Directly in the balls is how today felt but looking at the big picture is making me feel a little better! Here's why!

 

Quarterback- Jimmy Clausen, Zach Frazer, Demetrius Jones

 

Runningback- James Aldridge, Armando Allen, Munir Prince

 

Fullback- Luke Schmidt

 

Widereciever- Duval Kamara, Greg Little, Robbie Parris, George West, Golden Tate and Barry Gallup

 

Tightend- Konrad Reuland, Mike Ragone, Will Yeatman

 

Offensive Lineman- Sam Young, Dan Wenger, Bartley Webb, Chris Stewart, Eric Olsen, Matt Carufel, Matt Romine, Taylor Dever, Andrew Nuss

 

Defensive Lineman- Kallen Wade, Justin Trattou, Paddy Mullen, Ian Williams, Emeka Nwankwo, John Ryan

 

Linebackers- Toryan Smith, Morrice Richardson, Aaron Nagel, Steve Paskorz

 

Defensive Back- Raeshon McNeil, Darrin Walls, Gary Gray, Sergio Brown, Leonard Gordon, Jashad Gaines, Harrison Smith

 

Kicker- Ryan Burkhart

 

 

When have you seen a two year recruiting stretch like that at Notre Dame? Precisely...never! Lets not overlook what Weis has done here so far. WE WILL HAVE ONE OF THE MOST DOMINATING O-LINES IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL! Clausen will have all day to pick apart defenses while Aldridge and Allen are running through them! I have followed recruiting for a long time and some of the names you heard being mentioned at the game today will quite possibly be the last time you hear their names again. There is always an up and comer who wants your job or there is a veteran whom they will not be able to beat out! Fact is some of these kids will never become what they are expected to! Guys that we absolutely must have now may have disappeared on a depth chart in two to three years! Go back and look at the rosters from a few years ago and how many of those guys have you heard from since! I bet theres more than those you have heard of! As some of these kids continue to grow position changes are always in store and are going to happen! My point is that dont fret too much because you never know how a kid will fill out! Kallen Wade might not be able to grow into the body of a defensive end and end up as an outside linebacker who is a complete terror off the edge! You just never know! I look at that list above and I think to myself I can see almost every guy up there being able to contribute to the team! Thats alot more than can be said about many other teams whom we are competing with! We dont have any head cases or bad eggs up there so their ahead of the game already and we are to because of it! We are going to be where we all want to be in a few years! Patience my friends Weis is not Stupid! He knows what it is going to take too win! We WILL get there with many of the players above leading the way!

Good post BG. It's really great to see that we all appear to be getting back to normal, and now that we can think a bit clearer, we realize the world is not ending for ND. BTW you forgot Kerry Neal Also, if we can add Blackwell and a couple more to that list then our future only looks even brighter

Yeah you also forgot Romine and Richard Jackson.

I forgot Richard Jackson and Kerry Neal up there as welll! Too many to remember!

And DJ Hord

LOL, these 2 classes just keep getting better and better. Oh wait a minute, Hord was in Ty's/Weis' class so idk if you're counting him or not.

I forgot Richard Jackson and Kerry Neal up there as welll! Too many to remember!

If there are too many to remember, then that's a good sign!

Linebackers- Toryan Smith, Morrice Richardson, Aaron Nagel, Steve Paskorz

 

We need more, more and more!

 

The problem with this list is that it is spread out over 2 recruiting seasons! We should have that type of depth in just one season!

GREAT post Tom. I was hoping someone would have the time to do this, primarily because in the the wake of today's disaster forever known as Donald-Gate we lost perspective of where we are truly at. So thank you, but now that you have done the work for me I just wanted to focus everyone's attention to the secondary.

 

Look at the players we have in the secondary. Starting with the CB's, its literally the best group of 3 CB's in 2 classes of any team in the country. For the past 2 AAA games we have had the best CB on the field (McNeil and Gray), and considering Walls played a good amount of time as a freshman I'd say he's on his way to stardom too. For safeties, with Harrison Smith and Sergio Brown(my favorite S from last year) you have two very solid guys and with Smith in particular a guy who can run with most WR's in coverage. Because it came over the holidays we kind of forgot about this guy, but Harrison Smith is a BEAST. Truly just a freak of an athlete.

 

So all in all, the secondary will be great. Great coverage guys, good speed, great group altogether.

