The lads need our support this year as they embark on their Season of Redemption. Good Luck Lads!
Getting Ready For The Season.
- Thread starter Ara64
- Start date
Ara,
Talk about motivation ! With a cheer like the girl in the film, the players should run through walls !
Bodizephax
I've posted how many times?
Very unmotivating film with last years lowlites. Let me motivate you !! The Irish are going to dominate college football this year ! 14 and 0 !!
reading about how guys like Jay Hayes have been transformed, how Trumbetti is poised for a huge year, how Tranguel is made for the Rover position, how Nelson is stronger and more explosive, how D Hayes Spring game exploits were a sneak peak into this season, how Morgan is excelling in every phase, and on and on... coupled with Kelly talking fundamentals on defense and believing in Long and Elko and Balis, et al is all the motivation I can stand. Can't wait.
2007- Weis leads ND to a 3-9 record with losing scores of 33-3, 31-10, 38-0, 31-14, 33-19, 27-14, 38-0, 46-44, 41-24. ND averaged 25 points per loss.
2016- Kelly leads ND to a shocking 4-8 season with losing scores of 50-47, 36-28, 38-35, 10-3, 17-10, 28-27, 34-31,'and 45-27. ND averaged 7.37 a loss. ND stayed within a score in every game except USC. USC won the game with a decisive second quarter of plus 14. Go further in the stats and you'll find total yards: USC 412 & ND 408; Time of possession USC 31:09 & ND 28:57; 1st Downs USC 23 & ND 23. Dig a little deeper: Passing Yards USC Darnold 19-30 205 yds & 2 TD's 63% & ND Kizer 21-39 254 yds and 2 TD's 54%. Turnovers USC- 1 & ND- 2. Rushing: USC 207 on 38 carries at 5.4 yds per play & ND 158 on 37 carries and 4.2 yds per play.
Punt return (TD) and interception returned for a TD turned a 10-7 game into a 24-7 lead at the half. The second half was an exchange of scores and a 45 to 27 win for USC. The 2007 team was simply bad and got pummeled most the time. It appears Kelly has moved to fix the problems that hurt last year's team. I didn't like all the losses last year but the lads did fight; even against USC.
2016- Kelly leads ND to a shocking 4-8 season with losing scores of 50-47, 36-28, 38-35, 10-3, 17-10, 28-27, 34-31,'and 45-27. ND averaged 7.37 a loss. ND stayed within a score in every game except USC. USC won the game with a decisive second quarter of plus 14. Go further in the stats and you'll find total yards: USC 412 & ND 408; Time of possession USC 31:09 & ND 28:57; 1st Downs USC 23 & ND 23. Dig a little deeper: Passing Yards USC Darnold 19-30 205 yds & 2 TD's 63% & ND Kizer 21-39 254 yds and 2 TD's 54%. Turnovers USC- 1 & ND- 2. Rushing: USC 207 on 38 carries at 5.4 yds per play & ND 158 on 37 carries and 4.2 yds per play.
Punt return (TD) and interception returned for a TD turned a 10-7 game into a 24-7 lead at the half. The second half was an exchange of scores and a 45 to 27 win for USC. The 2007 team was simply bad and got pummeled most the time. It appears Kelly has moved to fix the problems that hurt last year's team. I didn't like all the losses last year but the lads did fight; even against USC.
Actually thought at the time that ND would have had a decent record last season if they had played every game with the same level of emotion and effort and execution as the USC game. The back to back second qtr TDs from the punt return and interception sealed the defeat, and yet the team played hard the entire game. But, the great thing about college football is the constant turnover of players and the annual pre-season optimism, and we have lots of reasons to be optimistic. We also have a ton of question marks that the team will start to answer against Temple.
Tex
There was emotion and effort at the Alamo and that didn't turn out well
When you were as bad as ND was on the LOS and in the 4th Qtr we need to be a bigger , stronger and better conditioned football team.
That along with improved ST play is the key to a good season IMO
I feel like we have the pieces to be good offensively but at some point you have to stop people .
