The offseason is a long, dreary landscape. It’s cold, February signing day isn’t even exciting anymore, and spring practice is a mystery. Still, to keep the lights on at the content factories across this nation, hot takes must be created and burned to keep us warm. This year, however, the pollution from these myths and talking points is worst than most. To filter the air we need to take apart some of the narratives and conspiracies that start slow but get repeated until they are living, breathing Notre Dame narratives that make it to national TV shows and press conferences.
Notre Dame is a great QB away
A dominant passing offense is the single greatest asset in football at any level. An elite quarterback can be game-changing for a program – Marcus Mariota’s excellence fueled an Oregon run to the CFP title game, and the new era of Clemson dominance started with Deshaun Watson. There’s so much obsession about the quarterback position, but at the highest level, the entire passing attack has to be excellent. Relative weakness on the offensive line? Your great QB may look like Patrick Mahomes in Tampa Bay. Not the usual cadre of NFL draft picks at wide receiver? Sorry Trevor Lawrence, you’re ending your playoff career on a two-game losing streak.
Oklahoma went through a virtually unprecedented 5-year run with consistent top offenses and Heisman caliber QB play. And to show for the Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray, and Jalen Hurts years Lincoln Riley has a 0-4 playoff record (with only one competitive game, to a team that beat the Irish by a point in South Bend). Give Notre Dame an edge at quarterback against Alabama last year and there’s still serious gaps at defensive back, defensive line, wide receiver…. you get the picture.
Clemson and Deshaun Watson gets brought up often as the example of a QB jump-starting a program without exceptional talent around him. But if anything since then the talent bar has been raised higher as the top tier of programs (Bama, Clemson, Ohio State, and Georgia) stockpile top-100 recruits at an unprecedented rate. And unless an outsider can somehow force their way into a one seed, the playoff requires beating two of those teams, likely Saban and Dabo, twice.
It’s easy to fixate on changing position groups of need as if the Irish have been unlucky or slightly off in ideal timing. If last year’s team just had the 2018 corners, or if the 2018 team had the offensive line of ’17 or ’20, or Chase Claypool’s breakout synced with Kyren Williams and Michael Mayer’s arrival. But it’s a game of whack-a-mole that fixates on symptoms rather than underlying causes – when there is an overall talent gap to the best programs, there will always be position groups coming up short and with mismatched peaks. To “make the leap” and reach championship level with a top 10-15 talent level – even for just a year – is the equivalent of pitching a perfect game two classes in a row with no margin for error in talent evaluation, development, and scheme.
Can Notre Dame get closer if Tyler Bucher develops into a first-round talent? Absolutely! Will that close the gap to championship-caliber on its own? No, it will represent one (substantial) step in a few that are needed, along with an overall infusion of talent, continued excellence in player development, great schemes, and in-game decision-making. To minimize the needed improvement to just being a quarterback away doesn’t help anyone – the quarterback recruits with outsized expectations, the onus on staff to evaluate and land the perceived savior, and the program that needs to recognize and pursue holistic improvement.
The 2020 Irish offense was outdated
Somehow after the playoff loss to Alabama, this narrative formed – that Tommy Rees’ offense was too old-school and conservative. It was a failure to recognize the opponent-specific gameplan – the best and only chance the Irish had at an upset was a ball-control approach that minimized possessions. Could it have been better executed, including some 4th down attempts? Sure, but airing the ball out and creating a high-possession game was only going to lead to a 50-21 type of defeat.
The grind it out strategy didn’t work for Notre Dame, but nothing really worked for anyone else the Tide faced except “pray the Bama defense has communication problems”. And following the loss, the entire season began to be framed as if the Irish could have been better if they had just aired it out more and been more modern. Despite having to face Clemson twice and Bama at its defensive peak, the Irish finished in the same offensive quadrant (looking at success rate and explosiveness) as shiny offenses like Lane Kiffin’s at Ole Miss and with better metrics across the board than the Air Raid at USC.
