Posted by ESPN.com's Graham Watson

As Notre Dame prepares to open its season against San Diego State on Saturday, there's a lot of thought that the Irish should have an easy time notching their first win against a team that's injury-laden and lost its opening game against FCS opponent Cal Poly.

But what if it doesn't go as expected? What if the ghosts of last year pop up again and cause Notre Dame to revert to this time last season?

Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis already has addressed this subject with his team and his coaches and the primary thing he's preached is to stay calm.

"I think what we talked about as a staff is if there's some rough periods in the game, just have calm demeanor," Weis said. "So I talked about it [Tuesday] morning in our staff meeting about making sure we keep our composure and make sure we keep with the same mantra, like something bad happens, don't worry about it, we'll go ahead and fix it and move forward."

Several players said the team is better equipped to handle a rough patch because it's made a commitment to play together and stay together as a team. That's different a 180 from last year. When the struggles started, the team started to fracture.

"I feel like no matter what happens this year that this team is going to have each other's back, the offense and the defense and the special teams," linebacker Maurice Crum said. "Everybody is in this together and everyone on this team is on board with one goal in mind."