.jpg)
AP Photo/Joe Raymond
Things appear to be looking up for Notre Dame's football team. The Irish won there first bowl game in over a decade last year against Hawaii. This season the Irish have a favorable schedule and are returning a large group of experienced players at key skill positions. Charlie Weis, ND's embattled coach, has assumed play calling duties once again, and hired a top notch defensive coordinator.
Just looking at the schedule it does appear the Irish have a shot at running the table:
2009 Notre Dame Football Schedule
Sept. 5 NEVADA
Sept. 12 at Michigan
Sept. 19 MICHIGAN STATE
Sept. 26 at Purdue
Oct. 3 WASHINGTON
Oct. 10 Open Date
Oct. 17 USC
Oct. 24 BOSTON COLLEGE
Oct. 31 vs. Washington State (at San Antonio, Texas)
Nov. 7 NAVY
Nov. 14 at Pittsburgh
Nov. 21 CONNECTICUT
Nov. 28 at Stanford
BC and USC are the only teams on the schedule that Notre Dame should have problems against and both are replacing key personnel. However, even if they win out, I believe ND will suffer another lopsided loss in a BCS game and will continue to do so until they make radical changes to either their recruiting standards or their offensive strategy.
Notre Dame is the most popular team in college football. No other team has a truly national following. Take any SEC team or Big Ten team and try to get people outside their region to watch them consistently and you will fail. Notre Dame's subway allumni and their tradition make them a great draw. They are the Yankees of college football. Writers will vote them #1 and ND will go to the BCS championship game if they go undefeated. A national championship game with ND in it will do better than one without it ratings wise. That is all great for ND, but I predict they will get demolished in any game against a quality SEC or Big 12 opponent. Why do I believe this?
Notre Dame lacks the quality and quantity of athletes SEC teams like Florida and LSU have. While you can take ND's players and match them against Big Ten second tier teams or Service Academies and get good results, when you try and run a pro style offense against superior talent like in the top teams from the SEC, Big 12 and even Big Ten the result is ugly for the Irish. Look at the beat downs LSU and Ohio State put on Notre Dame in the BCS games. Why did ND get killed both times? They couldn't match up. You can have the best plans or tactical advantages going into a game, but as Mike Tyson said 'everyone has a plan until they get hit in the face' - if your o-line is not made up of NFL quality players and the opponents d-line is and you are trying to run the Patriot's offense your team is going to get crushed.
Why is there such a big talent drop off at ND compared to the top programs? I believe there is a deadly combination of stricter academic requirements and what I'll call social opportunity costs working against ND. ND does have standards. They won't let in total ganstas. They won't let in guys who have no chance of graduating. Randy Moss couldn't get in for example. In addition, once they get in, ND's football players must actually live in dorms, follow rules, and go to class. Contrast this with other schools where football players can live off campus from the get go, where there are easier majors, and where there are far less restrictions on the social lives of students. You can admire ND for having standards or call them holier than thou. Either way the end result is that they are self limiting their recruiting pool through academic and ethical filtering. But there is another filter that ND's recruiting pool goes through, and this filter is not self imposed.
Notre Dame compared to other schools is not a lot of fun. First the school is located in South Bend. Its a small midwest city with midwest weather. There are a lot of other places to go to school with way better cities and way way better weather. In the US, the big movement of population in the last 30 years has been from the colder Midwest and North to the warmer South and West. South Bend doesn't have mountains or beaches, it doesn't have a cool downtown or a lot of beautiful architecture. It is easy to argue Boston College has a much better atmosphere surrounding its campus. Same with non catholic schools like Florida.
I think what ND has to do is realize even if they relax their standards and rules there are just a lot of kids who are not going to pick South Bend over somewhere warm like Austin. Just like legions of midwesterners who've moved to Arizona are probably not going to move back, the mindset of high school seniors is not going to change. All things being equal, if you're not raised loving ND, and you have your pick of colleges to play for why not play for a team in a nicer location? In other words the talent gap is probably permanent. So what can ND do?
