best for you down the stretch?" Weis said. "I don't think what you want to be doing here is each week say, 'well, who's going to play the best for us against Air Force? Who's going to play the best for us against Duke? Who's going to play the best for us against Stanford?'

"I'm at the point right now where I want to win this game and simultaneously I want to start building some upward momentum. They go together," he said. "So the decision isn't as simple as, over the last half dozen weeks who's done what better. It's who gives you the best chance to win this week and the next two weeks and moving forward?"

All good questions to ask yourself before making the decision, but there's another more poignant question that needs to be asked.

It seems that every week is the same for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. They lose on Saturday, and then somebody transfers on Sunday. It's as if there's some sort of Notre Dame Survivor going on where somebody gets voted off the island every week.

First it was Demetrius Jones taking off after being benched in the season opener against Georgia Tech, then it was seldom used Konrad Ruelen who decided to look for greener pastures. Last week lineman Matt Carufel lost his starting job to Eric Olsen so he decided he wanted out. He'll be signing with either Iowa or Minnesota any day now.

So all these transfers have to have Charlie Weis worried right? I mean, at this rate the Irish are going to have to play 10-man football before the season's over.

"Usually the guys that transfer got beaten out. That's why they leave," Weis said. "It would be one thing if John Carlson was transferring tomorrow. I'm going to start worrying, OK? But I really can't worry too much about guys that leave that aren't starting. I've got to worry about the guys that are playing."

I know that sounds a little cold, and some people will probably get rubbed the wrong way, but Charlie's probably right here. The man has enough to worry about with the current state of his program, it would be a waste of his time to worry about players who are no longer there.

At the same time though, I hope Charlie is trying to figure out why all these players are leaving. It can't just be the fact that they lost their starting jobs, or that they aren't getting any playing time. It has to have something to do with their relationships with Weis (e.g. They hate him). Hopefully all these transfers might help Weis realize these aren't NFL players he's dealing with. They're just kids, and I get the feeling Weis forgets that at times.

I called for it over the weekend, and yesterday Charlie Weis said he was considering it. Today, Weis made it official and announced that Evan Sharpley, not Jimmy Clausen, will be Notre Dame's starting quarterback this Saturday against USC.

Sharpley, the backup to Brady Quinn last season and the No. 2 quarterback when Demetrius Jones and Jimmy Clausen started the first seven games this season, will make his first career start Saturday at home.

"I think Evan this week gives us the best chance of winning," coach Charlie Weis said during his weekly news conference Tuesday.

Thank you, Touchdown Jesus. Thank you for using your incredible Touchdown Jesus powers for helping make Charlie see the light. I may have to go to church this weekend, that's how appreciative I am of your work.

Now it's important to note that I don't think this is going to make Notre Dame good all of a sudden. I don't think they're going to go out and beat USC on Saturday, and run off a win streak to finish the season and become bowl eligible.

I'm just happy this change was made because now at least I feel like the Irish can win. I haven't felt that way all season, and it's a nice change of pace.

So, so weird. And getting weirder.

1) In the story linked yesterday there was no mention of one salient fact in Notre Dame's decision not to release Demetrius Jones: NIU has no scholarships this year and was going to be paying his own way anyway:

He will not be able to receive an athletic scholarship from Northern Illinois this school year without the release-though a spokeswoman for the football program said it doesn't have a scholarship to give Jones anyway. But a lack of release should not preclude Jones from practicing with the Huskies once he clears various hurdles with the school, according to the spokeswoman.

Football scholarships are renewed on an annual basis, so Jones would not be stuck in football purgatory. He would be released from Notre Dame before next season and NIU could give Jones a scholarship at that time if it so chooses.

So the net effect here is zero. We can take back the nasty things said yesterday and replace it with a new question: why expose yourself to that crappy PR for no reason whatsoever? To "send a message"? What is that message? "We don't understand the way the media works?" "We hate the idea of recruiting Chicago?" "Our decided schematic advantage does not extend to the most basic PR concepts?"

I don't know if you've heard anything about him yet, but Jimmy Clausen is Notre Dame's starting quarterback. You probably haven't heard that Notre Dame is 0-3 right now either.

Notre Dame's season thus far has been terrible. Nothing is going right. The offensive line can't block. Charlie Weis is being questioned. Demetrius Jones left, and now the school won't let him out of his scholarship.

Surely there has to be something going well in South Bend right now! Weis thinks so, and he doesn't have to look past Clausen to find it.

"Mentally and emotionally, he hasn't blinked an eye. He hasn't wavered one bit. He's shown that on the sideline too. When I've looked into his eyes - we call them faraway eyes - he hasn't shown an inch of that."

How about glazed eyes? Have you seen those? They tend to be a byproduct of getting creamed on every play.

