Develop a QB
- Thread starter BM16
- Start date
Stop it. Per many posters on this forum Leonard has all the tools and skills. He's a projected 1st round pick. 😂
He can't throw. Saturday was incredibly ugly. It was stunning to watch. That 2nd INT.....not even sure what to say. That moment may have been the most dejected I've ever been watching an ND game. What a sobering instance.
But I saw mock drafts that had this guy in the 1st round. It wasn't just Golson saying it.
I don't know where you are getting your info from, but most NFL scouting services were projecting Leonard as a day 2 to day 3 NFL prospect. One or two outliers projecting him as 1st rounder doesn't make it so.
In 2012/2013, there was a ranking service that still had ND #1 after the BCS championship game, so should ND claim that NC?
Irish…fully agree. Remarkably, I find myself thinking we win this game by double digits with Book! The only game I had seen Leonard play was against us last year. Otherwise, the hype around him single handedly beating Clemson, and his Sophomore stats just screamed of a legitimate dual threat QB. The ONLY knock I ever heard was a tendency for the occasional inaccurate pass. Nothing close to what we’ve seen in two games. But, what further doesn’t make sense is that our coaches have had him in practice for several weeks, and they have to know the extent of his inaccuracy, his vacating the pocket too soon, his failure to go through his progressions, and his incredibly weak arm. They also know their success depends on the play of their qb! I can’t reconcile these two statements.
Here is what I would do - take the bubble tape off Riley. Run him... Run him... Run him... Let him be a wild card, and improvise. It could be glorious or a complete disaster. In the meantime have Carr or Angeli ready to go. And pull him if it's the latter. I saw similar problems at USC last year. They seemed to be putting a leash on Williams to make him more "NFL Ready" and as such they looked disjointed all year. Riley Leanord is not an NFL QB (by that I mean a longterm starter or star) . But he is a tremendous athlete. So ND needs to be a little more Backyard and less buttoned up moving forward. And for the love of God utilze both Rb's at the same time. There is no law against this.
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I do agree with you here. I think most would agree that 2 of our best quarterbacks in the last 20 years were Brady Quinn & Jimmy Clausen.
Both quarterbacks started young and took their lumps their first 2 years. Both gaining valuable experience, and then lighting it up as upperclassmen.
Unfortunately with the portal, it’s so hard to do this because many of the top young QB’s transfer out if they don’t play immediately. We’re currently in a “win now” portal world and development has gone away.
Portal QB’s are a coin flip. We’ve gotten the short end of the straw while some other schools have benefited (J Daniels, C Williams, J Burrow, B Mayfield, J Hurts, etc).
Hate to say this already but if Leonard looks bad against Purdue, I think we start developing the young guys. We can’t risk someone like Carr transferring or we’ll stay in this portal QB cycle forever….
Both quarterbacks started young and took their lumps their first 2 years. Both gaining valuable experience, and then lighting it up as upperclassmen.
Unfortunately with the portal, it’s so hard to do this because many of the top young QB’s transfer out if they don’t play immediately. We’re currently in a “win now” portal world and development has gone away.
Portal QB’s are a coin flip. We’ve gotten the short end of the straw while some other schools have benefited (J Daniels, C Williams, J Burrow, B Mayfield, J Hurts, etc).
Hate to say this already but if Leonard looks bad against Purdue, I think we start developing the young guys. We can’t risk someone like Carr transferring or we’ll stay in this portal QB cycle forever….
OK......a "Day 2" pick can be 1 pick out of Rd 1. "Day 2" is Rd 2.
There are hundreds of NFL Mock Drafts done annually, I saw more than 1 that had RL in the 1st round. I never thought he was 1st round talent, but others did. This was after his game vs a loaded FSU team. If I'm not mistaken, he was awesome that game, and almost beat them by himself.
Bringing in Hartman last year was a waste, they lost 3 games. They would have been better off developing the QB's they had. Buchner, Angeli, Minchey. Buchner would not have transferred, If he would have bombed out, you throw Angeli in, if he bombs out give Minchey a shot. One of those three would have stepped up, even if they went 8-4 not much different than 9-3, they would have developed during the season, and the coaching staff would have gained valuable insight into each QB. They would have also had their QB going into this season.
