Offensive Line Thread

[Crazy Balki]

Pretty sure none of these units were next to last in the country in sacks given up though, not even close. Pass blocking was something Harry excelled with. I thought the run blocking was subpar at times, as we witnessed during that awful 2016 season, but pass blocking was always pretty decent to superior.

That's because the OL has generally had consistently decent to good seniors or grads on the line.

2012 had the 2009 seniors in Martin and Watt, along with 5th years in Cave and Golic, and 1 junior in Lombard.

Then in 2013, ND had Martin and Watt both return for their 5th years, which was a huge boost, because if they don't come back, who starts? You'd probably end up having to start 2 sophomores or freshman like we are now.

In 2017, ND got 2 major boosts when McGlinchey and Nelson decided to come back. Both could've easily left, but they decided to trust Kelly and help rebuild the program.

Compare that to this year, where ND had guys like Hainsey and Banks would could've returned for their 5th years and it would've been absolutely massive (and also Kraemer and Eichenberg could've come back for their 6th due to COVID technically). But they all left.

So now it falls on the next class to pick up the load....and that next class was terrible. Outside of Patterson, nobody has come even close to contributing. That was Hiestand's last class and it epitomized how indifferent he was to recruiting, especially because Patterson wasn't even his recruit.

This is why ND has had to scramble for guys like Madden to plug gaps that Hiestand left behind, especially after guys from the Junior class weren't able to fill particular holes.

 

[Irish8248]

That's because the OL has generally had consistently decent to good seniors or grads on the line.

2012 had the 2009 seniors in Martin and Watt, along with 5th years in Cave and Golic, and 1 junior in Lombard.

Then in 2013, ND had Martin and Watt both return for their 5th years, which was a huge boost, because if they don't come back, who starts? You'd probably end up having to start 2 sophomores or freshman like we are now.

In 2017, ND got 2 major boosts when McGlinchey and Nelson decided to come back. Both could've easily left, but they decided to trust Kelly and help rebuild the program.

Compare that to this year, where ND had guys like Hainsey and Banks would could've returned for their 5th years and it would've been absolutely massive (and also Kraemer and Eichenberg could've come back for their 6th due to COVID technically). But they all left.

So now it falls on the next class to pick up the load....and that next class was terrible. Outside of Patterson, nobody has come even close to contributing. That was Hiestand's last class and it epitomized how indifferent he was to recruiting, especially because Patterson wasn't even his recruit.

This is why ND has had to scramble for guys like Madden to plug gaps that Hiestand left behind, especially after guys from the Junior class weren't able to fill particular holes.

All of this.... we forget how lucky we were to have such amazing talents come back for a5th year to solidify our rep of OLU. We had 0 return this year.

You can hide a lot of deficiencies if any 2 of those above named guys come back.

 

[MacIrish75]

Is Chris Watt ready to be called up to the big leagues??

 

[Polish Leppy 22]

Based on everything I read, Hiestand wasn't coming back in 2018 and if the job opened back up, he wouldn't be considered.

Hiestand was previously with the Bears under Lovie Smith.

But he's been out of a job for a few years now. If he was the commodity some claim he is, he'd be coaching right now.

Hiestand had his great moments, but it was painfully apparent that he didn't like recruiting and his indifference to it put us in a terrible position with a bad 2018 class. The class that now comprises the senior leadership of this OL unit, or lack thereof.

Hiestand wanted to finish his career in the NFL, and he may be done coaching for all we know.

Painfully apparent? Dude what planet are you on? Hiestand didn't recruit. He chose who he wanted, and those dudes knew they were signing up for one of the best in college football. Ask Quenton Nelson and Mike McGlinchey. You keep pointing to the 2018 class without acknowledging the Olines that were in the running for the Joe Moore award.

I'll ask again: if BK fires Quinn at year end, would any top 25 program be lining up to hire him?

