Armando as "The Rocket"

[knute]

Just reading an article in the Observer and ran across this tidbit:

So while opponents will start gearing for a power rushing attack from the Irish, Weis and company could come out throwing the ball in a five-receiver set with an empty backfield. Or, they could split the running back out wide - as Weis did with Allen more than once Saturday - to match him up against a linebacker and then throw it deep down the sidelines.

http://media.www.ndsmcobserver.com/media/storage/paper660/news/2007/04/23/Sports/Football.Weis.Concentrates.On.Running.Game-2873254-page2.shtml

Personally, I'm really worried about our receivers, especially after the Blue-Gold game where they basically didn't show up. Richard Jackson showed great ability to get open and drop the pass. I don't know where Grimes was. Anyway, the quote above cheered me up a bit. The option of putting Ragone or Armando in the slot means that we essentially have two extra 4 star receivers with burner speed.

Should be fun to see how it all comes together for Georgia Tech. That may be the best defense we play all year (along with UCLA, Michigan and USC, ouch!).

 

[kjones]

They didn't "show up" as you call it, mostly because Weis didn't want them too. I get the feeling he really didn't want any of the quarterbacks to have some amazingly good day and then have everyone be pissed when that guy didn't start because he wasn't the most consistent guy day in and day out, which is more what Weis is looking for. So, in essence, he didn't really let anybody pass, the run/pass ratio was what? 2/1? That, combined with the fact that our secondary is looking GREAT, means that our inexperienced WR's never really got a chance to form any sort of rhythm or really do anything.

I wouldn't worry about anything based on the B&G game except John Sullivan's ankle. Most of the other stuff isn't the most realistic and you can't draw too many conclusion's from it. It's mostly just a good time, a chance to see other people play, and a very good chance of getting a nice sunburn to go along with it.

 

[cuss444]

Went to the Game -

Nothing more then a controlled scrimage. I was impressed with how the Def backs got up and personal with the WRs. A little check off the line scrimage seems to go a long way. I will agree that Chuck Wagon showed nothing ref down field attack with the passing game. Thought that Evan controlled the game better. I think 1-2 are Sharpley and Clausen. But that's not to discount DJ as he is the most impressive physically and could give Def fits. Odd man out is Fraser, I don't see him playing unless he has an impressive fall. He will probably have to leave the program if he wants to play.
The defense looked much better as Trevor Laws was unstoppable. Concerned with Hand and Stewart at Def tackle, as both had a tendancy to stand up at the snap of the ball. Stewart looked akward playing defense. Encouraged with Pat Kuntz and Dwight Stephenson Jr. Prince also didn't look like a fish out-of-water at CB.
I have to laugh cause I read all the other school blogs and they seem to think that ND's offense is going to suck and that a losing season is on it's way !!!! I think some teams are going to be surprised at how competetive this team will be.

Go Irish !!!

 

[knute]

They didn't "show up" as you call it, mostly because Weis didn't want them too. I get the feeling he really didn't want any of the quarterbacks to have some amazingly good day and then have everyone be pissed when that guy didn't start because he wasn't the most consistent guy day in and day out, which is more what Weis is looking for. So, in essence, he didn't really let anybody pass, the run/pass ratio was what? 2/1? That, combined with the fact that our secondary is looking GREAT, means that our inexperienced WR's never really got a chance to form any sort of rhythm or really do anything.

I wouldn't worry about anything based on the B&G game except John Sullivan's ankle. Most of the other stuff isn't the most realistic and you can't draw too many conclusion's from it. It's mostly just a good time, a chance to see other people play, and a very good chance of getting a nice sunburn to go along with it.

Those are all valid excuses for why they didn't play well. Hopefully, against Georgia Tech they'll get open and catch the ball and won't need any excuses. Sounds like you're more optimistic than I am.

 

[leprechaun4life]

So, in essence, he didn't really let anybody pass, the run/pass ratio was what? 2/1?

The final tally, for the sake of everyone's edification was 54 to 24 (run to pass).

