Notre Dame Football

[ndfan]

After watching my favorite team get creamed again in a BCS bowl game, I have to vent somehow.
ND obviously stands for "No Defense". I don't understand why they would not blitz. The secondary is getting beat even with 7 in coverage. The front four were getting NO penetration, so why not try something different?

Coach Weiss is a good coach and these losses should not be laid at his doorstep. Although, we should have lost to UCLA and Mich St, if not for phenominal comebacks, the actual blame goes to the administration.

1. Notre Dame is a private Catholic University with very high academic standards. This is the main crutch in recruiting good talent. It's sad, but the majority of the highly rated recruits don't care about academics. All they care about is playing time/opportunity to go to NFL. Actually, they probably could not make the grades to get into ND even if they wanted to. I am not advocating the lowering of academic standards but this is a disadvantage.
Lou Holtz said that while he recruited Tony Rice, ND admin almost did not admit him because he did not meet the standards. Fortunately, Lou talked the admin to giving Tony a conditional admission and they agreed. Of course, Tony worked hard through his conditional admission and made the grades to stay. Would we have won in '88 if we did not have Tony?

2. Notre Dame is an independant due to its contact with NBC to televise home games. Once the contact expires, unless ND has a turnaround like USC has had the past five years, then I don't see NBC renewing the contract. I think ND needs to join the Big Ten in order to stay competitive in college football. Although they lose their contract with NBC, it would help recruiting in the long run.

In today's CFB, Knute Rockne he could not have done better than Weiss due to these restictions. Hopefully we can reload at QB and finally get a defense. Then maybe we can win a NC. I was hoping that this would be the year, but unfortunately, we can't win them all (unless you are USC and paying players with new cars and condos, etc, while the NCAA looks the other way.)

Joe, since you are a fan and an alum, you may a better perspective since you are closer to South Bend, but I welcome any opinions.

 

[SA_bmatth]

I was planning on going to the Army All-American game this weekend and happened over to Scout.com to check the rosters. Quite a few "Irish Eyes" links. I doubt Weiss will have much trouble getting big recruits to go there. But even if he does just look to the Utahs, Boises, TCUs of the world. Or even Da U, baby! Miami has all the talent in the world and absolutely sucks.

 

[rtaylor61]

Based on your post, ND needs to make a decision. Academic excellence, or a football team. Both can go hand in hand with the proper recruiting. Living here in Utah, I see the same thing with BYU. There main rivalry is with the University of Utah. Check the history. BYU has dominated, maintaining their high academic standards, and with one national championship to their credit.

Randy

 

[bearbeard]

Yes, but did you see that Boise State Game?

 

[rtaylor61]

Yes, but did you see that Boise State Game?

I saw the re-plays. And as Mike on the "Mike and MIke" (ESPN2) show suggested...the game was won on a play that is relegated to kids playing in the backyard! So, if Oklahoma can't beat a bunch of kids...

Randy

 

[ada8356]

Maybe ND should be more concerned with playing in Bowl games in which they can compete instead of signing ridiculous contracts which only amount to cash grabs.

 

[jmhUT]

Based on your post, ND needs to make a decision. Academic excellence, or a football team. Both can go hand in hand with the proper recruiting. Living here in Utah, I see the same thing with BYU. There main rivalry is with the University of Utah. Check the history. BYU has dominated, maintaining their high academic standards, and with one national championship to their credit.

Randy

Oh Randy, how you disappoint me with your Cougar talk. If memory serves your own son is planning on becoming a Ute. Get on our team bud!

Utah actually holds a decisive 49-28 edge in the "Holy War". IMHO they very well could have been national champions in 2004 but that's another thread. Academically the Y has always held an advantage. Big money will do that for you, the LDS church would probably be a Fortune 100 company were they not a church. Plus, BYU is the only private LDS university so there isn't much competition for the cream of the LDS crop. I agree that they currently hold an excellent balance between athletics and academics. In the years when that has not been the case they have always protected their academic pedigree, as any premier educational institution should. It's a fine school, let it never be spoken of again.