Marcus Freeman is paid to win now. And if he believes that the QB room is not enough to win games, then it is his job to improve the QB room.
And he believes he did.
For someone who does not spend one day at practice or meeting rooms, you have a helluva lot of knowledge on what Marcus Feeman should do or not do.
Maybe in Arena football because his arm is definitely too weak for even the CFL
P.s.
I do know you were being sarcastic
Woulda, coulda, shoulda...
PLUS.... you're giving the staff too much CREDIT.
DEVELOPING?
👇👇👇👇👇👇
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🤣🤣
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🤣 U N N Y
HILARIOUS ACTUALLY!!
This staff will never develop anything in offense.
Develop a QB. That's absolutely rich.
This staff wants table scraps from middle teams with a middle of the road resume.
Leonard had help looking bad. The green O line was manhandled by NIU's front 7. The receivers couldn't separate when it mattered the most. In the first two games, tight ends have caught a total of 4 passes. Tight End U? Perfect storm.
In major league baseball they call bringing in a vet and blocking development of younger players "paying for marginal wins" and it is a BIG NO-NO unless you clearly have one of the best teams in the league, and even just a small improvement on the roster makes a big difference to put your team over the top.
I think the logic is universally applicable to other sports (including college football). NDs present program is MAXED OUT as 2nd tier/not a legit competitor for a national title, etc. and it's their leaderships responsibility to accurately assess where they stand in the present college football hierarchy so that they avoid paying for marginal wins.
ND would be MUCH BETTER SERVED taking their several million NIL budget or whatever and allocate those resources to the highest rated prospects coming out of HS in order to increase the potential production of the 85 man roster. ND also has a really good track record developing talent over the last 15 years or so (although Brian Kelly might be the one most responsible for that and hes gone)
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I can have my opinions, and hindsight is 20/20, I'll admit it.
I wasn't a fan of the Freeman hire, but once it was made, all we could do is support the hire and hope for the best. He's in year 3 and ND is still suffering through these inexcusable losses. I know it doesn't matter, but my support for Freeman is waning.
Again, Notre Dame DOES NOT HAVE A NIL BUDGET. The staff may target transfers, but NIL comes from a different source which they can independently choose who to pay and how much to pay said player.
You can blame the staff for targeting the wrong transfers, but you can't blame ND for a nonexistent NIL budget, because they aren't paying a dime towards NIL
The specifics/technicalities of where the money is coming from is irrelevant.
Money exists to improve NDs roster and that money is scarce. Instead of allocating this money to 5th years and other stop gap vets, that money should be allocated to prospective impact star players through high school recruiting.
NDs biggest problem right now is lack of upside on their 85-man roster and ive been saying it for years. We got "Bs" and "Cs" 3-4 deep throughout the roster when "As" are what win national titles. A-players are national star players, impact players, top 50 NFL draft talent, heisman trophy quality players, etc. The most efficient way to get A-players on your roster is by recruiting 5 star and high 4 star talent and maximizing their development with a great coaching staff.
The ND program would be better served with a "stars & scrubs" roster with "As" and "Cs" (like Clemsons most recent championship roster) instead of the "B" bleh fest that is the present ND 85-man roster with little to no star/impact talent.
edit: to clarify point
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And how do you know the NIL collectives aren't allocating the money toward recruits?
I read an article recently discussing Notre Dame, NIL, and Top 50/100 recruits. They discussed with a few legitimate sources involved in college football at the FBS level. They stated for ND, the NIL money is absolutely there to compete with the elite programs, NIL is not the issue. The issue is, 99% of the top 50/100 recruits don't want to go to class, and why ND is missing on them.
This is a dealbreaker for Notre Dame and rightfully so, as an institution of higher academic learning. These other programs are doing a disservice to these recruits, because all it takes is one major injury, and their NFL dreams are toast. I know your response, but they have the NIL money to fall back on. Yea ok, a 20 year old with a couple of million at their disposal will not last their entire lives unless they are extremely careful with how that money is invested. Most will unfortunately not invest it carefully, and will not last, and will have nothing to fall back on.