 

[kjones]

I think 1-2 are Sharpley and Clausen. But that's not to discount DJ as he is the most impressive physically and could give Def fits. Odd man out is Fraser, I don't see him playing unless he has an impressive fall. He will probably have to leave the program if he wants to play.

Disagree with you, but not just based on the game, based on all i've heard and gleaned over the entire spring ball. If anyone is the odd man out, it's DJ. I would be completely shocked if he was one of the 2 when the race gets narrowed down. All the word is that he has been having the most trouble with the offense and running the team. I don't really say how you can knock on Fraser from the B&G game, he only threw what, 3 passes? He is easily the biggest and strongest of the four, and definately has a lot of confidence in how he's done this spring. Clausen looks excellent, and i'm not a band-wagon Clausen boy, I actually don't want him to start. But he definately looks polished and I would think he's in the top two. As for Sharpley, he's hard to get a bead on. I definately don't think he has the arm strength for the job, but he might be able to run the offense best. It's hard to say. He did make a poor decision on the sack at the end of time at the B&G game, but I'm wary of drawing too many conclusions from that scrimmage. Anyway, I've said it before, Clausen is in, Jones is out, and I can't figure the rest.

You are welcome to burn me at the stake later when i prove to be completely wrong.

 

[kjones]

Those are all valid excuses for why they didn't play well. Hopefully, against Georgia Tech they'll get open and catch the ball and won't need any excuses. Sounds like you're more optimistic than I am.

They were not excuses why they didn't play well, they were just facts. Tell me honestly how many bad plays/decisions/routes you saw from them on those 24 passes, of which a significant portion were to the tight ends. Parris made an awesome play on the lame duck DJ pass for a touchdown.

I'm just saying factor in ALL the FACTS.
1. QB's who have to split time and never get in a rhythm
2. 2 hand touch sacks which limit any sort of longer route
3. 54 to 24 run pass ratio [pretty freaking close to 2to1, i'm awesome, thanks]
4. the defensive back position is the deeper than the WR
5. a large portion of the passes thrown were to the tight ends
6. another good chunk of those passes were simply thrown away because of pressure and the two hand touch sacks

So you can get all doom and gloom because the stats for the receivers aren't good, or you can look at it objectively and say, "we dont' really know how the receivers are coming along because we didn't get to see them DO anything." I'm not saying they are great and everything is fine, but i think it's fairly obvious to anyone with half of an objective look at things that we aren't going to be able to draw many conclusions about the WR's because of the above reasons (and maybe more i'm not thinking of right now).

I don't think of myself as more optimistic, but simply more realistic about what the B&G is, and what it isn't.

 

[tgolden]

Richard Jackson showed great ability to get open and drop the pass.

just for what it's worth, I know Jackson had some sort of arm/wrist injury during spring practice. and now he has his left arm in a cast and a sling. I don't really know any details, but this makes me think he waited to get whatever the problem was taken care of until spring practice was over. this could have nothing to do with it, but i would think that having an arm injury could affect your ability to catch the ball to some degree. so basically, my point is maybe he'll be fine once fall comes around, and he's recovered.

 

[TexasNDFan]

Does anyone remember what kind of game the recievers had during Weis' first Blue and Gold Game? I don't remember them doing anything spectacular.

 

[IRISHDODGER]

They were not excuses why they didn't play well, they were just facts. Tell me honestly how many bad plays/decisions/routes you saw from them on those 24 passes, of which a significant portion were to the tight ends. Parris made an awesome play on the lame duck DJ pass for a touchdown.

I'm just saying factor in ALL the FACTS.
1. QB's who have to split time and never get in a rhythm
2. 2 hand touch sacks which limit any sort of longer route
3. 54 to 24 run pass ratio [pretty freaking close to 2to1, i'm awesome, thanks]
4. the defensive back position is the deeper than the WR
5. a large portion of the passes thrown were to the tight ends
6. another good chunk of those passes were simply thrown away because of pressure and the two hand touch sacks

So you can get all doom and gloom because the stats for the receivers aren't good, or you can look at it objectively and say, "we dont' really know how the receivers are coming along because we didn't get to see them DO anything." I'm not saying they are great and everything is fine, but i think it's fairly obvious to anyone with half of an objective look at things that we aren't going to be able to draw many conclusions about the WR's because of the above reasons (and maybe more i'm not thinking of right now).

