Fall Practice Thread

NDinFL

NDinFL

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BeauBenken said:
Okay, I'll take your word for it.

Tommy: [Trying to copy his father's quote] Hey, I'll tell you what. You can get a good look at a butcher's *** by sticking your head up there. But, wouldn't you rather to take his word for it?
Mr. Brady, Customer: [confused] What? I'm failing to make the connection here.
Tommy: No, I mean is, you can get a good look at a T-bone by sticking your head up a butcher's ***... No, wait. It's gotta be your bull.
Richard: [embarrassed] Wow.
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Lol, hey! I'll have you know that I can sell a ketchup popsicle to a woman wearing white gloves...
 
Whiskeyjack

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From the BGI article linked above:

Dropping an X or two off of his shirt sizes gave Nix a newfound energy to get in the weight room and work to improve his game. Head coach Brian Kelly said he hopes Nix will be ready to play 10 to 15 snaps per game this season anchoring a deeper, stronger defensive line that is poised to turn a lot of heads this season. His contributions will free up starting nose guard Sean Cwynar to play on all cylinders knowing he will have an opportunity to catch his breath.
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That's more along the lines of what I had expected Kelly to say in today's presser. Perhaps he was just unclear?
 
DuffHouse12

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which packages does Kelly go with 4 down linemen? dime? nickel? down/distance based? offensive personnel based? seems we are deeper at line than LB at this point - even with Manti, Fleming, Carlo, Spond, Ishaq et all (i know, our D is stacked.)

re: Lynch - I can see him being effective in the running defense while excelling in the pass rush. definitely will have an impact this season.

re: Corner - I'm not sure that Blanton will be as good as promised. Gray - yes. Lo will impress, but I'm not sold on Blanton being a clear far and away #2. this is just a hunch from watching his athleticism over the years so if you disagree, i'm not really gonna bring much more to argument than that. I hope he shuts people down for sure, but I'd be interested to see if anyone else shares my sentiment.
 
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Whiskeyjack said:
Boggles the mind. That's almost criminal negligence for a football coach.
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Johnson didn't play his senior year of high school because of an knee injury. He spent a lot of time in aquatic therapy building the knee back up and had a lot of catchup to do in college. His lifting was restricted by design.
 
NDinL.A.

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DuffHouse12 said:
which packages does Kelly go with 4 down linemen? dime? nickel? down/distance based? offensive personnel based? seems we are deeper at line than LB at this point - even with Manti, Fleming, Carlo, Spond, Ishaq et all (i know, our D is stacked.)

re: Lynch - I can see him being effective in the running defense while excelling in the pass rush. definitely will have an impact this season.

re: Corner - I'm not sure that Blanton will be as good as promised. Gray - yes. Lo will impress, but I'm not sold on Blanton being a clear far and away #2. this is just a hunch from watching his athleticism over the years so if you disagree, i'm not really gonna bring much more to argument than that. I hope he shuts people down for sure, but I'd be interested to see if anyone else shares my sentiment.
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* I think we're deep all over the place on that front 7, and I've been waiting to say that for a LONG time!

* Regarding Lynch, he'll definitely be a player, but barring injury, I think it's completely nuts for anyone to say he'll be starting mid-season (you didn't say it, but I saw it on another post). He won't. He's behind 2 multiple-year starters who know the system inside and out and who by the end of the year were KILLING it against the run (just ask USC and Miami). Lynch will play of course, but those two in front of him aren't going nowhere - they can play, and with their 2nd year in the system and almost 2 years under Longo, I fully expect them to be dominant this year.

* On Blanton, you certainly are entitled to your opinion, but I think you're completely wrong, and I'm not just being a homer when I say that. He was basically a 3rd starting corner last year, as he was on the field all the time and did a great job as part of that defensive surge last year. I agree, he might not be the most athletic player, but he has excellent coverage skills, gets his hands on a lot of footballs, and is a playmaker. And he was one of the key differences between the Navy performance and the Army performance. The coaching staff has a ton of confidence in him. We're fine with Robert back there.
 
DuffHouse12

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NDinLA -

do you see Lynch on the field exclusively in passing situations? or either run/pass he's in there when the starters need a blow? i think its the latter.

i will say this about Blanton - he's consistent. maybe i'm just so excited by the recruiting in the rest of the defensive positions that I want corner to be next.... thats prob it.
 
Whiskeyjack

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DuffHouse12 said:
which packages does Kelly go with 4 down linemen? dime? nickel? down/distance based? offensive personnel based?
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Obvious passing downs. We usually showed an odd front for open downs in 2010.

seems we are deeper at line than LB at this point - even with Manti, Fleming, Carlo, Spond, Ishaq et all (i know, our D is stacked.)
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I wouldn't say that.

re: Lynch - I can see him being effective in the running defense while excelling in the pass rush. definitely will have an impact this season.
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If he can discipline himself to stay within Diaco's structure, he'll eventually be able to "start"; that is, he'll be the #1 in both our odd and even fronts. I would bet we won't see him in an odd front at all this season, though, and I seriously doubt he'll pass KLM as the #1 at any point.

re: Corner - I'm not sure that Blanton will be as good as promised. Gray - yes. Lo will impress, but I'm not sold on Blanton being a clear far and away #2. this is just a hunch from watching his athleticism over the years so if you disagree, i'm not really gonna bring much more to argument than that. I hope he shuts people down for sure, but I'd be interested to see if anyone else shares my sentiment.
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Blanton's played in 37 games, 13 of which as a starter. He's accumulated 123 career tackles, 11 tackles for loss, 1 sack, 10 PBUs, and 6 INTs. Why you think Lo Wood, who's only seen 23 defensive snaps in his career, will be more impressive than Blanton is beyond me.