 

Now look our DL. Sure we are a bit thin at DT, but I think Ian Williams was the steal of this class. He has the talent of a 4 star player with his quickness off the ball but just is a bit rough around the edges. If you think its a coincidence that Laws and Landri have made huge strides since Weis' staff has arrived then you're fooling yourself. I think Williams will be great. For the DE's, Trattou is a BEAST (by the way, props to all you DD'ers who have been talking about this kid for literally like 5 months now--you weren't kidding, he is an ELITE player). We have Neal and Wade as the speed rushers and Ryan is a solid all around effort guy. To me that is a very solid D-Line. As good as we've had since the Holtz era.

 

So in my opinion we will have two pretty strong areas in our defense, and our biggest weakness now (secondary) will soon be our biggest strength. Suddenly teams will have to start beating us on the ground and then Minter's more traditional defense strategies will work much better.

 

And as its been said before, our offense with Clausen will be RIDICULOUSLY good, led by a dominant line with Young and Romine (who according to Rivals was the smoothest lineman for the West).

 

My point is this: Basically today we lost out on a big time LB. We had our chance with Edwards and of course....Donald. But so what? Malcolm Smith is still on the board and Mr. Filer is probably already drooling over the opportunity to come in and start as a playmaking true freshman.

 

Things are VERY GOOD in recruiting, even after Donald-Gate. And the beauty of striking out at the AAA game is that we can only go up from here until signing day. Frankly I think Rockne may be onto something. Someone who wore another hat today may end up in Blue and Gold.

 

Anyway sorry for the long post, I get wordy after a few cocktails.

 

And as always....GO IRISH!!!!

BG its nice to see the guys on "paper" like that!

 

We have a great class already "compared to tw", actually we kill tw classes,

 

Prez you make great points about the dbs, rbs, and the OL!!

 

I think we just all had such a tough time going 1-7, this morning that really i think we will be ok, in the end! we just need to keep the faith with Weis!

Great post BG.

And DJ Hord

 

a good chance to start in 2007.

 

Nice work BG.

I am NOT one of those guys who stubbornly claims that we do not need some of those guys that we lost along the recruiting trail......it sure would have been nice to get Donald and while I am also not one of those to claim that this recruit is overrated when he commits someone else....but I did mention to my brother before Donald announced that I had yet to hear his name during the whole game and was a bit disappointed before his announcement.....Donald would have been a great addition, but we got clausen and he is by far the most important recruit in this class.....look at miami and florida st., lots of talent but no quarterback equals disaster.....this is a huge run-on sentence.....put clausen, jones, frazier, and sharpley together and we have quality quarterback depth and thats the beginning of quality team

Yeah... The one player in the game yesterday I wanted was Gallipo. It is too bad he pulled the trigger so quickly.

this is a huge run-on sentence.....

 

Grammar is not an issue on the DD. Your forgiven (see)

 

But all you guys are right, there is a lot of talent in and coming in to South Bend.

 

I'm just looking forward to the days when the players that are most feared in big-time games are the guys wearing Blue and Gold, and I think that is right around the corner.

 

And I agree with Prez, I have been OVERLY impressed with Harrison Smith from everything I've seen. I think he's going to be a stud.

that was a GREAT post BG...makes me feel a ton better!! im not even being sarcastic, im just feeling in a good mood today literally because of that

weisforprez, BGTom, joresendez...you all make a terrific point about our tomorrow. Yes I was initially disapointed, but as I noted on a different thread...we really did not lose out on anything? Really. There is an old saying that I find truer now than ever before. It goes something like this...

 

We may not have everything we wanted...but we have everything we need!

I of course, am just uncertain of what is coming in 2007. I looked at BG Tom's nice list then our schedule less the 8 months away. Georgia Tech Sept 1st at ND, then Penn State, Michigan and Michigan State.

 

It's puzzling our first is Georgia Tech at home but then we haven't been all that tough in our own house. Twice I read because of the low early 2006 scoring Weis simplified the play book. We should have improved and been able to add more to the play book rather then cut some out. Of course we got a bit miffed as fans when we read things like 'they didn't show us anything new.' I am not sure what happened to a supposedly veteran group to have to simplify rather then install more complex schemes? The coaches will go to clinics over the summer to learn newer techniques.

 

Early on I questioned the lack of desire of the team. Readers gave me a few shots for that. But now the Observer questioned. I know it hurts an otherwise fine group to say you have no heart. But I ask you were these the same guys that fought USC down the line in 2006? THAT was burning desire to win. Leadership was absent, some were all over the field and sidelines others went through the motions.