In reality, the approach took advantage of the offense’s strengths. Rees had a top-3 offensive line, great running back play, and a veteran mobile QB in Ian Book’s with an ability to improvise. The losses of Kevin Austin and Braden Lenzy sapped the Irish of two key vertical threats, and the Irish offense formed its identity around the veteran, physical receivers remaining. ND should have utilized play-action more, run more RPOs, and gone with more second and long passes to make incremental improvements. But it’s an oversimplification to believe just moving the run/pass splits NCAA14 style would suddenly unlock new heights with the personnel available that magically would increase (expected points added) without any trade-offs.
All we know of the Rees philosophy was his approach with the strengths on the roster last season. What will it look like with a so-so offensive line? Or an elite group of receivers? There’s too much fixation on run-pass ratio when some of the top minds in the NFL (Sean McVay, Kyle Shanahan) have embraced higher than league-average run rates that take advantage of the right situations and opponent personnel groupings to drive efficiency and explosiveness.
Notre Dame isn’t reaching its ceiling because BK won’t play the kids
This myth has two forms:
- The coaching staff isn’t playing [insert talented freshman here] and that’s why they aren’t winning big games
- ND isn’t letting young guys take their lumps now so the program will be better in the future
Are there kernels of truth behind this take? Sure. The program can and should do a better job giving young players some defined, limited roles to master early in their careers that can translate into increased early game experience. That said, this is a weird narrative to promote following a year where Michael Mayer tied for the team lead in receptions, Chris Tyree had 80 touches, and Clarence Lewis cemented a starting CB spot despite COVID hindering normal practice routines.
The call to play the blue-chip true freshmen more is always tempting. When the talented young guys are on the bench there’s only perceived upside. We assume every top-100 recruit can be Kyle Hamilton and ready immediately – or for example, that Jordan Johnson can bring a breakthrough skillset to the offense or Jordan Botelho will instantly be the missing pass-rusher. It gives no real consideration to things first-year guys are typically not good at – technique, blocking, knowing plays – that are important.
The second variety of this is tapping into the idea the Irish need to play high-upside talent earlier versus high floor / lower ceiling players. There are somehow still lingering Phil Jurkovec debates – who knows what would have happened if he started earlier? Except we have a lot of evidence, based on his BC season, that the answer is probably losing more games than if Book was in, with no guarantee of reaching his ceiling. It’s another debate where recruiting stars are tattooed in fans heads as if they permanently matter – if you flip Book and Jurkovec’s 247 rankings, is there even 25% of the outcry when Phil goes to Chestnut Hill?
The upside debate is playing out again with Tyler Buchner vs. Jack Coan. There’s a school of thought that the Irish should just roll with Buchner, theoretically losing more games than with Coan but raising the ceiling for the future. This assumes 1) Buchner is something near ready, 2) the price you pay of something like 2-3 wins is worth it, and 3) implies Coan can’t or won’t be much better than what he demonstrated at Wisconsin.
If it’s close between Buchner and Coan, absolutely, roll with Buchner. The upside and long-term play may very well be the right play. But it hasn’t always worked out that way. How many talented guys have passed through campus under Kelly that ultimately didn’t reach their potential, and actually may have been limited by dealing with their struggles (Golson, Zaire, Wimbush, even going back to Dayne Crist)? There’s no certainty, scarce information beyond high school tape, and a lot of wishing for a best-case scenario instead of realistically weighing downsides. “Trust the staff, especially when no one else has seen practice” is not good for content or clicks, but hard to argue at present.
Honorable Mentions
- It’s actually bad Notre Dame has made two of the last three playoffs / the Irish didn’t deserve those spots
- This is the program’s current ceiling, ND can’t recruit any better (Marcus Freeman is already disproving this to a small degree in a matter of months)
- Filling gaps with talented grad transfers is a losing strategy
Any others that are missing? Let us know in the comments.
