Allen Pinkett

After a 9-3 season a year ago, I think the Irish have an excellent opportunity to go undefeated in the 2006 regular season, and I could see them playing Ohio State in the BCS national championship game on Jan. 8 of next year.

Having the goods for a great season
A combination of factors should work in Notre Dame's favor this year.

The Irish have most of the players back from last year's record-breaking offense, led by senior quarterback Brady Quinn, who could become the first Heisman Trophy winner for Notre Dame since receiver Tim Brown in 1987.

Defensively, head coach Charlie Weis believes the Irish have to play better than they did in 2005, and improving its defense is a key challenge for Notre Dame.

What should help in that regard is the Irish have experience in the positions on defense where experience is most needed. To run the table this season, Notre Dame doesn't need a dominant defense, but it needs a solid one.

And then there's Weis, for whom the high expectations surrounding this year's team are viewed as a positive, and can be used for motivational purposes.

After being the architect of an offense that helped the New England Patriots win three Super Bowls in four seasons, Weis knows all about the pressure to succeed.

His second season in South Bend will show us the kind of coaching -- by both Weis and his assistants -- that will allow the Irish players to focus on each play and each game, and not be distracted by outside influences or the hype surrounding Notre Dame football.

Quinn's focus must be on the field
Quinn, who is in the Notre Dame football record book as owner of 30 school records, knows there will be an overwhelming amount of attention on him as far as the Heisman Trophy.

He also knows his performances will go a long way to determining the degree of success the Irish enjoy this season.

One thing Quinn has done is surround himself with good people. He has received excellent coaching and counsel from Weis, who knows a little something about developing top-flight quarterbacks (see Tom Brady).

Special feature How QBs for Pats, Irish rose under Weis

Quinn can help himself in dealing with all of the hype surrounding the Heisman Trophy race by keeping his focus sharply on making good plays that will help his football team win games.

If he can do that, he'll make getting through this season much simpler and easier on himself, and aside from winning games, all the other stuff becomes just fluff.

Quinn can't control for whom the Heisman voters cast their ballots, but he can control his play on the field, and if it's good enough he'll not have to worry about individual accolades. They'll come his way.

But if they do it's because Quinn approached the season in the right way, and that is by making winning each game for his team his No. 1 priority. Take care of winning first, and everything else will take care of itself.

Defense is a unit on the spot
For the most part last season the Irish defense bent but didn't break. What I mean is that save for a few exceptions they gave up big plays, but not a lot of big plays for scores.

That is until they played Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl and allowed four touchdowns of longer than 55 yards. Ohio State made big plays that resulted in scores, and these strikes erased any hope of a Notre Dame win.

"If Ohio State beats Michigan on Nov. 18, then they will hand the Heisman Trophy to Troy Smith. But if OSU loses to Michigan, and Notre Dame beats USC on Nov. 25, then Brady Quinn will be the frontrunner for the award." — NDFootball FROM NOTRE DAME CENTRAL: MSNBC.com contributor John Tamanaha believes that even if Ohio State loses to Michigan, Smith still takes the 25-pound Heisman home if he merely puts up numbers in the neighborhood of his current season averages -- 15.8-of-23.7 for 200.6 yards and 2.2 touchdowns.   Click, comment on Heisman race

So this season the goals for the Notre Dame defense are obvious. The Irish need to limit the number of big plays they allow, and they need to create just as many turnovers (24) as they did last season -- that was one of the things that really helped their cause.

How the Irish go about creating these turnovers is in part using the wonderful depth they have on the defensive line to pretty much always have someone on the field who is fresh to try and chase down the opposing quarterback.

It's hard for quarterbacks going against Notre Dame to make big plays if they are almost constantly facing a lot of pressure from the Irish pass rush.

Another plus for the Notre Dame defense is the veteran leadership and experience as nine starters return.

The Irish have back all four starters in their defensive backfield, and I think the year of experience these players got in the system that Notre Dame employs can only help make them better performers this season.

The experience gained should result in the Irish defensive backs being in better position to react this season, not having to guess so much, and using to their advantage their familiarity with the schemes Notre Dame will run.

I think the Irish secondary will prove better this season than it did a year ago. As these players experience success there will gradual improvement from all of them because success breeds confidence, and confidence breeds the expectation that one is supposed to make the plays for which he is being counted on at his position.