As we await the drama of Signing Day and the Gator Bowl it’s time to fire up another edition of Five Wide Fullbacks. Five questions, five answers. This week we are taking a look at next year’s Heisman race, an underrated Irish opponent for next fall, the future of NFL Draft picks from South Bend, grading the current Notre Dame assistants, and changes to the transfer portal.
1) Taking an early look at the 2023 schedule, which team jumps out as looking tougher than anticipated?
It’s sneaky good Tennessee Tech!
I’m kidding. There are a few options to consider, though. Jeff Brohm heading back to Louisville could inject some life into their program quickly, although quarterback Malik Jefferson is off to the NFL. I guess we can think about Pitt if First Round Phil™ finally lives up to whatever weird hype was created at Boston College. Sam Hartman could stay at Wake Forest but even if he doesn’t Dave Clawson has been keeping the Deacons relevant and frisky in recent years.
Looking so far ahead, it has to be Duke and Mike Elko in Durham currently Doing Good Things™ with a 8-4 record. They were solid on both sides of the ball in 2022, too. I have no idea what kind of attrition they’ll experience but it’ll be a road game.
Elko looks like a machinist who rips cigs all day but the man can coach football.
The placement of a game like this could be key, too. Right now weeks 3, 6, 7, 9, 11, and 12 are open to slot in 4 ACC teams without dates. That means Duke could come after each of the Ohio State, USC, or Clemson games.
2) Caleb Williams won USC’s 8th Heisman Trophy (if you count the Reggie Bush hardware) over the weekend and it’ll be a long off-season of the Trojans quarterback going back-to-back talk. Who will challenge this cursing fingernail painter?
I’ve narrowed the list down to a top 12 of only quarterbacks. You could also make a case for the guys who end up starting at LSU, TCU, Oregon, UCLA, Georgia, and maybe even the plucky Fighting Irish.
Connor Weigman, Texas A&M – The Aggies offense has been abysmal but is going through a major off-season overhaul. Weigman was highly touted and had some bright moments in 2022. It’s not the worst long bet.
Dillon Gabriel, Oklahoma – This is only possible if the Sooners can turn things around quickly after a shockingly poor 2022. Gabriel also needs to stay healthy. If he does, the numbers will be there.
Drew Allar, Penn State – I’m going to throw Allar’s name in the hat because he has a very good skill-set and we could see PSU’s offense open up with him behind center. Accuracy could be an issue.
Joe Milton, Tennessee – If you’re a believer in the Josh Heupel offensive system here’s a good pick.
Jalen Milroe, Alabama – The passing game is going to be a work in the process. Milroe could be an instant 1000-yard rusher, think of something similar in style to Jalen Hurts.
Cade Klubnik, Clemson – It feels like Klubnik gained more experience in 2022 than just his 46 passing attempts. If he plays well in the bowl game look out for lots of Heisman talk.
Williams in the Gucci/Adidas collaboration suit.
But is that a LEATHER NECKTIE!?!?????? pic.twitter.com/Uzx0Mx4FiF
— € Murt (@EMMurtaugh) December 11, 2022
Jordan Travis, Florida State – He didn’t even start his career with the Seminoles and yet it feels like Travis has been at Florida State since 2016. He’s a nice dual-threat option capable of 3,500 total yards next year.
Drake Maye, North Carolina – He’s losing his offensive coordinator, and maybe more importantly, receiver Josh Downs is off to the NFL. Plus, this is about team success–Maye put up monster numbers and only finished 10th in the 2022 Heisman voting.
Michael Penix, Washington – Here’s someone who finished 8th in the voting this year and also put up huge numbers. Can Washington win the Pac-12 and usurp USC because that’s what it would probably take for Penix to win in 2023.
Kyle McCord (or Devin Brown), Ohio State – I’m not sure what the outcome of this off-season competition is going to look like (assuming Stroud leaves for the NFL). It’s always a good bet to put some money on the Ohio State quarterback.
J.J. McCarthy, Michigan – Hate to even type it.
Quinn Ewers, Texas – Only if Texas is Back, though.
