Don't Look Now

First off, I just want to say I’m no Michigan hater. I grew up in Michigan and both my mother fiance attended school there. Now that we have that out of the way, I’d just like to give credit where credit is due. This write up is a very good analysis of the offense.

I’d just like to add that our defense should be pretty stout this year, provided we get solid play from our defensive line. Our secondary is made up of upperclassmen and is quite possibly, next to receiver, the deepest area in terms of depth on the team. The key is getting consistent, solid play from the front four.

Anyways, I just wanted to chime in and give a little props. Hopefully, your boys will turn it around this year. I subscribe in the theory that college football is best when our respective schools/teams are on top.

Good luck in 09…except when you play us of course!

I haven’t even made it two sentences in and I just have to say BB, it’s “nauseated”… “nauseous” would indicate that ND makes you have the quality of making others sick. ND is nauseous, they make you nauseated….

Ok, taking off my tool hat now and getting back to what will be an excellent column.

BB and I share an unhealthy loathing of Ben Smith and his very tedious and tired “awww shucks” down home apple pie style of writing about ND. The “irish linebacker learns to tie shoe” is really only a half joke, you have to read some of these articles that we’ve had to endure for the majority of our formative years.

I will admit my loathing of ND up front, it’s a bias, and there you go. With that said, I have a few issues:

You’re dancing too lightly around the JOKE schedule (AGAIN) and the role it plays in ND’s potential for a “successful” season.

Frankly, I think Weis is a shamokery of a head coach and you need no further proof than that Navy contest back in ‘07, though there are a litany of other examples to choose from. I nearly expect a syracusian loss simply because of Charlie being the guy with the headset. Basing Clausen’s outlook upon a single game last season (nevermind that the game was against Hawai’i) is a tenuous jump that I’m also not willing to make. Clausen is by no means chopped liver, but an ascension to greatness isn’t exactly assured. The only, and I mean only way that ND makes it to 10 wins this year would be because of the schedule and lack of ferocity on it, and I would’ve made that the main point here.

I also have take issue with the “Charlie Weis creator of QBs” theme… you state: “also, if there is one thing that Weis can do, it’s turn out quarterbacks. Brady Quinn wasn’t a good quarterback until Weis showed up. Tom Brady wasn’t a good NFL quarterback until Weis got ahold of him.”

Was Quinn’s increase in production because Charlie Weis taught him how to become a better quarterback or because Charlie Weis had him throw the ball 100 more times a year than he did in years one and two? You also have to beware of the inherent stat-padding on this kind of argument anyway, if we breakdown Quinn’s performances against ranked competition, I doubt many would be lauding his greatness.

Then there’s Brady. Tom Brady threw 3 passes his rookie campaign, stepped into the starting role in September the following year and guided the Patriots to a Super Bowl title. What Weis did that was intelligent was dumb down the passing system and reads for Brady and put him in a situation where he could succeed. To say that Brady wasn’t a good NFL QB before Weis got to him is a bit of a stretch if you ask me seeing as how he practically had never set foot on the field. Brady fit the prototypical drop-back pocket passer mold at Michigan and like Grbac, Collins, Dreisbach, and Griese before him, was fairly well equipped to make the transition to the NFL. Not exactly a Vince Young type of project is what I’m getting at here. One could also take a look at what Brady was able to do after Weis departed…

I understand that you’re trying to be objective here, but it’s notre dame…. objectivity has no place in a discussion with them.

First and foremost, I think the schedule plays an extremely significant roll in getting ND to 10 wins. I think they could be “actually” good, but the schedule at least ensures that they will have the record of a good team. I also agree with you that Clausen isn’t all-world based simply on his Hawaii performance. However, I think that game was indicative of what he is capable of given the right situation, and looking at that schedule up there, I see nothing BUT “right situations.”

Also, I guess I kind of get your point about Weis in that he is not “developer of great quarterbacks.” However, his system clearly allows quarterbacks to maximize their potential when they’re not getting sacked every other play. You might be right, and Brady might have been an excellent NFL QB even before Weis got him – but Weis had the coaching chops to put him in position to succeed. Now we get Clausen, who clearly has the ability to play QB at this level at least, so it’s not too much of a stretch to assume that Weis will put him in a position to maximize that ability. I’m not saying Weis is creating QB’s out of nothing, but he does have a proven track record of giving QB’s an offense they can work in, and allowing the natural talent to take over. These things are at least proven. Can he do it again with Clausen? Who knows. But I do know that the offensive line is going to be much improved, and that Weis has a track record of getting success out of QB’s. I also know that the Hawaii defense he faced last year in the bowl game isn’t too far off from what he’ll be facing for the majority of this year. If Notre Dame loses a bunch of clunkers, it probably won’t be the fault of the QB.

