What happened to the thread on Gruden?

[will munny]

Wow. Don't tell me you guys are going Nazi on me.

[Donjuan]

I accidently selected a bunch of threads unintentionally, by dragging my cursor via a touch pad that is way too sensitive, and proceeded to delete a duplicate thread, in which i deleted a bunch. I apologize.

[rdrdreamer]

Wow. Don't tell me you guys are going Nazi on me.

 

 

Nr. meinem Bruder. Diese Website ist frei von Tyrannei.

War einfach ein Fehler.

[irishwavend]

In all honesty, a Gruden thread is ridiculous anyway. Get a little fortitude and sit back and watch the season play out. I hate going over to NDNation with that bunch of morons. Hell, most expected that we could lose yesterday. We really weren't out of it either until the very end. We got SCREWED on the TD interception, because it was so obviously a touchdown. Duval had two hands on the ball and one foot down. Put that in there and we have 14 early. That changes MSU's gameplan. They might start throwing more and play into our hand a little better instead of doing what they do best: Running.

 

There is a stupid argument going on out there, too. We were outcoached by a team with less talent. How about this way of putting it. An inexperienced team got beat by an experienced team. That's much more accurate. We are YOUNG. We are going to have games like this. Yeah, I was pissed, but I'm not taking it out on CW to call for his head. Do we forget what he did with Brady and them?

 

I was pissed because Jimmy needs to learn to throw it underneath. I was pissed because Armando needs to learn to stand up and quit getting knocked down. Golden has the same build, yet, he can stand up. I was pissed because the OL needs to run block better. Ultimately, though, a young team is going to be up and down. We drove the ball well until we shot ourselves in the foot. When you look at last year, we couldn't even do that. There is progress. Everyone just needs to be freaking patient. Dang!

 

And, NDNation can fall into a sink hole for all i care. There is no excuse for the kind of negativity and idiocy they spew.

[crouchingjedi]

We got SCREWED on the TD interception, because it was so obviously a touchdown. Duval had two hands on the ball and one foot down. Put that in there and we have 14 early...

 

There is a stupid argument going on out there, too. We were outcoached by a team with less talent. How about this way of putting it. An inexperienced team got beat by an experienced team. That's much more accurate. We are YOUNG. We are going to have games like this. Yeah, I was pissed, but I'm not taking it out on CW to call for his head. Do we forget what he did with Brady and them?

.

 

First on the TD interception--it was definitely an interception and while DK had a chance, that is what happens when you throw into double coverage.

 

Second, I don't by the "we are young" argument. Georgia was young last year and they were one of the top teams in the country. We are not young at OL anymore. Not to the point of the way that unit performed yesterday. That unit collectively has more starts than most OLs in the country, and usually outweighs their defensive opponents. We had some fairly troubling problems in 2006 with the OL that was more seasoned and experienced.

 

Look, I am not calling for CWs head. We have all seen him bring in more talent than we have had in nearly 2 decades and for that I am hoping that he succeeds on the field. However, I think there is cause for significant concern at the lack of ability to run the football against an opponent like Michigan state. This is the 4th year of this staff. Ara once said "If it can't be done in year three don't expect it to be done in year 5." I think it's fair to be concerned at this point that's all I'm saying.

[Kid Gloves]

We got SCREWED on the TD interception, because it was so obviously a touchdown. Duval had two hands on the ball and one foot down. Put that in there and we have 14 early.

 

LOL! Homerism at its finest! As much as I hated it, that was an interception plain and simple.

 

Second, I don't by the "we are young" argument. Georgia was young last year and they were one of the top teams in the country. We are not young at OL anymore. Not to the point of the way that unit performed yesterday. That unit collectively has more starts than most OLs in the country, and usually outweighs their defensive opponents.

 

Totally agree! ENOUGH of this "We are young" garbage!! There is NO excuse for the brutally inept play of our O-line! They aren't young anymore....They are just pathetic!! We will NEVER be a top 25 team again until we get a solid O-line that can establish a run game. Quit making excuses and being a blind homer for this effort and for some of the coaching staff. This is NOT ND Football, and until changes are made with some of the coaches and until we drastically upgrade the O-Line we will continue to flounder in mediocrity.