First admit it. You can tackle a problem without properly identifying it. ND thought their problem with recruiting was the coaching. So they hired Ty Willingham and Weis. Neither action has 'fixed' their problems of beating top ranked teams in BCS bowl games. What ND needs to do is adjust their strategy on the field to match the type of players they have. Notre Dame should copy Navy's model.
Navy knows it can only get a limited amount of talent both in the door. For example, everyone there takes electrical engineering and differential equations. Even the football team. You are not going to be able to admit guys who can't pass those classes. In addition, even if you could, how many guys would put up with Navy's rules? Not many. Your players will be smaller and slower. It is a fact of life. Navy adapted to its circumstances by running the option and using angle blocking. They kept their defense off the field by eating up the clock with long drives.
ND should have gone after Navy's former coach, Paul Johnson. Johnson took Navy's system and implemented it with better player at Georgia Tech. They beat Georgia. ND fans or maybe NBC probably would not initially like the idea of watching triple option football. But I think winning cures all problems. Could a team win a BCS game using this offense? Georgia Tech got crushed by LSU after all (although it was Johnson's first season and Rome wasn't built in a day).
If Notre Dame switched to a triple option what I think would happen is that the school would return to a modified glory. After an initial adjustment period I think ND starts winning more games against ranked teams. They become this wildcard playing an offense most teams are not built to stop. They win out every three of four years and every ten years they win a BCS championship game. I do not think you can ever have a Florida type situation where you are in the hunt every year. But I do think you can be tough every year and respectable every year. I think once or twice a decade you get some breaks and some special talent have a chance to win it all. I think the landscape of college football has changed to such an extent that that is the best ND can hope for. This is still pretty good.
Excited for the upcoming season? Try the football workout Brady Quinn does in the video below:
Comments
While I agree with most of your points, there's still no denying that Notre Dame's recruiting classes have been AT WORST top-25 year in and year out. With that kind of talent, they should at least be able to churn out top-25 finishes.
Notre Dame's recruiting is not the problem. The problem is they had to go with someone who was by far not their first choice and now his coaching is displaying why he wasn't.
Nate
I think you make a valid point about recruiting, however I think a recruiting class is a crap shoot at best. I think by virtue of someone being recruited by ND their value goes up - he must be good he got recruited by ND. Even the NFL draft is a crap shoot and you have a couple of years data to play with, high school kids are even more of an unsure thing.
Chris
I think the reason ND didn't get Meyer for 2 reasons. First was travel. He wanted to spare his family from the national travel he'd have to do to recruit. At Florida he can recruit close to home and be back home for dinner. 2nd was the talent was pretty bare compared to a top SEC team. Years ago OJ McDuffie visited ND and commented that he thought his social life would be very limited there. It was part of his reason for picking Penn State. I think there are a lot of kids like that. I'd even say BC has a much better environment than ND, in a nicer town, in a bigger metro area with more to do.
I am sick and tired of the excuses about ND recruiting guidelines. CAL & UCLA have tough guidelines too but they have been at least respectable. ND's schedule is almost laughable. They are not going undefeated this year and should not go to a BCS game with a two-lost regular season record. If they do they will get blown-out once again.
Face the facts: Today ND is not an elite program and they cannot compete week-in-and week-out with top ten ranked national programs.
RWINLA
I agree with your points about UCLA and Cal, but if ND wins out or even has 1 loss they will get a BCS shot. It is unfair but they are a national draw.
all of college football should have high standards, Notre dame should not have to lower its standards. Have are young adult act with respect and responsibility and expect more out of them. Teams like Florida may have decent athletes but they can even spell Florida and cant even graduate. They have no future if they ever get injured. At Notre Dame that degree actually carries weight because employers know that to get that degree the athletes had to do the work. Meyer did not go to ND because he wanted a team that was already assembles and did not want to work for it, just like his players, simple thugs that get arrested each week. Notre Dame keep up the high standards, thats why you are the elite name in college football and everyone wants to be like you.
