My Take–believe a lot going on with this situation. Think Hayes upset that ND really went after Huggins. On the other hand, believe ND found out Hayes not that solid.
Huggins could have walked to the Army game. The fact he did not attend says volumes to me–historic night game, new Yankee Stadium and prime time TV.
Let’s move on.
Beat SC
Say goodbye to Justice Hayes-looking around–means gone for good. Apparently must have felt slighted somehow on his recent visit.
I was not surprised by this news and LB recruit Councell is also making visits elsewhere-so say goodbye to him also.
I don’t know what it is but recruits don’t seem to know what giving your word means. I would yank any offer to anyone who commits and then visits other schools and I would let them know when offer is made. Iowa coach Ferentz pulls schollie if recruit visits anyone after committing.
I also in the future would not kill myself in the state of Florida–they have no clue what giving your word means and quite frankly the one’s who do come fall on their faces(young) or just leave as soon a starts to chill up a little bit.
I think Huggins is a pipe dream. If there was real interest he would not have missed the Army game. So now what?
Start off by looking at guys that really want to come to ND. The state of Penna is loaded with top flight Catholic HS kids that would kill to go to ND–so too the rest of the midwest. I also would rather get kids from Texas than Fla. loads of talent in Texas.
I would now concentrate on lineman–you don’t need 4-5 stars just get good tough kids like Wisconsin, Iowa and MSU. Try to keep the pipeline in Calif but also go to Hawaii–3 now on team and they have big dudes there.
There is an O lineman Flavin who wants ND–offer him now and build him up.
Rockne said give me a good OL and DB’s and we will win regardless of the running back. We are spending way too much time pampering these recruits.
Take Clay Burton he was just waiting for a Fla offer.
We had that NG at Michigan–Martin but held onto a Charlie Weis pipedream and lost him.
I get the impression that Kelly doesn’t go out of his way to personally visit recruits–not like Weis who flew to Hawii for a day with 2 broken legs to land Manti.
So message is Kelly–get on the plane.
The ND defense, both coaches and players redeemed themselves shutting down the option beautifully. It was a stifling performance.
Finally, good line play on both sides of the ball. Tommy Rees may look like a pharmacy clerk but he certainly stepped up on a really big stage and played big.
Onward to LA with a lot more confidence.
A few thing I would like to see at ND stadium in 2011:
Beat USC
Prediction Time
Not sure that the coaching staff really has a handle on the option and cut block deal. So I will just have to hope that superior talent will prevail.
Let the defense loose to kill everyone that might have the ball–no thinking–just blasting
away.
No one or 2 Army players can cover Floyd–if we can get him the ball. Therein lies the rub.
ND 24 Army 17
What I would like to see:
OFFENSE–would like to see all 5 OL men blast Army off the LOS and the RB’s have their best game of the year. We will need to run the ball against USC so we might as well start with this game.
Interesting that opponents were picking up our play call signals–only took 10 games for this to dawn on the staff.
For the hell of it BEST PERFORMANCE outside of Floyd. I select Roby Toma.
Triple Option, Wishbone or whatever you call it is built on speed and illusion–sleight of hand, if you will. It never caught on in the pros for one simple reason–it is a QB killer.
You defend against this offense by attacking it–you hit the QB on every play, whether he has the ball or not. Likewise you hit the Fullback and Pitchman on every play.
No one ran Option football better than Barry Switzer at Oklahoma or Daryl Royal at Texas. Jimmy Johnson’s Miami defense Killed Oklahoma by constant attacking
You can’t sit back and try to react like ND did vs. Navy. The line and linebackers should be able to stop the run, if they are attacking.
Hopefully ND learned this lesson–if not, watch out.
Robert Blanton ignited the entire ND team with a punt block for a touchdown. Prior to that it looked on offense as same old story. The defense played hard the entire game.
After the punt block ND seemed an entirely different team in all aspects of the game.
Brian Smith played his best game as did Kamara with 2 TD’s. Floyd was just Floyd. Wood and Jonas Gray ran well and the OL finally started hitting hard and opening holes. Pleased to see LG Chris Watt got significant playing time–looked good as he preps for 2011.
2 freshman Kona Schwenke and Prince Shembo played very well when in.
Rees was workmanlike–did well for his first start.
Coaching–best so far from entire staff. Team looked and played like a semi-decent team. Hats off to Kelly. Finally had a chance to enjoy a game. Just hope they bring same intensity for remaining 2 games.
Next up Army and the option. Hope the defense just attacks rather than trying to re-act.
Good win–trust Kelly keeps pressure on during this weeks practices.