This is PUTRID!!!!!

[johnnd05]

Sorry guys, I didn't play football...just watch lots and lots. We use the youth and experience excuse for this team, and although the recruiting by Ty was poor his last 2 years, why can't some of these young players step up and make plays if they are really the star recruits they were made out to be in high school?

USC is starting a true freshman at center. Redshirt freshman QB and RB at OU. To me, our defense was the bigger concern this season, and they have played with more heart than the offense. Can any of these O-linemen make a play? Have you seen AA turn a corner on a play yet?

I didn't play football either, but ... I think one part of the problem is just the fact that the strength and skills - but strength especially - required to succeed in college can take some time to develop. I remember seeing Chris Simms, who tore it up playing at a highschool in my area, really struggle as a true freshman at Texas. No matter how big the kid was, he just wasn't "man strong" in the way you need to be.

As to your point about SC and OU: I've been thinking a lot about this, and I think it has tons to do with the fact that these guys have upperclassmen or otherwise experienced guys playing AROUND them. A freshman or sophomore can step in and perform right away if all he has to do is fill a little slot, but if the team around him is struggling and he's being asked to basically win the game himself, that's just not going to be a possibility.

That's just my take. I'd love to hear what others have to say about this, because the comparison with how young players are doing at other programs has really been on my mind as well.

 

[IrishAlum1997]

As to your point about SC and OU: I've been thinking a lot about this, and I think it has tons to do with the fact that these guys have upperclassmen or otherwise experienced guys playing AROUND them. A freshman or sophomore can step in and perform right away if all he has to do is fill a little slot, but if the team around him is struggling and he's being asked to basically win the game himself, that's just not going to be a possibility.

That's just my take. I'd love to hear what others have to say about this, because the comparison with how young players are doing at other programs has really been on my mind as well.[/QUOTE]

John Sullivan. Sam Young. John Carlson. Travis Thomas. David Grimes. I have not looked at those other rosters to see what percentage of their offenses are upperclassmen, but isn't that enough veteran 'leadership' to nuture an overall younger team to gel and make plays?

 

[johnnd05]

John Sullivan. Sam Young. John Carlson. Travis Thomas. David Grimes. I have not looked at those other rosters to see what percentage of their offenses are upperclassmen, but isn't that enough veteran 'leadership' to nuture an overall younger team to gel and make plays?

I dunno for sure, but I suspect that at schools like SC and OU the VAST majority of the guys who see the field are upperclassmen. It's not just about veteran "leadership", but about having the sort of talent around you that enables you to shine. Watching SC beat up on Nebraska, it seemed to me that ANYONE could have gotten first downs running behind that line ...

Or maybe I'm just making excuses ...

 

[bbrennan]

I think comments about the team not showing much heart are very accurate. I don't buy the excuses about poor recruiting under Ty and that our players are too young anymore. The O-line simply can't make a play. The O-line has a 5th year senior in the middle, along with 2 juniors and a sophomore who started every game last year. The only "new" player is Wenger. Even if you haven't started your first 2 years, being in the program and being a junior should not qualify you as youthful. I would hope our practices over the past 2+ years (under Charlie mind you) would prepare guys to step in and make plays. If not, we have some real problems when juniors can't be relied on until they have started for a full season.

Same thing on D. There is plenty of experience scattered amongst the units - Laws on the D-line, Crum with the linebackers and Zibby in the secondary. The fundamentals of tackling are missing on defense. I don't know the exact stats but I would like to see how many yards the Michigan RB's got after the first hit. We had this same problem last year and thought it would be better with Brown as coordinator, but it doesn't seem to be. And I'm not talking about the 3rd and 4th quarters when the D is tired. We have repeatedly missed tackles throughout the first 3 games. And can Ambrose Wooden ever learn to play the ball and not the man?

I completely agree the recruiting under Ty was not great, but this team seems to lack heart and repeatedly make fundamental mistakes. Look at some of the teams in the current Top 25 - Kentucky, USF, Missouri, throw in App State if you like - if you go back and look at recruiting over the past 4-5 years I bet we consistently had better classes then they did. Yet, our team is not performing as well as theirs. I know our schedule is harder and opponents do not prepare for them like they would prepare for ND, but the fact is our team is underachieving. Age, experience and recruiting are not legitimate excuses any longer.

I love ND and I really like Charlie. I don't want to see him go at all. I'm excited about the players we have on the team and the players we have coming into the program. I don't want to see admission standards lowered. But the effort our team has displayed in the first 3 games is awful.

 

[johnnd05]

I think comments about the team not showing much heart are very accurate. I don't buy the excuses about poor recruiting under Ty and that our players are too young anymore. The O-line simply can't make a play. The O-line has a 5th year senior in the middle, along with 2 juniors and a sophomore who started every game last year. The only "new" player is Wenger. Even if you haven't started your first 2 years, being in the program and being a junior should not qualify you as youthful. I would hope our practices over the past 2+ years (under Charlie mind you) would prepare guys to step in and make plays. If not, we have some real problems when juniors can't be relied on until they have started for a full season.

