Position Battles
- Thread starter Golson5
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Agree and I think lambert is the highly rated recruit that is willing to develop and wait his turn
Book could have won a national title at a top program. FYI Chip Long has been job shopping ever since, currently at Southern Miss.
Jake Coker won the title as the Alabama QB and went undrafted. He didn’t even get a combine invite.
I’m a big fan of Book, he won a lot of games at Notre Dame but the QB position is where we had the biggest gap vs the other playoff teams in 2018 and 2020. In 2018 if we swapped QBs with Clemson we win that game. Trevor Lawrence was just phenomenal that year, while Book and co. put up 3 points in the playoff game with several guys on offense that played on Sundays.
Notre Dame with Trevor Lawrence playing QB still would have lost to Alabama in 2020.
I don't know. Lawrence was so good. He could win games by himself. I don't think it's a certainty that Bama wins that game.
Ohio State put up 600 yards against Clemson and won by 21 points…then got curb stomped by Alabama.
No outcome is a certainty, but Alabama clearly was the better team.
Alabama was clearly the best team in the country in 2020 and IMO it wasn’t close.
Yeah that shows it was more than just one or two players that needed an upgrade, such as.
2020. Ohio State had one rusher that got through every play. Lawrence and Clemson never got the message.
In the NCG anOSU had their Dline ineligible due to Covid. Which as we know from the first Clemson game is a tough loss to withstand.
I agree, if Carr is what they say he is, he'll be 2 by end of season. Minchey ends up being the odd man out in this and will probably transfer. I believe Angeli sticks, graduates, then transfers.
The loss of Minchey, and eventually Angeli, magnifies the need to sign Deuce, and Grubbs in the next two cycles.
And Clemson's pass defense wasn't up to its usual standards that year. Fields and Ohio State threw all over them in the semifinal. We even scored 47 on them in 2 OT in the regular season, although they shut us down in the ACC Championship Game.
But even Saban realized after that, that he needed to start bringing in top QBs to keep up with the Joneses. Which he started doing, as he then put 3 or 4 consecutive QBs into the NFL.
I don’t think he suddenly realized that he needed to get better QB’s after 2016. The goal was always to bring in the best talent.
At any rate, I was only trying to say that Book could have won a title at a better program. Coker went undrafted and didn’t make a practice squad while Book was drafted in the 4th/5th round and is going on his fourth year as an NFL player.
I think that demonstrates that Book could have won a title.
Just because 1 team made a bad decision drafting him doesn't mean he could have won a title. He's played in 1 game and played terrible
Maybe Book could have won a title on a ridiculously stacked team in Alabama but that's about it. And it's still a maybe. No other team would it have been possible
I agree that he was over drafted. So? He still might have been drafted later on. He’s still in the NFL four years later. Coker didn’t even make one practice squad.
You’re changing the argument. Tbonesays originally said that he could have won a title at a top program. You disagreed. Now you’re qualifying it by saying “ridiculously stacked team in Alabama”.
So? Most title teams/top programs are ridiculously stacked. That’s why they win the title and sort of the definition of a top program.
How about 2017 Georgia? 13-2 runner up with an OT loss to Alabama in the championship. 23 point loss to 10-4 Auburn and escaped against 10-3 Notre Dame (quarterbacked by Brandon Wimbush — far from a great QB). True freshman Jake Fromm at QB.
It’s perfectly reasonable to think that a senior or fifth year Book could have been the difference and won that team the title.
Saban definitely stepped up his QB recruiting game in the latter part of his Alabama tenure. He went from mainly game manager types to a string of 1st-rounders. So I'm guessing he decided to put more of an effort into that; but I don't know for sure. They also changed their offense to be more passing-oriented, which may have attracted more top QBs from far-flung places like Hawaii and California.
Their best QB in the first part of his tenure was probably McCarron, who beat us in 2012. He played about 10 years in the NFL as a backup.
Bottom line, in today's CFB, it certainly helps to have an elite QB for winning national championships. Most of the recent winners have had 1st-round picks at QB, except Bennett, who played on loaded Georgia teams.
AT least one of our scores was a long run from scrimmage. I suspect that was more of a defensive breakdown than play design.
It's also the system, you would not design a 'traditional' 4 WR shotgun passing attack knowing Book would be the qb. I am not sure how to characterize Chip Long's offense because it changed from year to year. But I am sure Book could have won a title at any program that could reliably run the ball.