I don't think of myself as more optimistic, but simply more realistic about what the B&G is, and what it isn't.

I wasnt there, but have read on a few ND sites & newspaper articles where Richard Jackson raised some concern in his decision to wait on a pass to come to him instead of jumping up & snaring it. This resulted in Wooden tipping it away. Jackson was also criticized for dropping some very catchable passes.

To your most important point...this was just one scrimmage & we can't cut a kid for one bad or perceived bad outing. Like I said, I was not there, but considering Jackson's talent, he got most of the constructive criticism regardless of how few passes were thrown his way.

 

[kjones]

I wasnt there, but have read on a few ND sites & newspaper articles where Richard Jackson raised some concern in his decision to wait on a pass to come to him instead of jumping up & snaring it. This resulted in Wooden tipping it away. Jackson was also criticized for dropping some very catchable passes.

To your most important point...this was just one scrimmage & we can't cut a kid for one bad or perceived bad outing. Like I said, I was not there, but considering Jackson's talent, he got most of the constructive criticism regardless of how few passes were thrown his way.

I'm talking about our receivers as a whole, which seemed to me to be knute's main beef. If he wanted to just make the point that Jackson had a very bad scrimmage, consider it made.

 

[IRISHDODGER]

I'm talking about our receivers as a whole, which seemed to me to be knute's main beef. If he wanted to just make the point that Jackson had a very bad scrimmage, consider it made.[/QUO

gotcha

 

[Jason Pham]

Disagree with you, but not just based on the game, based on all i've heard and gleaned over the entire spring ball. If anyone is the odd man out, it's DJ. I would be completely shocked if he was one of the 2 when the race gets narrowed down. All the word is that he has been having the most trouble with the offense and running the team. I don't really say how you can knock on Fraser from the B&G game, he only threw what, 3 passes? He is easily the biggest and strongest of the four, and definately has a lot of confidence in how he's done this spring. Clausen looks excellent, and i'm not a band-wagon Clausen boy, I actually don't want him to start. But he definately looks polished and I would think he's in the top two. As for Sharpley, he's hard to get a bead on. I definately don't think he has the arm strength for the job, but he might be able to run the offense best. It's hard to say. He did make a poor decision on the sack at the end of time at the B&G game, but I'm wary of drawing too many conclusions from that scrimmage. Anyway, I've said it before, Clausen is in, Jones is out, and I can't figure the rest.

You are welcome to burn me at the stake later when i prove to be completely wrong.

kjones, I completely agree with your observations. Jones seems to have played himself out of the competition. I haven't seen enough of Frazer to get a good read and Sharpley hasn't had a chance to show his throwing ability. Until there are more reports on Zach's progress I think it's Clausen and Sharpley.

 

[Irish_D]

May be off topic, however I have not heard anything about Munir Prince, can someone inform me a little? Heard great things last spring and was looking forward to seeing more from him, but has seemed to have vanished.

 

[dylan020]

he played cb and apparently broke up a few passes or so i heard

 

[ColonialHead]

Thanks for all the opinions and updates folks. As a diehard ND fan that doesn't get to follow things nearly as closely as I would like, it's good to hear some informative opinions from people who got to see the game. I was really interested in seeing how Clausen would do, but from the sound of most of the responses in this thread it doesn't sound like any of the potential QB's were able to showcase anything.

Thanks again!

 

[knute]

They were not excuses why they didn't play well, they were just facts. Tell me honestly how many bad plays/decisions/routes you saw from them on those 24 passes, of which a significant portion were to the tight ends. Parris made an awesome play on the lame duck DJ pass for a touchdown.

What I saw, honestly, is that most of the time when the QB dropped back, nobody was open. This resulted in a throw-away, a forced throw that was often broken up, a sack or an interception.

Given that the receivers are so young and inexperienced and will be playing against older, faster, stronger and more experienced DBs (at least for GT, Michigan, USC & UCLA) and I've seen no evidence so far that they will be able to get open and we will have a rookie quarterback, I'm worried.