Mike
I think ND should start a 1 year prep school for football players who can't cut it yet in the classroom. Navy, Army and Air Force do this.
Kevin
While that sounds good for a football program, Notre Dame definitely wouldn't be comfortable with that as a UNIVERSITY. Notre Dame is currently ranked the #18 University in the country by US News and World Report. The only other schools with even decent football programs that rank high in these academic ratings are Stanford (#4), Vanderbilt (T-18), Virginia (#23), UCLA (#25), Michigan (#26), and USC (#27). The "problem" with Notre Dame is they aren't happy being elite in one area. They want to be top-tier academically, top-tier spiritually, and top-tier athletically. I don't buy the excuse that athletes are all "thugs" that won't go to South Bend because ND's entire athletic department boasts perennial top-25 teams. And anybody who tells you that Golden Tate and Jimmy Clausen spend Saturday nights preparing for Mass the next day are lying through their teeth. I think ND has simply had a string of bad luck and underachievement and it should be ending this season.
Mike
I agree ND is a good school, as are the other schools you mention. However, I would say the social life at each of the schools you mention is a lot better than at ND. Non thugs take this into consideration. In addition I'd say ND's campus while nice can't match the weather at USC or Stanford or even Vandy. I'd say Ann Arbor is a much nicer town than South Bend. In short the atmosphere at ND while unique isn't everyone's cup to tea. For some people ND is a Mecca, but are there enough of those guys out there for ND to return to glory? I do not think so, at least not using a pro style offense.
Run the table and suffer a lopsided loss in a bowl game? Just doesn't add up. If they can run the table (very doubtful), then they would be doing enough right not to get blow out.
I think in the BCS computer rankings, there should be a factor that includes graduation rates. How can ND compete teams that graduate only 30 % of their African American athletes?
Jerry
I thought the same thing when they got beat pretty bad by Ohio State and LSU a few years ago. Other than USC and BC who is really BCS tough on their schedule this year?
Peter
I love the idea of graduation rates being a factor. Football should reward teams like ND with high rates. One idea I thought of was for every player that doesn't graduate for whatever reason, your team loses a scholarship. And you lose it for 4 years.
ND's schedule is ranked #36 this season by Phil Steele, the most accurate forecaster of strength of schedules. They got new coaches at the trouble spots so should be pretty good this year. As to the person who said that ND has to have only one loss or run the table. That is less losses than other BCS teams. Usually there are some 2 loss teams in BCS games.
The disadvantages mentioned are accurate. To their credit ND's administration has decided to maintain high academic and behavioral standards. This means that it will take an exceptional coach to be just competitive - you are never going to see a Notre Dame run of victories as in the 30's and 40's. The schedule makes sense. Live with it and enjoy, knowing you don't have to look at a police blotter every day to see who can play. Minor point - blue pants should be added for road games and some home games.
GB
thanks for the input, great point. I would be much more likely to watch and care about a BCS game with ND playing than without ND playing
Jim
Great point. On uniforms, I like ND's green uniforms, I understand the tradition of blue, but think the green looks better. When they play Navy it looks like a spring game, why not use green a bit more?
i think the academic standards are definitely being overestimated in terms of their impact on the program. The 2008 class was ranked no. 2 by both rivals and scout. This year's class was not great, but still acceptable with plenty of talent. Weis has recruited excellently, and this year he'll have his first mature group of athletes he actually recruited. It'll be interesting to see what he does with them
Kevin's Bio (revised)
Kevin Flynn is a health and fitness enthusiast, who has completed several marathons and triathlons. He is writing about this topic because he wants to enable those with competing time commitments to maintain healthy lifestyles. Kevin doesn't know $hit about football.
There, fixed it.
Kevin,
Stick to writing about something other than football. This article came off as one from a casual fan with no real information to back up your theory. Weis has proven you can recruit to ND, that much is certain. All the young talent should mature this year and the coach's hard work on the recruiting trail will bear fruit. Please do more homework on this subject.