Love ALL of these! Especially the 2020 irish offense take, I think it shows Rees being willing to adapt his ideas to the pieces in play, not forcing players into roles they physically arent made for. Also in that regard, no spring ball last year for book to find that solid connection with a claypool heir apparent. They put their strengths on the field: online and mauler TEs and mashed people into oblivion for 10 games! And bullet 1 also plays into it too: the overall talent differential to the hyper elites. If Alabama ran that same offense last season, I’d fathom they still average over 42 points a game. You still have mac jones, najee, whatever post-humans created in labs they have at TE, and oh yeah, the 1 reciever on the field in 13 personnel is still the heisman winner, who literally cannot be touched. I would imagine the national narrative then would be “Saban’s playing man-ball, why aren’t we??” See: post 2012 commentary.
Its exciting to see this level of fervor in the recruiting game, THAT definitely has me jazzed and optimistic for the future.
Appreciate it. That’s the cliff notes – with last year’s personnel, it’s hard to imagine what kind of dramatic schematic moves would have shifted the efficiency + explosiveness to that top right corner in a meaningful way.
The hairy, bigger picture question is what Tommy wants ND to be on offense. The lack of consistent offensive identity in the BK era is one of the bigger nits for me to pick – it often has felt more like a byproduct of recruiting strengths at OL/TE or the QB traits versus planned. My gut is that Tommy wants a platonic ideal that feels very much like 2020 with the WR talent upgraded to threaten defenses more. That’s a super high bar, but it’s going to be fascinating in the short and long term to figure out. How effective that can be and what plan B is when your OL has a down year, your QB isn’t as mobile, etc? Or is there some long-term benefit to leaning into the OL/TE strengths to zig somewhat while everyone else defensively is focusing on how to defend WRs space with generally smaller / faster personnel?
Nice information on all.
The “BK won’t play freshmen WR” narrative is very annoying, and also perhaps doubly so because it’s usually presented or framed as if Notre Dame has some prized player who can’t find the field when every other program would be taking advantage of getting a top WR recruit. And that’s just not the case. Here’s the season stats 10 higher rated WR’s from 2020 than Jordan Johnson:
1: J Fleming (tOSU), 5-star: 7 rec 74 yd, 0 TD (majority in garbage time)
2: J. Smith-Njigba (tOSU), 5-star: 10 rec 49 yd, 1 TD (majority garbage time)
3: K. Boutte (LSU), 5-star: 45 rec for 735, 5 TD
4: D. Demas (A&M), 5-star: 0 for 0
5: G. Scott (tOSU): 0 for 0
6: J. McMillan (Wsh): 1 rec 16 yds
7: A. Smith (UGA): 2 rec 86 yds (one big catch in bowl game, 1 in garbage time)
8: G. Bryant (USC): 7 rec 51 yds
9: J. Burton (UGA): 27 rec 404 yds 3 TD
10: X Henderson (UF): 9 rec, 148 yds, 1 TD (garbage time)
The top 10 WR’s ahead of Jordan Johnson caught a total of 108 passes, and most of this came in the non-competitive parts at the end of blowout games.
It is fair to say that there were 2 major outliers who were regular pieces of the offense in Boutte for LSU and Burton for Georgia. These two players combined for 66% of the receptions by the top-10 WR’s from the 2020 recruiting class.
Take those two players out and the rest of the elite class averaged 4.5 receptions on the season. Jordan Johnson’s struggles to find the field and make an immediate impact isn’t an outlier, it was more of the norm for the class he was in, in a year of global pandemics and huge adjustments.
And, as mentioned, key roles by Tyree and Mayer show that Notre Dame is more than happy to put the players on the field that they think have something to offer.
I don’t want to argue too sincerely against this, but Johnson was backing up 2 fairly ineffective WRs, not future NFL early draft picks.
3 of the guys you have listed played at OSU behind Chris Olave (future early NFL draft pick) and Garrett Wilson (the #20 player in his recruiting class 2 years ago).
Demas didn’t play due to the dreaded “character issues” (and was arrested last week).