 

[Polish Leppy 22]

I don’t think it will happen but I do believe that the O-line coach position needs to be looked at to up grade. Even if he Kelly doesn’t hire anyone he needs to have his eyes open. I do understand that we have had some injuries but we should be better than this with the talent in the team. Or the staff needs to be better at evaluating talent.

ND should have a top 10 Oline every year without fail. They are currently bottom 10 in the entire country and Crazy Balki wants to blame Harry Hiestand's 2018 recruiting class.

 

[Crazy Balki]

ND should have a top 10 Oline every year without fail. They are currently bottom 10 in the entire country and Crazy Balki wants to blame Harry Hiestand's 2018 recruiting class.

Do you realize how bass-ackwards that logic is.

You ridicule me for blaming Hiestand's poor 2018 recruiting class, while simultaneous stating that ND should have a top 10 OL every year.

You can't have a top 10 OL when you don't recruit the position well, and in 2018, the position was recruited extremely poorly. It's not rocket science.

 

[SouthSideChiDomer]

Based on everything I read, Hiestand wasn't coming back in 2018 and if the job opened back up, he wouldn't be considered.

Hiestand was previously with the Bears under Lovie Smith.

But he's been out of a job for a few years now. If he was the commodity some claim he is, he'd be coaching right now.

Hiestand had his great moments, but it was painfully apparent that he didn't like recruiting and his indifference to it put us in a terrible position with a bad 2018 class. The class that now comprises the senior leadership of this OL unit, or lack thereof.

Not really. He could just only want to coach if its the right job. IIRC, when he was here he could have left for the NFL before but only wanted to go if it was the Bears. As soon as they offered he left. Maybe now none of the handful of right jobs he is interested in are open, so he is fine sitting around with all the money he made from a career of coaching at a high level.

 

[Crazy Balki]

Painfully apparent? Dude what planet are you on? Hiestand didn't recruit. He chose who he wanted, and those dudes knew they were signing up for one of the best in college football. Ask Quenton Nelson and Mike McGlinchey. You keep pointing to the 2018 class without acknowledging the Olines that were in the running for the Joe Moore award.

It's been well documented by those who follow the program that Hiestand did not like recruiting. This isn't just something I made up.

As for your claim that he "chose who he wanted", not true either. If it was, then why did he "choose" to take only 2 3-star guys in 2018? Why did he "choose" to only take 2 OL in 2015, one of which was a 3-star and the other had no positional flexibility? If he chose who he wanted, then he chose very poorly in those cases.

I point to the 2018 class, because those guys are the seniors of this year's team. They are the backbone of the leadership and the guys who should be the most developed. But because Hiestand whiffed on that entire class, the only guy who has contributed in any way entering their 4th season is Patterson, a guy he didn't even recruit or land.

You can't miss an entire class like that and expect things to just end up fine. It's okay if you have some guys come back in lieu of heading to the draft like we had with Nelson and McGlinchey in 2017. That didn't happen this time. As guys like Banks and Hainsey, who could've returned for their final year, did not. So it fell on the senior class first to fill those holes and they couldn't because there wasn't anybody to step up. Mabry and Jones were gone, Patterson was back at center and Dirksen isn't a starting caliber player.

 

[ulukinatme]

Do you realize how bass-ackwards that logic is.

You ridicule me for blaming Hiestand's poor 2018 recruiting class, while simultaneous stating that ND should have a top 10 OL every year.

You can't have a top 10 OL when you don't recruit the position well, and in 2018, the position was recruited extremely poorly. It's not rocket science.

2018 sucked recruiting-wise, but you keep beating that dead horse. What about all the previous years where Hiestand was killing it? He was beating out some of Urban's targets, and it infuriated the Buckeyes. For all we knew Hiestand was wanting a break from recruiting and was planning on leaving that season regardless. Maybe he had already notified the coaching staff he was on his way out and it was up to them to handle things, we really don't know. Something was clearly different about that last year, because in each of the previous years he did pretty well.

