Notre Dame Football Blog

Hey everybody,

We decided to do all future blogging on this site:

https://www.irishfootballrant.com/

We will still update this with schedules and other info, but all the blogging will be done on the other site. The reason for this is that we were getting bombarded by spam every time a new post was made. We tried to fix it, but nothing worked so a new site was made with better filters etc. Anyway, update your bookmarks to the new site. See you there. Thanks!

Go Irish!!!

Coach Kerry Cooks reel in his 2nd TX recruit with the commit of WR Jalen Guyton Texas 6’1″ 180 with burner speed. Guyton visited ND last week and yesterday made the call to Cooks. Boy feels real good making inroad in Texas–probably best HS football in the country.

Apparently Guyton narrowed it down to Stanford and the winner–ND beating out A&M, Baylor, Okla. OSU and others along the way. Believe Guyton was sold even before last weeks visit. Class now has WR, QB, 2 OL and a Safety.

Other News : Jarrett Grace another surgery on right leg–rod insertion. Coach Kelly indicates he will know in 6 weeks if Grace plays in 2014. Here’s a really talented, big MLB that waited 2 years behind Te’o and just when he was coming on strong goes down with a serious injury. I don’t know how anyone can contemplate football with his kind of leg injury–4 fractures and now a pin. Wish him the best of luck.

Chase Hounshell DL injured freshman year and after 3 shoulder injuries making a comeback.

What ever happened to Anthony Rabassa–big pick up from Florida but apparently can’t find a position on Defense—I really thought he’d be an early contributor in the Tuitt, Lynch class.

Really love the story on walk on Joe Schmidt getting 1st team reps but what about Michael Deeb–redshirt saved hoping that Fox and Carlo could handle 2013. Thought he was a sure bet. He better make his move now before Morgan shows up.

Safety Prentice McKinney 6’2″ 180–4 Star from Dallas Texas gave his verbal to coach Cooks Thursday night. Calling the Notre Dame offer his dream offer, he commits before even visiting although he’ll be up for the Blue Gold Game April 12th.

Gotta like these big Safeties.

So 2015 has a QB, 2 OL and now a Safety–starting to look good and getting another guy from Texas can only help recruiting there. He had offers from Oklahoma Michigan and Texas A&M among others. Let’s hope he has a great visit on the 12th.

Spring practice—-just love QB Zaire attitude–you need a super confident guy at QB and Zaire is not ceding the spot to Golson. If he’s # 2 I truly hope Kelly gives him at least a series in all 4 quarters–gotta get him meaningful/ significant playing time if you want him to stick around.

Some videos from Saturday – really doesn’t mean a hell of a lot since reporters only get a very brief glimpse and I don’t know who’s who anyhow.

Kelly gives the usual bs about Golson needs to get to know receivers – looks rusty and Zaire looks to me more of a runner. Golson missed a whole year so he’d still be getting to know receivers even if they were all back.

Not going to learn a whole lot from these practices – just need to wait for Blue Gold game to really see anything. Just hope no serious injuries.

You all probably don’t remember back to 2012 season but Golson was dreadful in some of those games – I don’t think he or Zaire have the “touch” that all the great QB’s have – that being the case, just hope we have a class A running game.

I don’t miss Diaco at all with his non aggressive prevent Defense – cost plenty of games including the FSU Bowl Game that was blamed on Rees.

Kelly starts off with a press conference Friday and then 2 days of actual practice Mon. & Tues – then 2 weeks off and then practice up to the April 12th Blue Gold Game.

A few coaching changes – Elliott to OLB coach and Cooks to CB’s and Safeties. Players move – Farley to CB and Onawaulu to Safety – gives us about 15 Safeties. I think they will make freshman Tranquill an ILB. Luke Massa is passing on 5th year to intern for some type of super job – see what a ND diploma gets you!!

Looks like Zaire will get a ton of work and Kelly stressed that Zaire must be able to step in – reminder we only have 2 QB’s until the Fall then 3rd QB Kizer – currently looks like a stick figure.

Here’s clips for your enjoyment.

Notre Dame scored a big pick up in Riggs a 5’9″ 190lb. Corner Back who will complete his 5th year at ND after spending 4 years at Florida. He will enroll in Graduate School this summer along with the 2014 Class. This is like picking up a 5 Star albeit for only one year–good move as Riggs played in about 30+ games at Fla. will be a big help in the ND secondary, should win Bennett Jackson’s position and will really help all the young secondary guys.

I do find this kind of odd that if Riggs is supposed to be that good–why not enter the NFL draft. The answer might be that he kicked back and forth between Safety and CB at Fla. and wants to develop one more year as a Pro prospect.

Hopefully, this works out as many ND guys go elsewhere for their 5th year and kind nice to pick up a guy with a lot of starting experience.

Let’s start with the OL :

We had a terrific haul last year, so it will be hard for any of the frosh to crack the 2 deep except–Quenton Nelson or just “Q” tough nasty Jersey kid. Got to prove it but he will play this year.

Sam Mustipher–tough kid and may be able to crack 2 deep as a center.

