On a beautiful sunny afternoon on campus the Blue-Gold Game was won by an early enrolled freshman quarterback on the last play of a running clock. Thanks to a diving effort on a run toward the end zone pylon, Steve Angeli sealed a 13-10 victory for the Gold squad on a day where the Irish offense struggled to get anything consistent going. With tons of recruits and former players inside the stadium it was a joyous affair kicking off the Marcus Freeman era. But unless you’re only concerned with defense there will be plenty of questions asked going into the summer what Notre Dame can do on offense to stay competitive in the opener against Ohio State.
Here are our 3 main takeaways from the scrimmage:
1) This Was a Flop for Drew Pyne
We mentioned in our preview that it was going to be difficult for Pyne to shine in a way that made believers out of Irish fans. However, the absence of Tyler Buchner due to injury changed the equation a little bit. Even a modestly impressive performance from Pyne could get people thinking maybe he’s the better long-term option after a brief look at the field in 2021. Or at least, his stock was rising and he could fight for more snaps during the season.
That…did not happen.
While certainly not lacking in confidence bizarrely flashing a pudgy midriff and tucked up red jersey, Pyne led 9 out of the first 10 drives of the game without much success. He started the game 11 of 20 for 92 yards while throwing 2 interceptions and in some ways those numbers flatter the way the offense operated. During the final 2 series’ of the 1st half Pyne did finish 10 of 13 for 93 yards with a touchdown pass but by then the damage had been done, at least in terms of perception.
I think we’re out on Pyne challenging as QB1. In his defense, there wasn’t much to work with at receiver, the offensive line blocking was poor at times, and the running game offered little support. The entire offense averaged 3.4 yards per carry–and outside of a couple nice sweeps to Braden Lenzy and Jayden Thomas–they mustered only 107 yards on 39 carries.
Still, everything looked incredibly difficult for Pyne. He can occasionally put some zip on his throws but he’s largely making a living in the short passing game and every drop back takes so much effort to get the ball out on time. The comparison between him and Angeli in their natural throwing motions is pretty stark. The physical skills are just not there for Pyne and with his penchant to be careless with the ball reported this spring and witnessed today it’s not a good combination.
2) Jadarian Price Looks Ready for Action
Big plays can go a long way. On the ground, freshman Jadarian Price was completely stifled with a long of 6 yards and then just 6 yards on 8 more carries. However, the offense got him the ball through the air and he led the game, by a wide margin, with 104 receiving yards on 8 catches (9 targets), including an impressive 51-yard touchdown on a screen pass (probably the most called and most effective pass play of the Blue-Gold Game).
We don’t know much about the finer details of Price’s abilities but with the ball in his hands in the open field his burst is very noticeable. He’s put together well and physically doesn’t look like a freshman at all. His future is pretty exciting.
Neither Logan Diggs or Chris Tyree (dinged up yet again) did a whole lot. Rising sophomore Audric Estime did flash some physical running, including a bruising game-high 25-yard run in which he broke several tackles and displayed great footwork getting through arm tackles.
3) The Front 7 Continues to Thrive
The defense looks ready to go, especially in the front seven. For the entire day the offense averaged 5.19 yards per play, although in the first half when starters and quality backups were still on the field it took 63 plays to gain 290 yards, or 4.6 yards per play.
As usual for a spring game, the broken up offensive line really disadvantaged the offense. We talked about the stout run defense already. There were only 2 sacks officially in this game but if the quarterbacks were live there would’ve been several more I’m sure.
The addition of a healthy Marist Liufau at linebacker makes such a difference. He’s long, athletic, and fast. He combined with Prince Kollie and Rylie Mills for 6 tackles for loss. It’s these players, who weren’t making an impact last year, that the Irish look on pace to be bringing along nicely for 2022.
