"The Trojans outrushed Notre Dame by 204-90"...

Any plausible scenario of ND winning included the Irish outrushing USC, probably by something similar to the margin that USC ended up outrushing them by. We all knew that Williams was highly dangerous and that he would pick up ample passing yardage. Our hope was that Irish would be able to run the ball, control clock, and keep Williams off the field as much as possible.

ND went into the game 7-0 when it controlled time of possession. USC controlled ball for 35:23. Irish lost to Marshall & Stan when they didn't control TOP, and they sure as hell weren't beating USC w/ that kind of TOP deficit.

There's a visible gap between these programs now, and closing it will require visible steps. We all agree that replacing Rees and having a better QB are 2 obvious steps that must be taken. My guess is that the latter step will happen, but I have my doubts on the former step. If Rees does return, that will tell us most of what we need to know about ND's commitment to closing gap w/ USC.

Finally, I will also note that it was a positive to be reminded of BK's obvious limitations on Sat. night. Ironically, in the same season where he finally got the kind of signature win that eluded him at ND, he also had a bad loss to a bad opponent that he managed to avoid once Savvy applied the new coat of paint. That game renewed the desire to see MF succeed at ND.