Grason

yeah,.. this is shaping up to be a close one. I hate close ones, at least this year I do. The last close one that I can remember was Gary Gray, and we all know how that went. Good thing that kid opened his recruiting back up.

The simple fact is this,... Tom Brady was an average quarterback at best b4 Weis stepped into the picture. Afterwards, well we all know what happened afterwards. The same holds true with Brady Quinn. Weis has the ability to coach, period. Weis is an offensive genius,... that's right, I said genius. Furthermore, his work ethic alone (plus last season) leads me to believe that he will be an excellent head coach. Just look at the way he recruits!

I think that everyone could agree that when Coach Weis said that "everyone knew when he was going to throw a screen," that he was talking about the offensive side of the ball. Now let's check Weis' offensive credentials,.... offensive coordinater of a team that won the super bowl 3 times. Mind you that the super bowl is the highest accolade attainable in football. Now let's hear spurr's side of the deal: In his first NFL season he put up a respectable 7-9 mark for a first year head coach, much due to the presence of Defensive Coordinator Marvin Lewis. Marvin Lewis would depart after that season to become the Head Coach of the Cincinnati Bengals. The Redskins went 5-11 the next year, in a season that saw the complete deterioration of an offensive line that featured former Pro-Bowl Caliber players Chris Samuels and Jon Jansen and a drastically underachieving defense composed of players like LaVar Arrington, Jeremiah Trotter, Champ Bailey and Fred Smoot. One of his biggest blunders during his brief NFL stay was his mishandling of Quarterback Patrick Ramsey. Spurrier's bad offensive line coaching resulted in Ramsey often finding himself on his back as he was one of the most sacked and hurried quarterbacks in the league. Despite several heroic performances by the young quarterback, he never received a full vote of confidence under Spurrier who would often bench him mid-game during a bad performance in favor of Danny Wuerrful in 2002 or Shane Matthews in 2003, who both played under Spurrier at Florida. Both combined for 14 touchdowns and 12 interceptions in 15 games played. (TD/INT Wuerrful 3-6 with 7 games, Matthews 11-6 with 8 games). Spurrier would also bench him entirely after a bad performance, until usually being forced after a mediocre performance by one of his favored Florida back-ups. Many observers saw that Spurrier was overwhelmed with the complexity of the NFL, and didn't really want to put in the extra effort required to win in the pro game. His practices were lazy and unorganized, and players could often be seen sleeping in team meetings. He had trouble couching individual positions, and his assistants were for the most part ineffective as well. Spurriers last game as a NFL Head Coach was a 31-7 blowout at the hands of the Eagles. In their last three games, The Redskins were outscored 85-31 including a 27-0 loss to the Dallas Cowboys. I'll take Weis...

Kokomo, Indiana,... the most God-forsaken sack of,.... jk. It's kind of close to SB (2 hours) so I can't complain that much.

I would agree completely with everything that NDLaw said, but I would also like to reitterate the fact that ND is pretty young on defense. Plus, some of the talent wasn't developed very well on Ty's infamous regime. Therefore, Minter had to dumb down the system a little bit, which led to some of the results that you seen on the field.

yeah,... this kid looks really good. I think that I have found my #2 favorite running back behind Caleb King. First off, for everyone that is knocking his speed, you guys have to think about the blocking. A lot of the clips that I watched, there were already guys in the backfield when the ball was being handed off, and it wasn't by design. Second, the downfield blocking SUCKED. His receivers need to learn to block and maybe he could score more. Third, sure he got caught a couple of times, but still,... it wasn't like he was getting ran down in the open field. People had angles, or he was slowing down trying to pick up blocks that weren't going to happen. Final note - Why is this kid not on the national radar? I hope that we get this kid, seeing that we are losing out with a lot of other prospects at the RB position. Hopefully we can get him to commit before he gets noticed by too many other teams (i.e. pull a Kerry Neal on him )

Yeah good ole' Charlie and his staff are doing an excellent job of assembling a defensive machine. Chris Donald would be an excellent addition to this class. His size and (sorry Vegas) speed, coupled with his football instincts make him an awesome prospect. This is truly fun to watch, and I can't wait to see these kids hit the field in the near future.

yeah, I would have to agree. I'm starting to like King a lot. He's the real deal.

That article helped to clear up Mark Tyler's statement about being 70% committed to ND. How can this guy claim to be a sports writer, let alone someone who follows recruiting?

nice post,.. I really enjoyed the vid. About Mark May, what a fag. I can't stand him. I think I figured out why he hates Notre Dame though. When he was at Pitt, his team had a better record than Notre Dame, but Notre Dame was selected to play over them in the National Championship game. Notre Dame lost the game pretty badly. So, Mark feels that Notre Dame is overrated. I also think that the whole Ty Willingham/race thing comes into play too. The bottom line, Mark May is a has-been who now works at the has-been half-way house known as ESPN. I love ESPN, but they got to get rid of such a bias scuzz.

i wouldn't mind seeing deonte thompson at wide out. Apparently he has blazing fast speed, and he's an awesome wide-out/ returner.