Final Thoughts
I’ve read a lot of freaking out about the kicking game. I understand it about Josh Bryan who missed both of his field goals, but I thought grad transfer Blake Grupe did pretty well. Despite being tiny, he has a nice pop and strength to his kicks and impressed me on one of this touchbacks. I’d imagine he’ll win the kicking job pretty easily. The punting was poor but that job is going to an incoming freshman anyway.
If you’d like to overreact to the spring game you can probably envision a scenario where Steve Angeli eventually unseats Pyne as the backup quarterback some time in 2022. Angeli has to be ecstatic with his performance on Saturday going 11 of 16 for 180 yards, 1 touchdown through the air, and the game-winning 10-yard touchdown run to finish. He has good size and showed admirable poise for a young freshman in a tough situation surrounded by a lack of talent in the 2nd half.
No doubt it was great to see Marcus Freeman spur on a campaign to bring back a lot of former players. However, it’s a little odd to hear people say Brian Kelly never had alums coming back for the spring game. Players came back for the Blue-Gold Game all the time. Maybe not to this degree as under Freeman, but this is his first spring game and it’s not likely to be this hunky dory years down the road, either.
I thought Jayden Thomas moved up the pecking order for me in this game. He’s a stocky receiver but he can still move. He caught 4 passes on 5 targets and his 22-yard end-around was the 2nd longest run of the game.
Early on the offense really looked to force the ball to receiver Deion Colzie and not to much effect. He finished with 2 catches for 8 yards on 8 targets, not great.
Northwestern grad transfer safety Brandon Joseph came down hill beautifully to drop Estime for a 5-yard loss. This was supposed to be a weakness to Joseph’s game and if that’s no longer the case he’ll have a great season.
Another sign the offense sucked: Combined 4 for 21 on 3rd down.
Things continue to be rough on Peacock for these games. There were numerous audio issues and the replay media player continues to be an abomination.
We have a new The Shirt!
Introducing The Shirt 2022! pic.twitter.com/8RQV72K5io
— The Shirt ND (@theshirtND) April 22, 2022
It’s fine.
Lastly, we have home game start times that were announced during the spring game:
All kickoffs listed as EST.Â
Sept. 10 – Marshall 2:30
Sept. 17 – Cal 2:30
Oct. 8 – BYU 7:30
Oct. 15 – Stanford 7:30
Oct. 22 – UNLV 2:30
Nov. 5 – Clemson 7:30
Nov. 19 – Boston College 2:30
Of course they would never put the Marshall, California, or UNLV games at night. I’d make the case that the Boston College game should be a 7:30 start in place of the Stanford game. Yet again, the university continues to push the Stanford rivalry on us. Neither team is expected to be very good but sign me up for a Senior Day night game with Phil Jurkovec coming back to town. Wasting that on Stanford is such a bad idea.
I’ve come down for the B&G game almost every year the weather was decent for 30+ years. I don’t remember a spring game where the 2nd half felt so meaningful or fun. The whole team lit up when Angeli hit the pylon for the winner. It was excitement at an unexpected time, it felt like Angeli might have actually made some waves for himself, and it felt like there was a whole level of fun and excitement that Kelly, Weis, or Willingham never really brought to the B&G games.
I think bringing a dozen current NFL alumni, CFB Hall of Fame inductee Aaron Taylor, etc. on during breaks gave the whole thing an air of professionalism, and put an emphasis on the stars made at/by ND. No offense to the national champion basket weaving squad, but we are here to watch Football, I’m glad they put some ND football players out to show off the accomplishments of ND Football!
I spoke with a family member of a big-time recruit who was up from Florida, and he said despite a few other visits, all the kid could talk about was ND.
Is it September yet?!?
Thanks as always for the analysis, Eric — and thanks for this most fun and positive comment, former Occtipus. I really wanted to come back for this one, but the war has just made matters too complex. Kinda feels like it’s gonna be a long time till fall practice opens, sigh. I hope the Weekly Rambler will ramble some more?
Very best to all!
Was the recruit Adarius Hayes? He’s a big LB prospect for 2024. Would be a huge pickup for ND.
