I know the entire ND family has spent the last few days standing on the edge of the cliff looking over at the jagged rocks below. I cannot deny that I walked up to the edge and looked over, but decided against jumping or even standing there any longer. My decision has been to stand with the “BCS cup is still half full”. How do I manage to keep myself in this frame of mind, well let’s take a look.
First, let’s look at the game which brought all this upon us, NAVY. Based on the reaction of the entire nation, you would think we were soundly thrashed to within one inch of our life. Reality is that Navy played one hell of a game and if it could go wrong for ND, it did. Look at how the offense performed: they never punted, passed for over 500 yards and ran the ball effectively, but we did not run much due to playing from behind. On defense, we gave up 21 points in total. One of Navy’s drives was only 30 yards. So, how did we lose, two missed FG’s, fumble on the goal line, fumble on first possession in ND territory, freak INT off Floyd’s back. Plus, we were caught looking ahead to Pitt. The team made mistakes, the coaches made mistakes and we had bad breaks. Remember folks, even in the days of LOU, we had Navy games come down to a final play.
Next, this is not a team lacking talent this year or for the coming years. Based on some of the articles I have read the last couple days, you would think that the flute player from the band will be needed to play for the “poor Irish”. What roster are these people looking at. We are going to return most of our talent again in 2010. Yes, Jimmy is likely headed to the NFL and maybe Tate is too. Guess what, Jimmy was going NFL no matter what our record, bowl game or head coach. He is the best QB in college football. Tate is probably a 50/50. We will return tons of offensive talent at all skill positions and believe it or not good defensive talent. I will gladly take Teo, Ethan Johnson, KLM all a year bigger and stonger. Toss in some underclass talent like Slaughter, McCarthy, Motto.
Further, our so called crappy coach is still assembling a great recruiting class. He is filling all the positions of need with solid talent. We probably lose Chris Martin, that writing was on the wall well before the Navy game. I guess that idea that good players won’t come to ND anymore is still false.
Finally, opportunity is staring ND in the face. This week ND is playing a Top 10 team on the road, Pittsburgh. Every sports mind in America will have us losing this game. In reality, I see us winning. Charlie has been preparing the team for this game for 3 weeks. Look at the vanilla game plan against both WSU and Navy. He knew this was going to be a huge game and has planned accordingly. A win at Pitt, home against Uconn and at Stanford who is rated Top 25 puts ND squarely in the BCS discussion again. I have looked at the likely teams for the BCS and this is not farfetched at all. So, the world may have become a little cloudy, but the sun will rise on the Irish again this week. We are not about to jump off that cliff.
Random Thought: ND is getting abused by the media, but Oklahoma has lost 4 games without anyone noticing. Yes, they did lose Bradford, but you are telling me that their mighty D can’t make up some of that slack. We lost our QB for parts of a couple games, our WR for 5 games, our RB for 3 games and now our TE for the remainder of the season.
First, let’s look at the game which brought all this upon us, NAVY. Based on the reaction of the entire nation, you would think we were soundly thrashed to within one inch of our life. Reality is that Navy played one hell of a game and if it could go wrong for ND, it did. Look at how the offense performed: they never punted, passed for over 500 yards and ran the ball effectively, but we did not run much due to playing from behind. On defense, we gave up 21 points in total. One of Navy’s drives was only 30 yards. So, how did we lose, two missed FG’s, fumble on the goal line, fumble on first possession in ND territory, freak INT off Floyd’s back. Plus, we were caught looking ahead to Pitt. The team made mistakes, the coaches made mistakes and we had bad breaks. Remember folks, even in the days of LOU, we had Navy games come down to a final play.
Next, this is not a team lacking talent this year or for the coming years. Based on some of the articles I have read the last couple days, you would think that the flute player from the band will be needed to play for the “poor Irish”. What roster are these people looking at. We are going to return most of our talent again in 2010. Yes, Jimmy is likely headed to the NFL and maybe Tate is too. Guess what, Jimmy was going NFL no matter what our record, bowl game or head coach. He is the best QB in college football. Tate is probably a 50/50. We will return tons of offensive talent at all skill positions and believe it or not good defensive talent. I will gladly take Teo, Ethan Johnson, KLM all a year bigger and stonger. Toss in some underclass talent like Slaughter, McCarthy, Motto.
Further, our so called crappy coach is still assembling a great recruiting class. He is filling all the positions of need with solid talent. We probably lose Chris Martin, that writing was on the wall well before the Navy game. I guess that idea that good players won’t come to ND anymore is still false.
Finally, opportunity is staring ND in the face. This week ND is playing a Top 10 team on the road, Pittsburgh. Every sports mind in America will have us losing this game. In reality, I see us winning. Charlie has been preparing the team for this game for 3 weeks. Look at the vanilla game plan against both WSU and Navy. He knew this was going to be a huge game and has planned accordingly. A win at Pitt, home against Uconn and at Stanford who is rated Top 25 puts ND squarely in the BCS discussion again. I have looked at the likely teams for the BCS and this is not farfetched at all. So, the world may have become a little cloudy, but the sun will rise on the Irish again this week. We are not about to jump off that cliff.
Random Thought: ND is getting abused by the media, but Oklahoma has lost 4 games without anyone noticing. Yes, they did lose Bradford, but you are telling me that their mighty D can’t make up some of that slack. We lost our QB for parts of a couple games, our WR for 5 games, our RB for 3 games and now our TE for the remainder of the season.
