Does anyone know the backstory of II’s and Sampson’s borderline negative comments about Hartman’s time at ND? They never go into detail, but they make it seem that the people/staff at ND were not impressed post OSU.
Was he perfect? No, but he was screwed over with the promotion of Parker and the handling of the receiver situation.
Hartman wasn't a bad guy but he also wasn't a leader. ND thought they were bringing in a leader. He was a little more 'detached' from what I've read/heard. Not a knock on him, if he played lights out it wouldn't have mattered. It matters because of how things shook out.
Parker wasn't a great hire (I personally think there was more chess involved in this than some are willing to admit) but he called a good enough game to win the tOSU game. Hartman not going for it on his 4th scamper and turning the wrong way were killers at different points. The called screen to Estime was a thing of beauty and Hartman, knowing he had to get it over any of the defenders, still didn't put enough air under it. That's why tOSU was able to pull off a miracle come back.
Parker wasn't ideal. Hartman wasn't either.
You needed to go one rung further up the ladder.
Maybe next time we don't get played for a raise by an OC at a mid-level program or get flat turned down by another?
But then certainly don't entertain the idea of hiring your buddy who's limited other experiences as an OC at two separate lower-level programs resulted in terminations.
Then we don't have to endure a second straight season that was DOA because of an obvious offseason misstep such as....say....rolling with an oft injured pick-6 machine and a 5'9 physically and athletic-impaired pair of QBs--rather than--obviously, addressing the shortcoming through the transfer portal like any other HC with any experience and discernment whatsoever would have seen necessary to do at the time.
And then were one wishing to win a NY Day bowl for the first time in two and a half decades, and the only obstacle was weathering two minutes and one half of football spotted a three TD lead, one could simply take back the reigns to the defense from an obvious abject train wreck experiment of a DC rather than one simply sitting there for 32 minutes of gameplay with one's hands on one's knees off alone not saying or doing anything to even consider taking control of the situation unraveling right jn front of one's eyes.
Your ignorance is showing through. You know fuckall and you always pass it off as objective thought. If we followed every suggestion you make (and if we had record of all those you made before you were "a mike"), we'd be the most unstable program in CFB because we'd have fired everyone.
I'm positive you were one of the people who was very down on Golden after his first year. Because you're down on everyone unless they perform near perfect. Some were even saying we should be shopping for a new DC. I'm guessing you were also down on Al Washington at first. Mickens was a friend-hire, seems to have worked out well. Same with Chad Bowden. Same with our now departed safeties coach. And it also seems like our early returns on the first two recruiting classes have been extremely high.
He's made excellent hires almost across the board. The only ones I think he'd have redone would've been Stuckey and Parker (but I think Parker was a 1 year rental and it was known). I think after the UofU situation played out, their communication with Denbrock revealed that he was too locked into the 23 season at LSU, Denbrock likely expressed interest and let them know he'd be interested after the 2023 season was in the books. We know how quickly things played out and how Denbrock was supposed to sign the extension, etc. etc.
In retrospect, it really seems like we used Parker as the bridge and surrounded him with people to try and string together a successful season. He set a scoring record and our WR room was so depleted we didn't have enough guys to even consider 4 wide in most games. Parker was overmatched in the bigger games but still gave ND a chance despite an underperforming QB and potentially the worst WR room we've seen.
Freeman has attacked the portal with all of the resources he's been given. He's attacked recruiting with known limitations that ND takes effort on and off the field, we know that won't appeal to some recruits. I bet we could study the recruiting classes from Kelly's tenure and compare it to Freeman and we'd see an improvement in "hit rate". I may even spend time trying to tease it out if I can get my other work done because your posting is beyond obnoxious now.