[irishwavend]

On the interception the rule is this:

 

If you have two hands on the football and a foot down, Touchdown. After that happened, the guy pulled it out of Duval's hands. Duval's foot was down before the guy even began to pull it out of his hands. Go watch it again. Nobody focused on that. Now, if that had been in the open field, I would say yeah, it was an interception because Duval wasn't down, yet. But, you don't have to be down for it to be a TD. You just have to be in bounds with possession. He was. Then, the ball was ripped out.

 

Also, on the young argument, Georgia has a core of upperclassmen. That's a built in mentorship program. How many guys do we have in Crum's class? How many guys do we have in Kuntz' class. (Again, to remind you Kuntz's class is Ty's class, because the recruiting cycle takes at least a year, not two weeks to close the deal.) Our 5th year class and Senior Class are tiny compared to UGA's or any other team who "young" in the traditional sense. We aren't young in the traditional sense. Our Juniors are just now maturing and the rest of the team is dominated by freshmen and sophomores.

 

As far as the Ara 3rd year argument, it doesn't apply, because as speedster pointed out, the is Charlie's 2nd year. Once Brady and them left, the cupboard was empty and Charlie had to rebuild the program as if our entire team had been killed in a plane crash. Again, do you forget what he did when he had mature players and mature talent??? Apparently, you do.

 

I guess we could always be good chicken littles and say the sky is falling. Instead of looking at the onfield production, let's look at the dynamics in action all around the program. We are getting there. In case you don't remember, either, we had racked up about 20 sacks at this time last year. We only have 2 this year. Receivers are getting open (despite Jimmy's inability to find them) and we are making plays down field. We didn't look to bad rushing last week. It wasn't great, but it wasn't awful.

 

The hallmark of a young team is ups and downs. We're young, plain and simple.

 

Was it ND football when Brady played? I forget... Who was the coach? Those were Ty's guys, though, right? And, you were sitting on the couch saying, MAN, This isn't ND football!!! I HATE going to two BCS games in a row! (You do remember that Ty couldn't win with his guys AND Bob's guys who were pretty talented)

Edited September 21, 2008 by irishwavend

[rdrdreamer]

LOL! Homerism at its finest! As much as I hated it, that was an interception plain and simple.

 

 

 

Totally agree! ENOUGH of this "We are young" garbage!! There is NO excuse for the brutally inept play of our O-line! They aren't young anymore....They are just pathetic!! We will NEVER be a top 25 team again until we get a solid O-line that can establish a run game. Quit making excuses and being a blind homer for this effort and for some of the coaching staff. This is NOT ND Football, and until changes are made with some of the coaches and until we drastically upgrade the O-Line we will continue to flounder in mediocrity.

 

With much respect to your opinion, I do take offense to the 'Pathetic' reference. Stating that they do not show a collective effort or simply that they are not as good as other offensive lines nationally...these would get your point across.

 

But these young men are someone's son and brother. The referrence is pretty cold.

[Kid Gloves]

You obviously didn't see that Kamara never had total possession of the ball. As much as I wanted it to be a TD it wasn't. It was reviewed by the officials and they determined the same thing as I saw. I guess they missed it too, huh?!?

 

Was it ND football when Brady played? I forget... Who was the coach? Those were Ty's guys, though, right? And, you were sitting on the couch saying, MAN, This isn't ND football!!! I HATE going to two BCS games in a row! (You do remember that Ty couldn't win with his guys AND Bob's guys who were pretty talented)

 

I give CW credit for his first year as coach. The job he did with that team was phenomenal. However, I have always thought that we regressed in his second year--especially the O-line. And make no mistake about it, if we didn't have the "ND/BCS Rule" there would be no way we would have gone to that 2nd BCS game. We had no business playing in that game and it showed when we were totally unprepared and got crushed by LSU.

 

To keep using the excuse of us being young is garbage. Especially when you look at how pathetically easy and weak our schedule is this year. If we would have played 3 top 25 teams already then maybe, just maybe, the "young" excuse would hold some water. But look at who we have played! There comes a time when you have to call it like it is, and right now there are too many glaring areas that we continue to be terrible in and I put that squarely on the shoulders of the coaching staff. This includes everything from O-line play, the running game, the D-line pressure, and the predictable and boring play calling.

[irishwavend]

The D-Line is small, because we've had some misses. The OL is bad, but better than it was. Pass Protection is actually pretty good. Special Teams has improved with the exception of our damn kickers, but nobody gives the coaches credit for that one. Our secondary is MARKEDLY improved, but nobody mentions that. Team speed is improved, but nobody gives them credit for that. Recruiting is improved. We blitz more than we have since holtz. Yeah, we have some problems, but this has been a big project.

