ND's Current Class Ranking

Crazy Balki

Crazy Balki

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IrishLax said:
Such a good point. The defense was designed last year to feature:

Day-Nix-Tuitt (literally all them battled injuries all season)... and I think 7-8 total DL suffer significant injuries. I still remember Carlo lining up as a DT lol....

Spond/Councell (season enders)-Grace(season ender)-Fox/Calabrese-Shembo

Jackson-Safeties (I think we had 4 different possible projected starters all battle injuries... Collinsworth, Farley, Shumate, Baratti)-Russell

If you're Bama, you can probably survive that. But no one loses that much talent (especially in the trenches) and is capable of putting up a superior season.
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Heck, considering that ND was the most injured team last year and still finished 9-4, we should be praising Kelly. Better than Florida, who sucked much worse, even though they were a little healthier than ND.
 
irishff1014

irishff1014

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goldandblue said:
I must be on a different page than anyone else when it comes to the defense this year. I fully expect our defense this year to out-shine, out-last, out-perform, our defense from 2013. We were pitiful last year defensively. I never felt like we were playing to win on the defensive side of the ball. I expect a lot more aggression and tenacity from this years scheme/squad.
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I like your thinking but it could take some real game time to get this scheme to the point the players are comfortable. I do like the more aggressive style defense but let's remember that can cost you games as well leaving players outside 1 on 1.
 
irishff1014

irishff1014

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IrishLax said:
I think we'll be quite good but give up more points than we're used to. We're also going to make a lot more big plays.

None of our CBs have elite man-cover skills or recovery speed. We experimented against Temple and Michigan with man coverage and it lead to too many big plays. I think if KVR, Luke, and Riggs all stay healthy it'll be the best corners we've had in a LONG time but I also think they're going to get toasted a couple times if BVG is silly enough to leave them on an island. I hope he doesn't do that.

If Jarron Jones and Sheldon Day stay healthy this DL will be better than last year's in terms of production. If Smith and Schmidt stay healthy, I think our linebackers will also be FAR more productive than they were in 2013. Our ILBs were abysmal at times last year.

So all things considered... this D might give up some points, but if the key pieces stay healthy I expect it to be a more overall productive unit than what we saw last year.
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Playing more aggressively usually gives up more points. With that said it also could get you big time game changing plays. I think overall it equals out though.
 
Irish8248

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Defense being great good terrible will come down to 2 things:

How well they understand the playbook
How predictable the defense is

If they can quickly grasp the playbook then it won't matter how elite any one position is or isn't because the element of surprise (disguise) will absolutely trump every deficiency. The less predictable they are the more dominate our defense will be. Of course that means they need to know the defense in and out and BVG doesn't get lazy with an aggressive scheme. If we can conquer those two HUGE challenges then this D will be crazy.

I played in a similar defense in college (blitzed nearly 60%) and our coach cared more about you knowing what's going rather than overall talent. You can't have a safety blitz or rotational shifts too early. Your defense will get crushed. You also need the DL know when to slant for the blitzing backer or the corner to show man when he's really pay playing deep half

As a player it was crazy stuff to learn but fricken awesome to play in. There's really nothing more attractive to a defensive player than an aggressive defense IMO.
 
TheTurningPoint

TheTurningPoint

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IrishLax said:
I think we'll be quite good but give up more points than we're used to. We're also going to make a lot more big plays.

None of our CBs have elite man-cover skills or recovery speed. We experimented against Temple and Michigan with man coverage and it lead to too many big plays. I think if KVR, Luke, and Riggs all stay healthy it'll be the best corners we've had in a LONG time but I also think they're going to get toasted a couple times if BVG is silly enough to leave them on an island. I hope he doesn't do that.

If Jarron Jones and Sheldon Day stay healthy this DL will be better than last year's in terms of production. If Smith and Schmidt stay healthy, I think our linebackers will also be FAR more productive than they were in 2013. Our ILBs were abysmal at times last year.

So all things considered... this D might give up some points, but if the key pieces stay healthy I expect it to be a more overall productive unit than what we saw last year.
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You forgot Butler.
 
ResLife Hero

ResLife Hero

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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>ESPN class rank update 11 <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/UGA?src=hash">#UGA</a> 12 <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Miami?src=hash">#Miami</a> 13 <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ND?src=hash">#ND</a> 14 <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/HailState?src=hash">#HailState</a> 15 <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/UCLA?src=hash">#UCLA</a> 16 <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/USC?src=hash">#USC</a> 17 <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Horns?src=hash">#Horns</a> 18 <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/UNC?src=hash">#UNC</a> 19 <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Ducks?src=hash">#Ducks</a> 20 <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Gators?src=hash">#Gators</a> <a href="http://t.co/d5PrUYLT8y">http://t.co/d5PrUYLT8y</a></p>— Jeremy Crabtree (@jeremycrabtree) <a href="https://twitter.com/jeremycrabtree/statuses/492016774800760832">July 23, 2014</a></blockquote>
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Johannes

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IrishLax said:
And Cornell is still a five star lolololololol
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Pretty ridiculous. He's going to have to reverse a lot of trends during his Senior year to live up to his hype. Makes me chuckle when I see Buckeyes fans touting their "5-star" laden class, though. :rolleyes:
 
B

Buster Bluth

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IrishLax said:
Man, ESPN hates our class... them and Scout are just brutal.

ND has no top 100 players in latest update. Barajas, Boykin, McKinney, and Sanders all outside the top 300.

ESPN Football Recruiting - Player Rankings - ESPN
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On a different note, adding guys like Ross, St. Brown, Jamabo, Bilal, and Coney brings the comp score up to ~255. It'll land somewhere around #10. And that's without the bumps that guys like White, Coleman, McKinney, Guyton, etc deserve and/or will get. #10 for a "class of three-stars" is perfectly fine in my book.
 
yankeeND

yankeeND

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Buster Bluth said:
On a different note, adding guys like Ross, St. Brown, Jamabo, Bilal, and Coney brings the comp score up to ~255. It'll land somewhere around #10. And that's without the bumps that guys like White, Coleman, McKinney, Guyton, etc deserve and/or will get. #10 for a "class of three-stars" is perfectly fine in my book.
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I'd take that in a heart beat!
 
irishfan

irishfan

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Not sure if posted elsewhere, but we finished 2015 as follows:

Scout: #6
Rivals: #11
247: #13
ESPN: #13
 
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