I like what Jones has say, even though I may come across a little cocky and brash. The simple fact is,.. Charlie Weis is on the sidelines coaching the game, and people like DD are going to be on the field playing the game. You always want some type of leadership/shot-caller on the field. Are there limitations to the power that he should be delegated? Of course! However, I would rather have a team that has a guy on the field who will be able to change plays and read defenses, i.e. Peyton Manning, Matt Leinhart, Brady Quinn. With dual-threat quarterbacks that's what it is all about--improvisation.

that might come in handy given the amount of interest in Notre Dame from the class of 07'

Ok, so McCoy isn't coming to ND. What happens to the remaining scholarship? I heard that Kates is out, so what do we do? We could have had Lewis or Terrance Austin and now we get nothing.

does anyone know the time that young is going to announce on thursday?

Well this sucks. But hey, like you said before broker, these are 18 year old kids, things change. For all that we know, you were probably right on top of things (McCoy verbed to coach Haywood), and then maybe he had a change of heart because of the money or something like that. It kind of makes me sick that universities would throw money at kids so that they can get them to come to their school. It also makes me proud that ND operates by principle , at least some still have integrity.

you probably lift with tom lemming on one side and rob ianello on the other . I tried the early morning thing, but it wasn't the best fit for me. I hear that it is probably the healthier way to go though. I also read that more people stick to their schedule if they lift in the morning.

Yeah that's a lot of weight. I just started lifting not too long ago, and I'm in the ballpark with the deadlift and squat, but his bench destroys mine. I also give up about 30 pounds too. Any one else work out here?

great find! I like the deductive reasoning also. Yeah, Kates would have been a nice replacement if we didn't land McCoy, but I'm glad that a replacement most likely won't be needed.

This is exactly what I was trying to say. Another thing, I wasn't necessarily saying that I didn't think that the players in the past were no good, because as you said, they won 2 national titles and had a pretty nice win streak. What I was saying was, I'm not as impressed with some of the kids that they are getting this year.

At the AA game, I believe that I remember their scout recruiting rep saying that ND was the team to beat for Young's services. What the heck does scout know though. I'm pretty sure that they got this one right though; the Irish are looking pretty good to Young.

USC people are star gazers. Stars mean right next to nothing for me. Sure if a kid has 5 stars, then I'm sure he performed very well on the HS level. College is a whole nother story. A lot of kids fall through the cracks because obviously scouts can't be at every single game that a prospect will be playing at. At best they probably get to see the prospect play a few times, and maybe even more if the prospect draws enough attention. Kids like Raeshon McNeil, however, aren't noticed or given as much respect as what is probably deserved. Recruiting titles are just that,.. recruiting titles. I would rather have a national championship. Congratulations USC for having a bunch of kids that dominated on the HS level, now let's see what they can do in college. No offense to any prospect, but I was thoroughly unimpressed with several people at the AA game. Lemme just name some names. Ian Symmeonette was atrocious at OL; Maurice Evans (whom I was very impressed with) made him look like a JV player if not a freshman squad captian. Another one that didn't overly impress me was Jai Eugene. He didn't play that bad, but he did get beat a few times at critical juncters of the game. And I know, I know, he was going up against the best that anyone has to offer(supposedly), but still,... Raeshon McNeil didn't seem to have that much trouble. Myron Rolle was probably the biggest dissappointment and probably the most overrated player in my book. Terrance Austin made him look silly on a couple of occasions, and he even drew a penalty on him. The highlight of Mr. Rolle's day was stopping the Calfilsch return. Another one that looked like a 5-star recruit was Ausberry. I seen him miss a few balls that he probably couldn't have caught, but I also saw him drop a couple, and to top it all off, he had one from Jevan Snead sail right through his hands and hit him in the facemask. Go Trojans!!!! Bottom line: USC can count their lucky stars til the cows come home, I'll take the intangibles like Weis who can coach a 3-star player into an all-American, or find an underrated kid who the recruiting services have never heard of.

thanks a ton on the info! Yeah, he is probably the most important target for ND this off season, besides the secondary. Now that the secondary is taken care of, McCoy is one of the last pieces to the puzzle--and probably the most important. I didn't think that Oklahoma had a shot at him until I heard Tom Lemming about 3 weeks ago say that he expected McCoy to go to Oklahoma. I was a little shocked to be honest, but as you said, these are high school kids, anything can happen. I should probably know more than anyone, seeing that I'm 18 and I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do in life until the very end of my senior year of HS. Thanks again.

i thought that you stated that McCoy verbed to coach Haywood, but would wait until later to announce... things changed? What's the latest broker?

sounds like there is enough room for young, mccoy, and carufel... I like our chances too, seeing that Eliades verbed to PSU. I'm fairly certain that he was pretty high on the Irish, which can only mean that he was told that there just wasn't any room.