Same thing on D. There is plenty of experience scattered amongst the units - Laws on the D-line, Crum with the linebackers and Zibby in the secondary. The fundamentals of tackling are missing on defense. I don't know the exact stats but I would like to see how many yards the Michigan RB's got after the first hit. We had this same problem last year and thought it would be better with Brown as coordinator, but it doesn't seem to be. And I'm not talking about the 3rd and 4th quarters when the D is tired. We have repeatedly missed tackles throughout the first 3 games. And can Ambrose Wooden ever learn to play the ball and not the man?

I completely agree the recruiting under Ty was not great, but this team seems to lack heart and repeatedly make fundamental mistakes. Look at some of the teams in the current Top 25 - Kentucky, USF, Missouri, throw in App State if you like - if you go back and look at recruiting over the past 4-5 years I bet we consistently had better classes then they did. Yet, our team is not performing as well as theirs. I know our schedule is harder and opponents do not prepare for them like they would prepare for ND, but the fact is our team is underachieving. Age, experience and recruiting are not legitimate excuses any longer.

I love ND and I really like Charlie. I don't want to see him go at all. I'm excited about the players we have on the team and the players we have coming into the program. I don't want to see admission standards lowered. But the effort our team has displayed in the first 3 games is awful.

Absolutely right. Great, GREAT post.

 

[johnnd05]

From BGS, here's a breakdown of which offensive linemen played when in Saturday's game. The moral in short: on 13 series, we played nine different o-line rotations. A must-read.

Some key bits:

• Sam Young playing only at LT, when he'd played RT the first two weeks.
• Matt Romine seeing his first playing time.
• Chris Stewart not being at the game, possibly because of an injury.
• Dan Wenger going down with a leg injury late in the game.

Read it and let me know what you think ...

 

[Tennesseeirish]

In almost 40 years of Iris football this takes the cake.No offense,defence,ect,ect,ect.Maybe we should ease up on the schedule,ie,play C Mich,Indiana,Tulsa,So.Miss at the start of the season.In my opion if we dont loosen up the admission standards a bit and quit playing this scheduie we are never going to win a nc,we had might as well join the Ivy League or get use to 7 win seasons and trips to El Paso or Shreveport for bowl games.

I agree with you

 

[Maverick5]

there are lots of different angles taken here in this thread....first of all, i agree w/some and flat out disagree w/others. the whole throw Ty under the bus expressiion has gotten way too old. Lets face it for what it is and get over it : He had two poor recruiting classes, so numbers are down, and the one place you won't have much success w/bad number is along the O and D lines. That's proven over years of the sport of football success is determined by controlling the line of scrimmage. No, it's not an excuse that Ty porrly recruited, it's a fact. Contrary to that, I agree, Freshmen and sophs should be able to fill in and play, and certainly should be able to do it better than they are right now...There is no easy answer to explain this other than lack of toughness, both physical and mental. yes these are charlie's young men on the line now, and yes they obviously have some maturing to do, but lets be realistic, half these kids are only 3 games into their collegiate football careers....without a steady amounth of senior and junior leadership both on and off the field to guide them and give them a shoulder to lean on both in the huddle and the sideline, they are basically going at it blind. it's going to be a struggle until they get their feet under them. it's no different than the first few weeks of college as a student, it's really not. Grant it, we all knew it was gonna be a tough year, but there are no excuses for it being this bad....couple the things i mentioned above, with less focus on physical practices and a lack of fire and passion (as obviously displayed last weekend) and this is the result. The Good News?? there's no place to go but up!

 

[ant80]

I was seriously debating whether to post this or not, but here goes...

Rumors and Rants

This sounds worse that it seems from the outside.

 

[johnnd05]

I was seriously debating whether to post this or not, but here goes...
Rumors and Rants

This sounds worse that it seems from the outside.

Wow. Thanks for posting that.

Everyone should read it, btw. Ugh. Gosh I hope they're wrong. Ugh ugh ugh.

 

[NDFan4Life]

I was seriously debating whether to post this or not, but here goes...

Rumors and Rants

This sounds worse that it seems from the outside.

Thanks for posting that. This doesn't bode well. I sure hope they're wrong.

 

[goldenlid]

If that is true WOW!! We will see in the next game where the team head is at. CW did say that after these practices he would find the guys that wanted to play for him is this what he meant, I hope not but what else can we do but wait.

 

[Sureal]

This is an ugly time frame in his stay right now. This I believe is the breaking point. It can go one way or the other...

