1–Win Bowl Game convincingly.
2–Wrap up recruiting with Kiel.
3–QB–that whoever emerges is outstanding.
4–10 Win(at least) 2012 season.
5–Teo & Eifert come back.
6–Dayne Crist has a sensational season where ever he goes.
7– Both D. Robinson and M. Barkley go pro.
8– That Urban loses every game in 2012
Lackluster game with 2 God awful announcers. Very unimaginative game plan for ND both offense and defense.
Lots of injuries–Cave, Teo Lynch and TJ Jones.
Rees 2 TD passes and 2 pics.
Jonas Gray & Cierre Wood ran for 180 combined yards. Mike Golic subbed for Cave–played extremely well and I hope he gets a 5th year.
Think ND just plays badly in Night Games but did comeback to win game down 17-10 at the half.
Watching this game–what went thru my head was–Andrew Luck!!!!!
Offense MVP’s–Golic, Gray & Wood.
Defense MVP’s–Tuitt & Lynch.
Next up :
Maryland 2W 7L–night game
Boston College 2W 7L
and then Stanford( currently undefeated) at Night.
So ND should be 8-3 when they play Stanford–let’s hope Standford has multiple injuries or a miracle happens to Rees’s arm.
ND–must win this game or Brian Kelly will be escorted off the field in a straight jacket.
Ok– he comes up the coaching chain–wins everywhere and lands at ND with more talent than he has ever had. Must be thinking this is a joke, compared with Cinn. I can win a national championship easy with these guys and my system.
Then reality sets in. As opposed to Cinn. everybody is gunning for ND–they can lose every game but if they take a ND SCALP, their season is a success.
Now to the present. ND must win this game–they beat themselves 2x–it has to end sometime–the turnovers etc. so it ends against MSU–ABSOLUTELY HAS TO.
Few thoughts:
Manti Teo– right now he is an average linebacker, not really playing any better than Calabrese or Fox. Somehow the OC’s have figured a way to handle him.
The OLB’s have been horrible–they still have big problems with an option attack. Thankfully, State has a more conventional offense.
The keys to winning this game, once again rests on the Line play on both Offense and Defense. Pass Rush against Quarterback Cousins is critical if Notre Dame is to prevail. I look for a breakout game by freshman Aaron Lynch–he has to play a lot and could take that starting position from Ethan Johnson. Stephon Tuitt also shows his stuff.
I believe Notre Dame rolls Michigan State:
Notre Dame 45 Michigan State 28
Let’s treat 1st 2 games as exhibition games with next 10 our regular season.
Really have to get all the DB’s heads screwed on right. Gray, in particular–but after re-playing the game–no real pressure on the QB in passing situations and that makes it very difficult to maintain coverage. 2 games and I can’t recall 1 sack or good pressure on either QB.
The strength of this team was supposed to be the front 7 which in turn would help the DB’s with pics–isn’t happening.
So what do you do–well last 30 seconds, knowing they have to pass why not get the best line athlete on field with one job only–get the QB. Aaron Lynch should have been the guy.
He is every bit as good as Teo was as a freshman–get him on the field starting right now.
Get Tuitt much more involved. Niklas and Williams need more playing time also.
All of these guys would be starting elsewhere.
Run defense was very good but changes have to be made in obvious passing downs.
Somehow we need to get Teo freed up. Too often he is shielded out of the play.
Speaking of LB’s Calabrese was really hammering anyone he came in contact with while Fox showed good speed and range.
Nix again was a force but Johnson and Moore really have to step it up.
Next up more conventional teams–we simply have to play guys that can rush the passer. OLB’s real disappointment at this stage.
We can run the table if we just play the right guys on D.
If anything, you can bet that the D as a whole will be fully re-evaluated this week.
Let’s hope so.
S. Tuitt is one big dude
Andrew Nuss running with 1st team as LG.
ILB–looks like most competitive with Calabrese, Fox and MacDonald fighting for the spot opposite Teo. Whoever complements Teo the best will start–I like Carlo.
QB–think it’s Crist barring injury or mental breakdown.
No doubt that freshman Williams, Tuitt and Lynch will play as will redshirt Nix. Also no doubt barring injury and if they live up to hype all four will go early to NFL draft. So we have 3 seasons out of them. So enjoy while you can and hope Teo stays for senior season.
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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.
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.