Thursday Notre Dame News

Stephen Tsai talks to "seldom-used" seniors who received extensive work in practice yesterday, including Jake Santos, Ryan Perry and Alonzo Chopp.

Jason Kaneshiro interviews director of player personnel Tony Tuioti, who recounts the last time UH played Notre Dame, which was in 1997 when he was a defensive lineman.

Dave Curtis of The Sporting News writes how important the Hawaii Bowl is to the Fighting Irish.

"It would help with a lot of sleepless nights," said senior defensive end Pat Kuntz. "If we win, there will be a lot less regrets. And it would ease a lot of pain."

Brian Hamilton of the Chicago Tribune writes how important the Hawaii Bowl is to the Warriors.

"Slowly but surely, kind of in the darkness, we've been building up a program where we have good athletes who can play ball," Leonard said. "We just haven't had the opportunity to showcase that. That's why we have to take full advantage of the opportunities we have now— Christmas Eve, ESPN, against a program like Notre Dame."

Christian McCollum of Irish Eyes writes about Notre Dame scouting the Warriors.

“They’re just a basic offense. They’re not as complex as they were when they had Colt Brennan there a year ago,” (linebacker Brian Smith) says. “They’ve got a new head coach and new offensive coordinator. They do kind of the same things like a Purdue and a Michigan mixed in one, so it’s nothing that we haven’t seen before. We’ll be ready.”

Expect Hawai’i to use the same defensive approach as Notre Dame’s second-half opponents and play Cover-2 and force the Irish to run the ball. But Notre Dame receiver Golden Tate is hoping that the return of Michael Floyd opposite him will make a difference.

“They run a lot of Cover-2 and Cover-8,” says Tate. “I think it’s going to force them to try different things because we’ve got Michael on the other side.”

And the Fighting Irish are taking the biggest plane to ever fly out of South Bend to make the trip to Hawaii.

A Boeing 747-400 will fly into South Bend Regional Airport Friday afternoon.

275 passengers, including players, coaches staff and dignitaries will board.

The jumbo jet will be the largest and heaviest commercial aircraft ever to utilize the airport.