Thanks for the report, btw. Perfect weather on top of everything else had to make for a compelling experience for visiting recruits.
Not him, bigger, more stars, and I probably should have said current verbal commit.
Well that’s good news that we should be able to hang on to Keeley.
I basically have a full agree with nearly every point made in this post, but I think the analysis was actually a bit generous to Pyne. IMO, if the coaches can’t get comfortable with Angeli as the backup as of today, they should be eyeing the portal to hopefully recruit over Pyne for next season. They really should not plan to go into the year with him as the backup, particularly when you factor in that there’s a reasonable chance Buchner will get hurt scrambling.
Hindsight is 20/20 but I wonder what Jurkovec thinks about his decision to transfer now. It made sense at the time, but at best he’s going to end up playing 2.5 seasons for BC, one of which was the COVID season, when he could have been ND’s unquestioned starter for two straight years.
Yet another Chip Long causality.
Well…he transferred out after 2019, after being under QB coach Tommy Rees for two years, so…
At some point we’re going to have to stop blaming things on big meanyface Chip Long and start asking some questions about the people who actually coach here.
I just mentioned Chip Long because the comments from Jurkovic’s camp really seemed to focus on him. Long also has the unfortunate status of being a notable dick who isn’t particularly good at his job, so he’s easy to root against.
That being said, it’s time for Rees to show if he can actually develop a quarterback or if his hire really was just a move by Kelly to bring someone unqualified on staff who wouldn’t push back against him.
We are one Dante Moore commitment elsewhere from Tommy Rees being straightforwardly a problem as QB coach.
Ehh, if NIL draws Moore to Oregon, Buchner has a great 2022 and ND gets the 5-star in 2024 it’s not really as dire and pessimistic as it needs to be.
Much more interested and focused in evaluating Rees based on Buchner than the recruitment of a future player. Especially since if they don’t get said player, that would have 0.0% to do with the Notre Dame OC, for positive or negative reasons.
there’s those ifs again. If Moore goes elsewhere and if Buchner is just an okay QB we’ll be okay if Angeli is actually and underrated gem and becomes a top 10 QB.
And losing a QB seems like it should at least a little bit fall on the QB coach, just a thought
It’s a thought, not a particularly accurate one though. If Moore doesn’t go to ND, the QB coach is not going to be a contributing reason why.
Are you sure? It’s not going to be even a contributing reason?
I don’t know how anyone could be that certain.
By all accounts, the Notre Dame coaching inputs have been a huge positive in Moore’s recruitment. If he doesn’t sign with ND (which again, is a huge assumption, slanted negatively) it’s pretty well known it will be for other reasons than the QB coaches or OC’s or head coaches as his primary considerations. That’s just common sense from knowing the information out there.
Blaming Rees if Moore doesn’t come to ND is just piling on Rees to pile on him, regardless of the actual context behind it.
Let’s be straightforward. Are you saying that if Moore does not sign with ND (which is not a “negative slant,” it’s a very realistic possibility), the only reason for that will be because he’s getting more NIL money from the program he does sign with?
It is completely negative to take a viewpoint to suggest that Moore won’t sign with Notre Dame at this point. Any and every national analyst has said nothing but they are a strong lead for him.
Why are you saying it’s a realistic possibility he wouldn’t sign? The kid has said for months in every interview he’s given that he would take all his official visits, see what is out there and plan to commit by the end of the summer and before his senior season so he can focus on that. So far, he’s done exactly that.
To say it’s a Tommy Rees problem if Moore doesn’t go to ND is comically wrong. Read into that what you will, but it’s 100% true that if Moore opts for somewhere else, it’s not going to be because of the QB/OC/HC.
Because there’s a non-zero possibility he won’t sign with ND, that’s all.
If he does go somewhere else, what will the cause of that be, in your opinion?
Yea I’m with Hooks on this one. It would seem clear that if Moore out of the blue picked someone else it would be for NIL $$$$.
