Last November, I got tired of everything and finally said I was on board with a change -- it was time for old Joe Tiller to go. Sure, maybe it was partly due to the sting of losing to IU, but really, I was ready. I'd been convincing myself for years that Joe could recapture some of the magic he once had early on... but winning 7-8 games no longer felt/feels magical.

And the athletic department seemed to be on the same page with us here at BS, and announced Danny Hope would be taking over next season and that 2008 would be Joe's last. So, yeah, I decided to hop onto the train with Joe at the controls one more time and be supportive... be a good fan... I figure we owe Joe a nice send-off after what he's given us.

But yesterday's embarrassing debacle against Notre Dame has enraged me once again. As I said earlier in the week, losing to a lousy team like the Irish is far harder to stomach than losing to a talented OSU team (as we often do) or even to a team like Oregon earlier this season. Make no mistake -- Notre Dame is not good. Pickles tosses up jump balls and gets rattled easily. Our boys had two leads in the first half and clearly should have had even more. The offense wound up putting up a measly effort, but at least they moved the ball and, at times, made us feel like we had a chance no matter how poorly the defense was playing. After all, if we got into a shootout, one might expect our defense to eventually accidentally catch an errant Pickles pass and maybe that would be the break we needed.

Instead, the defense did absolutely nothing. Not one significant stop, especially in the second half. Twenty-one points allowed in the third quarter?? Inexcusable, especially against that offense. I don't care that the linebackers are inexperienced or the line isn't as big as we'd like them to be. You need to have some urgency out there and you need to make stops. ANY stops. And our defense made absolutely none. Even when Curtis and the offense brought us back a couple times, the defense immediately folded each time and allowed easy drives and nearly uncontentested touchdowns. Once again, I say, inexcusable.

I don't know what Danny Hope's plan is with regard to the coaching staff in 2009 and beyond, but I'd be 100% on board with a cleaning of the house. We don't need Tiller loyalists, for lots of reasons. We need a coaching staff that believes the way the die-hards believe. A coaching staff who will coach the personnel they get and make them believe they can accomplish big things. I don't see this defense believing that. And I'm tired of Brock Spack's mediocre defenses.