If you're not sold on Blanton, then our CB depth should absolutely terrify you.
 
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Whiskeyjack

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BGIF said:
Johnson didn't play his senior year of high school because of an knee injury. He spent a lot of time in aquatic therapy building the knee back up and had a lot of catchup to do in college. His lifting was restricted by design.
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Good to know. But he must have been capable of doing a squat by his 2nd year, no? If his knee was strong enough to start in all 13 games as a freshman, and 11/12 as a sophomore, how could he not be capable of building up his lower body?
 
DuffHouse12

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I said i thought Lo would impress - because he's not supposed to be as good as the other guys for the Stats and Experience you listed. I just think that way is all. Wood is a serious athlete. Blanton is consistent and has gotten the job done so far. just seeing what other people's opinions are. Blanton's results are expected, Lo's are not, so he has more room to impress.

our depth at corner does scare me - but there are some young guys there that will get a chance and we'll see what they can do.
 
woolybug25

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DuffHouse12 said:
I said i thought Lo would impress - because he's not supposed to be as good as the other guys for the Stats and Experience you listed. I just think that way is all. Wood is a serious athlete. Blanton is consistent and has gotten the job done so far. just seeing what other people's opinions are. Blanton's results are expected, Lo's are not, so he has more room to impress.

our depth at corner does scare me - but there are some young guys there that will get a chance and we'll see what they can do.
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Blanton is playmaker. He has made a ton of huge plays for this team so far in his career. I am pretty suprised that someone would think that he could get passed up by Lo Wood. Blanton has done a lot more than just "getting the job done".
 
Old Man Mike

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Random opinion on Aaron Lynch: if Aaron was on almost ANY other team in the country than Notre Dame, he'd be starting by mid-season. But he won't. KLM has a "look" about him that says to me: Monster ready to feed. I think that KLM is going to blow offenses away regularly this year. It is only this which will keep Aaron in a back-up role, though increasingly shared.

My amateurish feeling for our D-Line is that, at least last year, Diaco preferred one DE who tended more to speed and gorilla-ism, and one DE who tended more to power and Earth-moving [I say "tended" because both guys can do some of both]. Lynch is KLM-like. Tuitt is EJ-like. Kona is a bit of both. If EJ steps it up as much as I think KLM will, then no freshman will start this season, barring injury. If EJ does not, then watch Tuitt by mid-year.
 
Whiskeyjack

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Old Man Mike said:
My amateurish feeling for our D-Line is that, at least last year, Diaco preferred one DE who tended more to speed and gorilla-ism, and one DE who tended more to power and Earth-moving [I say "tended" because both guys can do some of both]. Lynch is KLM-like. Tuitt is EJ-like. Kona is a bit of both. If EJ steps it up as much as I think KLM will, then no freshman will start this season, barring injury. If EJ does not, then watch Tuitt by mid-year.
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Kona's up to 296 now. I think he's definitely being groomed as a SDE; producing well as a WDE requires a level of natural speed and athleticism that I doubt Kona possesses, but I could easily see him being an immovable object.

Also, I think we tend to put too much emphasis on who "starts". There will always be a #1, #2, etc., but Kelly and Diaco seem to want the second unit of front seven players to see as much game time as the first. If that's the case, it probably doesn't matter who's starting.
 
DuffHouse12

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woolybug25 said:
Blanton is playmaker. He has made a ton of huge plays for this team so far in his career. I am pretty suprised that someone would think that he could get passed up by Lo Wood. Blanton has done a lot more than just "getting the job done".
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that's not what i meant really. I just think people will start saying "wow look at what Lo is doing this year" more often than "wow look at Blanton", based on expectations for the two of them.

my comment about Blanton as a true #2 is more about receivers he'll cover than him v. Wood in a competition. That's why i cited his athleticism. If that doesn't line up with what i first said its my bad, its not really what i meant.
 
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Whiskeyjack said:
Good to know. But he must have been capable of doing a squat by his 2nd year, no? If his knee was strong enough to start in all 13 games as a freshman, and 11/12 as a sophomore, how could he not be capable of building up his lower body?
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Not news. It was no secret. It was publicly discussed during those years preseason, in season and postseason. He was under the care of physicians and trainers as well as the strength coach and a position coach.

Simply put, he started because Willingham was the worse recruiter in ND history.
 
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Whiskeyjack said:
From the BGI article linked above:



That's more along the lines of what I had expected Kelly to say in today's presser. Perhaps he was just unclear?
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I believe Kelly said in the spring that Nix would get 10-15 snaps a game so that may be where the author got that from. I would guess that Nix's weight loss puts him in line for more snaps. How many more is anyone's guess.
 
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Whiskeyjack said:
article breaking down today's UND video; he identifies each match-up and declares a winner.



Keith Arnold thinks it was Zeke Motta.
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I don't know if any of you guys caught this but in one of the rodeo drill match-ups freshman walk-on Joe Schmidt #38 was featured. I thought that was really neat since I think this kid can contribute someday.

And I still think the one who got pancaked was Spond because when he got up I am pretty sure I saw 13 on his jersey but I am not positive
 
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