BTW, I'll be happy to eat my words if any of the receivers come out on Sept. 1st and light it up. I really want them to step up so that we don't become a one-dimensional running team, I just haven't seen it yet. Show me the evidence that we have any good wide receivers.

 

[Stalking_Eagle]

What I saw, honestly, is that most of the time when the QB dropped back, nobody was open. This resulted in a throw-away, a forced throw that was often broken up, a sack or an interception.

Given that the receivers are so young and inexperienced and will be playing against older, faster, stronger and more experienced DBs (at least for GT, Michigan, USC & UCLA) and I've seen no evidence so far that they will be able to get open and we will have a rookie quarterback, I'm worried.

Maybe our defense is just that good!!!!!

 

[kjones]

What I saw, honestly, is that most of the time when the QB dropped back, nobody was open. This resulted in a throw-away, a forced throw that was often broken up, a sack or an interception.

Given that the receivers are so young and inexperienced and will be playing against older, faster, stronger and more experienced DBs (at least for GT, Michigan, USC & UCLA) and I've seen no evidence so far that they will be able to get open and we will have a rookie quarterback, I'm worried.

BTW, I'll be happy to eat my words if any of the receivers come out on Sept. 1st and light it up. I really want them to step up so that we don't become a one-dimensional running team, I just haven't seen it yet. Show me the evidence that we have any good wide receivers.

My point is, how many times did that happen? Of the 24 total passes, how many did that happen? How many passes were thrown right away to the tight end? How many were thrown away because no one was open? How many times was a guy actually open (like the TE on sharpley's sack at the end of the half) but the inexperienced QB couldn't find him? How many times did the DL blow up the field and force a quicker throw than was planned on? Was it 10? 15? It can't be much more than that. If this keeps up i'm actually going to have to do research, but right now i don't have the time.


If nothing else, please acknowledge that you have a VERY small sample size to be basing your conclusions on. I'm not saying they are good or not good, just that we don't really know yet, because we havn't seen much yet.

 

[Irish Legend]

Maybe our defense is just that good!!!!!

Thanks Dirk Diggler!

I hope that is true.

 

[cuss444]

My point is, how many times did that happen? Of the 24 total passes, how many did that happen? How many passes were thrown right away to the tight end? How many were thrown away because no one was open? How many times was a guy actually open (like the TE on sharpley's sack at the end of the half) but the inexperienced QB couldn't find him? How many times did the DL blow up the field and force a quicker throw than was planned on? Was it 10? 15? It can't be much more than that. If this keeps up i'm actually going to have to do research, but right now i don't have the time.


If nothing else, please acknowledge that you have a VERY small sample size to be basing your conclusions on. I'm not saying they are good or not good, just that we don't really know yet, because we havn't seen much yet.

This is my point. It just doesn't seem that this team in the fall is going to be a passing team. It seems that it will be a ball control offense. If you lookat Clausen he was more in control of the flow then DJ and Fraser. (I'm not a Clausen, "MUST START" fan) Fraser has no upside if he is not the QB, there is nowhere for him to go. DJ has the athletic ability to make a play at anytime and that will keep him in the mix. Sharpley seemed to be more fluid, though he did have a "two-hand-touch" tackle or two. The offensive line seemed to be more geared towards running the ball then passing on Saturday. Of course by fall everything could change. All I'm saying is from the pressbox, it looked like 1)Sharpley 2) Clausen 3) Jones 4) Fraser.

 

[knute]

If nothing else, please acknowledge that you have a VERY small sample size to be basing your conclusions on. I'm not saying they are good or not good, just that we don't really know yet, because we havn't seen much yet.

I think we agree on the main points:
1) The WRs are young and unproven
2) We haven't seen much of the WRs
3) What we have seen wasn't very impressive
4) Maybe the WRs are good, but we just haven't seen it
5) We really hope that the WRs turn out to be good enough to win

You're conclusion from these facts is "let's wait and see" and my conclusion is "I'll believe it when I see it."