3) Notre Dame should have a fun NFL Draft this spring with Michael Mayer and Isaiah Foskey picking up headlines and hopefully being picked extremely high. What does the 2024-25 NFL talent pool look like for Notre Dame?
This is a fun and humbling exercise. It’s wild that people do this for all of college football because trying to predict this with accuracy for one program that I follow 24/7 is really hard. Here’s my guess for those drafts years:
2024
Joe Alt, 1st round
Cam Hart, 5th round
Howard Cross, 7th round
2025
Blake Fisher, 2nd round
Benjamin Morrison, 2nd round
Mitchell Evans, 4th round
Audric Estime, 5th round
Xavier Watts, 6th round
I tried to be as realistic as possible without projecting someone to make a big jump–well except for Xavier Watts. He’s a pick for someone who could play really well over the next 2 seasons. Someone like Rylie Milss has the NFL body to be scouted really hard in the coming years, although his development hasn’t progressed that much.
I was wondering if Alt will leave next year that has to be the record for the quickest, most awesome career in Irish history. If he does, I’m curious if they’ll move Fisher over to left tackle for a season of NFL auditioning.
4) How can we save college football by fixing the transfer portal? Can you name a new rule that the NCAA should implement in order to calm down situations like the current environment where we’ve gone from fewer than 900 transfers in 2020 to maybe over 3,000 this off-season?
I’ve been thinking about this and part of me likes making true freshmen wait 2 years if they want a free transfer. Either you transfer after your freshman season, sit out your sophomore season, and play again as a junior. Or, you stay your freshman and sophomore seasons then transfer immediately to a new school.
It got me wondering, could we see a portal based on snap counts?
For example, if you play at least 300 snaps during a season you cannot transfer with immediate eligibility. To me, this is a good way of decreasing the amount of really good players who are transferring to chase a ring or a larger NIL bag. It doesn’t seem fair or necessarily a good decision for a player who is making a decent to large contribution to his team and then go play somewhere else right away.
That gets a little more complicated for graduate transfers. Should they get free transfers no matter what? Look at J.T. Daniels. He’s leaving West Virginia and will be playing at his 4th school in 2023. He could even get a waiver and play at a 5th school in 2024. Is it really necessary to be leaving schools like this when you’re starting?
In general, I think I’m okay with players who don’t see the field, especially underclassmen, being able to transfer without having to sit. That would mirror a lot of the similarities with the general student body, too. But a 2-year wait could be helpful.
5) This was an important year for Marcus Freeman bringing in so many new assistants in his 1st season with the Irish. Can you hand out grades for each of the 2022 assistants and do you see Notre Dame moving on from any of them this off-season?
I’ll publish my grades first from best to worst before discussing any changes after the bowl game:
Brian Mason (Special Teams): A
The kick return team was a waste of time. Other than that, what a great season! Even the placekicking felt like it struggled for a long time but Grupe hit 72.2% of his field goals. We’ll talk about all the punt blocks for years to come.
Gerad Parker (Tight Ends): A
Maybe the easiest position to coach on the team, if we’re grading on a curve could you lower this? I would find it difficult. Parker got 2 true freshmen ready to play, brought Evans back from injury, and coached the Mackey winner.*
*We should act like Mayer won the award.
Mike Mickens (Cornerbacks): B+
There was a time in the off-season where corner was looking a bit scary if there was an injury or Clarence Lewis was forever riding the struggle bus. Well, there were some late-season injuries and Mickens did a really good job developing this unit. Obviously, the freshman All-American season for Morrison sticks out. Jaden Mickey had his ups and downs but could’ve developed more without injury. Plus, Hart and Bracy all got hurt and missed games.
Harry Hiestand (Offensive Line): B+
This unit improved greatly as the year wore on. I originally had a grade of B here but decided to bump it up. Still, this unit had the most clay to work with and those early season struggles (as well as the Navy game on the ground) leave us with a lot of “what if” questions.
Tommy Rees (Offensive Coordinator/Quarterbacks): B
Deep breath, okay here we go. I’m basing about 60% of this grade on QB development where I think Rees got just about as much out of Pyne as humanly possible and it was a tough hand dealt to him to pivot to a backup quarterback with an iffy wide receiver corps.