Jalen McMillan played in the Pac-12, where they basically had no preseason and only played 4 games (their leading WR had 9 total catches).
Arian Smith was behind 5(!!!) Top 130 WRs (#1, 4, 8, 15, and 24 WR in their classes).
Bryant was behind 3 Top 30 WRs and another 4 star (#2, #2, #1, and #35 WRs in their classes).
Florida’s top 2 pass catchers are likely to be 1st round picks, with another receiver likely to be drafted by the 5th round.
The situation that had Johnson sitting for ND was not comparable to any of these other situations.
it’s good context but i’d challenge the idea mckinley and skowronek were ineffective. are they first round picks? no way, but not a pro prospect and not a solid college WR isn’t the same thing. we don’t beat Clemson without them, and every game down the stretch one or the other really showed out. you can argue that your best chance of beating Bama is throwing someone like him out there and praying, but in order to prepare him to do that you’re probably not surviving freshman mistakes and playing Iowa State instead
Absolutely. There’s give and take with every aspect of a season, and Kelly has gotten us to a balance that makes us, without a doubt, one of the 10 best programs in the country (and I personally would say top 5). He’s built a program that now beats the teams it should beat time in and time out, with some upside to beat teams better than us (beat Clemson without Lawrence, nearly beat Georgia twice, etc.).
I would be interested in taking more risks, but as you noted, those risks obviously come with a potential downside that Kelly isn’t necessarily interested in (i.e. play more aggressive against Bama, knowing that it could end with us getting absolutely smoked). I’m hoping he gets slightly more aggressive next year, but it’s hard to fault him too much if he doesn’t.
Can we stop with the Johnson stuff. The kid was struggling somewhat in school and that needed to get straightened out. That’s how it works at ND. Believe it or not.
It does point to one of ND’s main weaknesses in football. Academic emphasis at ND is very different from most of the competitors’ approach.
Not saying it’s a bad thing, but it’s definitely a thing that impacts the football program and limits our championship opportunity.
I’m not sure it’s even a weakness, it’s just a fact of life when dealing with young players that not every single one is ready from the very start. Tyree and Mayer’s adjustments to college didn’t really affect their ability to see the field. If Johnson was on their level, is there any doubt he would have seen the field more?
At the same time, though, it’s fair to point out ND’s track record with young receivers isn’t much. Is there something the program can do to be more flexible to give younger players a chance to see the field more? Perhaps so.
That might be a bit of a myth though. It wasn’t so long ago in 2016 that E.Q. St. Brown led the team in receptions as a sophomore (with Stepherson as a freshman). Claypool was a starter and 2nd leading receiver in 2017 as a sophomore. IMO, ND isn’t keeping talent on the sidelines when they’re good enough to play.
Evidence?
It’s been reported by guys that cover ND. Yesterday’s II podcast said point blank that it was the reason. Tim Prister, for one, would not report that without good sources. This has hardly been a secret. It’s been known and reported on since last season.
>I don’t want to argue too sincerely against this, but Johnson was backing up 2 fairly ineffective WRs, not future NFL early draft picks.
So would it be better in your eyes if JJ never saw the field because of Austin and Lenzy?
>The situation that had Johnson sitting for ND was not comparable to any of these other situations.
I appreciate your research, and I agree with your findings that other teams have great NFL talent and ND does not. That’s clear. But Skowronek and McKinley were also 5th year college players, and not exactly bums. As 22/23 year old men hey knew how to play college football better in 2020 than Jordan Johnson did coming into a pandemic situation and not acclimating totally seamlessly to the off field school changes.
So, it’s different reasons but perhaps the same conclusion: it’s probably unfair to expect a lot of production from elite freshmen WR’s. It’s possible, but not always going to happen for a myriad of reasons.
We don’t watch or see practice, so I just don’t think a fan can say “18 year old freshman has more stars, he’s obviously the better option right now than a 5th year senior who knows the offense/QB/system/college game”.
