The state of Notre Dame football.

[MyTurn2Raise]

Weis was hired December 12th

signing day is after one week in February

Weis stayed with the Pats until February 6th for the Super Bowl (i was at Mardi Gras for this and watched the game on a big projection on the side of the Marriott...fun times)


Weis didn't close the deal on players and felt the Pats were his #1 priority.

[Dudd]

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Explain how Weis' "2 strong classes" are performing significantly worse than Ty's classes at UW, where we all agree it is harder to recruit talent.

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Good point, I probably should have directed that question at Dudd.

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I don't know. Ty has always had a penchant to look great at times and to look absolutely terrible at times, whether that's getting killed at BYU in 2004 followed by a win over Michigan, or playing USC tight last year followed up by getting smoked by a terrible Stanford team. That USC game might have had the worst example of coaching I can remember btw, they were driving with two seconds to go, had approximately 5 years to get a play ready while the refs moved the chains, and then failed to get a play off. Warrants mentioning. So, while they look decent now, I'm not writing their season off as a success just yet.

As for Weis, he's clearly failed somewhere along the line to prepare his team. If you followed them at all before the season, you'd notice something weird: no one on ND ever was injured in the preseason, or if they were, it was some freak weight lifting accident or something. If you follow that up with some of the comments following the Michigan game, how he was going back into training camp mode and the latest practices were the hardest the players had seen yet, it almost makes it seem like the team was barely hitting. It makes sense, we have trouble tackling and blocking, two things that can only be improved with more tackling and blocking in practice. He may have gotten away with this during his first two years since he had a veteran group who were used to game speed, but he's clearly failed to teach the fundamentals to a pretty much all new offense. Whether that's because he and much of his staff come from the NFL where fundamentals are taken for granted, who knows, this whole post is pretty much speculation, but it's pretty clear something needs to change and needed to change months ago, not last week.

Edited for unreadableness.

[shemp]

Right now his #1 priority is trying to figure out how to keep the ball between the hashmarks and the clock running to shorten the game so that THE Purdue University doesn't hang 60 on him.

[Thremp]

MrFeelGood,

Are you trying to say that people of Western Africa descent are not faster than white folks?

[MyTurn2Raise]

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Right now his #1 priority is trying to figure out how to keep the ball between the hashmarks and the clock running to shorten the game so that THE Purdue University doesn't hang 60 on him.

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watching Purdue's defense against Minny makes me think this might not be a problem

[Dudd]

Hey, Purdue's not scoring 60, it's our run defense that sucks, our pass defense is decent enough that teams so far just pound it down our throats and score points the long way, so 40 points at the most.

[b donka]

The argument that Weis/ND can’t recruit top recruits is silly - Weis has two very good classes and the one coming next year should be top notch. Let’s not forget he shocked many when he convinced Jimmy Clausen to spurn USC and go to Notre Dame.

I really think Weis is destined to fail – from a technical perspective, he’s great, but the coaching game requires so much more. He seems totally inept in dealing w/ 18-23 year-olds. It’s a personality thing, and his personal mojo seems much better suited for NFL players.

It’s just the opposite of Pete Carroll – his tactics and enthusiasm were not effective w/ the pros but they work pretty damm well with college kids. Without question, Weis is great w/ Xs & Os and dealing w/ adults/professionals, but he is clearly not relating to his players. The great college coaches get their kids to practice & play very hard, but the players seem to love the program, their teammates, everything else about being a college football player. It seems that Weis’ approach is taking a lot of the fun out of college football.

My sober prediction ... ND scores 21 points this weekend and wins a game.

[NozeCandy]

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My sober prediction ... ND scores 21 points this weekend and wins a game.

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You're sober for this? Jesus. My prediction is that Painter throws for 8 TDs, all at guys covered by Zbikowski.



Oh by the way, did you guys know that Zbikowski was a boxer? Wow, me neither.

[highlife]

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Team speed is a bigger part of the college game than it used to be. A disproportionate amount of the speed is in Florida and California. Kids from FL and CA do not want to move to South Bend, especially when they can go to Florida or USC.

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LOLOLOL. Totally and completely untrue. There are many teams in the Big 12 and Big 10 that have some of the top recruits at the speed positions every year. Penn State for example (bumblefudge central PA) known as LINEBACKER U has 3 absolute burners in their junior class, all of which were heavily recruited by southern schools.

[Bigdaddydvo]

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It isn't the cold winters that scare top recruits away from Notre Dame. It's the way they screwed Ty Willingham and, to a lesser extent, Demetrius Jones. The fact of the matter is that Notre Dame sent a huge message that they don't respect the Black Man. That's a tough stigma to overcome.

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Name another major D1 program with African Americans serving as both Offensive and Defensive Coordinators. I'm pretty sure you can't.