Weis was a good recruiter, certainly. But he didn't know how to develop players, at any positions other than QB and WR.
Did Kelly really leave the program in better shape than Weis?
- Thread starter john0gaunt
- Start date
Jimmy Clausen
Tommy Rees
Tyler Eifert
Kyle Rudolph
Cierre Wood
M. Floyd
G. Tate
Theo Riddick
Z. Martin
M. Teo
Harrison Smith
Robert Blanton
Zeke Motta
Darrin Walls
Kona Schwenke
Darius Fleming
Prince Shembo
Who would you say was not developed?
johnO, your arguments in this thread are ridiculously offbase. Let us count the ways...
Here are the NFL locks
So your core, completely off-base argument is also BS. BK left the roster stocked full of talent, and from a depth perspective, he left the roster in much better shape.
But again, a roster is not a program. The debate isn't close. There is no debate. Weis left a program in shambles that needed to be rebuilt. BK left a top-5 program that just needs the next guy to maintain or enhance what is already there.
- You start off by claiming BK inherited a better program from Weis but then base that claim solely on the rosters Weis and BK are leaving behind. A football program and a football roster are NOT the same things. Everyone seems to know this but you, and you have been unable to concede that point even after it's been pointed out.
- No coach "inherits" a player if that player had already declared for the NFL draft. Several posters pointed this out to you but your pride refuses to let you concede that point. Also, even if none of the players had declared before BK got there, it doesn't matter. Players make decisions on their own. No coach is expected to talk a player out of going to the NFL early. Should they try to recruit them back to ND if they can? Sure, but no one should think that it reflects poorly on the coach if the player enters the draft anyway.
- You focus on BK's first 4 years or "first few years" and then cherrypick specific negatives from those years to try to bolster your BS argument. Nowhere did you mention BK's 12-0 regular season in his 3rd year here. Something Weis never would have been able to pull off.
- Rebuilding a program from scratch - and that's exactly what BK had to do when he was hired - normally takes at least 2 to 3 years. Every reasonable sports fan knows that. STILL, BK's record his 1st two years at ND were better than Weis's final two, and the inexcusable blowouts and embarrassing losses became less frequent. And again, by year 3, BK had the program rebuilt and in very solid standing and went 12-0.
- You are factually wrong that BK had problems with S&C for at least his 1st 4 years. S&C under Paul Longo was actually very, very good those years. BK's teams were tougher on the field and didn't fade in 4th quarters like Weis's teams did. It wasn't until Longo became ill sometime in 2015 that S&C started deteriorating.
- You keep focusing on an easier schedule now that we have the ACC arrangement. Our schedules are still just as hard or harder than most of the top P5 team schedules and BK was able to win at a pace that consistently kept us in the top five 3 out of the last 4 years with that 4th year ending ranked 12th in 2019. That makes ND's program clearly one of the top 5 programs in the country. That's what BK left Marcus Freeman. Weis didn't leave BK anything close to that.
Here are the NFL locks
- Kyle Hamilton - somehow you forgot him. And yes, he has eligibility left. He hasn't declared for the NFL yet. By your standard, that means he is available for MF to take. Oh, and you asked who is as good as Harrison Smith? This guy probably is. He's likely going to be drafted much higher. I hope he has at least as good of an NFL career as HS.
- Kyren Williams - still has eligibility left. One of the greatest RBs in ND history and much better than anyone CW coached.
- Jarret Patterson
- Isaiah Foskey
- Jayson Ademilola
- Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa
- Blake Fisher
- Rocco Spindler
- Marist Liufau (if he can come back 100%)
- Joe Alt
- Jordan Botelho
- Justin Ademilola
- Rylie Mills
- Cam Hart
- Prince Kollie
- Lorenzo Styles
- All 3 remaining RBs - Tyree, Diggs, Estime
- Deion Colzie
- Avery Davis (if he comes back healthy and plays another solid year)
So your core, completely off-base argument is also BS. BK left the roster stocked full of talent, and from a depth perspective, he left the roster in much better shape.
But again, a roster is not a program. The debate isn't close. There is no debate. Weis left a program in shambles that needed to be rebuilt. BK left a top-5 program that just needs the next guy to maintain or enhance what is already there.
I'm just going to pull these 4 bc the rest is kind of drivel.
1. I would prefer to be left lots of talent on the roster than a good S and C coach. Much easier to find and replace your S and C coach than come up with all the talent immediately. A program exists to recruit and develop football players. Weis did that as shown by the team he left for BK.
2. Weis needed to rebuild after TW, same as BK. Big time.
3. BK teams were riddled with injuries for a number of years. I remember his guys getting carted off the field with season ending injuries after high fiving in the end zone.
4. Weis was fired on Nov 30. Jimmy declared Dec 7. One full week to talk him into staying. But Kelly failed to do that.
But certainly some of the current team is going to shine, but it's only speculation. With Weis' team, we know exactly what Kelly got.