 

[BobbyMac]

One bad season of recruiting on the eve he was leaving does not make a bad coach. The guy has a tremendous track record outside of that, and he's easily one of the best OL coaches that's been in the college game the last 10 years. I don't care if a couple transfer players didn't like his style, the successful guys often swore by him. We've had a lot of OL talent get drafted over the years, but when was the last time they've been as dominant as the guys that Harry coached? We've got something like 5 or 6 NFL starters and some of them are arguably the best at their positions, not to mention a handful of others at 2nd string.

His evals and offers that Quinn signed in 2019 were no peaches either.

Question is... Did Quinn love them too or did Long & BK instruct him to stay on the top of the board guys.

This is something everyone forgets about the 2019 OL Class that has also been pretty much a bust.

 

[Crazy Balki]

2018 sucked recruiting-wise, but you keep beating that dead horse. What about all the previous years where Hiestand was killing it? He was beating out some of Urban's targets, and it infuriated the Buckeyes. For all we knew Hiestand was wanting a break from recruiting and was planning on leaving that season regardless. Maybe he had already notified the coaching staff he was on his way out and it was up to them to handle things, we really don't know. Something was clearly different about that last year, because in each of the previous years he did pretty well.

I never said Hiestand was a bad recruiter. I said that he didn't like it and when he missed, he really missed.

It's not like 2018 was the only year he missed. 2015 was almost as bad as 2018 prior to Quinn being hired. They landed Hoge (who transferred) and Ruhland (a solid depth body and nothing more). Hiestand absolutely had some great classes, but having great classes means a lot less if you're following them up with bad classes.

And you say that I keep beating that dead horse. The problem is that it isn't a dead horse, it's a problem that persists on THIS YEAR'S TEAM. The 2018 class are the seniors of this year's team.

We're wondering why the OL is playing as poorly as they are, and a big reason is because Hiestand gave us a terrible 2018 OL class where we can rely on nobody from that class, sans Patterson, to provide anything in the 2-deep. And as Bobby mentioned, Quinn's first class in 2019 was also guys that were scouted mostly by Hiestand and the staff prior to that.

I bring this up, because that's your senior leadership and the guys who should be the furthest along in their development. This year, we have Patterson and that's it. Most years, we'd have a good collection of senior leadership up front or we'd get a guy or two that comes back. We got that in 2017 when guys like McGlinchey and Nelson decided to come back.

This year, we didn't get that. Banks and Hainsey could've returned and it would have helped tremendously. Instead, we ended up doubling the number of holes we had to fill, and it fell initially on the senior class to fill them, which they could not do, because there was nobody. Patterson was already at center coming off an injury, Dirksen is a depth body and not much else, and Mabry and Jones are no longer on the roster.

That's a massive whiff and it is a a HUGE reason why we're having the problems we're having now. You can't miss that badly on an OL class and expect things to not take a hit. Injuries up front have only exacerbated the issue and made that class whiff all the more apparent.

 

[Irish#1]

Coaches are going to have some hits and misses when recruiting. Harry didn't like to recruit, but he knew how to develop his talent. If I'm BK and can't find the OL coach I want, I reach out to Harry and see if he's interested. If he is, I figure out how to handle his lack of excitement for recruiting.

To think Harry isn't a good coach, just because you're not reading reports of teams clamoring to bring him on is not understanding the big picture and how coaching and hires play themselves out.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

And you say that I keep beating that dead horse. The problem is that it isn't a dead horse, it's a problem that persists on THIS YEAR'S TEAM. The 2018 class are the seniors of this year's team.

You keep emphasizing this, which isn't wrong, but it's sort of missing the point. It's very common for CFB coaches to mail in a recruiting class when they're preparing to move elsewhere. Diaco did the same thing in 2013. So it shouldn't be surprising that many here are willing to overlook that if it means getting back the best developer of OL talent we've had since Joe Moore.

