Sure Manti looks to be a great prospect, but I laugh at all those who anoint him as the second coming of you know who. Let's let the kid adjust to being away from the Island...his family...to the stress of a University education and the academic demands before we retire his jersey.

 

I'm as big a Notre Dame fan as there is, but come on guys. Let's have a little perspective. We've had some really great prospects come through here that never panned out. I've said it a couple times, we all remember CPA and how pumped we were when he came to town. How did that work out for us?

Edited May 9, 200915 yr by rocketsan22

Sure Manti looks to be a great prospect, but I laugh at all those who anoint him as the second coming of you know who. Let's let the kid adjust to being away from the Island...his family...to the stress of a University education and the academic demands before we retire his jersey.

 

I'm as big a Notre Dame fan as there is, but come on guys. Let's have a little perspective. We've had some really great prospects come through here that never panned out. I've said it a couple times, we all remember CPA and how pumped we were when he came to town. How did that work out for us?

 

I must be really tired Rocket, but who is CPA? If it was the guy who used to post...man do I miss his avatar...

Carlos Pierre Antoine...friend of mine, and biggest let down in ND history. As far as the homerism title - it's a little misleading. This should be under a Manti thread. And, really, who cares. We have nothing else to do. Let people get jacked up about Manti. It's better than negativity in the off season. Didn't we have enough of that when so many of you were calling for Charlie's head? Ignorantly...?

The homerism for nd fans is always out of control, most college football fans I come across hate nd fans because of the homerism. Even when we suck there's lots of fans that swear we're the best and can beat anybody. Oh well. I came across this board and signed up a couple years ago because I felt like there were level headed people here who actually knew what they were talking about

It's far from just homerism about Manti.

 

I just think some of us need to look at the big picture.

The homerism for nd fans is always out of control, most college football fans I come across hate nd fans because of the homerism. Even when we suck there's lots of fans that swear we're the best and can beat anybody. Oh well. I came across this board and signed up a couple years ago because I felt like there were level headed people here who actually knew what they were talking about

 

That's why I like it here too. But it drives me nuts when people prematurely start putting our kids in the College Football Hall Of Fame.

Carlos Pierre Antoine...friend of mine, and biggest let down in ND history.

 

You are friends with him? Was a sad Senior Day for me when he ran out the last time because I knew what pressure and expectations he had coming in. Sounds like he was a really great kid. Hope it all worked out for him in the end.

Carlos Pierre Antoine...friend of mine, and biggest let down in ND history. As far as the homerism title - it's a little misleading. This should be under a Manti thread. And, really, who cares. We have nothing else to do. Let people get jacked up about Manti. It's better than negativity in the off season. Didn't we have enough of that when so many of you were calling for Charlie's head? Ignorantly...?

 

There is absolutely NO argument against the fact that CW underperformed last season. When you blatantly underperform at Notre Dame, you take heat. And if he does it again this year there's no doubt we will be having a coaching search. So don't act like the the people that were/are questioning CW's ability are way off in left field.

Rocket's right, but Te'o is considered a better prospect than CPA was coming out. Hopefully that means the chances of a bust are lower.

There is absolutely NO argument against the fact that CW underperformed last season. When you blatantly underperform at Notre Dame, you take heat. And if he does it again this year there's no doubt we will be having a coaching search. So don't act like the the people that were/are questioning CW's ability are way off in left field.

 

Have to agree here. The loss to Syracuse this past year was just embarrassing. No excuse. Don't care how young the team was. An offensive genius shouldn't be keeping games close when you're playing Syracuse or Navy. Don't care how good we looked against Hawaii because it was Hawaii not Georgia or SC.

Have to agree here. The loss to Syracuse this past year was just embarrassing. No excuse. Don't care how young the team was. An offensive genius shouldn't be keeping games close when you're playing Syracuse or Navy. Don't care how good we looked against Hawaii because it was Hawaii not Georgia or SC.