His point was that the people Johnson did not start ahead of were average at best. Not bad, but definitely not great.
As for Austin and Lenzy, they’ve been here quite a while and nobody knows how good they really are. Right now their reputations are somewhat mythical.
Outstanding freshman receivers do start fairly routinely at Bama, Clemson, Ohio State, USC, and others.
A radical example is Smith at Bama, who caught the CFB championship winning td pass vs Georgia as a true freshman, and the Heisman winner this year. There has been a virtual flock of top quality receivers at Bama who have played early.
My point is that experienced but average senior WR’s can be better football players and fits for a team than highly regarded true freshmen who get to campus in June during a pandemic.
I also would point to schemes and usage. If Notre Dame was regularly using 4 or 5 WR’s at the same time and Johnson wasn’t playing, that would be a different problem. Their base offense was 2 TE’s last year. That doesn’t portend well for opportunities for WR to play if not many are on the field in the first place. (Thus the mention that Johnson would have been on the scout team all fall if not for injuries to Austin and Lenzy who were good players ahead of him).
So my issue might be better framed as “excellent” prospects and recruits don’t necessarily know the playbook, have timing with the QB, all that stuff. If Johnson had something more to offer and ND didn’t play him, shame on them. I tend to doubt that was actually the case if we saw the practices, being as the team was more than willing to feed Mayer as much as possible and gave Tyree a key role as well. I doubt they were withholding an option to contribute if it was actually available.
Oh, I wasn’t saying they should have been playing Johnson. Quite the opposite, which is that if he were as good as some here think (I have no opinion on that), he would not have had to beat out top tier talent to play. That’s all.
Yes, it would be better in my eyes if Johnson never saw the field because of Austin and Lenzy. (And it’s 100% possible that he didn’t see the field because those guys were healthy at the beginning of the year and he just couldn’t beat them out for practice reps).
And I agree, I have no idea if Johnson was obviously the better option than those guys, I wasn’t at practice. I’m simply disappointed that we couldn’t find better options, whoever it may have been, than 2 guys who were practically the same player. When your whole receiving offense is Mayer/Skowronek/McKinley, you’re not going to break a ton of huge plays. I would have liked us to take more chances with a younger, faster player.
All of this is mostly a moot point anyway; at the end of the day, it’s unlikely we beat Alabama or Clemson Round 2 even if Johnson had been a freshman all-american talent. I simply think, long-term, Rees should be thinking about ways to make the passing game more explosive. Perhaps a healthy Lenzy and Austin next year takes care of that.
I understand the frustration, but maybe I just see the offense differently. It just wasn’t the 2020 offense that needed or had the identity to “take chances” with unproven WR play. They needed, and got, solid performances from WR’s. McKinley in particular was one of the best blocking WR’s to come through ND in a long time. I think they did their jobs, but just weren’t explosive. But the QB wasn’t going to really be a vertical passer and the system was more about the power run game anyways, so that’s fine.
I would have liked to find better WR options than what they had too, but I don’t see it coming from a freshman who apparently didn’t adjust seamlessly to college, joined the team in June, probably didn’t have that much of the playbook installed, all that jazz.
You can’t discount that two of the top four, if not the top two WRs, basically were hurt all season. That hurts 98% of all college FB teams. You can’t just ignore injuries and off field issues. Those things are real and they matter.
This is the primary reason I would have liked to see them at least give a few snaps per game to some of the younger guys.
I wonder how many times Ian Book didn’t have enough confidence to let it go down field to his wideouts? Granted he threw few interceptions but, many times it seemed he an extraordinary amount of time in the pocket. I believe he struggled to see open receivers and NDs pass game suffered for it. Perhaps as time went by the ND offense became more conservative because of Book’s issue with seeing downfield targets.
That is fair to ask. There’s def. those moments that stick in your head of a guy free going deep and Book not really able to see him.
Then again, I also tend to doubt guys like McKinley, Davis, Skworonek were actually getting a ton of separation down the field too. Not like they’re Waddle and Smith and able to turn anything into a threat.