Is the weakness of the 2018 OL class largely Hiestand's fault? Maybe; given his well-known disdain for recruiting, others likely share responsibility for it as well. Is that the primary driver behind our current OL struggles? Arguably yes. Does that wipe out everything else Hiestand achieved while coaching at ND? Absolutely not.

I don't have a strong opinion on this one way or another. If Kelly announced tomorrow that Hiestand would be replacing Quinn, I'd probably be excited, because the assumption would be: (1) he's well aware of Hiestand's idiosyncracies; (2) he has a plan for addressing them; and (3) we should expect to keep churning out 1st round OL talent for the foreseeable future. But I'm also not ready to give up on Quinn yet.

 

[Polish Leppy 22]

Do you realize how bass-ackwards that logic is.

You ridicule me for blaming Hiestand's poor 2018 recruiting class, while simultaneous stating that ND should have a top 10 OL every year.

You can't have a top 10 OL when you don't recruit the position well, and in 2018, the position was recruited extremely poorly. It's not rocket science.

One bad Oline class shouldn't have ND in the bottom ten in the country in production. They still have more talent than teams like Uconn, Bowling Green, and Vandy. Yet that's where they rank, and it isn't all because of the 2018 recruiting class. You have this hard on for 2018 but completely ignore everything else Hiestand did while he was here. And the fact that several Hiestand guys swear by him and his teaching.

So instead of pointing to one year, why haven't you asked these questions about the Oline and who is leading them?

1) Josh Lugg is a senior and still underperforming. Why?

2) Cain Madden is 310 pounds and struggles to move people at the point of attack. Why?

3) Will the Oline show any improvement from week 1 to week 12? If the answer is no, is it Harry Hiestand's fault?

4) Should Zeke be playing guard, or be in a backup role to take over at center next year?

Recruiting matters a lot, but you still need to teach and develop once you get the talent.

 

[Luckylucci]

Laying the blame at the feet of a coach who hasn't been here since the start of 2018 just blows me away. That's almost 4 years ago, lol. We have a 5th year Senior at RT, we have a 5th year Senior at RG, we have a true Senior at OC, we have a Junior at LG, and we have a Sophomore at LT. If Quinn wanted to, he could put the Senior at LT and then he'd have a Junior (Kristofic) at LG and a Junior at OC. An entirely upperclassmen OL of guys he's either coached for 3 years or personally picked.

The reality is, he went out and got Madden in free agency. It was just a bad eval. That's on Quinn. He's coached Lugg for 3.5 years, he should know what he has with him by now. And, if it wasn't good enough, he had plenty of time to change that. He went out and got Patterson late 2018. For which we praised him for. Where are all the Patterson's in 2019 and 2020?

His foundational class of 2019 is a total bust. Brought in 4 (Olmstead transferred) and only 1 is playing as true Juniors. He chose to follow that up with a, small, 2 man class with only one of them seemingly able to compete at the necessary level. He sent out 21 OL offers in 2020. And told a lot of guys, early on, they weren't good enough. How funny is that, weren't good enough for this dumpster fire. He completely blew the 2020 early evals of Peter Skoronski, Zak Zinter, and Jonah Monheim. Skoronski by himself makes this OL a hell of a lot better. Add all of those guys and we're not talking about this. Michigan thinks Zinter is a total stud. Even in a bizarre world where we say he's not to blame for the 2019 bust and that was his "muligan", he turned around and completely blew the 2020 class. With what was available, there is no way to call the 2020 class anything other than a complete and utter failure. Right now, it's looking like after 3 full cycles of recruiting, he'll have 1 cycle that will go down as good enough. That's on him. That is all on him.

Does the 2018 recruiting class have something to do with our current situation? Yes. Has there been plenty of time to address it? Absolutely. Has he done a good job of it? No, not even close to good enough. If you take a bad situation and don't make it better then that's on you. He's been given plenty of time to identify what was needed and/or what he didn't have. He just failed with decision after decision. You can't take credit for development of HH's recruits then not take blame for the lack of development of the others, including some of your own. Or the incredibly spotty recruiting, to put it kindly.