Kevin, I'm afraid I have to agree with Jason. You say in your article that Rome wasn't built in a day. You are correct and neither was ND football. You never touched on why ND has struggled the last two years. How many under classmen played key positions. How badly Ty Willingham recruited when he was here(Go ask Washington how he did). I'm not sticking up for Weis, but noone wanted this job and he easily could be making millions in the NFL coordinating. He saw what other coaches saw which was a horrible situation to walk into, only he chose to accept it. Run the option? Why? Because no one ever prepares for it? Thats just dumb. Don't talk football anymore.
Horrible commentary. That is all. Educate yourself.
Kevin, alot of good points, I agree with you completely. Notre Dame is definately not the party school. I live in Florida and there athletes are arrested constantly on drug charges, rape, assaults, etc. If the university cant police its students I dont see why the NCAA shouldnt step in. I just think to get accepted to a major university there has to be a level playing field, example...to go and play football at ND you need a 2.5 gpa and at FL you need a 1.3. Peter mad a good point as well, teams like FL only graduate 30% of black player while ND is tied with Navy at top 98%. There shouldnt be that big of a gap, if teaams like FL cant do better in that department they should get probation until they can get those rates to a acceptable level, maybe 60%.
You guys are clueless. Notre Dame is where it is because Willinham spent all of his time on the golf course and not on the recruiting trail. The jury is still out with Weis but ND is not where it is because of admission standards. We heard the same BS when Holtz took over. These kids should be able to write a sentence and catch a football. Give me a break!
The only schools ranked higher academically than ND are the ivies. ND will not compromise. Scholastically, spiritually, ethically, athletically and traditionally, ND is one of our finest national institutions. ND is loved (and hated) on a global scale, and it's probably a fact that the Fighting Irish have more fans than any other team in sports (including the Yankees). People love ND for what they stand for: God, Country, Notre Dame. I mean, Florida has a great coach and football team, but wadda they hang their hat on? I say, GO IRISH!!!!
Amen Mike. I am so sick of the ND critics constant snide remarks about ND academics. As a member of the ND Board of Memphis I can tell you with absolute certainty Notre Dame will not lower their academic standards even if it means they will never have the athletes Florida has. ND is not a football factory for possible NFL players. I totally concur about Urban Meyer. He did not want to do battle with Admissions over potential recruits. So be it. Frankly, I am not president of the Charlie Weis fan club but I dont want UM either. For now Charlie is the coach. It is comical how these sportswriters and the like are always trying to fix what ails Notre Dame. Please. ND garners respect and extreme media and fan attention. They are different and I hope they always remain that way.
This writer is a complete idiot. ND can't recruit? Have you not seen the past few classes? And check out the class for 2010. We already have 13 kids and three of them are from Florida and we have the #1 ranked DE. Can you imagine how many more kids from Florida are going to jump aboard in the next few years. Oh I forgot to mention the #1 linebacker in the country from last years class jumped aboard when teams like USC and Cal were recruiting him. Since I'm sure the writer is unfamiliar with what I'm saying, his name is Manti Te'o. Remember it because he is going to be very special in a couple of years. Weis has our offense coming together and the speed that we are getting on defense is only going to make us a complete team. I will be in South bend on October17 when we smash USC and earn respect once again in the world of college football. Can't wait!!
Get a clue--have you been paying attention to the last three years of recruiting classes? Did you forget that ND was the #1 class two years ago, once the Bama flunkees couldn't qualify?
Seriously, your whole piece comes off as a complete cliche' based on opinions that pre-dated Weis.
Stick to writing about something you're an expert on. Not football.
Great article. I'm originally from South Bend and after 9 years in the Air Force...played college football. The article is dead on. The fact about location is great! Most of the great players from the South and California just won't come to South Bend.(if they did qualify)
Furthermore, those top recruit lists can be out of balance.(not right) ND gets a few good/great players...but not the quanity the other schools get.
B
Got something to say?
Examiner.com is looking for writers, photographers, and videographers to join the fastest growing group of local insiders. If you are interested in growing your online rep apply to be an Examiner today!