Agree it’s a combination of Book and receivers. By explosive pass % ND was very middle of the pack (60th). I’m sure there could have been a more concerted effort to generate big pass plays but that really wasn’t the strength of anyone involved, and would have come at the cost of a pretty efficient short-to-medium pass game and solid run attack. It’s all a game of trade-offs, I don’t think Book really gets credit for having the lowest INT % of any P5 QB last year but of course if he lobs up some 50/50 balls that are picked that becomes the knock instead.
I hope with a taller QB we can get the middle of the field, especially the TE seam route, going again. I doubt we have anybody on our roster who will be able to improvise outside of the pocket as well as Book, but that could easily be made up for by reopening the middle third of the field.
There’s something that I think was a hot take a few months ago that I think has morphed into a bad take (in part as a result of your honorable mention #2): Clark Lea should have been made coach-in-waiting.
Yeah coach in waiting has only worked a handful of times or less ever? I think it makes more sense at some places than others, but generally it’s good to let your coordinator spread their wings and prove it as a head coach (like for Lea, on the field and in recruiting). You can only do so much to retain them anyway, and can incentivize them by continuing to give them more and more responsibility and insight to the big job (like Stoops did with Riley) without the promise of HCIW.
Right. It is still possible that Lea will be ND’s next coach. He has an opportunity to prove it at Vandy. If he pulls a Franklin there (or, really, even 85% of a Franklin there), he should be in the mix. If not, nope.
The immediate boost in defensive recruiting post-Freeman hiring is a bit of a red flag too. All the Lea interviews and podcasts I heard made me think three things: (1) wow, this might be the most cerebral football coach I’ve ever heard speak; (2) he is probably a great teacher; and (3) I bet this guy is not a particularly good recruiter. (1) and (2) are related to (3), unfortunately.
Of course (1) and (2) are a good institutional fit for ND, but also if recruiting is the thing that the consensus believes is holding us back from legitimately competing for national championships, it seems to me that you kind of have to hire the next head coach with an eye towards recruiting ability.
Lea will have the opportunity to dispel my impression at Vandy. If he recruits well, great. If not, he probably shouldn’t be the next ND coach.
Yeah, I actually think in the long-term, we have the best of both worlds. We have an up and coming DC who is a slight risk, as we haven’t seen him prove it at the highest levels, but appears to be a lights-out recruiter. And when Kelly retires, we’ll know exactly what Clark Lea looks like as a Head Coach. I find it hard to imagine a world where we wouldn’t be able to lure him back to coach at ND, even if Vandy is his home. It seems like a nearly ideal situation to me (unless Freeman absolutely craps the bed with the step up in competition).
I always disliked that take. I love Lea. Likely always will love Lea. But at minimum, he needs to have this Vandy experience – and have it go well – to be the next guy.
The way Freeman has hit the ground running in this job has been something to behold. If his defensive coaching proves to be as good at this level as his recruiting already has been, I think ‘make Freeman coach in waiting’ is going to be the next take. Some commenters on other sites have already made it or implied it.
Great article. This isn’t a hot take really, but the discussion surrounding your “Clark Lea or Marcus Freeman” Twitter poll brought up the idea that you need an elite recruiter at head coach to win a championship. And there’s a good argument to be made for that point. But it got me thinking: is it even realistic that the head coach at ND can focus that much energy on recruiting? Alabama, for example, has enough resources and staffing throughout the program that Nick Saban can just wear his crootin’ hat if need be. It doesn’t seem like Brian Kelly has that option. Is there enough bandwidth built into the job itself to truly allow the head coach to be an “elite” recruiter?
That’s a viable topic to think about. Saban has built a different animal down there, not sure that’s the comparison to make since that machine is so unique. For several reasons that aren’t changing (geography, culture all that stuff) we all know where Saban is at is just never a place Notre Dame is going to get to.
