The football team may take a week off, but the juggernaut that is the Irish Blogger Gathering never lowers its guard for a moment, lest beings of a lesser quality attempt to sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids. But a bye week is like the boss being on vacation — you’re working, but you’re not working.  Once again, my question will appear at the end, and you’ll be able to read my fellow participant’s thoughts at the links within their questions to me.

Ryan Ritter, Her Loyal Sons: What’s your temperature after this game? Happy because a win is a win or upset with poor play against or are you somewhere completely different?

I try to focus on things that are going either consistently well or consistently poorly, because in both cases, I have evidence I probably will see those things again in the next game.  As a result, I’m concerned about the lack of a quality running game the last two weeks, with a little dash of irritation that Brian Kelly once again completely went Nintendo with the offense the minute Notre Dame fell behind.  I was hoping those things wouldn’t be present this season, but life is full of little disappointments.  That being said, the team has performed well in some to all areas in the three games so far, so I’ll be interested to see what a little rest can do.

Frank Vitovitch, UHND: If there was only one thing that the coaching staff could address and fix during the bye week, what would you want it to be? What happens if the staff isn’t able to correct that one thing between now and two weeks from now?

If this is truly a wish-upon-a-star type of question, I’d like them to resolve the damn academic suspensions so we know where we are the rest of the way.  But focusing on stuff actually within their purview, I really want them to address the offensive line.  They have a little more time in the bye week, so if someone has to be moved around, now would be the time to do it, especially with an opponent like Syracuse waiting in the wings.  An off week followed by a non-imposing opponent is a great opportunity to get the line well for Stanford.

If they can’t fix it, well … at some point before Halloween, ND’s playoff hopes probably will take a major hit.

The Scarlet Pimpernel, Subway Domer: BYE week means SCOUT week. What games are you looking forward to watching this week? Do you have any non CFB plans for Saturday?

Bye week also means “get done everything that gets put on hold during football season” week.  I really don’t see a lot of compelling matchups on the docket this week, as CFB’s practice of all-tomato-cans-all-the-time for power teams’ non-conference schedules continues unabated.  Our parish festival is this weekend, so I likely will spend a lot of time there, and I spent last weekend in sports books in front of multiple screens.  So I’ll likely give the game-watching part of my brain the week off.

Aaron Horvath, Fighting Irish Athletics: As we head into the bye week, the Irish are 3-0, averaging over 30 points per game, while allowing just over 10 including shutting out Michigan. If I were to tell you that those three facts would be true prior to the season beginning, would you have taken it? Through 1/4 of the year, how do your expectations of this season match up?

I most likely would have, but since football is a multi-dimensional game, that data, as always, would be put in the pot with all the other things to determine my satisfaction with the season.

A quarter of the way in, the defense has exceeded my expectations.  After telling all my friends to expect a lot of fireworks on both sidelines for the Fighting Irish this season, I’m very pleased at the way ND is defending, particularly in the secondary.  Cody Riggs has been the Christmas present no one was expecting, while Max Redfield was the box you’d been waiting for since spring.  Brian Van Gorder’s defensive scheme makes the Bonger happy in pants, and if it can stand up to the increased scrutiny later in the season, I think we all will be.

On the offensive side, it’s a mixed bag.  Everett Golson has been marvelous, and I really want to see him become Notre Dame’s eighth Heisman trophy winner.  But I remain disappointed in the ground game and (by extension) the offensive line.  As I said above, that’s gotta be fixed, and soon.  I suppose the contentions that Brian Kelly really wasn’t in charge of the offense the last four years have been effectively disproven, so it’s time to assign the credit and responsibility where it belongs.  The next two games will be key.

Now, the question on everyone’s lips:

At the first bye week, who is your MVP on offense and on defense so far?