Anyone getting fired?
Still, there were some dark moments for this offense but 42nd in FEI isn’t that bad with Pyne? I would guess at least half of Irish fans would have a lower grade here, though.
Deland McCullough (Running Backs): B
This unit mostly had a good year. Although, oddly every tailback went through a slump and had some tough moments. You have to wonder what 2022 looked like with a healthy Jadarian Price.
Chansi Stuckey (Wide Receiver): B
I struggled the most with this grade. The offense basically developed no true number one receiver as Lorenzo Styles really struggled with drops and an inability to make plays. We also saw Lenzy be mostly a body for the vast majority of the season. However, the development of Jayden Thomas and Deion Colzie were bright spots. Merriweather was making slow progress until his injury issues, too.
Chris O’Leary (Safeties): C+
This group just didn’t seem to put it together or be impactful enough over the course of the season. Brandon Joseph was supposed to be a big time playmaker and that never transpired. That missing piece really colors this grade. Some younger guys like Watts and Henderson trending up is cause for optimism next season. You would’ve liked more out of a veteran Joseph/Brown/Griffith group.
Al Washington (Defensive Line): C
Who was the 2nd best defensive lineman this season? It’s a tough question! I would probably pick Howard Cross. This unit played well for long stretches, I won’t deny that. It was also a group that was supposed to be incredibly deep and I’m not sure we saw a few players’ jump up and turn heads like some expected. It felt like a lot of guys, even if they played well, flat lined.
Al Golden (Defensive Coordinator/Linebackers): D
This is going to feel harsh. The defense only gave up over 400 yards once (USC) all season. They kept 9 teams under 30 points. In 3 out of the 4 losses it was the defense keeping the team in the game. It still felt like a let down. The 5.17 YPP is fine but many of the traditional stats are boosted by a slow offense driving down possessions. They only forced 13 turnovers in 12 games, and 8 in 11 games outside the hapless BC offense. The red zone touchdown percentage was 2nd worse nationally. In particular, the play of the linebackers was a big disappointment and frankly pretty bizarre at times.
If I had told you pre-season that the Irish defense would stay quite healthy on defense but fall 20 spots to 31st in FEI (the lowest ranking since 2015) just 11 spots better than the offense, with all the problems at linebacker, what would your grade be?
***
I doubt anyone will be fired. We’ve discussed at length that Rees could leave for another job somewhere, which is still possible. I think I’m guilty of seeing positives while giving the offense a pass for not having enough talent (QB & WR) and the assistants coaching them up pretty well. Others will think, “We should be at a certain championship level, we’re not, the grade is D.”
My three lowest grades were all reserved for defense where my expectations were higher and I don’t think they were met in many instances. I wouldn’t be shocked if Washington or Golden were let go but I don’t see it happening. Either way, they have to figure some things out with the linebackers and Washington has a huge year coming up in a post-Foskey world.
I would give both Rees and Golden about a B-/C+ for the season. Rees’s job was considerably more difficult given lack of QB and WR talent (why we are in that position at QB is another issue); Golden’s unit was more valuable to the team as a whole and had to cover for long stretches when the offense was doing nothing at all. In the end, we figured out how to play complementary football and had an OK season overall. So B-/C+.
I don’t think either of them is going anywhere. I doubt Freeman will outright fire a coordinator after his first season, and the coaching market seems to have no interest in either of them.
I think Rees did a pretty good job of just coaching; the issue is that as a 3rd-year OC a lot of the talent issues ND faced on that side of the ball this year fall on him.
I would give Golden a slightly higher grade for a similar reason; whatever ND’s talent shortcomings are are not yet his problem. The secondary development was quite good (remember 4 months ago when we all thought Ohio State would throw for 800 yards on us?). LB play was obviously the issue, though, and that is his position.
Fair, but the cycle we’ve seen is:
–Takes an exciting offense, dynamic HC to get the real top QB’s
–Takes consistent first round QB’s in the program to attract the best WR
–Doesn’t hurt to be in the south east to be favorable to skill positions
–And now it’s taking significant NIL money to get 5-star QB’s
A lot of that to get the elite skilled players to Notre Dame aren’t something any OC is going to be able to solve or turn around in 2 or 3 years. It’s an OL, TE, running game-driven offense until the time they get a playmaker at QB who can transform things.
