This is not a rating of the power of different teams issued in the preseason. Rather, this is a Power Rating of Preseasons. Notre Dame preseasons, in fact. The ground rules:
- “Preseason” does not mean “Offseason.” It refers, specifically, to the August anticipatory period between practice beginning and the kick-off of the season.
- There are three factors that determine how much Power a preseason had:
- Anticipation – how hotly interesting was the upcoming year
- Entertainment – did anything noteworthy transpire in the preseason period
- Climax – how satisfying (or not) was the opening of the season
Picking up where we left off last week . . .
2010 – “AW, THE DENVER BRONCOS!”
Following 2+ seasons of garbage results and an “Urban Meyer Lite” swing and a miss firtation with Bob Stoops, ND “settled” for Brian Kelly, the 3rd best hire of the 2010 cycle, as per Athlon. Rebounding from the “disappointment” of the Weis Era and another high-profile miss from an A-lister coach overshadowed the transition quite a bit. After a while, though, things became exciting: we all wondered what wunderkind Dayne Crist would accomplish in BKs warp speed offense. Boring-ass opener.
ANTICIPATION: B+ ENTERTAINMENT: B CLIMAX: C
2011 – THE MAPLE STREET SHUFFLE
ND really figured itself out down the stretch in 2010. Stifling defense, timely offense, the first win over USC in nearly a decade. Stars were aligning off the field as well: Mike Floyd decided to come back for his senior season, we broke through to another stratosphere of defensive line recruiting, Dayne Crist was ahead of schedule in his rehab. Some enterprising folks from the greater BGS community saw this, realized how many of the great ones had won a BCS National Championship in their 2nd year at a school (Stoops! Meyer! Chizik!) and put out what I believe is the last private-press team-specific ND preseason mag to hit newsstands.
Anyway, for many fans this was the apex of a certain type of fandom, before the first two weeks of the 2011 season melted their souls into something different.
ANTICIPATION: A+ ENTERTAINMENT: B CLIMAX: F
2012 – “THE MOST TALENTED INDIVIDUAL I HAVE EVER SEEN ON A FOOTBALL FIELD.”
That was how Brandon Newman described Cloverfield Monster Everett Golson to the South Bend Tribune. We subsited only on rumor and innuendo, hoping that the Great Everett would be the one to exorcise the demons of a cursed 2011. This offseason was dread-inducing, what with transfers out, recruiting defections, Brady Hoke’s Michigan seeming to eclipse Kelly’s ND in the minds of media and recruits. Thankfully, ND got a jump on the rest of the CFB season by playing in Ireland. More Day 1 8 a.m kickoffs, please.
ANTICIPATION: C ENTERTAINMENT: C CLIMAX: A
2013 – “SO I SHALL”
Everything from Kickoff at the MNC Game until Kickoff in the 2013 Temple game was brutal. It had been a hellacious offseason, horribly spoiling what ND fans had assumed would be an ascension to an era of dominance a la the Holtz Golden years. Instead, we were racked with insecurity, less big-swinging dick of the college football world and more Cousin Greg in front of Congress. We NEEDED the actual games to start again; to end the offseason of discontent and reestablish the dominant magic of Coach Diaco the Golden.
Unfortunately, the season opening sequence — dull sandtrap of a game vs Temple, ugly loss in Ann Arbor, garbage outing against a terrible Purdue squad — definitely made the latter seem more apt than the former.
ANTICIPATION: A+ ENTERTAINMENT: C CLIMAX: C-
2014 – “LET IT GO!”
Everrett Golson Back Again, Gotta Beat Michigan
Something Wrong With Academics/
Jarron Jones Leg
Preseason #17. Players Missing From the Team!
BVG is on the scene! GREG BRYANT DON’T TRANSFER!
ANTICIPATION: B ENTERTAINMENT: A CLIMAX: A+
2015 – LONGHORN ROUNDUP!
This retrospective is now entering that weird blind-spot-of-the-mind where certain eras in the not-too-distant past are almost totally shapeless and flavorless in recall. People were sort of pumped for Malik Zaire to come on to the scene? And sort of ready to say “good riddance” to Everett Golson (who kind of faded into obscurity at Florida State)? Some very standard camp stuff this season: a good freshman turning heads (Tillery), some “dudes” asserting themselves as national level players (Fuller, Jaylon Smith, Sheldon Day, Ronnie Stanley). We had an ungodly amount of talent on paper, actually, but I think after the *tough* 2013-2014 programmatic “false start” we had trouble believing what we were seeing.
