Some Tough Love A Day Later

[NDIRISH53]

Bilal was the weak spot. Kelly tried to get a legit linebacker but couldn't land one. No Caleb Kelly. Shark or Werner among others. I feel that Nik Coleman was underutilized and he became a great instinctive tackler. How none of the younger guys was developed is a mystery. I would deny Bilal a fifth year. Bring in another recruit.

Werner may be the worst college linebacker I’ve ever seen. Thank the lord he flipped. Makes bilal look like mike singletary

 

[NDAFArly]

Werner may be the worst college linebacker I’ve ever seen. Thank the lord he flipped. Makes bilal look like mike singletary

Werner is tough to figure out.
Knew his coaches locally, so looked forward to him at ND. But then I wasn’t a fan of his attitude, mental toughness or to be frank, his marbles. Talked too much & had drama.
It is what it is.

 

[FootballCityTATER]

ND isn't changing for you or anybody else
Get off your high horse with. It is an amazing place with great academics and great athletics. Root for an SEC school.

Exactly!!! But, you want it both ways....your players are smarter than eveyone else’s (not true) AND superior athletes (also, not true). Sorry, I doesn’t work that way. NOT TRUE, NO MATTER WHAT YOU THINK OR BELIEVE.

 

[FootballCityTATER]

Exactly!!! But, you want it both ways....your players are smarter than eveyone else’s (not true) AND superior athletes (also, not true). Sorry, I doesn’t work that way. NOT TRUE, NO MATTER WHAT YOU THINK OR BELIEVE.

Forgive my spelling - I was on a role!

 

[NDIRISH53]

Werner is tough to figure out.
Knew his coaches locally, so looked forward to him at ND. But then I wasn’t a fan of his attitude, mental toughness or to be frank, his marbles. Talked too much & had drama.
It is what it is.

The thing is... just watching him play makes me cringe

 

[NDIRISH53]

ND isn't changing for you or anybody else
Get off your high horse with. It is an amazing place with great academics and great athletics. Root for an SEC school.

Fine. Then don’t expect another national championship, ever.

Notre Dame is the one who sets the standard, not its fans. They tell us over and over their goal is graduating it’s players and winning a national championship. We are simply holding them to their standard. If they aren’t serious about it then they need to come out and say it, but until then I will expect the administration to do what it takes to win a national championship like they told me is their goal.

 

[Pennick4]

Fine. Then don’t expect another national championship, ever.

Notre Dame is the one who sets the standard, not its fans. They tell us over and over their goal is graduating it’s players and winning a national championship. We are simply holding them to their standard. If they aren’t serious about it then they need to come out and say it, but until then I will expect the administration to do what it takes to win a national championship like they told me is their goal.

12-1.

 

[HuddleBurger]

Every year we get all this complaining about the assistant coaches and how all the top recruits are playing elsewhere. The problem goes a lot higher than the assistant coaches, the head coach, or even Jack Swarbrick IMO.

Follow the money, it's not that hard. Will winning a national championship make the university any more money? Will NOT winning a national championship, while maintaining academic integrity, COST the university money in the long run?

The system as it is right now is a cash cow. Why spend millions of more dollars to bump up the coaching staff and recruiting classes to the top 3 every year? You will be eating into your profit margin without any projected ROI to the bottom line as a university. And you will risk damaging your sterling reputation in the process. I believe that the Board of Trustees has made up their minds that the risk is too great: Why potentially compromise your reputation when there's no big money payoff to be had? Being a famous, historical museum piece of college football excellence is apparently far more lucrative than winning titles in today's corrupt and cutthroat landscape.

Until the mega-donor alumni/boosters show dissatisfaction by cutting off the money pipeline, or enrollment drops, or maybe if the TV contract isn't renewed, the coaching staff and the recruiting efforts are just fine as-is. IMHO.

Keep in mind that you have to take the list of composite Top 100 recruits and determine which ones actually qualify to attend Notre Dame, and could handle the academic rigors. Then narrow that short list down to the ones who don't want a new car or a pile of cash from the fabled "Bagman." Now you're dealing with the kids that the university is interested in bringing in to play football and represent Notre Dame.

