1. After implementing the 24 hour and revisit the performance on Saturday a few things dawned on me. As a fan base we are not as good as we can be. The stadium had sections empty and Toledo fans were heard many times supporting their team while ND fans sat quietly watching the game and taking in the view. There are passionate ND fans however coming out of a season were you could not attend a game I would have hoped fans would be lined up to get into the stadium and welcome the team back, not the case. Campus was empty, Stadium and Joyce Parking lots were half full -- to an embarrassing degree.
2. To look at the team, they did not perform well in a number of areas. Could the talent be down, coaching not good enough, we will find out in the coming days. One thing I know for sure coming into this week was our team had a very unusual week. They played a late Sunday night game and arrived back on campus early Monday morning. They had a modified practice week, don't discount this as a major impact in their performance and the fan base had a poor showing/performance. I'm interested to see how the team responds against Purdue. We will have a full week of practice to implement game plan, recovery from the prior game and prepare. I'm looking for ND to come out strong against Purdue. If they don't, then I think we have a difficult season ahead with potentially an 7-8 win season.
3. What do I sense purely from reactions of coaching staff. I sense fear from Kelly as you see him being more animated on the sideline. He's fighting for his team, which is a good thing however I believe he sees the challenge ahead and is naturally trying to motivate, inspire and fight with/for his team. Position play is poor in a number of groups. Not sure if its' Coaching, talent or scheme. On the defensive side of the ball I believe it's scheme at this point and on the Offensive side of the ball I think it falls into talent on the OL and QB play. For us old timers, we didn't like the way Holtz won and wanted change to the near era of throwing the football downfield. We changed and had the Davie, Ty, Charlie years to learn a valuable lesson--just win and be happy! We are currently winning and it's not pretty however we are winning and just 15 years ago we would take an ugly win over a pretty loss and so would many other team at this point in the season, see Wisconsin and USC to name a few.
Have a great week and let's see if a full week or rest, recovery and practice leads to a better performance. If it doesn't, we will have rougher Saturdays ahead.
2. To look at the team, they did not perform well in a number of areas. Could the talent be down, coaching not good enough, we will find out in the coming days. One thing I know for sure coming into this week was our team had a very unusual week. They played a late Sunday night game and arrived back on campus early Monday morning. They had a modified practice week, don't discount this as a major impact in their performance and the fan base had a poor showing/performance. I'm interested to see how the team responds against Purdue. We will have a full week of practice to implement game plan, recovery from the prior game and prepare. I'm looking for ND to come out strong against Purdue. If they don't, then I think we have a difficult season ahead with potentially an 7-8 win season.
3. What do I sense purely from reactions of coaching staff. I sense fear from Kelly as you see him being more animated on the sideline. He's fighting for his team, which is a good thing however I believe he sees the challenge ahead and is naturally trying to motivate, inspire and fight with/for his team. Position play is poor in a number of groups. Not sure if its' Coaching, talent or scheme. On the defensive side of the ball I believe it's scheme at this point and on the Offensive side of the ball I think it falls into talent on the OL and QB play. For us old timers, we didn't like the way Holtz won and wanted change to the near era of throwing the football downfield. We changed and had the Davie, Ty, Charlie years to learn a valuable lesson--just win and be happy! We are currently winning and it's not pretty however we are winning and just 15 years ago we would take an ugly win over a pretty loss and so would many other team at this point in the season, see Wisconsin and USC to name a few.
Have a great week and let's see if a full week or rest, recovery and practice leads to a better performance. If it doesn't, we will have rougher Saturdays ahead.