My counter isn't just "hey they will have NIL millions to fall back on" but also "hey they'll have NIL millions AND all the time in the world to finish an education once their extremely short football career is over"
I don't think NDs stance on sharing revenue, paying players, NIL to high school recruits, etc. has anything to do with the players at all, but rather everything to do with Notre Dame preserving as much of their own wealth and power as possible (not wanting to share it with the laborers who are producing it) -- not unlike any other organization that has ever existed in the world.
The difference in NDs case is that they can use "academic" and "educational" rhetoric to stifle progress and help preserve as much of their wealth and power as possible and its very effective (just look at all the posters on this board who lap it up)
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I thought the Hartman transfer made sense. Buchner was unproven and had struggled with turnovers. And Angeli and Minchey were still very young. So it made sense that year.
But this year, in hindsight, we should've just gone with Angeli, Minchey and Carr (who looked very good in the spring game as an EE freshman). They all look capable.
The OL struggled in pass blocking, but our RBs ran 17 times for 107 yds, which isn't bad at 6.3 ypc. They just didn't get the ball enough. So that's another reason to run more than pass - right now the young OL's better at the former.
The reason this logic isn’t universally applicable is because the MLB gets 162 games to “develop” talent while we get 12.
Do you actually believe the MLB would use the same rhetoric if they had a 12 game season?
I don’t disagree with all of this but we need to stop with the Buchner talk. He failed at Bama with a playoff caliber team around him. Hes now a walk on football player which most likely means not many teams wanted him when he left Bama. Tyler seems like a good kid, even playing at ND wearing #26 shows his ego is in check. Wish him the best but he’s not a high level D1 QB.
I think it’s easy to say Hartman wasn’t the answer after last season’s results but I don’t put last season solely on the QB play. The WR production was atrocious.
I'm going off of prior to him going to Alabama. If you don't bring Hartman in, have a real QB competition, he may not transfer, maybe Angeli beats him out, maybe not. Remember, Angeli played in a couple of games, albeit garbage time, but he ran the offense well, and he played in the bowl game as well, and produced.
Again hindsight is 20/20. Easy to say now, but at the time it's different. I just prefer they groom who they recruited unless they bring in an elite QB, like a Jayden Daniel's type. Bringing in average QB's is clearly not the answer.
Hartman had better stats at Wake Forest than Daniels had at Arizona State. Point being, it wasn't clear who was better out of those two when they each entered the portal. Hartman had 3700 yds and 38 TDs in 2022. In hindsight, perhaps he was a system QB who just ran the mesh really well; or perhaps our receivers were part of the problem last year. Most people agree our receiving corps was the weakest unit on the team last year.
But he actually had the same QB rating in 2023 as in 2022. He just didn't throw as many passes.
The ACC is a really low competition conference so you cannot really use raw ACC numbers to base your opinion. Once you get to the playoff the 5* Future NFL secondaries that you will likely face is like a whole other level entirely
Pac-12 defenses weren't any better than ACC defenses. But nevertheless, that's a bad argument because there have been many ACC QBs who went on to become NFL stars.
That’s fair. I do agree with you in terms of developing the QB room over being transfer happy.
In terms of Buchner/Hartman, I do think the right move was made in that scenario, especially seeing how things ended up with Buchner.
Overall I’m not sold on Angeli. The one game he started and played was against a beaten down Oregon State team with no head coach and playing against a bunch of backups.
That said, Leonard hasn’t proven he can beat any defense well through the air, but, it’s early and we have a small sample size.
What...
In...
Theeeeeeeeee...
Hail....
Are...
You...
Talking about?
I assure you....
Those players were going to play on Sunday with zero influence by the previous coach!!
NDs talent rank during the ladder half of the BK era (2017-2021) was somewhere around ~12th and he coached them up to 4-straight-seasons of 10th (or better) in F+.
Getting production that matches your talent is an accomplishment in and of itself, but Brian Kelly was coaching those 12th ranked rosters (in team talent composite) to 10th (or better) in production. That's REALLY GOOD player development.
Not to mention ND presently has the 4th most players on NFL rosters right now (largely from the BK era) and many of those players are 3 & 4 star guys. Although most of those players are 2-deep guys more than NFL stars, it's still a really big testament to how well the scouting and player development went under his tutelage/watch.
BKs ultimate problem at ND is the same one ND faces today: lack of tier 1 prospects to get them over the hump.