 

You generalize about the schedule being weak, but MSU is a good team. Ringer is a freak. They may not be ranked right now, but they could easily be ranked eventually. Michigan is loaded with talent. What we did against their Defense is no walk in the park.

 

As far as the BCS, it's all about money, not merit. As long as we won the games we needed to, that's all that matters. If UT had won the SEC championship game last year and gotten into the BCS, they would have earned it as little as we did. Or a better example is when FSU was 8-4 and got in because they won the ACC.

 

Most people predicted us to go 6-6 this year. We are ahead of schedule. When I have constantly said since last year on this board that we will have 8 wins this year, a lot of people gave me shit. Well, if expectations are low, what are we complaining about. I still think we'll get 8, but if we only get 6, we are where we were supposed to be.

 

What I want is your explanation about the depth of the team and where our talent is right now. How many starts have our OL had? How about our starting teams in general. How many sophomores and freshmen are we playing. How many juniors are getting their first starts. How many seniors and 5th years are playing. How do you explain the lack of numbers and lack of starts? When you guys mention Georgia and other "Young" teams, instead of generalizing why don't you show us some numbers to back up your argument? I want you to compare the starts the number of kids per class playing and the number of seniors and 5th years that play. Make those comparisons with our entire team and then we'll consider your generalizations about other teams.

[irishwavend]

Another thing. I posted this on another thread, but here is an illustrated breakdown:

 

When we had our best two years, we were working with two classes. Brady's class and Rhemas class. In CW's first year, he also had the 5th year class before Rhema's class. So if you are counting, that is Two Bob Davie Classes and One Ty class. (Restating previous threads: Rhema's class was Davie's, because the recruiting process is a full year, not a couple of weeks when you are just trying to keep what you've already been given.) Ty's 3 classes are Brady's, Crum's, and Kuntz'. CW's 3 classes are Aldridge's, Clausen's, and Dayne's.

 

So, in CW's first year, he won with 2 Davie & 1 Ty.

In CW's second year, he won with 1 Davie & 1 Ty.

In his Third year, he was shit with 2 of his classes (Freshmen & Soph) and 3 Ty.

Now, he is beginning to win with 3 of his and 2 Ty. (His classes don't have anyone to look up to or to mentor them. If you give CW one more year, you will see us get better exponentially.)

[Kid Gloves]

The difference between the way we view "young" is this: You think that you have to be experienced to be good and win. I think that if you truly have the talent, you can win regardless of being young.

 

I am looking at the actual talent level of our team and the coaching staff developing that talent. Use your eyes!!! Most our players are just not in the same league talent-wise as the top teams in CFB. We don't have overall good team speed. On offense we have 1 decent speed guy in Tate! That's it! Defensively, we have a couple of guys that run ok 40 times, but we don't have the read and react, fly to the ball type of players that you see at the top schools. Our D-line is slow and undersized, and there are no big time playmakers except for possibly Ethan Johnson. You can say all you want about being young, but just do the "eye test" when comparing our players to the top teams overall talent--and I'm not talking about a player here or a player there. I am talking about overall team talent and speed.

 

Also, if you think we are "on schedule" if we go 6-6 with a schedule that includes SDSU, Stan, Wash, Navy, Syr, Pur, and a completely down Mich team then I think your expectation level is skewed. I said it before the season and I am saying it now.....If we don't win at least 9 games with this weak schedule then our "talent" is even worse than I thought.

[irishziggy]

examples of being "young" and inexperienced. A soph qb has 2 INTs that shouldnt have been thrown (both in MSU territory) 1 forced into double coverage. A frosh WR makes nice catch and fumbles trying to get away from the defender inside the 20 yd line. That's 3 turnovers right there from our YOUNG players that happened in crucial moments in the game. It's part of the game, but inexperience is a part of it. Clausen will get better at reading his check downs, you see how much he's gotten better in a year from avoiding sacks by just throwing the ball away. Our QB is a soph, our top 3 WRs are two sophs and a frosh and our TE is a frosh. We're going to have growing pains, MSU's secondary was a veteran group and they did the job, but we werent out of that game til the end. If we can make a FG, I think the defense plays with a lil' more on the drive where Ringer breaks a 62 yarder.