If we get beat out on NIL for Moore (or Moore-types in the future) despite how Rees is the next great offensive mind in the world that everyone is dying to be around then maybe we should also be less wed to Rees
Who said he’s the next great offensive mind in the world or everyone is dying to be around him? That’s a lot of projection and generalization.
And it shifts the goal posts to deflect away from the fact that it most certainly would not be a Tommy Rees problem if Dante Moore doesn’t sign with ND.
That’s basically been the hype on him here and in ND internet coverage broadly. Yes I’m being hyperbolic but the talk has been about what a bright football mind he is and the Rams wanted him or Duke wanted him etc. etc. People like me who worry about our QB play and offense, especially against top teams, are told how great he is and how actually his recruiting is, has been and will be stellar, but now when it comes to Moore not committing (he may yet, might even be probably I obviously hope he does) it becomes “well that’s not Tommy’s fault anyway”
Yeah, the best writers are obsessed that Tommy is going to get hired as an NFL OC in a year or two. I think it’s more likely that he gets pushed out to a G5 HC job like Charlie Molnar.
*beat writers, dammmit
Rees is clearly pretty well regarded in college and NFL circles. It doesn’t make him a mastermind or that the reputation exactly means he is a great OC.
But, I think that rep does exist and is echoed by the media as a reality more so than a reality that Rees is actually kind of not that good.
Fans tend to get way into the weeds with this stuff (especially on offense). 30-year old Rees being pushed out to a UMass-type job just isn’t believable at all.
I have friends of friends of the family type thing, and that side seems fine with it. Felt like ND was a dead end in terms of his personal growth and needed a fresh start to be his best and develop. Not big fans of mostly Long from what I pick up, and the issue was he couldn’t get in a groove with the program.
And, I mean, he’s been mock drafted as a potential 1st round QB, which say what you will, but BC has been good for him. He’s ironed out some of his flaws and refined his passing and become better for it.
Some of that is my sense, but in the Rees/Kelly/Book days, Jurkovec didn’t really fit in or was getting what he needed. Sure, if he kept his head down and stayed it might have turned out differently, but I guess sometimes it’s just not the right fit, timing, personalities to all come together in the right way.
Yes, I agree it made complete sense at the time.
I will not be surprised if Angeli pushes Pyne aside for the #2 spot. He’s a more gifted athlete and comes from a high level of competition in HS. Much like Pyne was more like the starter Coan last year, Angeli is more like Buchner than Pyne is. Buchner last year was a changeup. Pyne offers no such thing this year. I’m a tad disappointed hearing of Pyne’s performance but again, not surprised by Angeli’s. All this said, it’s probably not good that a EE freshman might be pushing for the #2 spot.
As far as the Stan/BC start times, it’s most likely a weather consideration. Meaning mid Oct. vs. mid Nov.
That BC game, woof. The week after Navy, Senior Day, Jurkovec Revenge Storyline (TM). Not looking forward to that one.
The 2018 Senior Day game against FSU was at night, too. I would think given the situations for BC vs. Stanford it’s a no-brainer decision.
Yes but the priority should be making David Shaw as cold, wet, and miserable as possible.
I’ll personally dump a bucket of ice water over his head around 6 PM ET when we beat them.
Pyne struggled and that was tough to watch, but it’s not like the backup is going to be an All-Confernce type of player, so I think it’s more tempering expectations. I think he’s fine for a QB2 and probably capable of winning any game besides Ohio State, BYU, Clemson level, which will probably have to work. Any fleeting idea he’s a QB1 is out of the question, though at this point.
Angeli shining was impressive. There’s always seemed to be a lot of negativity surrounding him, but he looked promising and having potential to grow.
The defense was very impressive, Lewis looked great and that was necessary to see him grow from the terrible Okst game. It’ll be interesting to see how they use players like Botelho and even Kollie/Sneed that might be tweeners or somewhat blocked on the depth chart, but still talented enough that you hope they can find enough snaps to get them on the field somewhere and somehow.
