Ruffer 9th Best Irish Player?

[irishog77]

Counting down the Irish: 10-6 | Inside the Irish

Ruffer's been a great kicker, but I was still surprised he averaged out to be considered the 9th best player. He even garnered one 1st place vote!

A good kicking game is a great weapon to have, but I think it's tough to consider a kicker as one of the elite players on a team (especially one we consider to be BCS-worthy with a possible dominant D and a roster full of big time players), if nothing else because of the relative few plays he's actually on the field.

Thoughts?

 

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

He along with Te'o is our most likely All-American. 9 seems low for a damn near automatic kicker.

 

[Old Man Mike]

Well, like all such questions, it has been phrased with maximum confusion potentials. One needs to have a clear definition of the term "best player" to indulge in meaningful, communication of analyses.

A): Does one mean how our player rates in comparison with his peers across the nation?

B): Does it mean how does any player rate comparatively to his teammates in terms of producing wins?

C): Does it mean which player most requires the opponents to take him into consideration in their game planning?

If "A", then Ruffer's probably the correct answer, as he may well be the #1 kicker in the country.

If"B", then Crist would be the most significant player, but he may not deliver at a high level. Therefore I'd pick Harrison Smith [for defensive leadership and stopping the big play] or Manti Te'o [for physical leadership and creating the big play.]

If "C", it's clearly Floyd. Defensive planning has to bend itself way out of shape to try to deal with him, giving us advantages all over the place.

 

[irishog77]

Arnold was kind of vague in his description of this countdown: "As we did last offseason in preparation for fall camp, a group of guys that spend an unnatural amount of time thinking about Notre Dame football tried their best to rank the Irish roster heading into the 2010 season."

OMM- I like your assessment, but even if it is A, I think the argument can be made as well for Teo and Floyd (no doubt) or possibly Smith, Martin, and even Eifert (if they have great years). Obviously Ruffer is a known commodity, so he gets points for that.

Like I said, I think Ruffer is a great kicker, one of the best in the country for sure. I just think 9 may be too high for a guy that, realistically, is only out there a handful of plays per game. Granted the plays he's out there on are vital plays and he obviously plays a huge role in each of those plays, but I tend to think there are more than 8 guys per game who are better than Ruffer and have a greater hand in the difference between a "W" and an "L."

There's no right or wrong answer for anybody here, I'm just curious what other people think. Thanks for the feedback.

 

[IrishJayhawk]

Good points, OMM...

We saw just how damaging it was to be 50/50 in the kicking game prior to Ruffer's emergence. We turned down kicks that should have been pretty near automatic, which led to a lot of demoralizing zeros at the end of promising drives.

I just don't know how you can rank players like this. It's a fun exercise. But, judging a kicker against a left tackle? A QB? An ILB? How can you actually do that?

Either way, I love Ruffer.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

bcfremeau of Football Outsiders via Twitter:

best kicker in country adds roughly 15-17 pts of total scoreboard value to a team vs an average kicker in a yr.

I think most of us are undervaluing Ruffer. If he truly is worth an extra 1.5 pts per game over, let's say, Tausch, then he's up there with Floyd, Crist, Cierre, and Riddick as most important offensive players on our team.

 

[TDHeysus]

I think most of us are undervaluing Ruffer.

maybe some ppl are, but I am certainly not. I can remember kickers like John Carney and Craig Hentrich and thinking that 'a kicker at ND is a given'. I thought ND would always have a good kicker because they were such a national recruiting presence; i was waaaaayy wrong with that thinking. The reliability and confidence that Carney and Hentrich had hasnt really been duplicated in an ND kicker, until Ruffer. (for me, at least)

Example: if Ruffer lines up for a 40-45 yard FG, my gut feeling is he is going to make it. In years past I would thought, oh jeez, this is gonna be ugly.

its tough to say that he is the 9th best player on the team because he is a specialty player. But he is definitely a significant part of the offensive attack, that adds an element to the game plan that most programs do not have. Its great to have a kicker like that, and to have Brindza coming in after him is just as exciting.

I remember watching a game when I think it was Hentrich was lining up for an extra point, and the announcers were talking about how great ND kicking had been, and how consistant Hentrich had been his whole career. The announcer went to say something to order of, 'Hentrich has hit 147 of 147 xtra points in his career', he then on cue missed the xtra point.

^ it has been a long time, since the Hendrich days, that ND has had a consistant kicking game. So with Ruffer, and then hopefully Brindza the ND kicking game is back to being a consistant, significant option/weapon/element to the ND offensive attack. i believe it is.

Ruffer is one of those players like Collinsworth, or Toma who are not the front line superstar type of players, but they are going to contribute with big plays, in big games.