 

[rschul2]

NDFan,
I hate to break it to you, but ND is not a BCS team right now, and honestly haven't been for the last few years. One of the reasons that ND has lost so many bowl games in a row is due to the fact that the media always wants ND in a big bowl game--even when they don't deserve it. No way did ND deserve a chance to play in the Sugar Bowl this year. LSU simply annihilated them, plain and simple.
Also, I get tired of people saying," but we are an academic school....blah, blah, blah". Yes ND is an academic institution, and a damned fine one at that. Therefore they need to make a decision. Lower the standards for athletes like many other institutions have done or accept mediocrity on the football field. There are sports where smart people can accel. Unfortunately, they are not usually football or basketball. It can be done though. Duke does it every year in basketball. Knute Rockne could have done it today. He may have to spend more time recruiting, but their is football talent that is smart. He would just have to search a little harder to find it.

 

[TraderJoe]

Yeah, the Sugar bowl was a disappointment....and it appears they should not have been there to begin with.

However, I really wasn't expecting much better out of the bowl game OR the season for that matter. I'm not impressed, nor have I ever been impressed with Quinn. Sure, he'll manage to possibly go first round in the draft but he needs a lot of work.

Moreover, we need to beef up recruitment, and we need to give Weiss a chance to mold his team. Academic standards do not need to be lowered. I believe in Weiss and I feel he will do a good job going forward (as he already has) on selling propsects that ND is not only a great academic institution, but they can be a part of something BIG by joining the football team.

The future is bright

I'm looking forward to winning National Championship in 2008.

 

[rtaylor61]

Oh Randy, how you disappoint me with your Cougar talk. If memory serves your own son is planning on becoming a Ute. Get on our team bud!

Utah actually holds a decisive 49-28 edge in the "Holy War". IMHO they very well could have been national champions in 2004 but that's another thread. Academically the Y has always held an advantage. Big money will do that for you, the LDS church would probably be a Fortune 100 company were they not a church. Plus, BYU is the only private LDS university so there isn't much competition for the cream of the LDS crop. I agree that they currently hold an excellent balance between athletics and academics. In the years when that has not been the case they have always protected their academic pedigree, as any premier educational institution should. It's a fine school, let it never be spoken of again.

Jeff,

Pardon my lack of knowledge and having been mis-informed. Yes, Chase was a Ute for a semester...and he dropped out to work for a bit. At the moment, he thinks that college is not for him. We will see how he likes the real world on the limited income he will be making.

Randy

 

[jmhUT]

Jeff,

Pardon my lack of knowledge and having been mis-informed. Yes, Chase was a Ute for a semester...and he dropped out to work for a bit. At the moment, he thinks that college is not for him. We will see how he likes the real world on the limited income he will be making.

Randy

Just razzing you bud. All things considered it's tough to argue that the Y is not the better school. For what it's worth my old man did not attend college and he retired handsomely at age 52. He loves to regale us with tales of his cash-strapped twenties and thirties though. I personally did not enjoy college but I'm glad I went.

 

[Kyle]

As someone with a background in college football, I struggle not to be upset by comments that point to athletes as ignorant or uncaring when it comes to their academics. Certainly it can be easy to be misinformed in these matters as the media will always choose to highlight the "controversial" player. Sadly, common news reporting as it relates to athletics at the collegiate or professional levels is usually centered around the players who have either made a poor decision and been caught or are bad people in general. This paints a very distorted picture of what college athletics is all about. Rarely do you ever read/hear about the young men who regularly make the honor role or who graduate, get a job, and become a positive contributing member to society. For some reason, stories like this appear not to be newsworthy. Additionally, you never hear about community projects that these young men participate in like visiting local grade schools and reading to young children or mentoring other young men who have ended up in juvenile detention centers. I guess it's just more fun to hear about when a person has made a mistake and been caught.

The life of a collegiate athlete is highly stressful. The average collegiate athlete spends 20 hours a week (in season) on athletic related tasks (meetings, practices, competition) and over 20 hours a week on academic related work (attending classes, supervised study hall, tutoring, etc.) Additionally, they participate in MANY community based activities (as mentioned above) and fan based activities (pep-rallies, media events, PR events on campus, etc.).