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True , Angeli played against their backups, but Oregon States backups have more talent than NIU's starters. 😂
Stop the abc123+lbgtq+÷_ nonsense.
The previous coach was a more thorough recruiter than his predecessor.....
It begins and ends right there.
Tell me the players specifically that got drafted or extended a try out and caught on that the previous coach was the reason of.
The difference between you and I is you want a computer to tell you about football.
I simply use the eye test just like the NFL...
Hence there are rosters littered with many d1AA players along with D2 players.
The previous coach didn't develop anything.
Matter of fact in many cases under that cosch the further they got from their high school coach the worse they got.
In other words the longer they were coached by that Bayou guy the more they regressed.
They should have brought in a transfer in 2022, and then let Buchner/Pyne take over. Instead they gave TB the job as a sophomore, or a RS frosh, and Pyne in year three. And old boy got hurt, and Pyne took over and wasn't that bad. But apparently bad enough that MF demanded a transfer the next time around, and then both TB and Pyne transferred, with no other remaining veteran QBs, and now here we are with RL.
So it's a good example of the one-year transfer QB practice beginning to get out of hand for a program. If RL was awesome and we made the playoff, then we'd be like, okay cool, it worked out. And Angeli wouldn't necessarily transfer. He might after spring ball if he doesn't win the job. In any case so far it's not working out. SH was a mixed bag. And ND's QB situation is very much a question mark, which is not what the coaches were hoping for.
Exactly, the transfer portal sucks, and has done ND no favors at the QB position.
and actually made the QB situation a complete mess to the likes of the previous coach when he ALWAYS played the wrong QB.
Golson..Smurf, weak arm.
Nearly all of 2012 Rees spelled a stale Golson to salvage the game and season.
Funny enough Rees didn't see one snap during the NC game against Bama. All year Rees spelled Golson so in the most important one he doesn't sniff the field.
Then Zaire showed he was much better after Golson became the fumble king.
Oh and who was backing up both Golson and Zaire...
Yep...Kizer. The same Kizer who was better then Zaire and Golson
Then the Wimbush experiment ensued. He gets hurt for one game and Book plays for him against North Carolina. What happens? Spring in the step by the receivers. They were playing hard. Why? Better QB just came in.
Book wasn't given that position yet though... It took Wimbush thowing the ball into quadruple coverage several times and missing 5 yard screen passes by a mile.
Then Book got the job, a smurf with a weak arm.
The problem then became keeping Book for way too long on the team. I know covid hit but Book was here for 17 years. That was a huge problem because it put the QB cycle way out of whack.
Oh well...the start trek portal starts and that gave that coach the easy way out. Don't recruit a real QB just lure someone's table scraps and everything will chug along.
Since we've had Coan, Hartman, Riley, Pyne, Buchner...
One glaring theme is size.
All but Kizer, Angeli, Riley, and Jurkovich were small, I mean tiny small.
Kizer and possibly Angeli and Jurkovich were the only ones with a decent arm.
Verdict still out on Angeli...Jurkovich giving the benefit of the doubt.
This is the QB nightmare of the last dozen years.
This is the QB horror of the same.
Nothing has changed but now you have the NIL running the show.
Riley won't be benched because the NIL says he won't.
Aren't these great times to be watching cfb?
Certainly much simpler now to coach since you just ask who the NIL wants you to play there is the depth chart.
Sad sad sad days these star trek portal/NIL time has become and no end in sight. Sadly!
I hope Angeli transfers and take a team to the playoffs and makes some noise. Then on behalf of all the real fans can give HCMF the finger.
That would be glorious!
I'm amazed he hasn't transferred already. Passed over two years via portal QB's The kid is loyal, must really love the school. Commendable in the transfer era.
I like Angeli. He's certainly has been impressive when he's gotten chances. Could he lead us to 11 wins as a starter? Maybe. I don't know. He kicked ass in the bowl game. He'll always have that.
Love that he's stuck it out here. He likely wants the degree(s). He can graduate then have his pick of $300K jobs on either coast. Not a bad deal for a 24 or 25 year old. Good for him.
He's an easy guy to root for.
Not to mention, he's had 2 head coaches, and is on his 3rd OC. Just crazy.
