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How Tyrone destroyed Notre Dame: how we got here & why we should be excited for 2011
I was going to save this until after NSD, but after seeing Bogtrotter about to put out a post that I think is along these lines, I figured I might as well not waste something that took me too much time to write. So while players and such may change between now and when we actually enroll the ’11 class, the premise should remain the same.
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Tyrone Willingham is not a bad football coach. He isn’t stupid or bad at player development or prone to clock management issues. For all intents and purposes, he is an average D1 football coach. However, he is one of the worst (if arguably not the single worst) recruiter in the land. We’re talking epic levels of bad and when it comes to college football you have to be able to both coach and recruit well.
How it Started
Going back to Bob Davie, you had a guy who could recruit OK but was a bad coach. So he was fired but left a pretty well stocked, although not exceptional, cupboard of players for Willingham. What happened next caused 3-9 and probably cost Charlie Weis his job. Although Willingham was very successful in his first season, he put together recruiting classes that both ignored power position players and overall highly rated athletes. His ’04 and ’05 classes were bad not just by Notre Dame standards but for any team in a BCS conference. You can see them here: Yahoo Sports: Rivals.com 2004 Notre Dame Commitments.
The Weis Years
So Charlie Weis takes over and inherits some talent but two completely depleted classes in ’04 and ’05. The good news is that the ’03 and ’02 classes were good enough that Charlie was able to take them and do some pretty great things. Based on this success, Charlie lands great classes in ’06 and ’07 but coming into the ’07 season he is forced to start basically all freshman, RS freshman and sophomores across the board. With the utter lack of power players brought in by Willingham plus the overall lack of talent, Charlie basically had to throw underdeveloped freshman to the wolves because ’04 and ’05 provided no depth from seniors or juniors. What happens? 3-9 and a loss to Navy. Now fast forward to ’11.
The Kelly Era
Believe it or not, Charlie landed some VERY good defensive recruits in his time but just never fully developed them or landed enough of them to have any depth. Ironically, by the time he developed depth, he was on his way out the door… mostly because he didn’t have the expected production on defense (thanks again, Ty). When you look at this year’s depth chart, it is staggering just how much developed and new talent we have in the front 7 compared to recent years. Let’s take a look at our hypothetical front 3 first:
DE 1: KLM/Kona/Tuitt
DE 2: EJ/Hafis/Lynch
DT: Cwynar/Stockton/Nix
So at one DE position you have KLM, Kona and Tuitt. All big bodied strong guys… KLM is 4* in his fourth year of development and has another year left (OMG red shirt?!?! On the DL!?!), Kona is a high 3*/4* with tons of upside and Tuitt is an incoming 5*. At the other DE position you have a 5* in his fourth year in EJ backed up by a stout 3* in Hafis Williams who has played both DE and DT in the 3-4 and incoming 5* Aaron "BEAST" Lynch.
DT has a highly rated 4* in Cwynar backed up (or competing with) two highly rated 4*s in Stockton and Nix. Nix is a prototypical 3-4 DT and Stockton is a big bowling ball himself and was the #32 player in the country coming out of HS. Stockton has had some injury problems but has 3 years of eligibility remaining and could be a serious impact player if he stays healthy. When was the last time ND had 4*+ talent 3 deep on the DL? I honestly can’t remember. Maybe the Holtz years.
When you couple this depth with the talent at LB it simply gets scary. Te’o and the other ILBs are all very talented and it should be a fierce competition (DO NOT expect Carlo to get the ILB job handed to him with all of the talent there) and at OLB you have a guy in Ishaq who can play right away coupled with vets like Fleming and Filer as well as good young blood like Shembo and others we haven't really seen yet. This gives guys like Councell and Rabasa the potential to redshirt (if necessary) and develop into serious playmakers down the road if that's what the coaches want. In no way will a player be forced to play when he isn't ready to be a star yet.
Lastly, on the other side of the ball, whereas Ty didn’t recruit OL for **** and Charlie ended up wasting elite prospects like Sam Young, this year we will have a developed and veteran OL that, while there might not be a ton of depth, has enough to play effectively this season even if one or two players go down. Everyone should see that this Notre Dame team could be the best it has been in the trenches in a long time. And the best news? There are a whole bunch of bigs coming in this class that have flexibility to play on either side of the ball as needed. If these prospects are given time to learn and grow before being thrust onto the field there is really no telling what kind of players they turn into. As long as Notre Dame can find the answer at QB and some skill positions, expect a pretty big 2011 followed by a crazy 2012 against some very elite competition. Too optimistic? Maybe. But for the first time in a long time it appears we will have a commanding defense.