The recruiting ended up being better but not because, “Saban realized after that, that he needed to start bringing in top QBs”, as you said.
They were already trying to get the top recruits. They offered the Rivals #1 dual-threat QB in 2014 Deshaun Watson but he went to Clemson — before they were “Clemson”. They offered the Rivals #1 Pro Style QB in 2014 but he went elsewhere. Offered the #2 overall player in 2015 according to Rivals, but he went elsewhere.
I don’t believe that they were suddenly more focused on getting the best QB’s. It’s not clear who the best QB’s are anyway.
I agree that it certainly helps to have a great to elite QB, but it’s not a requirement. It’s a team game after all. Just look at LSU last year.
Well, like I said, changing his offense may have helped, too. And hiring OCs like Kiffin and Sarkisian no doubt helped with their QB recruiting, too. Kiffin and Sarkisian were the OCs when they brought in guys like Tua and Bryce Young.
It was also Kyren Williams running behind a pretty talented offensive line. Kyren's doing okay in the pros, last I checked.
That’s all well and good. My initial point was that Book could have won a title with a better team. I wasn’t trying to debate how Saban stepped up his QB recruiting.
You mentioned that he realized he needed better QB’s and I said I don’t think so. Again, I wasn’t trying to debate the process of how they ended up with better QB’s. I was just stating that he didn’t suddenly realize that he needed better QB’s. I’m confident he was already attempting to get the best in his view. How he ended up with better QB’s is irrelevant to the topic of whether or not he realized that he needed better QB’s.
I appreciate the convo though.
It’s fun to speculate … no one really knows. ND during Books tenure and during Kelly’s tenure has been putting players in the NFL at every position except QB … that could be talent/caliber, it could be player development, it could be game day coaching … probably a combination of all 3 … ND offense was a no show in almost every big game. To say there was not a gap at the QB position is ignoring the data.
Yes....there was a gap at quarterback...and Book lost most, if not all of the big games he played in. However, the same can be said about the head coach, Kelly, who coached in more big games at ND than Book played in...and he lost virtually all of those big games. This debate shouldn't be about Book...it should be about Kelly. But then again, he's the "winningest" coach in ND history who never won anything. That puts him in a class by himself.
By never won anything you mean a championship? I agree with that
Kelly coached 3 undefeated seasons at ND and would have made the current CFP model 4 years in a row 2018-2021. You probably could make an argument we would have taken stanford more seriously in 2017 if the CFP was on the line.
Kelly knows how to coach and prepare a team, his biggest downfall was clearly HS QB evaluation. Pretty much every highly rated QB he landed turned into a dud.
I agree with most here except the teams were rarely prepared mentally for big games.
Some total meltdowns in big games, Miami 17 Michigan 19 etc. And some unprepared teams early in his career, navy Tulsa USF
Those are obvious coaching duds, with Navy/Tulsa being his first year of a massive culture change. He had to build a program. Willingham destroyed the program, Weis was able to bring talent in and coach offense but that was it, kelly built a program. He had to make massive changes to the culture after 2016 and he did. The culture at ND has been top notch the last 6 years.
Freeman just needs to learn how to coach better and it needs to be shown this year. No excuse not to make CFP playoff, and honestly we absolutely should be hosting the first round game. A one loss at worst ND team is hosting round 1.
There were more coaching duds than year 1. And 2016 was a disaster. He and Jack turned it around in 2017 but the big game flops continued
Miami Michigan Cincinnati
I’ve never said that there wasn’t a gap at the QB position. No one is saying that. Show me where someone said that. I’ve said in the past that WR’s and QB’s were the biggest difference in the big games (at least in terms of talent).
Two things can be true at the same time. 1) There was a gap at QB talent between ND and top programs. 2) Book could have won a title at a better program.
The 2021 Green Bay Packers were led by the 2021 MVP Aaron Rodgers and lost their first game 38-3 to the 9-8 Saints — far from a great team. The Packers then turned around and went 13-4 but still lost their first playoff game. Each game is its own thing.
It always helps to have more talent. That’s common sense. It should also be common sense that you don’t have to have a great QB to win the title. You don’t have to have a great defense either. You don’t HAVE to have anything.
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