[irishziggy]

another key is these guys lost last year, so they have to get used to winning together and learning how to do so. If we can win 8-9 games this year then that bodes very well for next year's team b/c we'd have a year of winning.

[crouchingjedi]

What I want is your explanation about the depth of the team and where our talent is right now. How many starts have our OL had? How about our starting teams in general. How many sophomores and freshmen are we playing. How many juniors are getting their first starts. How many seniors and 5th years are playing. How do you explain the lack of numbers and lack of starts? When you guys mention Georgia and other "Young" teams, instead of generalizing why don't you show us some numbers to back up your argument? I want you to compare the starts the number of kids per class playing and the number of seniors and 5th years that play. Make those comparisons with our entire team and then we'll consider your generalizations about other teams.

 

A reference to bluegraysky on this one, but here are the total starts heading into 2008 of all the OLs that we play:

 

Washington - 83

Stanford - 82

North Carolina -73

Purdue - 66

Syracuse - 52

Pittsburgh - 51

Michigan State - 46

Boston College - 41

San Diego State - 36

Navy - 25

Southern Cal - 25

Michigan - 16

 

In the same post they reference an Ivan Maisel article that says 75 OL starts is a sort of magic number in terms of experience and that our OL is at 60 total starts heading into the season. When it comes to OL as you can see USC is inexperienced but are they having any problem running the ball against a middle of the road big 10 school like say . . . Ohio St?

 

Georgia started 3 FRESHMAN on the OL in 2007 which averaged 177yds rushing per game at 4.5 per carry. By the way their RB was a Fr and QB a So.

 

I agree we are young and a little inexperienced, but relative to some other top programs the performance the past 3 Saturdays would indicate our offense is behind schedule. My whole point is that with our experience and talent level at OL and RB we should be doing better than 30 yards rushing against MSU. And the fact that this has been a consistent problem under Weis tells me its not going to get better.

[ND FANATIC]

Nice post and I agree 100%

[Kid Gloves]

With much respect to your opinion, I do take offense to the 'Pathetic' reference. Stating that they do not show a collective effort or simply that they are not as good as other offensive lines nationally...these would get your point across.

 

But these young men are someone's son and brother. The referrence is pretty cold.

 

Point taken dreamer. I guess I am just extremely frustrated as a ND fan.

[rdrdreamer]

Point taken dreamer. I guess I am just extremely frustrated as a ND fan.

 

Me too brother. Very fustrated. Your most recent post about youth is one of the few that hits the source. I watch some other teams and simply go 'Wow!' Its almost like the speed button was turned up a notch.

[DJonesIRISH]

All I have to say to all the doubters on this thread is, what were your honest expectations this year. I attended the game fully believing that the Irish would lose. We WERE 3-9 last year!!!!!!! Get your head out of your a$$. If you honestly thought we were going to go 11-0 up to USC you shouldn't even be postiong here. We are going to take some lumps, but our team looks night and day from last year. Get over yourself you win some you lose some and we sure as hell were not going to win them all. State is probably the 3rd best team we'll play this year, and UNC's (the 2nd) QB just broke his ankle. This season could still be a very good year to build off of. It's like I told all the dumbass State fans this is the last year you will beat us in the next 5 so live it up now.

[Katzenboyer]

All I have to say to all the doubters on this thread is, what were your honest expectations this year. I attended the game fully believing that the Irish would lose. We WERE 3-9 last year!!!!!!! Get your head out of your a$$. If you honestly thought we were going to go 11-0 up to USC you shouldn't even be postiong here. We are going to take some lumps, but our team looks night and day from last year. Get over yourself you win some you lose some and we sure as hell were not going to win them all. State is probably the 3rd best team we'll play this year, and UNC's (the 2nd) QB just broke his ankle. This season could still be a very good year to build off of. It's like I told all the dumbass State fans this is the last year you will beat us in the next 5 so live it up now.

 

I don't think the frustration comes in losing the game. I think the frustration comes in how poorly we looked losing.

 

Our O-Line was pushed around (again) when we tried running the ball. And at the end of the game, when we needed a defensive stop, our defense was pushed around to a tune of 77 yards. There's talking about pounding the ball -- what we've been doing since Day 1 -- and actually pounding the ball -- what MSU did to us on Saturday. That's disheartening.