I suppose it’s fair to see Rees has failed to some degree by not finding/developing that game-changing QB, but that rationale also simplifies and minimizes how difficult and rare it is to be able to level up. Even Georgia hasn’t truly done that yet.
This is the (much better written) sentiment I was trying to get at down below. People are shitting on Tommy for not being able to do all of these things at once, even though almost any of these things in isolation are difficult to do.
In some ways it would far more accurate way of representing things if we could rank current OCs. Then it’s easy to see what “not very good” means.
With Kelly, often people would complain he’s not very good coach but yet when seen in comparison he was a top 6-8 coach or something like that. So if by “not very good” you mean he’s not among the very elite, then fine. But most coaches are not among the very elite.
So where would Rees rank with other OCs? (I realize this is harder than HCs because OCs often have less of a track record since the good ones go on to become HCs but it still seems it would be a valuable exercise.)
As for future draft picks, that’s a bit depressing isn’t it?
In order to be a championship level team one needs more than 3 early round picks and more than 8 total nfl picks in a two year window I would think. I don’t know exactly but I’d guess the title contenders have probably nearly 8 early round picks (1st-3rd) and nearly 16 total NFL picks in two classes in a row. (Maybe more like 7 and 14 is reasonable, but still we are a long way off from that.)
Yeah, it seems underwhelming. It could be much better when it comes around though.
That’s true. For us to be elite then when these guys are roughly soph/jr/sr, there will have to be a lot of young guys playing at a high level or like you said those in these classes will step up (like Mills).
I’ll agree that Lenzy was mostly a body this season, as long as that’s short for “mostly a body that was usually running free 5 yards past the safety after blowing by the corner for an easy TD for any reasonably cromulent quarterback.”
Look at the behind the back catch, how badly underthrown that ball was. Would be interested in someone counting the number of times Lenzy was open deep.
I know this doesn’t include recruiting which would bump Stuckey more IMO, but I think he should be higher given the lack of talent, Styles developing the drops, QB play, etc.
Yes, but Lenzy only catches short comeback routes (50% of the time) and then falls down. Or, he traps the ball behind the DB’s back.
Lenzy was open a lot this year and even if they couldn’t get him the ball it made sense to keep him in because he’s also the best blocker among the WR corps, although Jayden Thomas came on in that area. Very disappointing how his career is going to be perceived because he played really hard whenever he put on that helmet.
I think Lenzy was OK and liked his tenacity but I don’t think he was just a competent QB away from being Will Fuller 2.0 or anything. Holding up QB performance to take all the slings and arrows for Lenzy is an easy way out.
Regarding Stuckey, having Styles not take a step forward and seemingly not being able to get Merriweather out there as much as hoped is kinda concerning on his front. It’s nice that Colzie came on a little when he got healthy, but overall the WR’s were still a weakness independent of QB play.
Digging Stuckey for his recruiting, but with Merriweather’s 2022, should that give pause on what they are going to do in the near future? I’d think so. I get that it’s tough for freshmen WR to generally make huge impacts, but it doesn’t look like a new WR coach has upgraded that timeline either.
Maybe Lenzy didn’t have Fuller upside, but he probably had TJ Jones upside.
As for Stuckey, he only had one freshman WR to work with this year and he was a traditional enrollee. Let him bring in this class which should include at least a couple EEs, I believe I’ve already seen Greathouse will be there early.
He maybe had that upside as a freshmen but as a 5th year not so much. TJ Jones was a fantastic WR.
I’m actually pretty comfortable staking out the second part of statement: with a different QB this year Lenzy could have gotten drafted late and hung around in the NFL for a few years, like TJ did.
Mayer was always going to get more balls than Troy Niklas, so it likely couldn’t have matched TJ’s 1,100 yard season, but he was open a lot when he was out of frame on the TV copy.
You’re pretty sweet on Lenzy then, I wouldn’t really put him anywhere near Jones’ class in terms of hands, shiftiness, route running, ability to pick up first downs. Idk, just thought of TJ as really, really dynamic and could carry a team at times. Lenzy was always a guy I never felt comfortable he’d even catch the ball when it came his way.
