JTennant

On 10/26/2023 at 8:58 PM, VCDomer said:

So the word is the coaching staff is going to meet to discuss next year and the possibilities of going back into the portal. Between the lines it seems to say “convince me we have THE GUY” or “Not sure about what we have so let’s explore”. The landscape of college football has changed. You better have a stud or keep looking. IMHO

I think they do this with every position and it goes without saying.

ND needs to go into the portal at QB any chance they get.

CMF repeatedly laments the difficulty getting undergrad transfers in at ND so they need to throw around NIL and whatever they can to get the best players who either have their degree or are freshman who haven't been admitted into a "school/college" yet. 
 

Unless you have Brady Quinn I'm going into the portal for a signal caller every year.

Hopefully Angeli is that dude but remains to be seen. Looked really poised and under control today. 

We should brainstorm some backups just in case it doesn't stick.

On 10/14/2023 at 10:38 AM, Baldy said:

Agreed!

And while I appreciate everything he has done for Notre Dame, it’s time for him to move on and to get someone else in this position that will help move Notre Dame into this new era of College Sports. I mean, it did appear that both Swarbrick and Jenkins were behind the times in this regard.

New and younger blood, with fresh new ideas, that will be a benefit Notre Dame…hopefully! 🤞🏼

Well said.

Expanding on what Baldy said, He's grown the endowment while both expanding curriculum and furthering its achievement and research. He gets an A grade on the academic achievement front and a B+ on the football program A- on non revenue sports.

when he took over Notre Dame didn't even have the top ranked schools within the state of Indiana: business premed law etc.. now they're regularly ranked ahead of IU and regarded as a top 15 university in the country.

Now they need leadership who'll focus on getting the football program back to prominence and maintaining great progress on its academics.

Back to Purgatory we all go as a fan base.

offense needs lots of work still.

I had a feeling we would endure several of these types of seasons when he was hired. He does a much better job getting ND ready for the big games and lays an egg against inferior teams.

A different way to get to 10-2 or 9-3.

I think this is better for recruiting because they can see that our coach is capable of beating the big boys. 

19 minutes ago, ND_JACK said:

Freeman has acknowledged that his entire career was on the defensive side of the ball. That he was going to need help learning the offense side. That is why ND knew with a Freeman hire they needed a good OC. When Tommy left that was ND opportunity to help Freeman by spending the money to get the best OC possible.

https://247sports.com/college/notre-dame/article/notre-dame-football-jack-swarbricks-response-to-andy-ludwig-contract-blowback-204844967/

Jack Swarbrick said everything when they didn't get Ludwig last year.

Ludwig cost too much to bring to SB. And then he told everyone where to go to donate money to the athletic fund.

im not saying Ludwig was the home run hire but it's becoming clear Parker ain't that guy and the overall philosophy as a fan has to aggravate you as you spend your time and money on this program.

It's smug and arrogant and his attitude reaks of entitlement. 

im glad he's leaving while also acknowledging he's fighting higher powers on this but someone has to be the catalyst for investment.

I tried posting article link unsuccessfully but google Swarbrick Ludwig 247

It certainly looked against Louisville that the lineman were not strong enough.

This can be poor S&C, too much banging in practice, and/or not proper rest.

Brian Kelly for many of his flaws had that regimen down to a science where ND wasn't having guys blow up all the time. He would talk about knowing when and how to rest guys so they're ready for kick off. It's no secret CMF practices are more intense than Brian Kelly's. 

This team needs rest and hopefully have enough juice not to get the brakes beat off next Saturday before the bye. 

7 hours ago, Rocketsan said:

This is the worst take in the history of this board…

Should be able to pin a post to someone's profile, so anytime you think about discussing or arguing with them you can be like oh this is the guy who thinks Tyler Buchner is a serviceable quarterback and then just hit backspace and delete the post and move on about your day.. 

4 hours ago, Rocketsan said:

Get a family, have kids, have parents who are aging and ailing, volunteer with the most desperate in your community… that will give you perspective. 

If we win - great. If we don’t…darn. Maybe next week.

That’s my Goosefraba for this morning…

Meh. I got a 2 year old, crazy ass wife and 4 dogs and a stressful business to run.

I was standing the whole game pacing and sweaty palms.

This one hit different. 

13 minutes ago, Ksessoms1 said:

Omg our coaching situation is frigged.  That excuse is so bad….just wow.  Freeman is in over his head.  Coaching lost this game….now I feel worse.