 

look, you guys don't want answers. you just want to point fingers. me, i look for REASONS why things happen and "CW sucks" ain't what i'm looking for. when i look at our late season collapse, i see depth and maturity issues. when floyd went down, our O basically collapsed. you cannot solely blame that on the coach., the coach has tried to build up the depth of this program back from the depths (pun intended) that ty let it sink. again, we just THIS SEASON have 80 scholarship players!! you think that doesn't matter or something? do you not get how significant a hole CW was put in by the depth issues??

 

the team barely underachieved last season. most people, including me had them at 8 wins. they won 7. wow. what a huge diff. and if we had ANY kind of depth we most likely win 9.

 

now, this year is THE year to TRULY evaluate CW and this team.

Manti's going to be a beast!

Rockets - I was just going to ask you when you were going to put Mike Floyd on your #3 banner, but I guess I have bad timing with that question based on this thread. If he turns out to be a star in the next few years, you'll have to save room for him.

He'll be on there by season's end

look, you guys don't want answers. you just want to point fingers. me, i look for REASONS why things happen and "CW sucks" ain't what i'm looking for. when i look at our late season collapse, i see depth and maturity issues. when floyd went down, our O basically collapsed. you cannot solely blame that on the coach., the coach has tried to build up the depth of this program back from the depths (pun intended) that ty let it sink. again, we just THIS SEASON have 80 scholarship players!! you think that doesn't matter or something? do you not get how significant a hole CW was put in by the depth issues??

 

the team barely underachieved last season. most people, including me had them at 8 wins. they won 7. wow. what a huge diff. and if we had ANY kind of depth we most likely win 9.

 

now, this year is THE year to TRULY evaluate CW and this team.

 

Yep. And the reason seems to be that we were a young team with no depth. I've heard that the past two years and yawn every time I hear it now.

 

What about coaching being another reason? Latina and Minter just to name two of them? Did they stink or were they victimized because we had a young team? Sorry but there is no reason we should lose to Navy in OT one year and lose to Syracuse the next. There is no reason that our offense cannot score a TD until the third game of the season in 2007. An offensive genius should be able to score a FG against BC and Penn State.

 

For the record, I did want CW gone this past year, but I've also said that he has been a tremendous recruiter. I hope he does very well and we get a BCS bowl win. More than anything I want ND to win, period. Until we do youth and depth are nothing more than excuses. He has the pieces to win this year. We'll see what he does because an almost win against SC in 2005 shouldn't be your biggest victory.

Yep. And the reason seems to be that we were a young team with no depth. I've heard that the past two years and yawn every time I hear it now.

 

It isn't just that we had a young team. It was also the fact that the upper classman who were playing were MAC level athletes. USC has recruited so that when they lose their Defense and Sanchez, they can replace them with super talented upper classmen. When we lost Quinn, McKnight, Walker, Samardzija, Abriamiri, Morton, Santucci, Harris, Leitko, Landri, Frome, N'Dukwe, Wooden, Richardson, and Thomas, we did not have five star Juniors, or even four star Juniors, or even 3 star Seniors to take their place.

 

The backup for Quinn was Soph Sharpley (3*), the backup for Darius Walker was Freshman Prince (3*), the backup for Samardzija was Soph Grimes (3*), McKnights backup was Anastacio ...whoops he graduated, Morton backup was Mattes .. oh he graduated too. Santucci's backup was Freshman Olsen. Ryan Harris was backed up by Soph Turkovich. The backup for Abriamiri was Senior Justin Brown (2*). The backup for Landri was Kuntz (3*).

 

Our previous coach cost us so much. The loss of talent cost us two rebuilding years that have cost Wies the ability to recruit. I believe we would have more recruits this year and last if we had won more games.

 

The proof was in the drafts the last few years. Heck even UConn had more talent in the draft.

 

You are right about Syracuse. I firmly believe Latina lost his job against Syracuse. The line sucked every bit as bad as 07. Watch the game over. If you just watch the 1st half Wenger, Olsen, and Young badly missed assignments...especially Wenger. Watch it again and hit the pause button so you can see the missed blocks. It makes me question which game next year we will forget to show up.