Regardless of the QB or scheme, I don’t think Lenzy would have put up the stats to impress the NFL, nor would that even matter all that much. Kevin Austin couldn’t get drafted or make an NFL team and his 2021 season is basically Lenzy’s entire collegiate career and he had better size and as good of a workout as you could hope for.
Agreed with everything here. Jones was in another stratosphere than Lenzy.
Merriweather was side lined late in the season with a concussion, just as we expected him to get more playing time. Colzie and Thomas both made strides this season and look like they’ll play significant roles next year. Styles had a sophomore slump but, I’m not worried about Stuckey at all.
Fair enough. It’s only the first year and Stuckey deserves more time. My issue is more how much do you really “expect” Merriweather would have featured later in the year? He was available for 8 games and had one single catch. (A very glorious catch!)
I agree he coulda/shoulda ramped up in the last month of the year, but they were pretty much saying that all season long that they were on the verge of trying to get more to him. Never did. We’ll never know now and it’s possible he could have had a bigger role, but I am doubtful on just how much that actually means..
Colzie did well, I thought mostly due to rapport with Pyne. Even then, he had 9 catches in 11 games this season, “making strides” is a very relative term there. Thomas was definitely out there. Styles didn’t take steps.
It might not even be Stuckey’s fault but I’m skeptical until the WR performance improves in a major way from how weak it’s been lately.
At least Washington seems to be a solid recruiter, if not actually at the level he appeared to be 6-8 months ago. Not sure how much losing Keeley and Davis-Swain, or losing out on Moore, are on him, but we need a bump there to be championship level. I think 2023 will definitely be a make or break year, both on the field and on the trail.
Golden seems to be a complete non-factor in anything. The D was worse than last year, despite being more experienced and having last year’s DC as the HC. He landed Ausberry, so a decent feather, but when Freeman was DC, you heard his name come up with basically every recruit on D, not sure I’ve seen any mention from recruits about Golden. Golden wasn’t bad, by any means, but seems to be a step down from the Elko, Lea, Freeman run in terms of scheming/coaching, and maybe on the earlier level of recruiting. We had a really good schematic run, so I’m sure we could do worse, but seems like we could do better, too.
I do wonder how much NIL might kill us for really top level guys at premium positions (QB, WR, DE, CB?). Sounds like it probably cost us Dante Moore and Keeley this year, correct me if I am wrong.
Yeah, it’s pretty hard to tell at this point. And especially hard to judge individual recruiting prowess with NIL in the background.
From all accounts, yeah, apparently Moore quietly committed to Freeman/Rees last spring. Keeley was an open verbal until his profile continued to blow up and Bama/tOSU were upping the pressure to get him, and he announced for Bama today.
I bet it will be almost impossible in the current climate for Notre Dame to sign a top 10-15 member of a class. Even Brandon Davis-Swain (a top 100 in 2024) just decommited with possible NIL implications as a leading factor.
BDS’s had quite the JR season. 65 tackles, 12 sacks (per CBS sports).
For whatever it’s worth, the people who are really into recruiting thought BDS was kind of an odd fit to begin with, so it was probably always a long shot that he’d stick. ND was immediately reported to be the favorites for a pair of twin 4-star DEs from Connecticut, Jacob and Jerod Smith.
Last DLine twins we picked up worked pretty well, let’s do it
I could maybe see that rating for Tommy if the offense had looked at all impressive with Buchner at QB; it did not. Meanwhile, schools like Duke with low 3 star QBs are finishing 10 spots higher than us in FEI. Or Kansas losing their starting QB for 1/3 of the season finishing top 15 in FEI. Or K State losing their starting QB and winning their conference championship.
Drew Pyne was Tommy’s recruit. Tommy is responsible for the offense that he was able to run with his recruit.
This is a really good point. To some degree, I think ND fans have come to accept very limited quarterback play with frequent starter changes because, for the most part, that’s what we’ve had since Weis was fired. Obviously the position is harder to manage now than it was in the 2000s thanks to transfers and NIL, but where we are is really not normal for a team that aspires to frequent playoff contention.