Anyway, where does that 2015 Texas win rank on the qualitative enjoyment list for the Kelly Era? Pretty high up there, right?
ANTICIPATION: B ENTERTAINMENT: B- CLIMAX: A-
2016 – LONGHORN? ROUND UP!
2016’s preseason period stands out in memory for platonic clarity of its “Bad Camp Signs.” Confusion about why BVG was back, and how it might work without Jaylon Smith erasing mistakes. A genuinely divided locker room, with ugly incidents like Kelly stopping practice (with the media present) to make the offense run laps. A stupid, stupid gimmick (putting the #1 jersey on a different kid each week to denote ND’s #1 position on the all time winning percentage list) that was horribly short lived. Five guys – including a senior and potential team captain – arrested on the eve of the season 50 miles from campus. The signs were there!
We lost the opening game to a terrible Texas team, and it was probably one of the best nights of the entire season.
ANTICIPATION: C- ENTERTAINMENT: C- CLIMAX: C
2017 – DEAD MAN WALKING?
I’ll certainly cop to wanting Kelly gone after the 2016 season. The record was mediocre but, worse than that, the results seemed to have gotten so predictably boring. Still, near-total staff turnover made for a modicum of intrigue. This ended up being a sneaky, under-the-radar preseason (maybe exactly what the program needed at this point?) because so many of the storylines (“The new quarterback is really turning heads with the way he can make things happen!” ; “The new defense has the guys playing fast and fired up!”) seemed like warmed over versions of things we’d already heard. It even started off a little wobbly, with the “Sea of Red II” Georgia game, which is already remembered much differently from how it felt at the time.
ANTICIPATION: B- ENTERTAINMENT: C- CLIMAX: B
2018 – IS THIS WHAT YOU MEANT TO DO?
Stalwart readers of this blog micro-series will recall the 2004 Preseason, during which ND elected to prepare steadfastly for a critical home tilt with the Michigan Wolverines. A game maneuver, but for the fact they actually had a trip to Provo prior totaking on boy-Henne and Co. In 2018, there was no such flub-up. Michigan was coming in atop the Harbaugh Hype Plateau. Overconfident, irrationally feared, and disgusting; now with a 5-star Quarterback!
And on ND’s side: what on earth was going on? Film of Wimbush struggling to throw footballs into nerf nets, anecdotes of Kelly shining strobe lights in the players faces and making them run scrimmage plays with golf balls. A plate of spaghetti labeled Frankenstein’s brains! Were we lining up to get brained ourselves?
No fucking way. We had the best athlete on the field, landed a flurry of haymakers early, and took a big step toward the playoff.
ANTICIPATION: A- ENTERTAINMENT: A CLIMAX: A
2019 – I WON’T GET HURT AGAIN!
I think we all were a bit gun shy after what happened in 2013-14. We didn’t want to look like idiots in “uNDefeated” gear again. Ian Book was back, but he’d had a crummy Cotton Bowl. Mike Elko dropped us for Texas A&M. There were even the “Echoes of Tuitt” reports of Pre-Season All America DL Julian Okwara underwhelming in camp. Then, opening night (2 years ago tonight! seems like much, much longer) was a slog against what everyone had pegged as a grotesquely bad Louisville team. Par for the course for a season that didn’t really get fun until after the Virginia Tech game.
ANTICIPATION: B ENTERTAINMENT: B- CLIMAX: B-
2020 – THE COVID-19 SEASON
Uh, yeah. Global Pandemic. Mass Social Reckonings. 2020 Election. Empty Stands. Thought about going back to the “We Didn’t Start the Fire” bit but it’s all a bit raw, wouldn’t you say?
ANTICIPATION: N/A ENTERTAINMENT: N/A CLIMAX: B-
2021 – BEST CAMP EVER?
Marcus Freeman, Tommy Rees
Wisconsin transfer if you please . . .