I was puzzled by Angeli’s meager ratings, too.4 The offense he played in obviously wasn’t the most QB friendly, but the team was a powerhouse and Angeli was its ringleader. It’s pretty clear that he possesses the raw tools to be a quality college QB.
Payne did not have a good game at all, but it was a spring game (remember Deshon Kizer’s spring game from a few years back? He turned out to be ok.) It was one practice game. The line looked bad, but will improve; the receivers looked bad and (might?) improve, and I suspect Payne will improve over the next few months, too. Heck, we’ve already seen him in a game and he looked better then than he did Saturday. Sure it would have been nice to see him play better, but I don’t think you can read that much into it.
I didn’t think Pyne looked as horrible as most people seem to think. To me, he looked like just another of the very limited QBs we’ve been cycling through for more than a decade now. I assume he’d be serviceable enough to move the ball against bad teams and would have basically zero shot of moving the ball against top-flight defenses, which is not a new thing for ND’s QBs.
Ultimately, I’m hoping we can put together something that looks like the 2017 team this year. I suspect that’s about what our ceiling is going to be.
Wait, you thought Pyne’s performance was about average for ND?!????
I don’t know about statistically average, but not terribly different from a lot of the quarterbacking we’ve seen since 2010.
A quick scan and Pyne’s passer rating would’ve been the 10th worst for a ND quarterback for a single game since 2017, with Wimbush accounting for 5 of those poor ratings.
10th worst out of 60+ games seems very different than usual!
But it would be within recent quarterbacking performances, not an outlier. Was it a statically average performance for a recent ND QB? No. Was it a statically anomalous performance for a recent ND QB? Also no.
More generally, Pyne shares several traits with most of our QBs for the past 12 years. He is:
-Undersized (Buchner, Book, Zaire, Golson, arguably Rees)
-Severely limited in at least one factor of the game. (Coan – mobility, Book – deep ball, Wimbush – passing in general, Golson – interceptions, Rees – mobility and deep ball)
-Unable to consistently hold the starter position (Wimbush, Zaire, Golson, Rees)
-Not improving the longer he spends at ND (Arguably Book, Wimbush, arguably Kizer, Zaire, Golson, arguably Rees)
-Not a serious NFL prospect (Rees, Golson, Zaire, Wimbush, arguably Book)
My point here is that Pyne’s performance yesterday should not be shocking to ND fans who have watched this program for the last decade plus. He is the kind of QB that this program produces more often than not.
At the same stage of their careers, I’d take most of those other QBs over Pyne any day of the week. I get your premise though.
Still not seeing it.
Book was a very good college QB, seems a huge slight to him to say Pyne’s performance was pretty much a common occurrence over the years.
That is not what I’m saying or the comparison I’m making. Obviously Book was a better QB than Pyne.
This is very wrong, though.
I was just going by the stat that you picked. Within that statistic, Pyne’s performance was very poor, but it was not an outlier.
Can you provide an example of an outlier performance then?
Passer rating-wise it’s a bottom 15% performance compared to the last 5 seasons and with the way the offense looked, operated, and the way Pyne executed maybe bottom 5%.
Look at it this way: Since 2017, ND’s QBs have produced something like 65 different passer ratings (not sure that’s a great stat given how much those QBs relied on scrambling, but let’s just go with it).
Pyne’s performance on Saturday was within that set of ~65 passer ratings. That is, it was roughly consistent with about 15% of our QBs’ performances in the past 5 years. The worst 15%, yes, but consistent with about 10 of the prior 65 games, which is actually quite a lot.
In other words, it was not a uniquely or shockingly poor performance. It was a typical bad day for a recent ND QB — not a typical day, a typical bad day.
It looked shockingly poor to me.
Can you provide an example of an outlier?
No. I am saying that, based on the statistic you chose, it was not an outlier. An outlier would be a passer rating that fell outside of that statistical range. If you can share the data you’re looking at, perhaps we can find one.
But again, my position is that Pyne’s performance was not an outlier.