 

[Wild Bill]

One bad Oline class shouldn't have ND in the bottom ten in the country in production. They still have more talent than teams like Uconn, Bowling Green, and Vandy. Yet that's where they rank, and it isn't all because of the 2018 recruiting class. You have this hard on for 2018 but completely ignore everything else Hiestand did while he was here. And the fact that several Hiestand guys swear by him and his teaching.

So instead of pointing to one year, why haven't you asked these questions about the Oline and who is leading them?

1) Josh Lugg is a senior and still underperforming. Why?

2) Cain Madden is 310 pounds and struggles to move people at the point of attack. Why?

3) Will the Oline show any improvement from week 1 to week 12? If the answer is no, is it Harry Hiestand's fault?

4) Should Zeke be playing guard, or be in a backup role to take over at center next year?

Recruiting matters a lot, but you still need to teach and develop once you get the talent.

I'm not making excuses but one bad recruiting class coupled with injuries, losing 3 starters and the best run blocking tight end in the country to the draft is going to set every program back to some degree. The falloff here is worse than anyone has anticipated - I'll give you that.

Lugg has reached his ceiling due to physical limitations imo. I'm not sure if injuries set him back a bit physically or if he was never going to be the big, dominant tackle we all thought he'd be.

Madden is fine in the run game. He struggles in pass pro and that's bc he has below average feet. This was not a surprise based on the reports from fall camp. You can coach him up and he can have perfect technique and it isn't worth a damn if he doesnt have the physical tools to get from point A to point B fast enough to get a good block on a 3 tech who is quick off the snap and has good hands. The best you can do is mask these defiencies with a good game plan/scheme and hope their tackles aren't quick or that the D coordinator is too dumb to exploit it.

They have made some changes at guard and played Kristofic quite a bit last week, if I'm not mistaken. Maybe they move Lugg to guard when Fisher is able to play again. Who knows. I don't think the issues are due to the staff being unwilling to make some changes. They are clearly open to moving people around, they just don't have many options.

All that being said, if Tremble stays for his fourth year and Fisher never gets hurt, I doubt we're even having this conversation. Fisher was really good against FSU and would have locked up the left side and given them some options on the rest of the oline. Tremble was the catalyst to the run game and I think the RB room would agree if you asked them privately. He was on another level at the point of attack and that's probably why he is playing at the next level after 3 years.

 

[Rogue219]

Harry Hiestand got fired by an NFL team whose general manager places no value in offensive tackles, and the evidence of that was on full display this past Sunday for anyone that is unaware. The franchise is trying to kill Justin Fields or they are just inept. Either scenario is bad. Hiestand was fired with a few other offensive assistants at the time. It was a good PR move. The people actually responsbile for the mess are still there. All this said, not sure if Hiestand coming back is really the right thing. That's up to Kelly.

I was not a fan of the Jeff Quinn hire. This is a guy that hung around way too long as an analyst, which means he was simply waiting in the wings for his buddy to hire him and or there were no other opportunities coming his way. He's part of the CBK rolodex from GVSU, CMU, UC. His tenure at Buffalo as an HC was miserable and he rode to the opportunity on Kelly's Bearcat Train. Fair enough to Quinn, but it wasn't a very inspiring hire at the time for a variety of reasons. The units have performed well until now, but I don't see things getting better this year and it's hard to imagine the recruiting class closing out any better than where it stands at present. Maybe I'm wrong on both counts. I think Quinn has let the talent pool dip now that Hiestand has been gone and I don't think he's as good of a coach either. Two strikes. This first month of film is a foul tip. Strike three is coming.

To me, Kelly is now the winningest coach in ND Football history. That gives him reach to not go after guys like Quinn who he's known for years. He can go after who he wants. He can hire guys like Freeman. They don't need to be his pals from the mid major days or former ND players. The group of coaches who win the next National Championship at Notre Dame will be rock stars forever among this fan base and the assistant coaches will be afforded opportunities beyond what they could ever hope for. It's an attractive gig that comes with some challenges but he has way more of a pool than ever before should he need to hire assistant coaches.