You do realize coaching is way more than just calling plays right? Recruiting player development etc etc

3 hours ago, EddieAngel said:

1. The Rock

2. Tom Cruise

3. Tony Rice

In all seriousness, I think Freeman can make a splashy hire in the minority world. Showing a commitment to increase diversity at the highest ranks of football is a big thing, it may tip a guy like Keeley who is an ND guy all things told towards ND as opposed to Bama. 

Pep Hamilton is an intriguing idea.

Don't GAF who the hire is/what color the skin is so long as he has experience as a standalone coordinator and is a good QB coach.

An article I read made a good case for former Colts HC: Caldwell and OC: Pep Hamilton. That would solve the minority hire but if they could talk Joe Brady back to college for a few years I think it would be worth it. 

Meritocracy first and only. No AA please. Our citizen facing aspect of the federal govt is all AA and look at those clowns.. 

But did he?

1 minute ago, FaithInIrishForever said:

its all about roster to me. He built through the QB. Gotta have a QB or get one every year to be in the "arm's race"

I think it's a good start what they did with Minchey. He'll likely get upgraded to a 4* but they need one in every class, no questions asked and they'll hit on a kid even if he's not highly rated. 

1 minute ago, USAFA03_HUGENDFAN said:

Well USC knows how to buy a team. They did it under Carrol and now that it’s legal they’ll do it again and again. Lets just hope Freeman can build a team to not get curbed stop every year like ND was in the Carrol days.

I don't need Chick Fil A bags with cash, I just want a student life that's welcoming to every highschooler. ND makes Fball players live on campus for 3 years, take real classes etc.

Let's see if they can improve their prospects by playing by the rules first before they explore bending NIL rules etc 

Sports management bachelors program would be a good start. 

9 minutes ago, Frankus said:

If ND doesn’t get into the portal/NIL game, USC is going to dominate us until Lincoln Riley is gone. 
 

Everything else is secondary. He’s a better head coach than Freeman, a better OC than Rees and he’s going to stockpile talent. The only chance we have is if we keep up by filling holes via the portal and NIL, which is perfectly legal. 
 

I expect ND to do no such thing, which will result in the annual butt whooping by USC. ND will be perfectly satisfied beating shitty ACC teams and getting pounded by USC. 

Not gonna lie.. pretty envious that USC can rebuild it's program with 19 transfers in one year.. That same feat would take 5-6 recruiting cycles for ND to replenish those numbers properly. 

Ken N is an idiot for leaving the onside kick and WR pass in the game plan because they were playing ND really well and didn’t need to steal possession or get the trickery going.

Probably a 10-14 pt game at half without those gifts. 

On 11/10/2022 at 9:26 AM, coltssb said:

Anyone 6’3, decent arm, mobile enough to not be a statue, and can complete 68 percent of their throws. Is that asking too much?

I’d love to be able to rip deep in cuts. A 6’3-5 QB with good anticipation and live arm.

This years offense would be borderline lethal if they had the ability to hit deep in breaking routes and a decent run game.

most of the deep balls are seams and 50/50 shots on the outside. 

I got grilled for posting against this before season start on rivals. I was raised Catholic and somewhat enjoyed Mass as a young adult yet I gravitated away from the Church and stream online a more modern Church out of Greenwood, IN (Emmanuel.. pastor Danny is awesome).

Let's face it, Mass is a liturgical snoozefest if you're not Catholic.. As you can't participate in Communion and likely don't know or care to recite the creeds and all of the other ritualistic parts of Mass. 

A watered down sermon(Not Joel Osteen watered down) wouldn't be a bad idea or move it to another day. I don't think it's conducive to playing big time college football when it's 3-4 hours before kick.

Growing in your faith with your brothers is a heck of a team building practice but it kinda neuters your intensity prior to kick.

Just my 2 cents. 

On 10/17/2022 at 12:06 PM, jbrown_9999 said:

Please detail the inexperience on Freemans staff.

In general, Freeman's staff seems to have pretty decent experience:

Al Golden, Deland McCullough, Al Washington, Harry Hiestand, Gerad Parker, Mike Mickens, Brian Mason all have good or better experience.

If you are complaining about Rees, I am not sure that Freeman had a choice.

 

Can't really argue the Rees thing but I do think MF would have retained Tommy Rees if it weren't upto him. 

https://und.com/staff-directory/sports/football/

A lot of these guys were playing football 10 years ago.

I just think perception is more important here, you have a young coach who has reached back into his playing days(and 1st degree networks) for assistant coaches and that's the perception so why wouldn't coach O try to campaign to get his kid on as a GA. 

On 10/18/2022 at 10:16 PM, Irish Chris said:

Yep JT, this is the biggest problem with ND getting premier talent consistently right now. Unlike what most people think, it isn't the admission standards that scare the big ballers away, it's the academic requirements for underclassmen. 

