Marcus Freeman named Dick Corbett Head Football Coach

[Lberry]

And again, that's fine. I understand the reasoning there, even though I didn't like it then and I don't like it now. However, if you're going to elevate someone with little to no experience at such a critical position, why was there no additional support staff brought in? Someone for him to bounce ideas off of or someone to self-scout, since this staff seemingly is incapable of doing so.

I guess I saw Guglio-whatever his name is as that. A QB guy who by design can also help with route trees. Not saying it worked obviously, but I saw him as being that ancillary offensive support.

 

[PutuporShutup]

I blame the admin for not landing Ludwig, but it's Freeman's fault for not having a better support system in place on offense. If he didn't hire an experienced OC, then he 100% should have hired an experienced analyst. How many total years of OC experience exists on the staff right now? Two or three including the QB coach? Brutal.

This. Freeman is partially right when he talks about execution.

Not only is the play called poorly, but our staff does a poor job coaching it during the week. There's been a lot of terrible calls masked by players making plays on every team, or vice versa, great play calls not executed.

I think the biggest point more so than just play calling experience is NO ONE ON THE ND STAFF knows how to coach offense as a whole. That is absolutely critical. Think of the snapping issues we had vs duke, i was there, it was NOT loud at all until the fourth quarter yet we couldn't snap (that's basic offensive coaching). 3rd down and short yardage are such critical coaching plays you do during the week, we're absolutely terrible. There's a lot of little stuff I see that's ridiculous. We don't do anything to disguise snap counts and keep the dline off balance. The dline against our O comes off the snap better than our offense and we should KNOW when we are snapping it. The WRs are always really late coming off the snap.

 

[ThePiombino]

I guess I saw Guglio-whatever his name is as that. A QB guy who by design can also help with route trees. Not saying it worked obviously, but I saw him as being that ancillary offensive support.

I'm assuming that was part of what made him an alluring hire. But back to my point - how much OC experience does he have? Not much more than Parker. So where is the experience coming from on the offensive side of play calling? It's a terrible series of decision making from the very top on down. Just another example of this program not really being serious about winning.

 

[Giddyup]

Lol. Ludwig’s O has looked like ass this year against good defenses.

 

[PutuporShutup]

I guess I saw Guglio-whatever his name is as that. A QB guy who by design can also help with route trees. Not saying it worked obviously, but I saw him as being that ancillary offensive support.

I thought he would help, but again, like I said just above, the more I think about it, we don't know how to run or coach an "offense". All the components and situations of it. We have some probably really good individual coaching at position groups, but someone needs to get them all together, coordinated, and in synch. IT should be Parker, but clearly he's not it.

 

[Giddyup]

It comes down to our running game, like most good offenses.

If our O line can turn it back around I’d like to see that with more play action passes.

 

[ThePiombino]

Lol. Ludwig’s O has looked like ass this year against good defenses.

This is such a straw man argument. First of all, he has been without his starting quarterback the entirety of this season. Second of all, his sample size for exceeds this half of a season. He has done very good things at Utah, and I'm not really sure how you or anyone could argue against that. Anyone who thinks Ludwig wouldn't have this team with one or two less losses right now is smoking the good stuff.

EDIT: Voice to text sucks almost as much as our OC

 

[PutuporShutup]

On critical plays it seems the WRs or TEs aren't in synch with the OLine, our PA plays (don't do enough) never really look like PA. Our route concepts are terrible for situations. Our personnel choices for playcalls make no sense. We don't run estime up the middle when the middle is working (OSU), we run estime up the middle when they take away the middle (Duke) and outside to speed backs like love/price are there. We load the box with wrs/tes on run plays, and run right into it.

 

[PutuporShutup]

It comes down to our running game, like most good offenses.

If our O line can turn it back around I’d like to see that with more play action passes.

Our run game is given a TON of respect, our pass game is now. We started off vs louisville looking like run and throwing and it was a bunch of very easy completions. Sam made a dumb mistake to throw a 1-1 pass to rico and after that we went back to running into stacked boxes and throwing on 3rd and long.