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Weis proved you could recruit at ND and had better parts but a broken program that needed to be upgraded in every way … Kelly laid down a blueprint for a program. Because we racked up so many wins over the last 5 seasons people forget the first 7 years of fits and starts while Kelly found his way. There were a lot of close games and bad losses and more off the field problems in the first half of the BK era.
A lot of those players were developed by Kelly after Weis was gone (Eifert, Wood, Riddick, Martin, Teo, Smith, etc).
According to sports-reference.com (higher is better, 0 is average);
Weis SOS 3.828
Kelly SOS 4.8525
For reference, when the 1988 team beat #2, #4, #5 and #7 in the final AP poll, the SOS was 7.68, good for 2nd in D1
average SOS rank Kelly era : 15
average SOS rank Weis era : 27
Floyd and Rudolph were Juniors. Smith was a SR.
Didn't Kelly say publicly that the problem he was having was he needed to field a team full of Weis players and not his own? Can't have it both ways...
sure, if you just like to argue. if you actually want to WIN an argument, then no.
I'm not tired, papa. Can you tell us the story about the Charlie Weis juggernaut again?
I admitted earlier Weis was good at developing QBs and WRs. Floyd, Tate and Clausen played under him. But Harrison Smith played his last 2 years under Kelly and turned into a great player. He was drafted in 2012. Teo played his last 3 years under Kelly.
You continue to prove throughout this thread that you are constitutionally unable to have a reasonable discussion. I give you fact and logic-based reasons for why your "program" argument is completely flawed. You respond with "<most of that> is kind of drivel." How convenient for you to not think you should address the major flaws of your argument.
But hey, at least you didn't disappoint. You came up with 3 more very stupid irrelevant points that also don't properly address the flaws in your core arguments.
- No one claimed Weis didn't leave a roster full of talent. You are strawmanning here. What I and others have said is that Weis didn't leave a program that was in better shape. Weis was terrible at player development outside of the QB and WR positions. But yes, he could recruit. No one claimed he couldn't (other than the fact his recruiting classes were usually lopsided toward the offense, which is true).
- It didn't matter that Weis needed to rebuild also. He either left a program that needed to be rebuilt or he didn't. Everyone else, including Swarbrick who cited "program builder" as his #1 criteria during his coaching search after firing Weis, recognizes the program under CW needed to be rebuilt except you. Swarbrick then recently went out of his way to say that same criteria would NOT be included in this year's coaching search because the program didn't need to be rebuilt -- do you see the difference? Why am I asking? Of course, you don't.
- This year's BK team was also "riddled" with injuries. Some years have more injuries than others. So what? What I think you are referring to - and I'm giving much more respect to your argument than it deserves - is there was a stretch early on when the team experienced more hamstring injuries than normal and BK had the staff look into it and made changes. So what. That doesn't change the fact that, overall, the program was much better even back then including S&C.
Eifert and Rudolph were TE's. KLM played on the D line. Z Martin and D Fleming both played D. All were pretty well developed when Kelly arrived?
The entire team was pretty well stocked when Kelly arrived.
Interesting that your a douche bag. Because I never once said that. But you're an ignoramus. And I knew when I briought up anything related to actual football you'd get nervous and go to your usual ass hat comments.
No I'm actually working on it right now. Cover 9. Corners play loose flat. Funnel and key through 2. All three safeties play deep thirds. And you can also play Rob with the Free. Great vs 2x2. But when you have a RB to the weakside and you get trips motion it becomes difficult to adjust.
Developed ?
nonsense, they were great players to begin with, they just matured and gained more experience
The only one of those guys Weis developed mostly was Rudolph. The rest had most/all of their playing careers under Kelly.
Depends. If we are in the 3 man front then I can drop 8. But I usually run it in the 4 man front. Or with a fire by a LB. No. it's not a good coverage vs a TE.
If there's a statement that could succinctly state how pointless these message boards are, well there it is.
Still not getting a straight answer from you on whether or not you think blacks can coach football.
Seems you’re being purposely opaque.
The ACC teams just replaced the Big East teams that kept beating is like UConn, USF, Syracuse. However the ACC had at least one star studded matchup, which is why we should keep the deal if both sides want it.There is no truth to the idea that the ACC games have substantially hurt ND’s SOS. None. Zero. Zip. You got that? Here look for yourself.
NCAA College Football Strength of Schedule Rankings & Ratings
NCAA College Football Strength of Schedule Rankings & Ratings from TeamRankings.com, your source for NCAAF computer power rankings.www.teamrankings.com
You’re wrong, so stop saying it.
1) This is mostly a pass stopping coverage? 2) Where are the DL aligned?
3) You say trips motion, so you mean 2x2 and a WR motions to become 3x1?
4) The free safety can rob. Is this one of the 3 deep defenders you’re counting?
It could be that everyone's schedule got watered down worse than ours. Weis and before did not get to play a New Mexico every year.
Exactly my point. Imagine being handed that level of talent then complaining that he needed his own guys.
KLM was a SR. Smith same. Floyd a JR. Not most/all.