 

But that was all 2006. We have a bunch of young puppies as Weis calls them. We could have the usual falling off of Sophomores but then not that many had first class time so I can't see that. Highly recruited Freshmen and all that means towards fumblitus. Looking at our first four games we could well be 0-4. Some are calling for coaching changes and we are 19-6, I wonder what fans will be saying after September closes? Critical mental errors and flags? We had them with vets. Fumbles, critical dropped passes? Ditto. Interceptions, sacks and on and on.

 

One thing I have to say again is we will need leaders. That's not giving some guy some stripes and saying, lead us. It's having a drive killing interception and finding guys all the more fired up for when they get the ball back rather then tail tucking. I saw georgia in here saying Young and Matt C were on the sidelines practicing blocking techniques. That is what i mean

I get the feeling that once Toryan Smith gets into the starting rotation you will see the middle backer position played completely different than the last few years! Thats not taking away from Brandon Hoyte or any of his counterparts but if you liked Galippos performance yesterday wait until you get to see our rottweiler in the middle! I belive Toryan Smith should have been in the rotation more often this season! I think Minter screwed up there! Smith will be the leader on defense your looking for SJ! I have a great felling about that! I think Toryan Smith could go down as one of our best when its all said and done! Your Quareterback should always be your leader on offense and I can see Clausen being that guy especially after yesterday. I cant wait to see what Weis does with him! Not to take anything away from Steve Clarkson but there is no better teacher this kid could have than Coach Weis! I still cant believe coming from the doldrums of Willingham's recruiting we have the number one prospect in the nation coming to Notre Dame and its all because of Charlie. I can remember a few years back when your best recruit was a low four star guy and if we got two of them we were lucky! Seems to me the norm was two and three star guys! When people realize that Weis just had back to back ten win seasons and did it all with smoke and mirrors imagine what its going to be like when he gets his guys in there for four years. I am not trying to take anything away from our seniors but look at the monumental difference Weis has made in our team in two seasons! We had to hold umbrellas over our heads so the ants didnt piss on us a few years back! It seemed like every day you were listening to some asshole on espn talk about how far Notre Dame had fallen. Now we are getting the number one recruit in the country and our average recruit is a high four star guy! We all had high expectations this recruiting cycle and if you look at the way our guys played yesterday I believe we met them! So we didnt get Donald! We arent going to get everybody! Willingham burned alot of bridges down South alot of which Charlie is still trying to repair and we are getting better down there! Allen and Little are proof of that! We are going to be okay! We are Notre Dame....its what we do!

At last a little sanity restored. Nice posts everyone.

 

Where would ND be right now if Ty were still here? Brady wouldn't be in the Heisman race, wouldn't be an NFL #1 pick, and the other guys wouldn't be drafted. Coaching = excellence and CW can coach. One thing you can't coach is talent and the cupboard has been bare for a few years.

 

I was as P---ed as anyone that Donald et al. didn't choose ND. Today, I read this post, which was exactly what I had been thinking - if anyone else were coaching ND, the ND hat wouldn't HAVE BEEN ON THE TABLE! That alone says it all. If some guy doesn't pick us, then too bad for him, b/c he just made the million dollar mistake. CW knows what it takes to play NFL football and will get you there only if you have the drive and desire. More importantly, CW knows what makes ND special and if a kid doesn't feel it, then as the song says "Move along, move along"

 

Too many talented players are left behind and as has been stated before - these players are prima donnas and don't want to hear they have to work hard to succeed. They believe they will be drafted #1 by just walking in the door. ND is going to be better than a lot of people predict next year - remember Mark May, et al. "ND WILL BE 0-6". You will hear this all again next year and the naysayers will be disappointed and shocked. Clausen and Gray impressed the H--- out of me. I thought "Clausen's better than Quinn" albeit against the best high school kids, but wow the throws and reads were great. Can't wait for Blue-Gold game should be something to watch.

 

DEEP BREATH - sorry for the long post....GO ND

I can remember a few years back when your best recruit was a low four star guy and if we got two of them we were lucky!

 

Yeah this really wasn't that long ago. In those days a guy like Golden Tate that REALLY wanted to go to ND would be our biggest get. Now, CW is selling the university and getting kids that normally wouldn't even consider ND to think about us (Donald, Martin, AA, Sam Young).

 

I get the feeling that once Toryan Smith gets into the starting rotation you will see the middle backer position played completely different than the last few years! Thats not taking away from Brandon Hoyte or any of his counterparts but if you liked Galippos performance yesterday wait until you get to see our rottweiler in the middle!

 

By the way this is right on too, Toryan could be an excellent middle linebacker for us, and sorry but I saw a little bit of Nagel and Paskorz and those guys aren't scrubs either.