Like you said man, ND does NOT offer mickey mouse degrees for football players. Someone years ago posted on one of the major ND sites (we might have had it here too) the classroom requirements for freshmen and sophomores. There were really attractive requirements like 5th year foreign language, high-level math (Algebra 2 or trig as a minimum, calculus) Biochem...etc. basically everything to make a kid looking for a direct route to the NFL go running for his life. I can only imagine what ND requires from graduate transfers. What kid in year 5 or 6 of college with a bachelor's degree wants to take real classes? 

I believe Cardale Jones stated it most eloquently when discussing what premier football talent goes to school for......

"we come here to play football, we ain't come to play school. Classes are pointless!"

I just found this out a couple months back and it's a relatively new program. Swarbrick has helped develop a phenomenal grad school program for student athletes.. It's basically a sports/athletic grad program, but they don't have anything like it for undergrads. 

ND can basically go after any grad transfer with their 4 year degree who will qualify for the sports science thing, and it's basically a class for athletes, but ND needs more of the same for their undergrad opportunities as the portal thing has just got underway and the schools who refuse to take undergrad transfers are going to hamstring themselves tremendously.

(Georgia Tech, Stanford, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Navy Army etc)

1 hour ago, coltssb said:

I can agree with all that you are saying. But….none of that should result in what happened yesterday. The ey played a team with worst talent , harder enrollment requirements and hasn’t beaten a power 5 team till Saturday. Yesterday was all about X’s and O’s And not Jimmy and Joes. 

Oh I know it buddy. The last thing I read a few weeks ago was that Stanfords average SAT score for their football team was 1175, 150 points more than the average SAT score for ND players.

David shaw addressed the issues of academic restrictions by saying That he means no disrespect to any school, but no one compares to Stanford.. This comment was several years ago when asked about the challenges of recruiting at a school like Notre Dame or Stanford. 

I was more or less just responding to Domer's question about what it would take philosophically to get out of this pattern of sucking at football. 

You're right losing to Stanford is no excuse because ND has more talent on the roster. However, unless things change philosophically at ND, it's going to be hard to attract top flite talent and coaches at ND. Message boards think they're gonna get Matt Rhule when much better jobs at schools who offer a better path academically to attract top notch football recruits exist. This loss was on the coaches. They were on fall break and the kids were not focused. If there was a game that should have the utmost attention it should be without school distractions and UNLV coming up.

1 hour ago, ndomer4 said:

I saw he tweeted that… which makes me think this is something to monitor. 
 

Unfortunate, but this is what happens when your program is a dumpster fire. 

Man I’d love to be a fly on the wall to hear the negative recruiting against Notre Dame and CMF right now. 
 

The only other offer he tweeted was UGA. Something has to be up with this.

Horrible QB evaluation. 

They miss way too many times. They'd be better off defining their profile(size speed etc) of QB and taking one every year IMO. Even if you're signing 3* prospects you'll have continuity in the system and even a 5th or 6th year guy should one of your 4* not work out. 

Sounds unconventional and even stupid, but ND is going to have to figure something out at key positions since they're so hamstrung with the portal etc so they at least have a veteran capable signal caller ready to go. I'd take a 5th year 3* any day over the debacle we had earlier this season. 

Money affects everything. Until NDs lackluster FB performance affects the coffers, nothing will change.

The main difference(s) between Holtz ND teams and today are:

1.) Notre Dame has evolved into an academic powerhouse within the last 10-20 years so the admission standards for the general student body are higher as well as for athletes.

2.) Illinois HS football doesn’t feed a pipeline to ND like it used to. Despite Chicago being the 3rd largest metro area in the US, they don’t contribute their fair share of football talent.. underfunded schools are largely to blame.

However,

The main thing holding ND back in recruiting is not the admission standards.. it’s the fact there are almost no Mickey Mouse football degrees and student athletes are expected to compete academically with students who don’t have to juggle athletics and are better equipped mentally to handle the workload. Many football players are required to take summer school classes so they don’t fall behind. Look at USC course offerings for example.. if they get a kid who wants to be a neuro scientist he can sign up.. they also have degrees if they want to be a sideline reporter for Fox. ND being a small private school really restricts their varying curriculum. I think the design course is really the only one that doesn’t require a lot of advanced math beyond Algebra 2.

Additionally many of NDs colleges do not accept undergrad transfers and the ones that do, do not football players any slack.

I heard a lady who does ESPNU on the 12-3 slot talk about MF lamenting the low ratio of undergrad transfers they can look at because admissions usually comes back with 15-30 credit hours that ND can not accept.

All of this is on UNDs website.. I’m just putting my spin/opinion on all of it.