I’m not even trying too hard to be objective. I look at that schedule, I look at the talent returning, and I see 10 wins, a BCS bowl shallacking at the hands of the SEC or something, and we all go home. I mean – honestly – what game up there do you have down as a decided loss for the Irish? All I see is ND. The rest look completely winnable.

Erase “ND” from the last paragraph there and insert “USC.”

That is all.

Oh – and thanks for the grammar update. Now go back to fixing vagina’s or whatever it is that you do.

SCM, if you don’t think Charlie Weis played a key role in Brady’s development, you are sadly mistaken. All you have to do is read quotes from Mr. Bundchen himself. There was reason he was a 7th round pick, am I right? I agree that Weis’ head coaching ability is mediocre at best, but your asinine statements that Weis played no role in the maturation of both Quinn and Brady are laugh out loud funny. I realize your disdain for my Irish, but take the homer glasses off for a second.

As for the schedule, I will agree that it looks like a joke on paper. But you can’t truly judge a schedule until the games are played. Utah looked like a joke of a game on your schedule last year and what did they end up doing? I didn’t want to bring this up, but your bashing of my Irish have forced me to resort to immature behavior, much like yourself. Notre Dame has NEVER played a D1-AA team, much less lost to one. The funny thing is, you guys are playing Delaware State this year. Good luck in that game, hater!

I’m just correcting myself. Tom Brady was a 6th round pick.

Asinine comments? Immature bashing? Go ahead and read what I wrote again. I never said Weis didn’t have some role in their successes (if you want to call Brady Quinn’s career a “success”) what I did say was that trying to credit their successes purely to Weis as a “creator of quarterbacks” is a big stretch. Tom Brady was a downright solid quarterback while at Michigan, people constantly forget this, 6th round pick or not, he lead us to a BCS bowl win in ‘99, and had it not been for some mismanagement of the QB situation against MSU, we likely play for a MNC that year, but I digress. The fact that Tom Brady is complimentary to Charlie Weis isn’t some sort of ipso facto proof that he was a nothing QB before he arrived in New England. Quinn’s stats improved when Weis arrived, but is that because Weis’s offense is more pass oriented than Ty Willingham’s or because Weis lead to the “dramatic” improvement of Quinn as a quarterback?

My opinion is that Weis is intelligent enough to run an offensive system that is QB friendly, how much he actually has to do with the “development” of QBs is up to you. Quinn’s senior campaign wasn’t as prolific as his junior campaign, and Brady has turned in far more impressive seasons since Weis departed for South Bend. All in all, the entire point is that I think statements like “Weis is a great developer of QBs… Clausen will be awesome this year” are filled with all kinds of holes. But hey, if you need something to get all blustery about then go ahead and read that however you want.

I don’t recall trumpeting Michigan’s schedule as a monument to rigor either… but any attempt by a notre dame fan to talk in a holier than thou fashion about scheduling is, as you would say, laugh out loud funny. I’ll let you do the grunt work to compare schedule strength of past seasons and then consider if you really want to have that argument. Oh and a loss to a I-AA team? Man that stings… we only managed to put 38 on you guys two weeks later as I recall. I don’t have any problem with the App State loss, hell we got outplayed.

A 350 diabetic in a motorized scooter could have thrown for 300 yards and 3 TD’s against Hawaii last year. I absolutely guarantee one of the three Big Ten teams will beat them and Pittsburgh has an excellent shot of beating them. Still, they’ll finish 9-3 and get pounded in a BCS bowl, which is even sweeter.

Weis has skills as a coach, the problem is that his skills are taking superior talent and molding it into crap.

I do think the Irish will have a better record in 2009. But I don’t see them wading through their schedule with ease. I’m sure Weis’ team will improve, but let’s consider first where they ended up last year before we predict how far they’ll actually go one year later (and I would exercise the same caution about Michigan, btw):

Notre Stain 2008 Offensive Stats:

Scoring offense: 86th with 22.7 pts/game.

Passing Offense: 46th with 213 yds/game, 2777 yards over 13 games (good improvement here. Kudos to Weis?)

Rushing Offense: 99th with 104 yds/game (Ugh!), 1,361 yards over 13 games.

3rd down success rate: 34.7%
To put this into context, Michigan’s 3rd down success rate was 27% in 2008.
35% places the Fighting Irish in the same honored company of Toledo and Tennessee last year. Not good.

Notre Dame was predicted in 2008 to be one of the most improved teams in the nation, and they did deliver to some extent by becoming bowl eligible.

But with the very good recruiting classes you’ve cited above, it’s difficult not to look at Charlie Weis, Corwin Brown and then the entire Notre Dame football program this year and wonder just what in the hell is going wrong down there?