Go Irish.
I was going to save this until after NSD, but after seeing Bogtrotter about to put out a post that I think is along these lines, I figured I might as well not waste something that took me too much time to write. So while players and such may change between now and when we actually enroll the ’11 class, the premise should remain the same.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tyrone Willingham is not a bad football coach. He isn’t stupid or bad at player development or prone to clock management issues. For all intents and purposes, he is an average D1 football coach. However, he is one of the worst (if arguably not the single worst) recruiter in the land. We’re talking epic levels of bad and when it comes to college football you have to be able to both coach and recruit well.
How it Started
Going back to Bob Davie, you had a guy who could recruit OK but was a bad coach. So he was fired but left a pretty well stocked, although not exceptional, cupboard of players for Willingham. What happened next caused 3-9 and probably cost Charlie Weis his job. Although Willingham was very successful in his first season, he put together recruiting classes that both ignored power position players and overall highly rated athletes. His ’04 and ’05 classes were bad not just by Notre Dame standards but for any team in a BCS conference. You can see them here: Yahoo Sports: Rivals.com 2004 Notre Dame Commitments.
The Weis Years
So Charlie Weis takes over and inherits some talent but two completely depleted classes in ’04 and ’05. The good news is that the ’03 and ’02 classes were good enough that Charlie was able to take them and do some pretty great things. Based on this success, Charlie lands great classes in ’06 and ’07 but coming into the ’07 season he is forced to start basically all freshman, RS freshman and sophomores across the board. With the utter lack of power players brought in by Willingham plus the overall lack of talent, Charlie basically had to throw underdeveloped freshman to the wolves because ’04 and ’05 provided no depth from seniors or juniors. What happens? 3-9 and a loss to Navy. Now fast forward to ’11.
The Kelly Era
Believe it or not, Charlie landed some VERY good defensive recruits in his time but just never fully developed them or landed enough of them to have any depth. Ironically, by the time he developed depth, he was on his way out the door… mostly because he didn’t have the expected production on defense (thanks again, Ty). When you look at this year’s depth chart, it is staggering just how much developed and new talent we have in the front 7 compared to recent years. Let’s take a look at our hypothetical front 3 first:
DE 1: KLM/Kona/Tuitt
DE 2: EJ/Hafis/Lynch
DT: Cwynar/Stockton/Nix
So at one DE position you have KLM, Kona and Tuitt. All big bodied strong guys… KLM is 4* in his fourth year of development and has another year left (OMG red shirt?!?! On the DL!?!), Kona is a high 3*/4* with tons of upside and Tuitt is an incoming 5*. At the other DE position you have a 5* in his fourth year in EJ backed up by a stout 3* in Hafis Williams who has played both DE and DT in the 3-4 and incoming 5* Aaron "BEAST" Lynch.
DT has a highly rated 4* in Cwynar backed up (or competing with) two highly rated 4*s in Stockton and Nix. Nix is a prototypical 3-4 DT and Stockton is a big bowling ball himself and was the #32 player in the country coming out of HS. Stockton has had some injury problems but has 3 years of eligibility remaining and could be a serious impact player if he stays healthy. When was the last time ND had 4*+ talent 3 deep on the DL? I honestly can’t remember. Maybe the Holtz years.
When you couple this depth with the talent at LB it simply gets scary. Te’o and the other ILBs are all very talented and it should be a fierce competition (DO NOT expect Carlo to get the ILB job handed to him with all of the talent there) and at OLB you have a guy in Ishaq who can play right away coupled with vets like Fleming and Filer as well as good young blood like Shembo and others we haven't really seen yet. This gives guys like Councell and Rabasa the potential to redshirt (if necessary) and develop into serious playmakers down the road if that's what the coaches want. In no way will a player be forced to play when he isn't ready to be a star yet.
Lastly, on the other side of the ball, whereas Ty didn’t recruit OL for **** and Charlie ended up wasting elite prospects like Sam Young, this year we will have a developed and veteran OL that, while there might not be a ton of depth, has enough to play effectively this season even if one or two players go down. Everyone should see that this Notre Dame team could be the best it has been in the trenches in a long time. And the best news? There are a whole bunch of bigs coming in this class that have flexibility to play on either side of the ball as needed. If these prospects are given time to learn and grow before being thrust onto the field there is really no telling what kind of players they turn into. As long as Notre Dame can find the answer at QB and some skill positions, expect a pretty big 2011 followed by a crazy 2012 against some very elite competition. Too optimistic? Maybe. But for the first time in a long time it appears we will have a commanding defense.
Go Irish.