While I'm on my mini-rant, I would like to point out that in a lot of cases, student athletes are held to a higher academic standard than the normal student body. They are required to complete 24 hours a year that all go toward degree progress (not including fluff elective classes beyond what any normal degree program allows for) and they must maintain a specific GPA which increases for every year of college that they have under their belt. Further still, to remain eligible for athletic participation, athletes must complete 40%, 60%, and 80% of their degrees by the end of their sophomore, junior, and senior years respectively. Interestingly enough, there are also MANY athletic programs (yes, even highly competitive ones) which regularly have a better cumulative GPA than the rest of the student body.

As a coach, I take great pride in the fact that from my individual position group I have two young men who have received national academic honors and 3 more who received conference academic honors. As a position group, they also lead the conference in sacks and tackles for loss. Lastly, one of the young men that I recruited to our school was voted intern of the year at our state capitol this last summer. I could go on and on about the academic, athletic, and personal achievements of many of my current athletes and many more that I have coached over the years, but it is probably not necessary.

Now in regards to coaches, we are considered "fair game" by the harassers and bellyachers who populate our stadiums. You learn early as a coach that you will always be viewed in an extreme. You are either king of the world or the biggest dolt in town and all of this based off of your W-L record. I won't argue about a coach's effectiveness but will say that until you've been one, you're really not qualified to judge one.

Athletics is a highly specialized business for which there is no formal education, only experience. You cannot watch a lot of football on television and truly understand the intricacies of the game. You cannot read a book about it and become enlightened because no such texts exist. Even if you do have a good working knowledge of scheme, you cannot even begin to understand the attitudes, capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses of a squad or its individual players unless you have spent a few years intimately working with them.

Despite popular belief, we are not a profession of village idiots. The best of our ranks are highly intelligent, hard working, adaptable, and multi-talented individuals, most of who possess masters degrees and some who have completed doctorate level coursework. Throughout the course of any given day, we are often called upon to be detectives, students of logic, teachers, evaluators, salesmen, psychologists, counselors, father-figures, fundraisers, technology gurus, and much more.

In closing, I am not, nor will I be offended by any comments made here. I've developed a fairly thick skin on these issues over the years. I do hope, however, that some of this rambling may cause a re-evaluation of your views of athletes and coaches.

 

[rtaylor61]

Kyle,

Glad you won't be offended. That's the dumbest thing I've ever read!

Actually, I was waiting for you to chime in on this. Very well stated and explained. As an armchair quarterback, I definitely have my opinions, but rather than coach, I'd rather be the t.v. color commentator!

Randy

 

[berzerkeleyan]

...

Despite popular belief, we are not a profession of village idiots. The best of our ranks are highly intelligent, hard working, adaptable, and multi-talented individuals, most of who possess masters degrees and some who have completed doctorate level coursework. Throughout the course of any given day, we are often called upon to be detectives, students of logic, teachers, evaluators, salesmen, psychologists, counselors, father-figures, fundraisers, technology gurus, and much more.

...

Personally, I have no doubt a lot of college/pro football coaches are capable of running any Fortune 100 company out there. The level of commitment, intelligence, project management, and leadership skills necessary to run a football operation rivals, and perhaps exceeds what most CEOs out there possess.

Most of the football players I've run across have been incredibly intelligent. They may not have known the nuances of the Krebs cycle, but I saw no reason why most of them couldn't learn it if they had wanted to. Unfortunately, the ones I taught had other commitments that demanded their attention, so they couldn't devote as much time to my class as I wanted them to. Bottom line was that they were smart enough to get an A, but instead settled for lower because of the time constraints.

 

[bearbeard]

The smartest group of people on that football field:

The offensive linemen!

Quarterbacks don't even come close!!!!

 

[berzerkeleyan]

Back to ND...based on what I saw of Mr. Quinn this year, he seemed to fold during the big games. I'm afraid that might give us an indication of how he may do in the pros.

 

[Scorpio]

Back to ND...based on what I saw of Mr. Quinn this year, he seemed to fold during the big games. I'm afraid that might give us an indication of how he may do in the pros.

He will fold like a lawn chair!!!!!

Raf

 

[Kyle]

Most of the football players I've run across have been incredibly intelligent. They may not have known the nuances of the Krebs cycle, but I saw no reason why most of them couldn't learn it if they had wanted to. Unfortunately, the ones I taught had other commitments that demanded their attention, so they couldn't devote as much time to my class as I wanted them to. Bottom line was that they were smart enough to get an A, but instead settled for lower because of the time constraints.