 

[NDFan4Life]

I had an interesting conversation with a PSU fan today at work. He wasn't saying things like "ND sucks", or "PSU will beat ND anywhere anytime", or bragging about how great PSU is.

What he said was, "Look, I know exactly what you're going through. PSU's had some awful seasons, and they got their sh*t together and started kicking some butt. ND will do the same thing. Of course they don't stand a chance to get in a bowl game this year, but next year they're going to be a definite contender for a BCS bowl. The year after that will be the one, though. In '09, ND will be the team to watch out for."

I was stunned by his comments and complete understanding. It was just amazing.

 

[Moostache]

Now I have not posted here very much....I am a lot more of a 'lurker' than anything else, but I can't take it any longer...

Notre Lame.
Notre Doom.
Flopping Amish.
Weis sucks.
The team has quit on him.
Weis can't coach.
Willingham wasn't THAT bad.
And on and on and on...

Believe me...I have heard them all. I live and die every season with ND and my corpse this year is pretty gamey for September....

I can't explain it either....they are the worst ND team I have EVER seen at this point. Worse than Faust's team that got tattooed by Miami 58-7 in 1984. Worse than Holtz team that lost to Air Force at home in 1995. Worse than anything in the Davie-sham era (well at least on par with the 38-0 drubbing suffered under Willingham)....it defies logic to see a team with so many HS all-Americans getting progressively WORSE in each of the last 6 quarters (really all season long actually)...

I know the O-Line is inexperienced and there are a ton of new players seeing their first action, and deep in my gut I knew there was a chance they would be 0-3 at this point and struggle this year. What I did not expect is a complete lack of heart and a total lack of ANYTHING to hang my hat on as a fan.

Can't run.
Can't pass.
Can't block.
Can't snap the ball.
Can't cover punts.
Can't cover pass plays.
Can't tackle.
Sure as hell can't stop the run.

Its like a nightmare that you can't wake up from....for the first time in years, I turned off a ND game last week - in the FIRST HALF. I was so angry watching that "effort" that I was actually yelling at my TV and freaking out my kids. Angry

I want to believe that things will get better, but until I actually see a running play gain 15 yards or a pass play for a TD or a 3-and-out from the defense, I can't believe they can win more than possibly 2 games right now (Navy AND Air Force would beat that team that showed up in the first half at Michigan - damn, Stanford might too....come to think of it, if they play that comically bad again, they could very well lose to Duke too....goddamn, they could be winless at that rate...) Crying in my beer....

And then again.....

Screw all the self-pity and BS....this is Notre Dame football!!!
They WILL NOT lose all 12 games! Heirbsreit was not saying "that's why you're Notre Dame" just 11 months ago!!!

The men on the ND team will sack-up (and if anyone thinks players who quit on their coach are anything but spoiled little boys, they are wrong....the idea that a coach can no longer get in a guys grill and hold him accountable for his own lack of production or effort is laughable and ANY coach who subscribes to that particular theory of letting the inmates run the asylum so they don't get mad at him is not going to be a coach very long...) and they will play with a ferocity that MSU had better be ready to match because the most dangerous team is one that is wounded and desperate but angry enough to fight. I think that will be ND this weekend. It certainly seemed to be Michigan last week after they suffered an equally humiliating loss to Oregon the week prior. Shit...just 8 days ago people were talking about Michigan's problems and how that had kept the spotlight off of ND's issues...well, guess what? The spotlight is on and the vultures and sharks are circling and gleefully watching the ND fanbase tie itself in knots of self-doubt and floggings.

They WILL be back to competitive play THIS year and there WILL be brighter days in the future.

Now, whether or not Weis is the one to lead them to those times will depend on how he is able to right this ship RIGHT FUCKING NOW! If he can't get them breathing fire and COMPETING this weekend, then his tenure will end in December of 2008 and someone else will inherit his recruits and attempt to lead them back to prominence. Weis must find the 5 O-linemen who will hit the man in front of them and stay on him until the whistle come hell or high-water and if those 5 are not currently on scholarship, then he can put walk-ons on the field who would DIE to even get a chance to hit someone while wearing an ND uniform.

If he CAN, then this team is going to be STACKED in 2 years time and the list of SEC-is-so-great ass-hats on my speed dial will be getting a steady stream of text messages and e-mails that play the ND fight song ad nauseum!!!! Shocked

I grew up on ND football (I still remember watching the Cotton Bowls against Texas and Houston in the late-70's for god's sake!) and I've lived the highs, the lows, the highs again, the lows again and all I can say for sure is that someday, they WILL be back on top and when they are I am going to go utterly ape-shit and appreciate it 1000X's more than I did in 1988.

Go Irish!

 

[johnnd05]

Awesome first post ! Very well done, though I don't agree with EVERYTHING you say ... hopefully we'll hear more from you.