 

[PutuporShutup]

I get position coaches have a lot of say in who plays, but during the game a good OC will say "I WANT THIS GUY IN". I bet that's not happening either and it's showing in the run game at times, poor plays for the wrong person in the wrong instance. Some of that with WRs too. Why would we ever have 10 in the box then have Rico outside. I'd rather do that with tyree, he actually has shown ability to get separation.

 

[IRISHDODGER]

FWIW, Mike Frank’s explanation as he was told is that there was a deal agreed up in principal. Then ND realized that Ludwig had just signed an extension at Utah and they had been looking at his previous contract. The extreme increase in buyout allegedly put a pause on it to get worked out. Ludwig was thinking something to the effect of “I thought we had a deal but some idiot didn’t do their due diligence…why would I want to work for this program?” Frank said it looked like ND would’ve approved the buyout but Ludwig felt betrayed and called it off. My big take away from Frank’s account is that he absolved Swarbrick saying that he has to take the buyout the “powers that be” (Father Jenkins?) for approval. Anyways, that’s how he said it was explained to him. Whether it’s 100% accurate he doesn’t know.

 

[ThePiombino]

FWIW, Mike Frank’s explanation as he was told is that there was a deal agreed up in principal. Then ND realized that Ludwig had just signed an extension at Utah and they had been looking at his previous contract. The extreme increase in buyout allegedly put a pause on it to get worked out. Ludwig was thinking something to the effect of “I thought we had a deal but some idiot didn’t do their due diligence…why would I want to work for this program?” Frank said it looked like ND would’ve approved the buyout but Ludwig felt betrayed and called it off. My big take away from Frank’s account is that he absolved Swarbrick saying that he has to take the buyout the “powers that be” (Father Jenkins?) for approval. Anyways, that’s how he said it was explained to him. Whether it’s 100% accurate he doesn’t know.

I don't think it absolves Swarbrick at all. Wouldn't it be his office that did the contract vetting in the 1st place? He's ultimately responsible for the contract version oversight if so. Additionally, Swarbrick doesn't simply report to Fr. Jenkins -- he also advises him. If Jack both 1.) got the contract info correct and 2.) strongly advised that this was a critical hire, (assuming that Mike Frank's version that ND would have ultimately paid the buyout is accurate) Ludwig would be our OC right now. AND we would likely have a different OL coach as well -- don't forget that part.

 

[Irishdrunk]

That was 100% on Jack and the admin. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise. Ludwig was coming until ND stuck a stick in its own wheels...

All you have to do is read that letter from Savvy Jack to the ND Community about the Ludwig issue. It speaks to Jack fucking it up to a standstill. What a mess that was. I knew it would come back to haunt us.

 

[Giddyup]

Funny thing on route concepts not being smart is that Parker was a wr at Kentucky in his playing days. Our spread throwing game should be better

 

[ThePiombino]

Funny thing on route concepts not being smart is that Parker was a wr at Kentucky in his playing days. Our spread throwing game should be better

Literally EVERYTHING about our offense should be better.

 

[Giddyup]

All you have to do is read that letter from Savvy Jack to the ND Community about the Ludwig issue. It speaks to Jack fucking it up to a standstill. What a mess that was. I knew it would come back to haunt us.

Maybe we should have cancelled the season after Freeman couldn’t get the greatest OC in CFB.

 

[Giddyup]

Literally EVERYTHING about our offense should be better.

Our run game has been respectable until Louisville. Let’s not get carried away.

 

[Irishdrunk]

FWIW, Mike Frank’s explanation as he was told is that there was a deal agreed up in principal. Then ND realized that Ludwig had just signed an extension at Utah and they had been looking at his previous contract. The extreme increase in buyout allegedly put a pause on it to get worked out. Ludwig was thinking something to the effect of “I thought we had a deal but some idiot didn’t do their due diligence…why would I want to work for this program?” Frank said it looked like ND would’ve approved the buyout but Ludwig felt betrayed and called it off. My big take away from Frank’s account is that he absolved Swarbrick saying that he has to take the buyout the “powers that be” (Father Jenkins?) for approval. Anyways, that’s how he said it was explained to him. Whether it’s 100% accurate he doesn’t know.