Look at the way Iowa's offensive line plays. I don't think they have an abundance of four and five star players on that roster. Don't know who recruited them but I know who is coaching them and he's in his first year with the program. Not sure if he is a good recruiter or not. What I do know is what OL play is supposed to look like and they definitely have it.

 

[BobbyMac]

I'm gonna play both sides of the fence here because you have to.

I'm shocked the line is performing this poorly. That's 80% on Quinn the other 20% gets blamed on scheme / QB performance. So that's a BK/TR thing. Bottom line... Quinn, Mendleson, TR & BK have to make changes and improve.

We know the '18 class was what it was. Trash. Quinn did identify, evaluate, offer & sign Patterson. I followed that kid like a hawk when he was an ASU commit and when UCLA/Michigan got involved so I know from Twitter that was all JQ. I bring this up because people need to be accountable for the Evals & Offers too.

Jeff Quinn did not Offer a single 2019 commit. That is a fact. Those guys were all offered by HH. So who is on the hook for those Evals/Offers? Rees Sr., HH, Long & BK to some point. Some facts we don't know:

As an analyst, was Quinn also responsible for the evals or those guys?

When HH left, Did Quinn have the power to wipe his board and start fresh or was he instructed by BK & Long to stay on their top of the board 2019 OL's which he signed in the spring of 2018?

Or maybe he loved all 4 guys? We don't know but it all matters.

Quinn Carroll .......... Offered = 5-22-17 ..... Committed = 5-1-18

John Olmstead ....... Offered = 6-23-17 ..... Committed = 4-20-18

Zeke Correll ............ Offered = 10-28-17.... Committed = 6-18-18

Andrew Kristofic ..... Offered = 12-5-17 ...... Committed = 4-23-18


If he would have only gotten in sooner on Walter Rouse...


Now let's talk about 2020. Why did he stop at 2 when he wasn't able to land Skoronski or Monheim? Is it possible that he went to BK and said, "I don't want a third BK, two's plenty." Or was Zak Zinter not high enough on the BPA board once they got down to Scholarships, #84 and #85? Also, ND could've landed Gus Hartwig or Josh Priebe who are both starters at Purdue and Nortwestern. Just makes no sense that Quinn would be ok with only 2 guys, if he couldn't have Skoronski or Monheim as his third. Zinter or Hartwig could've really helped this year.

Now, I'll close with Quinn needs to do a better job. Period.

 

[zelezo vlk]

I'm with Crus, a 2 man OL class is just not enough. Even 3 is pushing it, and we saw with the 2015 and 2016 classes how back-to-back 3 man OL classes can come to bite you (the 2018 OL struggles). The OL numbers are what I've been thinking about this past week or so, because clearly there is something off about the way they look at filling the OL room.

 

[Luckylucci]

I love ya Bobby but I don't buy that for a second. It seems pretty irrational to say that when Quinn came aboard in early 2018 they gave him the latitude to go out and recruit/sign Patterson. But, they didn't allow him to do so with the ENTIRE 2019 board.

If one were to believe that then one would also have to believe that the 2020 class wasn't entirely his either. As, the 2019 class most definitely had an impact on the 2020 class numbers. We only took 2 guys because we liked what we had. That's essentially saying that for 2 full cycles Quinn was unable to recruit the room he wanted. All while being the most hands on position recruiter in the Gug. Is there a position coach that almost exclusively recruits his room like Quinn?

In fact, I think it's pretty obvious this didn't happen. Timeline of events easily disproves it.

In 2020 he went after Skoronski early but not early enough or with enough conviction. Sometime after they decided to shut down IOL recruiting. We then told Zinter, no thank you. But then he went after Monheim late, but also probably too late. He clearly wanted to add more to that class but he fumble fu$%ed his way through it.