I'm not sure how much longer Weis will be able to look into Clausen's eyes and have Clausen know who he is. At the rate they're currently going, I think Clausen is going to get sacked about 352 times this season. Who will be teeing off on Jimmy this weekend?

Michigan State. You know, that team that's tied for the NCAA lead in sacks? Look into those eyes while you still can, Charlie!

Charlie Weis already jerked Demetrius Jones around by pretending he had a real shot at the starting job, then yanking him after a half and telling the media Clausen was the real starter all along, but apparently they're not done screwing with him:

Demetrius Jones will have to pay his own way to Northern Illinois this year.

The former Notre Dame quarterback will not be released from his scholarship, the school decided Tuesday.

"We don't believe that Demetrius' departure was handled appropriately," Notre Dame athletics director Kevin White said.

Maybe ditching the team midseason wasn't the right way to go, but it's not like ND's hands are clean here either. The bait-and-switch with Jones was a move designed to keep him on the roster until the season started so that he would remain an option in case of injury or poor play; if he was never going to be the starter ND should have told him that before so he could make an educated decision about his future.

Weis said he wasn't involved with the decision, but he also told the media he hadn't told his quarterbacks who would start the GT game, which was a lie, and that Jimmah Clausen hadn't had offseason surgery, which was also a lie. So take that with a grain of salt. Notre Dame is scheduled to play Michigan State this weekend; MSU is favored by almost two touchdowns.

It's kind of hard to blame Demetrius Jones for transferring from Notre Dame to Northern Illinois. I'm pretty sure that Jimmy Clausen was thinking "I should have gone to USC" during Saturday's dismantling by the Michigan Wolverines. There was a lot of questions surrounding Jones' exit, and Charlie Weis wasn't very happy with the way Jones handled the situation.

Weis claims he didn't know Demetrius was leaving until 15 minutes before the team got on the bus to go play Michigan. Jones says he let the team know long before then, and that Weis knew. In other words, somebody's lying, and Demetrius will tell you it's Charlie, and it's not the first time he's done it.

Hell, it's the reason Demetrius left.

"When I heard Jimmy was No. 1 all the way through spring and that the only thing keeping him out of the lineup was his surgery, well, that's not what I was led to believe going into the summer," Jones said in a South Bend Tribune story published Monday. "I thought I was getting a chance because coach Weis believed in me. Then I didn't know what to believe anymore."

Whatever Jones' reason for leaving is, it's the smarter move for him. Clausen is clearly the man in South Bend right now and will be the next few years, so Demetrius wasn't going to get a chance to prove himself with the Irish. He'll also be joining a couple of his high school teammates at Northern, who recruited him heavily before he chose Notre Dame.

Also, I was able to catch a few seconds of Northern's game against Eastern Michigan this week, and guess what? Their offensive line protected the quarterback for longer than .5 seconds. I think it's obvious that Jones made the right move.

Industrious work by a NIU Husky board uncovers two things: 1) there is a "Demetrius Armond Jones" listed in NIUs online phonebook as a person student:

             alias: djones8
              name: Jones, Demetrius Armond
             email: xxxxxx
        curriculum: Not Given
                  : Chicago, IL 60621
              type: person student

2) ND's online phonebook also has a Demetrius Jones from Chicago; his middle name is also Armond. Either this is the world's biggest and most unlikely coincidence -- Notre Dame's population of kids plausibly named "Demetrius" is scanty indeed -- or Jones is going to be running around the MAC next year.

General Husky reaction:

OH OH OH OH OH OH

IT'S PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME!!!!

(FTR: Peanut Butter Jelly Time.)

(Via Michigan Sports Center.)

It doesn't matter who Notre Dame starts at quarterback this season. It can be Jimmy Clausen, Demetrius Jones or Evan Sharpley, in the end it won't matter.

The Irish could bring back Joe Montana, Jerome Bettis, and Tim Brown, and they still won't win many games this season.

Why?

Because their offensive line sucks. Bad. Trust me, I played on a bad offensive line in high school, so I know what they look like, and Notre Dame's line is bad. They were killed by Georgia Tech in the home opener, and they got mauled by the Nittany Lions this last Saturday.

Penn State sacked Jimmy Clausen six times on Saturday, and the Irish didn't gain a single yard on 26 carries. This coming off a performance against Georgia Tech in which the Irish managed -8 yards on 41 carries. That's 65 carries for -8 yards. Or if you prefer averages, that's -.12 yards a carry.

Did I mention the numerous false starts and holding penalties? How about the fact the Irish are yet to score an offensive touchdown this season?

Basically confirming what Brian Cook wrote a few days ago. We told you so.

Notre Dame: home of the open secrets.

The nimble 6-4 sophomore was chosen over veteran (if two career pass attempts is considered veteran) Evan Sharpley and much-hyped frosh Jimmy Clausen.

That is all.