I CALL BULLSHIT ON THAT. Saying you need to get approval from a BOT on a material Buyout would be EXPECTED. That would not have Ludwig push away. No Frank's narrative papers over the reality of Swarbrick having concerns about the Buyout and that pushed Ludwig away.

Love how these writers protect ND even when ND is failing. Incredible.

 

[NDMatt91]

I wonder if we'll make another run at Collin Klein.

 

[Luckylucci]

This is such a straw man argument. First of all, he has been without his starting quarterback the entirety of this season. Second of all, his sample size for exceeds this half of a season. He has done very good things at Utah, and I'm not really sure how you or anyone could argue against that. Anyone who thinks Ludwig wouldn't have this team with one or two less losses right now is smoking the good stuff.

EDIT: Voice to text sucks almost as much as our OC

You mean kind of like chalking up a "national" OC search and losing out on his 2nd option forced Freeman to hire Parker.

Yea, sounds familiar, lol.

 

[Luckylucci]

I wonder if we'll make another run at Collin Klein.

You mean Freeman's first option?

 

[ThePiombino]

Our run game has been respectable until Louisville. Let’s not get carried away.

We beat up on 4 subpar teams and then immediately shit the bed once the competition got even remotely challenging.

 

[ThePiombino]

You mean kind of like chalking up a "national" OC search and losing out on his 2nd option forced Freeman to hire Parker.

Yea, sounds familiar, lol.

I don't like that Freeman settled for Parker. Never did. But that doesn't make the statement any less true.

 

[NDMatt91]

You mean Freeman's first option?

Was he the first option or was it Ludwig? I can't remember.

 

[Luckylucci]

Was he the first option or was it Ludwig? I can't remember.

Are we looking for the right answer or the one that make Freeman look the best?

Edit: They brought in Klein first.

 

[PutuporShutup]

Funny thing on route concepts not being smart is that Parker was a wr at Kentucky in his playing days. Our spread throwing game should be better

Maybe i'm missing it, but it's obnoxiously bad a lot of times, we literally just run a go route with no deception. no fake slant and go or anything to make it tough on the DB. I see a lot of deep slants/posts where we just run a slant, we don't fake left and go right.

It's like we're always running zone concepts even if we're against man.

 

[irishff1014]

Freeman throwing assistant coaches under the bus sends a clear signal to not only the players but the assistant coaches both current and prospective, so I'm glad he's not doing it publicly in these pressers. Behind closed doors, people gotta get chewed out. That's different, though. If I'm an assistant coach out there with an eye on Notre Dame and I see Marcus Freeman push a defensive coach over the cliff for having ten players on the field or call out play calling, then I know exactly what I'd be getting into if I decide to go work for that guy. Protect the players and protect your assistants. Absorb the blowback and carry the shit because you're the head coach.

That's fine and i agree. But he needs to say i am not doing a good enough job as a coach right now. Get it over with.

 

[PutuporShutup]

We beat up on 4 subpar teams and then immediately shit the bed once the competition got even remotely challenging.

We ran the ball well vs ohio state, didn't do it enough when we needed to. NC state has a solid run D, we didn't do well there because they loaded box, other than audrics huge run.

Duke and Louisville were awful. We had 3 good runs vs Duke, none vs louisville. The 3 good runs vs duke were a fake punt, a 4th and 16, and audrics 30 yd run to win the game.

It's very clear teams are loading the box vs us, and yes we may get one or two to pop if we block it perfectly or the other team makes a big mistake, but the majority of the runs will amount to nothing.

 

[ThePiombino]

Are we looking for the right answer or the one that make Freeman look the best?

What does it matter? He had two candidates that emerged at the top of his list during the search -- one willing to come and one not. Whether or not Ludwig was 1st or 2nd choice, he was the one that ND paraded around on campus and then stepped on their own dicks about when it came time to sign him. This part of the fuck-up is 100% on the admin. The subsequent hire is on both the admin AND Freeman.

 

[Irishdrunk]

You mean Freeman's first option?

When in doubt, Call Coach O. LOL