Well, don't forget execution. Regardless, I agree that we were a terrible team fundamentally, especially on defense; and the lack of conditioning and actual regression in strength and explosiveness is well documented, as are the program changes to turn this crap around. Increasingly, it seems apparent that the hiring of Bilas and staff has turned out to be just as critical as Elko and Long's hiring, and that is one hell of an indictment to last year's strength and conditioning program and its impact on the field. Most of us bitched last season and before about the terrible fundamentals on defense, and it's encouraging to read this glaring deficiency has been and continues to be Elko's primary focus, above and beyond scheme, etc... if we just play hard aggressive fundamentally sound defense it will be a huge turnaround, and something I am really looking forward to watching, appreciating that we are probably a year from realizing the full impact of this sea change.
Very unmotivating film with last years lowlites. "
I hope that they watch ALL of the lowlites! Every last one of them to re-iterate how bad that feeling was. There were some good points as well, don;t get me wrong, but, ND lost games in the 2nd half due to not being physically conditioned to play -- and their fundamentals sucked as well... let these "lowlites" be a constant reminder of that and be a motivating force.
I think the degree of success all hinges on the defense. If Wimbush plays up to his potential everything on offense should dynamically click. A real key to the defense, IMO, will be how Jerry Tillery emerges. He could be a one man wrecking crew. The Georgia game looms as critical.
I agree we need a consistently good Tillery this year, but also think the interior DL position next to him is equally important, and it's not clear who will emerge here. Been predicting that Bonner would emerge as a major contributor each of the last two seasons, and been wrong. Now he is penciled in as a starter next to Tillery. I hope we see some major movement from our projected two deep at WDE and SDE that results in seeing Jay Hayes playing inside as part of this rotation. I'm hoping Kareem will emerge and demand playing time at SDE to facilitate this, but haven't read anything yet to suggest this.
As you've outlined, there are any number of players who exude potential, so there's legitimate cause of optimist. It's especially encouraging knowing that we have a defensive coordinator who teach and installs a defensive scheme that, in stark contrast to that employed by Van Gorder, isn't more complicated than 3 dimensional chess and doesn't require someone to turn 28 before being well familiar with it.
How many times did ND have the ball last with the opportunity to tie or win the game? The offensive execution just wasn't there after Kelly went over to help the defense. It all goes back to not firing VanGorder after the 2015 season, poor execution on offense, inconsistent offensive line play, terrible defense to start the first four games of the season, poor S&C habits, terrible Special Teams Play. I'm looking forward to this season.
I'm interested in seeing how Claypool plays this year because him, Mack and st brown in games at the same time should cause nightmare matchups for Georgia and most other teams that our irish face. would anybody else besides like to see the staff try to give Pride a chance to catch some balls at wr in practice just to see what he can do with that track speed of his
was just reading a lot of twiiter stuff from different writers for various irish sites about today's practice and most of them talk like this team will go undefeated. I like reading positives about players from fall practice but they need to also write about what needs to be done better by the players also
Kelly and staff will have up five guys or more on this roster that are 6-4 or taller and will be able to play multiple guys on this list all at once which will be nightmare matchups for anybody. I know Georgia has a veteran defense coming back but having to face three or four guys 6-4 or taller at once will be tough on any defensive backfield. does Georgia have multiple tall DBs to counter the irish height
They won't put out the negative stuff on Twitter. They write about it in their practice summaries though.
On "College Football Live" yesterday, Trevor Matich was very high on ND and believes they are a serious dark horse to get into the Final Four while on the same show Finebaum said that ND would be lucky to get to eight wins. IMO, there are just too many uncertainties with this Irish team to make an educated opinion at this point.
Eh we need corners regarding the pride thing. 0 signed 2017. I'd love to see love at safety however
Telx.......
Re: "We also have a ton of question marks that the team will start to answer against Temple."
Temple is merely a scrimmage. Georgia will answer your questions.
The gridiron is littered with the remains of strong teams who took "lesser" opponents for granted. Rockne found out the hard way. So did Lou. So did CW. So has BK. So has many top coaches with top programs over the years. Temple first. Then Georgia. Do one game at a time. Do it well. Then, move on to the next opponent. I am hoping the players are deaf to the noise of Georgia until the time that they are to be focused on Georgia.