Agreed mostly on the grades. Might bump Golden up a little, but not much. Washington was most disappointing to me, other than the change from Freeman -> Golden, I’m starting to think the Elston -> Wash change from the Kelly days was the biggest downgrade on the staff. And I don’t really think Washington is necessarily bad, it doesn’t seem like he’s as good as the previous DL coach.
I find it difficult to grade some assistants. O’Leary looked like a better safety coach in 2021 with Hamilton than in 2022 with Joseph, is that on O’Leary? Are we evaluating the coach or what he’s working with? Perhaps naturally they are linked together.
Even for Rees, yeah, he recruited Pyne and brought him in, but Pyne had a Bama offer early and was a big time prospect early on in the process. Is it Rees’ fault Pyne probably peaked athletically in about the 10th or 11th grade and hitched his wagon to that? Maybe. Or maybe that’s a little harsh to lay at the feet of the coaches for how a young person develops and does, though it’s also the name of the game.
Yes. 100%.They let him commit on it. They could have invested in a measuring tape and see the kid is 5’9. Projecting future physical attributes and ability is a huge part of scouting both in college and the pros.
Last part makes sense and has value. For the first part of your comment, I guess what I was getting at was making that point that Pyne was an Elite 11 QB. Not just today but there’s always a lot of talk like he was a charity case or huge reach — or figuring out he was not going to be great was only a measuring tape away — when that was not the case at all is what I have a little less understanding about from that perspective.
Projecting the future is key and does count, but again from my comment above it is easy to simplify or minimize how difficult and rare it is to be able to level up at the QB position.
Drew Pyne was Elite 11 in the same way someone tried to mention ESB as Notre Dame QBs getting to throw to NFL wide receivers – technically true but boy that’s a misleading statement.
We’ve basically reached a level were you’ve insulated Rees from any negative feedback. Offense didn’t go that well? Well, the QB situation was bad. Who brought those QBs in? Rees, but it’s not his fault. Why isn’t it his fault? Well because not everyone pans out.
Which is a very strange attitude to have toward Tommy Rees, of all people. He was an OK quarterback for us a decade ago, that’s it, the end. Imagine if ND handed over control of half the football program to, like, Everett Golson or Evan Sharpley.
The whole thing is just weird as hell.
I’d honestly accept it more if someone came out and said “Drew’s dad paid made an eight figure donation to the athletic department so we went with it.” Clearly I don’t think that’s the case but at least I could say “yeah, probably worth it long run”
I swear this is a bizzaro world where one of us is confusing Drew Pyne and Ron Powlus. A .916 four star QB being sought after by Notre Dame isn’t so criminal, especially when bracketed by top-75 recruits in Jurkovec and Buchner.
Going 0-for-the-bunch starts to add up and look bad on Rees, who needs to hit on a QB eventually.
Powlus is a weird one but I believe he’s only really a scholarship player because his dad’s involvement with a program – as in, schools can’t stash kids on the roster without giving them a scholarship, right? Otherwise he would just be a walk on.
And you’re right, Pyne wouldn’t be so bad if Rees hadn’t bungled the QB room over the past half decade. But he did, so we’re back to the idea that Rees deserves blame for the offense’s sputtering.
I don’t believe I’ve ever left the idea that Rees is the person most largely responsible for where the offense is now. There’s definitely merit to that in deciding where the future is going and who should be around for it.
I can’t sign up for the leap in logic between (accurately) pointing out that Drew Pyne (the 8th highest pro QB in his class) being a highly prized HS recruit that had a ton of interest early in the process is insulating Rees from any and all criticism.
As I even said initially, maybe it doesn’t excuse Rees from any blame that he did hitch his wagon to Pyne for that year.
8th highest “Pro” QB and 18th overall if you combine them as 247 has subsequently done
With the generously listed 5’11 HS version of Bryce Young listed as No. 1. Good thing no one had a measuring tape to decide how bad he was going to be at the next level.
If Pyne had Bryce Young’s physical attributes maybe he could get away with being 2+ inches shorter than a guy who’s biggest knock is that he’s a little short for a QB. But he doesn’t
I have a similar family to Pyne. Like him, my cousins and other family members are quite tall. My dad is 6’0″ and Pyne’s dad looks 6-2 or so.