I don’t see any of the offensive players seeing the field with the possible exception of Justin Brent and maybe, maybe Nic Weishar, although I think ND wants to save a year here. The others–just depends–skill positions pretty well stocked.

Defense : lots of need here and depending on injuries, hell the all could play. Here’s the guys that plat a lot in 2014;

ILB’s– Nyles Morgan and Greer Martini. I included Martini because he’s so smart and will easily pick up the defense plus he’s big. Right now, I think Michael Deeb has one of the spots and I don’t really see Jarrett Grace playing this year—so this position is wide open.

DL–we might need all of them to play. Those that will get plenty of playing time:

DE/DT Jay Hayes
DT Daniel Cage
DE Andrew Trumbetti

While we have a lot of Safeties, none exactly took the reins so Drue Tranquill could sneak in there and grab a spot. Possibly the fastest guy of all the Safeties.

Who plays depends on which freshman manage to get on the Special Teams and of course injuries. I see maybe 10 guys seeing the field from this class.

Notre Dame finished with 23 signed and sealed for the 2014 class. Late addition of DT Daniel Cage 4 Star from Winton Woods HS in Cinncy.. Ohio. What’s very strange here is that this kid wanted to go to ND and we never offered until very late. He’s rated a 4 star and ND badly needed DL for this class. He’s 6’3″ 295 lbs and could easily play as a freshman. We just managed to edge out MSU for Cage. What the hell were Diaco and Kelly thinking. They had to scramble all over to get DT Pete Mokwuah to flip from Rutgers and got Cage at the very last minute. They need 2 DT’s in every class and almost losing out on a 4 star is not a sign of recruiting prowess.

I think the Super Bowl put to rest the bend/break defense of Diaco. The idea of get to the QB and play aggressive defense football is the only way to go – if you can completely shut down Peyton Manning, that’s what I want to see from ND in 2014.

OK, here’s the 2014 Class:

Brian Kelly made it official – Mike Denbrock will be the new offensive Co-ordinator and develop the game plan. Kelly will call the plays. He also introduced the new QB coach Matt LaFleur.

Two new Graduate hired: former Notre Dame Safety kyle McCarthy and Mike Hiestand (son of OL coach Harry) he previously coached at Florida International. both will work on defense. Kelly wants to add one more Grad Asst.

Appears as though all the Notre Dame injured will be available by the Fall with the possible exception of ILB Jarrett Grace who’s injury was severe – 4 broken bones in one leg. I don’t see any way he plays this year, if ever again.

Malik Zaire will get his shot == QB position will not go automatically to Golson. Regardless, Kelly has to get Zaire on the field this year with meaningful playing time.

ND hosted 2 DL prospects so we’ll see how that works out. NSD is Wednesday and I really hope all the grandmothers are ok. I don’t believe anything until these guys are sitting in a classroom.

So what else – Denbrock indicates a fast up tempo offensive now that all the parts are in place.

Spring Football is scheduled to start March 3rd – earliest ever. Suggestion – don’t play any of the guys that were hurt, wait until the Fall. Let’s see what the young guys can do.

Here are some presser clips from und.com:

Notre Dame flipped Rutgers commit Peter Mokwuah a 3 Star DL 6’4″ 300 + lbs from a small Catholic school – St Josephs in Staten Island NY. Apparently new DC VanGorder made a beeline to him right after he was officially introduced as the new DC by Notre Dame. This kid is a big body that certainly will help on the thin DL but he played at a small HS against small opponents–so will need a lot of work. looks like a redshirt. Interesting how VanGorder seemed to know about him – tipoff from his NY buddies?

On the flip side and not unexpected 4 Star LB commit Richard Yeargin Fla. dropped his commit and it appears he’s headed to Clemson. Not a great loss as we have a slew of LB’s and about 15 Safeties.

So no-one should really get excited during recruiting – the only day that counts is signing day. Sure would be nice to add 1-2 DT’s to this class – there just has to be 300 pounders in the Mid West that would love to go to ND and we can take a flyer on a kid that really likes ND.

Other News : VanGorder from the NY Jets officially confirmed as the new DC – that only took about a month for ND to clear him as fit for ND. Like him a lot because he wants a more aggressive defense. He brings a lot of Jet coach Ryan’s defensive style – just what we need.

The other hire QB coach from the Washington Redskins Matt LaFleur 33 yrs old and coached RG111 at Washington. This too took some time to clear him and all of this time consuming investigation kept him from the recruiting trail. guy is young and energetic and actually played QB in college.

I don’t know how Kelly got the moniker – developer of quarterbacks – he had 2 years with Golson and never broke him to use the laces of the football to pass. It took about 5 minutes for QB guru Whitfield to correct that.

Looks like Denbrock will get the ceremonial OC position – but, hell what’s the rush when investigations going on.

This screening applicants has been going on since the George O’Leary hire. Here was a guy that was a successful big time HC who apparently had a 20 year old resume with some inaccuracies that he forgot about or actually thought was correct–can’t have that at ND–so welcome Ty Willingham and Charlie Weis. I think O’leary was perfect for ND and could have had 1-2 National Championships – just look at what he’s done at UCF. Hope we never play him.

So just sit around for another 10 days or so for NSD.