Good points. Many times freshman and sophomore athletes struggle with learning how to appropriately balance their busy schedules. As with any 18 or 19-year-old, social priorities can become overly important and distract from education. Some athletes will struggle with this throughout their entire college career, but some of that can be blamed on coaches for not guiding those young men in the proper manner.

Interestingly enough, I've found over the years that academic accountability usually correlates to athletic accountability. In my experience, the young men who do not approach their academics with a competitive attitude are not the guys that you count on (on the field) when it is crunch time. Anyone who is truly a competitor can't help but to have this character trait carry over into every aspect of their lives. It is important to note, however, that being academically competitive for one young person may be getting a "C" where for another it would be earning an "A".

As an example of what I am getting at, one young man that I am currently coaching (who I love like a son) is not a highly intelligent fellow. I don't believe that he has ever earned an "A" outside of PE activity classes. He is, however, a tremendous competitor. He regularly spends 10+ hours a week studying, and he fights his tail off to receive B's, C's, and an occasional "D". His overall GPA is nothing fantastic but I trust him implicitly because he simply finds a way to get the job done (the nature of a competitor). I have no doubt in my mind that this young man will be a success at any endeavor he takes on.

As a counterpoint, I also work with a young man who is very intelligent. He speaks 3 foreign languages fluently and has an incredible gift for writing. This young man, however, struggles to pass every semester because he is not a competitor. Likewise, in clutch situations on game day, he stands beside me on the sideline and watches the competitors get the job done.

As a coach, I have two main jobs in relation to these young men. First of all, when I go recruiting, I need to identify the kids that are competitors. Second, once those young men arrive on campus, it is my job to help eliminate any character deficiencies that arise. One of the most humbling truisms of coaching is that the attitude of the player is typically a direct reflection of the attitude of the coach. In other words, a lazy, unmotivated athlete could likely be the product of lazy, unmotivated coaching.

Not every player or coach is an honest and good person, but a great majority of them are.

 

[crowdog]

As a antidomite, I agree that ND is overhyped and shouldn't have been in the Suger.

On Kyles post, my background is Athletic Administration. While I applaud Kyle for doing his part, it is also the Athletic Director that needs to balance the needs of the student athletes with the needs of the department to win championships, and in this day and age "to make money"

Hardly any institution can pull it off, making money that is. The schools that do, are seen as the rule instead of the exception.

There is no reason that Notre Dame can not keep it's "high accedemic standards" and still recruit quality athletes.

They have most of the ingredients they need with reputation, coaching, facilities. If they can't find kids that can pass, they boo hoo.

What hasn't been said here, and is only glossed over in the media, is the real perception is they can't recruit the at-risk minority athlete. It is still about the balance between offering black intercity athletes a leg up, and using them for your program, and dumping them back into the intercity.

If ND wants to ensure a better outcome, they need to invest in those schools and provide opportunites wholistically that will help those schools to compete acadmically.

College is tough no matter where you go, and there are huge amounts of resources to help ahletes. Sometimes as Kyle pointed out, some don't utilize them.

All colleges have this problem, at least the ones with ethics.

Marty

 

[Iceman]

Brady Quinn needs to stop trying to force the ball into double coverage. That may work against Army or Navy, but not against LSU, USC or Michigan. The NFL will be like playing Ohio State every Sunday unless he "wises" up.

Bowl games are all about money and Notre Dame guarantees lots of fans who will spend lots of money. As a result ND has been "awarded" bowl berths against teams they have no business playing, let alone winning. 0 for 9 shouts that out really loud. When I lived in Tempe Arizona I had a friend that owned a bar on Mill Street. He would always tell me that the Fiesta Bowl organizers wouuld ask for "input" from the bar and restaurant owners before selecting teams. There was alway "pressure" from the Morman church in Mesa to invite BYU. The bar owners had a saying that "When BYU comes to town all their fans show up with a $100 bill in one pocket and the 10 commandments in the other. They stay for a week and never break any of them". They never got the thumbs up from the Mill St merchants.

In reference to Kyle's comments, I think some of the issues with student/athletes began when true freshmen could play varsity sports. In most cases these young men and women are away from home for the first time and the changes can be overwhelming without throwing in varsity sports. Let them learn to be students first. They should also tie scholorships into the graduation rate.