Our moms are super short, and we’re 5’9″ and stayed that way since early high school.
It is kind of funny to picture the ND staff waiting for Pyne to grow and thinking about moving on. He’s also really slight, small shoulders, bones aren’t very big. That should’ve been a red flag, too.
I come from a really tall family but we tend to be late growers too for whatever genetic reason – I shot up 6″ inches my senior year of HS and added another inch or so early in college. Bunch of my uncles did likewise. So it can happen and there’s always going to be some luck involved, but we all want to credit Hiestand for picking players based on physical attributes that he can coach up but then completely sweep Five Nine Drew Pyne under the rug?
Great point- linemen and QB’s, when it comes to physical development, there’s basically no difference at all there.
As we know, the annals of football are filled with great QBs who frequently hit linemen with the ball because they can’t see over them
and of course, we’re talking about the opposite here. Taking a flyer on a lower rated recruit with great physical attributes is one thing. We all got to hear how great Amorion Walker was going to be until he decommitted. Ehrensberger never really panned out but you at least look at him and can see why they take the chance. Same thing if they found some QB from Podunk, WhoCares but was 6’5 and had a cannon. That’s basically what Hiestand is trying to do with some of these OLine recruits. Whereas with Pyne, we saw a guy who doesn’t have the physical make up, committed early, and we stuck with him as he fell down the rankings
And it’s very different when you recruit 3-5 a year vs 1 a year.
If Tommy was worth his salt as a OC, he’d be taking 3-5 five star QBs.
nah carrying ~15 QBs on your roster is probably a bad idea
This is why ND should have offered Drew Allar earlier too. Gotta figure out whoever the QB coach is and make sure he stops being involved in evaluating high school talent.
Grayson McCall is officially in the portal. He’d be the dream transfer, right? Career 70.3% COMP, 10.3 YPA, 78/8 TD/INT. The only qualified player with a higher passer rating last year than the Heisman winner — yes against lesser competition.
Yes, he is the #1 QB in the portal, I think pretty clearly (could make the argument for Leary if he were healthy, but he’s not, so here we are). Have seen message board chatter he is going to Auburn, but hopefully the coaching staff is at least reaching out.
Rees looks like he is waiting in the Motor Vehicle Division. Or….
As far as the Transfer Portal in the full knowledge that many, if not all, are not feasible:
to decrease freshman transfers, have them sign two year LOIs, yearly renewals after thatNIL deals apply only after the first semester – except transfers to G5 schools and graduate transfers. In the first semesters, full cost of attendance covered.decrease FBS scholarships to 80-82Along those lines, you wonder if Deion got a commitment from CU to fund a competitive NIL. Transfers would benefit including his son, Shadeur, of course.
With the Heisman award, I think of Rashaan Salaam from CU. A sad story with a combination of injuries, a personality that shunned the spotlight, not pursuing a degree, bad investments on advice, depression and impact of CTE.
Death of a Heisman Winner: The Fall of Rashaan Salaam(SI)
(A good NY Times article on him, too)
The only other CU players who finished in the top three of Heisman voting were Byron White (2nd) and Eric Bieniemy (3rd).
Utah, the Pac 12 champion, went to the championship which had to go to the fourth tiebreaker rule to eliminate Oregon and Washington. Would have been nice to see Penix vs Williams.
A detailed breakdown of why the 3-team Pac-12 championship game tiebreaker worked out in Utah’s favor
Shamelessly replying to my own post – but a bit more on Colorado football. Shadeur Sanders has completed his transfer there. Fox has named him as their top Heisman candidate. 247 says he is a longshot. Shadeur already has NIL deals with Gatorade and companies run by Dr Dre and by Tom Brady. It looks like Travis Hunter, Jr – the No 1 ranked recruit in 2022 – is transferring from Jax St to Boulder, too.
Colorado has had trouble attracting transfers due to their academic requirements.
Those seem to have changed to allow more credits from other schools.
The University has also announced that the football program will pursue JC transfers to rebuild the Buffs quickly.