You said it wasn’t that horrible or terribly different from most of the QB play we’ve seen. I don’t think anyone agrees at all?
It was pretty awful, very much an outlier when compared to the 60+ games since 2017. I don’t think you have to see the worst game ever to call it an outlier. There can be more than one outlier performance. Book had a few, for example.
I guess we’re just disagreeing on definition. I would say that a performance that is roughly consistent with some 10 of 65 games (at least by one stat) is not an outlier, or uniquely bad. If you would, OK. We’re just not going to agree on that.
outlier – noun: a person or thing differing from all other members of a particular group or set:
But also I would like to see the data set you’re looking at if you have a link, just to play around with.
I went and looked at the game logs for Coan, Book, and Wimbush on cfbstats.com.
I refuse to believe that if we saw this type of performance during a real game that you wouldn’t be pretty upset and call it really awful. There’s just no way.
I would. I would also not be surprised.
You would, but didn’t for Pyne in this game though.
There’s some truth to your history of the QB position but it seems pretty obvious you started with that narrative and used it to grind an axe about the history by glossing over Pyne’s performance.
No, I just think his performance is symptomatic of very long-standing problems with ND’s QB room and offense in general. The shortcomings he exhibits are not new and fit a lot of patterns we have seen over the past decade, as does his career arc.
I don’t have axes to grind. Once again I will ask you and everyone else here to just read what I write. There are no hidden meanings, I promise.
Exactly, aka gloss over Pyne’s performance to turn attention to an agenda against the offense/coaching/recruiting etc.
Lol. If you happen to find a copy of my agenda, let me know. I think I dropped it somewhere.
I think ACS is saying Pynes performance lands on the bell curve. The lower end, yes, but not a statistical outlier. Therefore, it is a performance that can be expected of a ND QB over the last dozen years, especially against a tremendous defense.
Exactly correct. I didn’t think that would be a controversial point, especially with a stat that I didn’t pick, but….
/pets fluffy white cat while plotting the next stage of The Agenda
//ominous thunder
Yes, out of all the performances it was certainly one of them.
Gobbledykook #BellCurve talk aside, this is what I was more interested in:
If this is true then someone needs to point me to all of the All-Americans that have surrounded our QB play to win 54 games since 2017.
I mean, that bell curve “goobledygook” was based on a stat that you picked, and a bell curve (no hashtag) is a pretty common way to identify outliers, so…
Anywho, the All-Americans that have led ND to 54 wins since 2017 are:
Hamilton (DB)
Eichenberg (OL)
JOK (LB)
Love (DB)
McGlinchey (OL)
Nelson (OL)
You asked this question, so don’t get mad about the answer. I would say that totally tracks with what we’ve seen on the field — ND’s strengths, by a long shot, over the past 5 years have been defense and OL. They have supported and, in some cases, covered for, QB play ranging from very poor to above average.
This is the crux of our disagreement. To say that the QB play has been this bad, essentially average, is not rooted in any sense of reality, IMO.
OK, agree to disagree on that. But I think it’s hyperbolic to say what I think is “not rooted in any sense of reality,” and I’m not sure your understanding of what average is is correct.
Coan likely gets drafted this weekend which means the last ~55 games at Notre Dame featured NFL picks at quarterback.
I know fans love to rate things from elite straight down to a steep drop to average, especially with QB’s. But, I think it’s a hell of a lot easier to draw a line from the recent QB play to something much better than average than it is to compare it to Pyne’s performance on Saturday.
I have not read or listened to other people in the ND sphere making your argument.
Talk about putting things in perspective. It’s easy to get down about our QB recruiting/talent in the last decade but the above is also why we’ve been so good the last 4 years.
Yea, in order to win a title one typically needs something closer to a 1st round pick at QB unless you have all-world talent all around him, but it’s not to be taken for granted having an NFL draft pick at QB (even a later round one).
Well, if the issue is that my views aren’t consistent with NDNation or One Foot Down, I can live with that.