But there’s a lot of evidence that top head coaches can also be very involved as top recruiters. Ryan Day and Lincoln Riley come to mind as two names that dedicate a lot of time and effort to it. I’d think if the coach is more of the CEO and big picture player, he could throw himself in it.
Overall it has to be more than the HC. To your point, it’s really no secret that if you compared Notre Dame’s recruiting operation (staff numbers, budget, private travel, facilities, etc) to Alabama, Clemson and those types they would be lacking as far as resources dedicated to the overall effort. Some of that can be controlled and upgraded, but maybe not to the extent that we all want and not instant fixes/upgrades.
So I think it’s important to put into context there more to the whole operation than just having an energetic and willing HC that need to be upgraded for the program to compete and improve on that front.
You hit it – I think the bottom line is you need an elite recruiting operation, which the HC is a vital part of (both being the big figurehead and getting resources). Saban, Dabo, and Urban appear to love it and put the time in. Once you’ve reached a certain level I think it can also be less about the time as much as it is the guy putting rings on the table and the weight of his visits / calls – Nick f’ing Saban came to see me!
But a lot of it is staffers sending messages on behalf of guys and the whole broader operation, including staff and grad assistants and others who really can talk on a day to day basis. So HC that loves it definitely helps, and BK is definitely not an A overall but solid B, but I don’t know that it’s a capacity issue so much as desire / skill.
This topic has always fascinated me.
1) I think Saban is heavily involved in recruiting, though. Maybe not 99th percentile involved–and he surely has an efficient machine surrounding him–but he’s a huge part of Alabama’s effort, and maybe most importantly, he sets the tone for everything they do and what they go looking for in players. From his days at MSU and LSU to Bama, he doesn’t eff around with recruiting.
2) I always like to mention a lot that traditionally, Notre Dame recruited at a high level without its head coaching killing it. There are hundreds of stories about Holtz doing basically nothing with a recruit then meeting him for the first time for an-home visit to seal the deal. Those were the days!
3) Kelly seemed hellbent on cutting down on the extracurricular activities in his first 2-3 years. Remember how mad NDN got when he decided he wasn’t doing the annual Chicago alumni speech? I think many of us agreed his priorities needed to be reorganized and to be honest he seemed a lot more involved and spirited with recruiting.
4) 30 years past Holtz’ last elite recruiting run I think Notre Dame does need an ace recruiter as head coach to take the next step. At one time, BK seemed in this vein but not in totality after a dozen years of evidence. I personally think in terms of time and management it’s easier to recruit now for the ND coach than in the past but it’s also more difficult because about 4 teams are murdering everyone else in a way that not even Miami/FSU/UF/USC were doing in the 1980’s.
5) Coming after Weis, I think it made sense to bring BK in as a program builder. I wouldn’t necessarily think recruiting from the head coach should be the No. 1 priority at Notre Dame, but whomever follows BK I think they will have to look long and hard about bringing in a difference maker on the trail.
Like others here, I absolutely love this article. Merci!
As to what T Reese’s ideal offense would be, I agree — like this year only with deeper wideout threats.
To which I say, why not? That matches up with our historic excellence in recruiting and developing superior OL and TEs. I don’t care what Saban says these days, I still think that kind of offense paired with a good defense can still win important ball games. Cue this year’s Super Bowl.
This will lay me open to much criticism, but so be it. Anyway, the question was what is in Tommy’s inner self? And I think this is the likely answer.
I think that formula can definitely work and feels more realistic in the near-term than suddenly landing top 50 WRs left and right. I will love Ian Book forever, but it should be possible to get a QB with a little bit more (either in arm talent or athleticism that make them a top-5 guy versus top-10) and a nice run of WRs. There’s a certain bar that has to be met in terms of the danger of the passing attack but that doesn’t mean it has to be a vastly different run/pass split necessarily – OSU made the title game and had a team good enough to win many years running more often than we did last year.
KIwi, and MB, thanks to you both. Good food for further reflection on paths to build ND to have a better chance to cross the threshold.