There were 42 OL offers between the 2019 and 2020 classes. Quinn signed the 6 we know about. I just don’t see how the most hands on recruiter in the building wasn't actually using his own hands for 2 years.

 

[ulukinatme]

I never said Hiestand was a bad recruiter. I said that he didn't like it and when he missed, he really missed.

It's not like 2018 was the only year he missed. 2015 was almost as bad as 2018 prior to Quinn being hired. They landed Hoge (who transferred) and Ruhland (a solid depth body and nothing more). Hiestand absolutely had some great classes, but having great classes means a lot less if you're following them up with bad classes.

And you say that I keep beating that dead horse. The problem is that it isn't a dead horse, it's a problem that persists on THIS YEAR'S TEAM. The 2018 class are the seniors of this year's team.

We're wondering why the OL is playing as poorly as they are, and a big reason is because Hiestand gave us a terrible 2018 OL class where we can rely on nobody from that class, sans Patterson, to provide anything in the 2-deep. And as Bobby mentioned, Quinn's first class in 2019 was also guys that were scouted mostly by Hiestand and the staff prior to that.

I bring this up, because that's your senior leadership and the guys who should be the furthest along in their development. This year, we have Patterson and that's it. Most years, we'd have a good collection of senior leadership up front or we'd get a guy or two that comes back. We got that in 2017 when guys like McGlinchey and Nelson decided to come back.

This year, we didn't get that. Banks and Hainsey could've returned and it would have helped tremendously. Instead, we ended up doubling the number of holes we had to fill, and it fell initially on the senior class to fill them, which they could not do, because there was nobody. Patterson was already at center coming off an injury, Dirksen is a depth body and not much else, and Mabry and Jones are no longer on the roster.

That's a massive whiff and it is a a HUGE reason why we're having the problems we're having now. You can't miss that badly on an OL class and expect things to not take a hit. Injuries up front have only exacerbated the issue and made that class whiff all the more apparent.

Again, one poor season does not kill everything. Does it hurt your depth? Yes, absolutely, but if you're recruiting well in the other years you should be okay. It's only fair if you're dogging on Harry you look at Quinn's misses that have contributed.

John Olmstead was a four star talent from 2019 that should be a starter by now, but transferred. Quinn Carroll is another four star talent from that class that didn't pan out. Kristofic is at least in the 2 deep as another four star talent from that class, but that's not exactly promising given the production of the OL on the right side with Madden and Lugg. Zeke Correll is the only starter in that class, so Quinn went 1 for 4 there. 2020 wasn't much better with just two recruits, one of which was Carmody who had to step in for the injured Big Fish, and Tosh was the other.

Obviously 2021's class is Quinn's best work to date, going 2 for 4 between Rocco and Fish as big wins, but the fact remains that 2018 wasn't the only reason we're in the trouble we are in right now...and it's telling that these freshmen beat out or are pushing upperclassmen for snaps. One bad year can hurt the depth, but it doesn't wreck your OL. It takes multiple misses over back to back years before things get ugly. Hiestand left talent for Quinn in the form of Banks, Hainsey, Eichenberg, Kraemer, etc. The struggles today are on Quinn. If he were to leave today you can't argue that our OL situation would be worse presently and in the future than what he inherited from Harry.

 

[Crazy Balki]

Again, one poor season does not kill everything. Does it hurt your depth? Yes, absolutely, but if you're recruiting well in the other years you should be okay. It's only fair if you're dogging on Harry you look at Quinn's misses that have contributed.

John Olmstead was a four star talent from 2019 that should be a starter by now, but transferred. Quinn Carroll is another four star talent from that class that didn't pan out. Kristofic is at least in the 2 deep as another four star talent from that class, but that's not exactly promising given the production of the OL on the right side with Madden and Lugg. Zeke Correll is the only starter in that class, so Quinn went 1 for 4 there. 2020 wasn't much better with just two recruits, one of which was Carmody who had to step in for the injured Big Fish, and Tosh was the other.