It sucks for those of us who want to see the football team be one of the best in the country, but I think it's too successful of a business model for Notre Dame as a university the way it is.

 

[mmboys07]

I think a lot has to do with the extra practices that benefit the younger players more. Most of Clemson’s 4 and 5 Stars are freshmen and sophomores. Every BCS game or playoff game we’ve played, we’ve played downs against younger players who didn’t make as much of a difference or were not as good during the regular season. Our 4 and 5 year players don’t make a leap—those Young’s guys do. Lawrence was out and they had three young guys shove our OL around. Their two young 5 star WRs made plays and they didn’t rely on Renfro after the first quarter.

Then there’s Lawrence. He got progressively better all,year, but he was on another level yesterday. Who knows how good he’ll be in 3 years. Clemson gambled that a younger player with a higher ceiling would keep on getting better enough to challenge Alabama and they were right.

It seems to me this is the biggest issue with Kelly coached teams; players just don't seem to get better year after year. Why is that?

 

[NotreDomer1]

It seems to me this is the biggest issue with Kelly coached teams; players just don't seem to get better year after year. Why is that?

I think they get better year over year, but the FR/SO classes don’t get enough quality playing minutes to contribute significantly when the time is needed. While there are exceptions here and there, we need to allow more players to get real time experience so they know the learning curve. A large part of this is that it seems we don’t like to blow opponents out in easy games and create opportunities for these players to get experience. This will create better depth and a more competitive practice for actual starters. Having Jurkovic come in with a minute left to kneel 3x is NOT quality minutes.

This also hurts recruiting. These guys are the best players at the HS level and we’re showing them that they’re going to have to sit a year or two before we trust them to do anything. Every position (like the DL this year) should be rotational other than QB.

Take better advantage of the new redshirt rule. These guys AT THE MINIMUM should have 4 complete games (8 half’s) worth of experience by the time they exhaust their FR eligibility. We wouldn’t be wondering who’s playing LBer next year if this were the case. I don’t care how good Tranquil and Coney are. You build your future when the opportunity allows for it.

 

[NotreDomer1]

After 10-3, we absolutely should’ve had a better class.

Denson, Polian, Quinn and Alexander were major let downs considering what they had to work with.

 

[Patrirish]

Exactly!!! But, you want it both ways....your players are smarter than eveyone else’s (not true) AND superior athletes (also, not true). Sorry, I doesn’t work that way. NOT TRUE, NO MATTER WHAT YOU THINK OR BELIEVE.

Yes, it does work that way.

ND is ranked 18th in the nation, academically.

ND is consistently ranked # 1 or 2 in graduation rates (90 % and higher).

The interrelationship of that combination leads all but the ND haters to properly conclude that ND’s players are smarter.

 

[francade]

“How in the world would Julian Love being in the game stop Alohi Gilman from being too slow to run with Justyn Ross”

Was he too slow or did he bite on the double move? He obviously thought they were gonna try a curl at the first down marker. It’s a dumb premise anyway. How many college safeties can run w/ a burner like Ross? Answer: zero. It was a good call and Gilman bit. To point to a talent gap on this play is just more of your star gazing. And as for those two plays that Vaughn has good coverage that resulted in TDs, there’s a good chance they don’t even throw those balls had love been in. They made a concerted effort to go after Vaughn when they saw love go out. Who knows what happens if love were in and they still throw at him. Bottom line, our offense played like shit based on a number of things. Book wasn’t as sharp as he’d been throughout the season. Our o-line gave him no protection, and when they did, he missed a couple gimmees & the post to Boykin. But he was running for his life most of the night & our wrs didn’t help him out w/ some key drops (claypool’s on the first drive was an absolute killer from a quick start perspective). Play calling reverted back to the first three games of the year. If I could point to the biggest problem, it was long. Awful playcalling. No boots or rollouts to create some time, and no real answers to blitz pressures w/ screens and/or quick slants (one exception was the slant to Boykin that was wide open that book threw in the dirt, something he hadn’t done all year on that route). Perfect storm made it look worse than it was. Four big plays & no offense makes it look like we’re further away than we really are. If we get everyone back, we’ll make a run next year. That’s an honest prediction that I’ll stand by all off season while the resident tantrum throwers will bitch & moan while they star gaze.