In today’s modern college game would you rather have:
1) A QB with elite arm talent, but who doesn’t have much more mobility than the ability to move around in the pocket
2) A QB with elite speed/elusiveness/mobility, but who isn’t the most accurate QB
I keep trying to figure out what direction ND wants to go in QB recruiting, and I’m not sure the staff really has a preference. I suppose we’ll get a better feel for Rees’ preference over the next few years, but it seems like currently they’ll just take anybody they think can be molded into a good QB, regardless of style. That’s probably the right way to do it, but if I was a coach, I wouldn’t want to have to deal with different style QBs on my roster; I would be recruiting all mobile QBs or all big-armed QBs.
Noise, I love ya buddy, but Saban is talking about championships, has always been a defense-first coach until recently. OSU trashed Clemson with terrific defense and good offense, but lost by 28 to Bama. I’d say last year’s (2019) LSU offense was also a Death Star that no defense could stop.
A thread on “Mythbusting” may not be the exact right place for this, but perhaps I can justify it as busting the myth that all Trojan fans lack graciousness. I am sure many of you know all about this great story, but this version is accurate and well written, so I hope good for those of you who want a “ND football” way to remind your kids that there are worse times than a pandemic. (By the way, this and other WWII experiences helped pave the way for the Glory Years v2 (’46-’53) and Leahy’s amazing ability to recruit talent, even after Fr Hesburgh tried to shut him down.)
https://www.militarytimes.com/off-duty/military-culture/2021/03/22/once-a-college-football-star-this-soldier-was-recognized-by-his-captor-on-the-bataan-death-march/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=EBB%2003.23.21&utm_term=Editorial%20-%20Military%20-%20Early%20Bird%20Brief
Noise, ironic you posted this now. I’m reading Twilight of the Gods- Ian Toll, right now. Such brutality. My Dad was on Bouganville and Luzon in WWII. (3 Purple Hearts, all in a month on Bouganville and the Bronze Star) He was a guard at McArthur’s compound in Manilla in 45′.
Yo, that’s awesome.
Bougainville saw some very tough fighting, and very nasty diseases. Was he a Marine, or more likely because he was on Luzon afterwards, in one of the Army divisions?
BTW, I assume you read the first two volumes in the Toll trilogy?
To stay somewhat on topic, I omitted mentioning that Lieutenant Frank Leahy’s two years in the Navy witnessed some serious (and successful!) recruiting efforts even out in Guam. Which reinforces Eric’s point about needing a head coach to move up to the very highest level of effort in recruiting
He was Army 37th infantry…Ohio Buckeye Div…though he’d never been close to Ohio. On Bouganville the (3rd) Marines secured the beaches then the 37th went into the jungle. Luzon was no picnic either. The numbers of Japanese killed is mind boggling… Yes, I’ve read the earlier volumes and recommend them to anyone interested in the Pacific in WWII.
A good outfit, went through a lot of tough fighting, with not a lot of press after Rodger Young’s MOH on New Georgia. Anyway, obviously, glad he made it, if only for having given us you!
That’s occurred to me…ha!
Great article, I 100% agree on the mistaken idea that Notre Dame’s offense is somehow outdated despite carrying plenty of modern elements. But with all of college football now seemingly devoted to the spread, returning to more pro-style concepts might be a form of guerilla warfare much in the same way as the triple option. Why not zig when everyone else is zagging?
My only nit would be the quarterback position. I think Notre Dame with a Kyler Murray-like talent could’ve won a national title the last three years, especially comparing ND’s defenses with OU’s atrocious units. LSU’s defense in 2019 wasn’t overwhelming either (top-20, but not top-10 good), but they pulled together at the right time. I think the key would be surrounding the next great ND quarterback with ample talent which is where you were going in that piece.
Golden… yes. Yeah, let’s zig, not a huge amount, and indeed with a very (very) good QB, but with a team tailored to our recruiting strengths. I don’t want to carry this too far, but I was impressed with how Tampa Bay managed to do just that.