Obviously 2021's class is Quinn's best work to date, going 2 for 4 between Rocco and Fish as big wins, but the fact remains that 2018 wasn't the only reason we're in the trouble we are in right now...and it's telling that these freshmen beat out or are pushing upperclassmen for snaps. One bad year can hurt the depth, but it doesn't wreck your OL. It takes multiple misses over back to back years before things get ugly. Hiestand left talent for Quinn in the form of Banks, Hainsey, Eichenberg, Kraemer, etc. The struggles today are on Quinn. If he were to leave today you can't argue that our OL situation would be worse presently and in the future than what he inherited from Harry.

One poor class can absolutely kill everything, especially when that class is your senior class and especially when it's the OL we're talking about. Because as you said, the 2019 class hasn't translated as we had hoped with Carroll and Olmstead. It wasn't because Quinn recruited poorly. He recruited a class of 4 guys and all 4 were 4-star guys. The only one that was a miseval was Olmstead. Carroll wasn't a miseval, he got hurt and it's apparent he never recovered fully from it, which is understandable for a guy his size dealing with an ACL tear and then having to come back from that during a year where COVID interrupted the offseason. Correll is and was a good center prospect, but he's being forced to play guard due to there being no one there. Kristofic is showing promise at guard, but pretty much every one had him projected to tackle.

I think we can blame Quinn for that class not translating as well as it should, given the rankings. But at least he got bodies and stars.

The problem with 2018 is that it was lacking in both bodies and stars. At the very least, you can create competition and force guys to improve through it.

Hiestand left him some quality talent from the '16 and '17 classes and he developed them into a great unit. But those guys are all pretty much gone now. And it's now 2018's turn to take the mantle of leadership. But there's nobody there, sans Patterson, because that '18 class was that bad.

I repeat this, because it really is a problem. Whiffing on a class is normally bad enough, but the OL is such an integral position to whiff on an entire class, and it's a position where experience and chemistry are at such a premium that having next to no senior leadership to rely on is a recipe for disaster.

 

[greyhammer90]

I feel like everyone is just copy/pasting the same wall of text over and over in this thread lol.

 

[Irish#1]

I feel like everyone is just copy/pasting the same wall of text over and over in this thread lol.

.

 

[Rogue219]

From the sounds of it, Harry Hiestand has zero interest in coaching in college again, let alone Notre Dame. Didn't like the recruiting part of the job despite being pretty good at it from what I could gather while he was here working for Kelly.

Doesn't appear in the cards in the event anyone in this thread or elsewhere was holding out hope.

 

[IrishLax]

[TWEET]https://twitter.com/TJamesNDI/status/1443561272226697222?s=20[/TWEET]

Some interesting feedback from Aaron Taylor here.

 

[BleedBlueGold]

From the sounds of it, Harry Hiestand has zero interest in coaching in college again, let alone Notre Dame. Didn't like the recruiting part of the job despite being pretty good at it from what I could gather while he was here working for Kelly.

Doesn't appear in the cards in the event anyone in this thread or elsewhere was holding out hope.

Not sure ND has any interest in getting Harry back anyways according some posts made by Lax awhile back.

 

[Rogue219]

Not sure ND has any interest in getting Harry back anyways according some posts made by Lax awhile back.

I suspect it is quite mutual at this point. Seems he was content in living off the Bears' buyout money and waiting for another NFL gig to open up.

 

[ulukinatme]

A guy can dream. If it came down to recruiting you would think they could have him do light work or something and have the rest of the staff pick up the slack just to get him on board. It's just the fact he's sitting at home and not working for anybody (Probably by his choice, he is at that age) and we're once again struggling with Quinn at the helm.

 

[BobbyMac]

I suspect it is quite mutual at this point. Seems he was content in living off the Bears' buyout money and waiting for another NFL gig to open up.

Does he want to work at all? He went back to the NFL for a season to collect his pension. He mailed it in there too.

ND's the greatest thing to every happen to HH.