The South Bend Tribune used the perfect word last week after Notre Dame's loss to Texas, 50-47, in double overtime to describe the night for the Irish and possibly the entire season That word was - defenseless.

The Irish defense was as poor as any I've seen in the past several years and it may lead to that four or five losses I wrote about in last week's column. I predicted a 10-2 season but also said that the defense was a real question mark and that could lead to a four or five loss season. Based on last Sunday's performance, the latter is probably going to be true.The Irish defense gave up a whopping 517 net yards to the Longhorns and allowed them to build a 17-point lead. That total tripled what the Longhorns managed last year in South Bend. But the Irish offense, which I said needed to score a lot of points because of the suspect defense, scored 37 points in regulation and ended up with 47 for the night. That should have been more than enough to win the game, if the Irish played some defense.On thing for sure, in the three years that Brian VanGorder has been in charge of the defense, it doesn't look any better at the start of his third year than it did in his first year in charge.One thing that was obviously clear to head coach Brian Kelly is that the two-quarterback system must go. DeShone Kizer showed that he should be the starting signal-caller for the rest of the season and by mid-week Kelly had announced that would be the case.Kizer completed 15 of 24 passes for a net of 215 yards and five touchdowns with no interceptions. Malik Zaire was only two of five passing for 23 yards. Kizer showed some pin-pointing passing and his ability to run with the ball was also a plus.Texas used a combination of power running and passing to subdue the Irish. The Texas passing game was based on deep throws against the inexperienced Irish secondary. There was little or no pass rush to help the secondary. The Irish did try to make some adjustments on the defensive side which helped a little. Freshmen Julian Love and Devin Studstill were put in the game as cornerback and safety respectively, and did a creditable job.ND's poor defense also was magnified by poor tackling. That was never more apparent than in the overtime periods when Texas senior QB Tyrone Swoops broke tackle after tackle to score two TDs.Kelly said after the loss that both the coaches and players need to step up and do their jobs better.My own feeling is that last week's performance is yet another example of Kelly not being prepared for a big test game. More stats later.Today the Irish open their home season by hosting a dangerous Nevada Wolf Pack team. They are even more dangerous after they saw what Texas did to the Irish last week. Nevada is coming off a 7-6 2015 season but return some key players on offense and defense. The Wolf Pack is led on offense by James Butler, a top-rated runningback and QB is Tyler Stewart. Defensively the team leader is Asauni Rufus, a sophomore who made a very impressive start as a freshman last year at defensive end. The Wolf Pack also have a very experienced secondary.The Wolf Pack won their opener last week, 30-27 over Cal Poly in overtime.This is only the second time the two teams have played. The other time, in 2009, ND won, 35-0. The game will be televised nationally by NBC-TV with a 3:40 p.m. kickoff.IRISH NOTES ... The school still hasn't announced if the four players arrested with Max Redfield a few weeks ago will face additional sanctions or if Kelly's team-imposed punishment are enough. All four players some game action a week ago ... The Irish rushing attack was led by Tarean Folston with 18 carries and 88 yards. Kizer added 13 carries for 77 yards and Josh Adams had 11 for 43. The receiving leader was Equanimeous St. Brown with five catches for 75 yards and two TDs. Torri Hunter (4-37-1); C.J. Sanders (3-55-1), and Adams (3-46-1) also had solid receiving games ... Defensively, Nyles Morgan led the Irish with nine solo tackles. He was followed by Isaac Rochell with five ... Hunter was injured on a helmet on helmet hit by Texas defensive back DeShon Elliott. The game officials declined to call a targeting penalty, per NCAA rules, which Kelly took sharp exception to in a heated debate with the officials. The South Bend press agreed with Kelly that there should have been a penalty and Elliott ejected from the game. Hunter suffered a concussion and will have to follow testing protocol this week according to NCAA rules. It is not known if he can play today .... A streak for Kelly ended. Kelly had won 19 straight games at ND when his team played without a turnover .... Texas also ran a tag-team QB game with Swoops and freshman Shane Buechele. They did it much better than ND did .... Justin Yoon took over the kickoffs this season after being limited to just extra points and field goals a year ago. He also had two field goal attempts. A 36-yarder that was blocked and a 39-yarder, which he made .... The attendance of 102,315 was the largest in the history of Darrell K. Royal-Texas Stadium .... Kizer's pass efficiency rating was 206.5 compared to Zaire's 78.6. Kizer also rallied the team later without top received Hunter .... Kelly's closing remarks on the game. "There are no moral victories. Losing is losing. We work too hard. We sacrifice too much to feel good in any way about losing a football game. Having said that, I'm proud of the resiliency they showed on the road down 17 points in the second half. That's something that we really can build on." ... In my preseason picks I have the Irish winning a close one today. I now consider this a toss-up game with the edge to Nevada because of the way the defense played. I don't think you can fix all the problems the Irish have on defense in a week.