I take it that you are comparing Pyne’s spring game stats to actual game stats? Have you compared it to other spring games? I mentioned Kizer’s spring game in a comment above, and I know there were a lot of other bad spring qb performances. I really do not think it’s fair to compare them to actual games stats where there are game plans put together for the qb, there is a cohesive offensive line, etc.
Kizer was an EE freshman who barely received reps during the 2014 spring–and if I can remember correctly–only appeared later in the spring game without a lot of playing time. Didn’t he throw something like 4 or 5 passes total?
The point about other poor spring game performances is totally legit, though.
Still, there was a segment of fans who thought Pyne could start this year and based off this performance + his skill-set I think we can put that to bed.
It doesn’t mean he sucks completely now, but I think it’s being disingenuous to say that everyone saw this spring game performance coming or that it wasn’t that different from a decade long struggle of Irish QB’s.
So Pyne is transferring, right?
Good to see that Offensive Guru Brian Kelly left the offense in such good shape.
ND needed a totally fresh set of eyes on the offense after Kelly left and unfortunately that is not the direction we decided to go.
Well we’re sure going to find out if Tommy Rees is really the next big thing in coaching or if it’s another instance of the beat writers blowing smoke up our collective asses.
Yes we are!
On the bright side, I can now accurately say that I have better abs than a Division I college athlete. (Sorry, Drew)
I doubt he’s leaving. The kid wore a pub hat to the game and shows his flabby tummy during a game. He doesn’t lack for confidence, will probably be graduating in the spring, and can leave after 2022.
That’s right. The kid grew up a huge ND fan and is within 13 months from graduating. He’ll stay 13 months, especially given that it’s not like he can go to some other serious football program and start. it’s not clear he could start at most MAC schools.
Doesn’t mean they shouldn’t recruit another QB over him in the transfer portal if somebody would come, because they totally should. The difficulty would be finding somebody who is willing to come in as a clear #2 behind Buchner, so I would say it’s unlikely… but they should certainly be looking for it.
Well, well, well…
Who could have envisioned BK wouldn’t be able to pick a QB
https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/33793994/lsu-tigers-coach-brian-kelly-qb-decision-more-difficult-all-three-play-well
Calling it now, Nussmeier to start.
1) I wonder if Stanford vs BC for the night game decision was made from a recruiting angle. The night games have been a great atmosphere, you have more time for visitors to interact with the staff in the morning, and if your two night games are both in November that’s too late in the recruiting calendar
2) I think the Freeman welcoming alums back may be overblown in comparison to BK but I’m optimistic they can keep some of the momentum going. Freeman sees a ton of value in former players connecting with current, and if this becomes something of an annual tradition I think they’ll continue to get good turnout even if this is peak excitement Year 1…having it be a golf / networking / party weekend is a damn good pitch.
Regarding 2. I think he sees it as a huge recruiting opportunity, so naturally he will put the effort in there. If you are pitching 4 for 40, what better way to show that than by starting the networking on visits.
I forget who it was (I think a DB from the 80s/90s) who now runs an angel investment firm, but made his money from starting an internet company in SB (like actually supplying internet, not based on the internet). He came to talk to our entrepreneurship class, and told us how he got his friends/family seed funding mostly from successful ND football alumns. This class was a long time ago, but I believe Bettis was involved.
The networking is very real if kids that age can even understand the significance.
And actually a quick google to figure out who the player was, lead me to this article from only a month ago at the old site. Hahahahaha. I am surprised how close I was in my memory.
It was Tracy Graham. Apparently he’s now on the ND board of trustees as of this year.
https://www.onefootdown.com/2022/2/17/22934025/throwback-thursday-former-notre-dame-fighting-irish-football-player-tracy-graham-lou-holtz
Mike Goolsby in the latest B&G podcast talks about the networking at the events this pass weekend. Ex players were purposely sat at tables with current players with same Buisness/Major interests. No pressure, just,” here’s my number if you ever need some advice”.