There's a rumor that ND is going to play football in the fall, and that we might have some good players on the team. Kudos to TP for substantiating that rumor. It's nice to hear commentary on people who will be playing in a Notre Dame uniform. [I'm not using sarcasm font because the level of irritation in certain threads rapidly moves one beyond mere sarcasm].
As to our O-Line: It could well be that Coach will end up staring ZMartin Watt Cave NMartin [who has gotten more week-by-week positive mentions by Kelly than almost anyone --- unsolicited positive mentions often --- about his aggression and mean streak] and Lombard. It may be NMartin who cannot be kept off the field, and Lombard the clearly next best lineman to step in, which fixes the line in form. If so, we will probably have a true second line ready if anyone slips. They are looking to [maybe] be Nichols behind Lombard, Golic behind NMartin, Hegarty behind Cave, Prestwood behind ZMartin, and maybe Hanratty behind Watt, or Golic crosstraining as both guard back-up.
Out at receiver,I think that Kelly waved a tearful goodbye to Big Mike and knew that it was creativity time. Joyfully he found that he had just the right personnel for a VERY creative "solution" to the No Floyd crisis --- Two TE sets of All-America quality TEs, plus wildly confusing interchanges between Slot/RB personnel, using astonishingly good playmakers [Robbie, GAIII, Riddick, Wood, and coming-to-a-backfield-near-you Carlisle].
All of a sudden, an offense worried about receiving threats has Eifert roaming and terrorizing all over the field, and highly elusive pass-catching and YAC maniacs striking unpredictably from slot, backfield, strange alignments and motions, with lots of antacid for opposing DCs stomachs. Four receivers [two TEs and two slot/RB hybrids] striking downfield with terrible match-up problems. But what about "traditional" WRs? Whenever we are in the two TE mode, there is ONLY one of them. And we have a fine starter, TJ, returning. Kelly has "fixed" this so that if NONE of Daniels, Goodman, Smith, nor the talented freshmen panned out [probably some will be just fine], we will STILL terrorize the DBs and LBs with, for example, Eifert, Koyack, TJ, Toma, and one of the "roaming" uber-talented hybrids striking five-strong downfield. I'm stunned by Kelly's ability to adapt to give us more than a good chance to roll.