Read the practice reports. Check out Brendan’s preseason predictions poll results post later today. We’re preseason Top-10. Hype machine gearing up. A red-letter game against Wisconsin at the end of the month. Ohio State tonight, Clemson-Georgia on Saturday. ND and FSU in a helmet game on Sunday night. It’s back. It’s all back.
ANTICIPATION: A ENTERTAINMENT: A CLIMAX: ??
Mike, curious on your use of the image above, any special reason for it?
It startled me, that “Maple Street Press” group got a lot of SB Nation and other local media beat reporters to write for their season previews in the summer/fall 2011. I was involved with their Pittsburgh Penguins effort. I forget how much they were supposed to pay us, but it was a decent amount and they stiffed us and the company soon went out of business after they released all their magazines.
Guess they didn’t sell well, but I remember at least for me they did have decent distribution at bookstores (back in 2011 when people would still frequent buying reading materials in person).
Did you or anyone else here on this staff write for that production? Did they actually pay you guys? If so I’m jealous. Wild to see that image, haven’t thought about that in almost a decade.
I could be misremembering but I swear OFD got asked to write a blurb, or maybe one of the opponent previews, for one of those Maple Street Press magazines.
I wrote a lengthy article for a Philadelphia Flyers MSP magazine and got like $50 babyyyy.
Oh interesting. I do know a couple of guys who wrote something for that (which is how I remembered it – I bought more out of support for them than anything). Happy to connect you if you want to chase these bastards down!
I just google image searched it – that picture is a screenshot from ebay
Gotcha, that really hit me, wasn’t sure if it was personal for you or not. No need to contact anyone, what is done is done
Personally, 2014 was one where my anticipation was like A++++.
No more chuck martin calling the worlds most predictable offense, this unknown quantity in BVG (hey, he’s the polar opposite of diaco, maybe some aggression is what they need), AND getting golson back had me super jazzed. Plus, that Michigan game that year was oh so juicy. If I remember right, wasnt golson in preseason Heisman discussion, or was that after the 37-0 evisceration of michigan? #RememberThe6
Regardless, yes this year has me super giddy, which is weird considering the vegas O/U is at 8.5 wins. I’m feeling 2018 results, but have 2013 paranoia… ahhh to be a ND fan in the early fall.
Yeah, Everett had 1,142 passing yards at 69.6% with 15 total TD’s and 2 picks through those first 4 games before that slog against Stanford finishing with *that* throw.
I choose to live in an alternate reality where
Iowa State is better than NDGolson won that 2012 natty and the Heisman in 2014.Shots fired! Who knew the hotbed of cyclone debate would he a Notre Dame blog? I wonder if they know??
Maybe my favorite development in the 18S zeitgeist, cant wait to revisit this genesis in the 10th anniversary articles
Hills were died upon in the war of “I can’t and will never admit Iowa State is a top-10 team, even though they’re a top-10 team”
I was at that Rice game in the opener (I think maybe the last ND tame I attended in person). Golson was like some kind of revelation – the pre-half rollout throw to Prosise 50 yards across his body on a rope — definitely felt like we were supercharging for something.
In the end, though, they are who we thought they were
2014 was awesome up until the last 8 seconds of FSU, boy did that turn quickly.
Dominating opener, blowout over a rival in the last game ever of the series, dramatic ending vs Stanford, top 5 showdown vs the defending national champions and classic 90’s matchup. The scramble on 4th and forever and then….
that wasn’t the best BK team, but if you play that season a bunch of times I do think there’s some New Year’s Day appearances decently often. I don’t think Golson getting broken was inevitable, and that defense got absolutely wrecked by injuries to add to the BVG’ing
The fact that the NCAA made ND vacate 2012 and 2013’s victories just a couple months after that #1 gimmick was announced (which means surely Kelly must have had an inkling it might happen when he started it) made the whole thing look even dumber in retrospect. What a nightmare 2016 was.
Wasn’t the initial plan also to assign jersey numbers 2-9 through the other best practice players of the week as well? I seem to remember something like that where it was more than even just #1 that was going to rotate.
@Good thing we don’t go the unprofessional route and put names on the jerseys so anyone knows who the hell anyone is out there@
I one million percent bought that Maple Street Press preview.
Was anybody else thrown off by the fact that these seasons are listed chronologically? I definitely expected power rankings. An entertaining exercise, either way.