Wow, harsh grade for Golden! I thought the defense was mostly fine this year, but then again I didn’t appreciate they fell to 31st in FEI. That’s a bit of a yikes.
As for the Rees grade, the “I think I’m guilty of seeing positives while giving the offense a pass for not having enough talent (QB & WR)” is totally fair – Drew Pyne and the WRs are not why we lost to USC, which is incredible but true – but also there’s a “we’re all looking for the guy who did this” on the second half of that sentence vis-a-vis Tommy.
Also part of The Case Against Tommy Rees is this: why would any talented grad transfer QB or WR want to come play for him and his offense? Some might come for ND, like Jack Coan did, but I can’t imagine anyone looks at the Tommy Rees offense and is like “I need to get in on that.” So to some degree I think the talent problem will be self-sustaining at least in the near term.
That said: I’m optimistic on Stuckey! With the very big exception of Styles, I think he brought along the WRs about as well as could have been hoped. Plus with his recruiting he looks like to have been a good hire.
This is true in that Drew Pyne had his best possible game and only handled over the ball in costly ways twice while the RBs crapped the bed. But take a step back and I think it was clear USC came with the game plan of “make Drew Pyne beat us”
Crazier things have happened. Iowa got McNamara to join that offense
It’s kind of a problem that the ND starting job isn’t something that all the top portal QBs would obviously want, was my point. We still will be able to be somewhat selective – I suspect we think we can do better than McNamara; it’s possible Iowa’s the best job he could get – but I don’t get the sense that portal QBs are tripping over themselves to come play for what we reasonably think should be a top-10 program.
I’m being tongue in cheek, I totally agree here. I have no clue how Iowa got McNamara but I don’t think ND can do a very successful pitch of “if we just had you here to be our QB we’d be unstoppable”
Mostly fine is exactly how I’d describe this defense and Golden. The problem* is that’s more or less how I’d describe the team for the past 5 years.
BUT
I want a glimpse of really good instead of mostly fine, which MF did give as a coordinator last year. Neither coordinator has given me that hope this year.
*Mostly fine is a lot better than most of my life and I don’t actually consider it a problem. If we land on mostly fine with MF (basically don’t lose to Marshall and Stanford and get the slight bump in recruiting), I would ride with him for the next 10 years. But for the first 1-2 years, I want to at least think maybe we have a higher ceiling, which Golden doesn’t seem to actively contribute to raising.
Yeah if Jim Leonhard or somebody similar indicates interest we obviously thank Golden for his service and move on. Otherwise, I don’t think it was an obviously terminable season, especially since recruiting is doing fairly well (whether or not Golden is doing much in that regard).
I’m giving Rees a D- and probably an F. He was given the keys to the offense and he rolled out absolute duds against Marshall and Stanford. Those 2 losses alone preclude him from anything higher than a C and the other games didn’t do enough to sway me into thinking they were anomalies. He created the hand he was dealt so he gets no curve there.
Golden was exactly what I thought he was going to be. I thought he was C hire and he turned out to be a C level coach. Probably fine if we have a top 10 offense, but we don’t so ND needs more. Wouldn’t argue with anyone wanting to give him a D based solely on the LB’s.
Mason – A for obvious reasons
McCullough – A- for getting the rb’s to stick with it even though the o-line was bad for the first 3-4 games. Moved on from Tyree when needed and didn’t put Estime in a dog house after the fumbles.
Parker – A for reasons you stated
Mickens – A for getting the freshman ready to play from day 1. Developing guys
O’Leary – B saw developments out of a guy like Watts. Some blame for Joseph, but after starting 0-2 Joseph went full me mode as seen in his actions on the Hail Mary against Cal.
Stuckey – B-, tough to grade since WR’s knew they weren’t getting the ball most games. Thought they did a decent job when they had an opportunity. Would have liked to see him move on from Salerno and Lenzy in fall camp, but I know I’m mostly alone in that.
Heistand – C, oline was bad the first 1/4 of the season and bad against Navy. For as much love as Harry gets, he should be held to a higher standard.
Washington – D, wasn’t really impressed at all this year. Definitely never felt like a scary unit. Haven’t seen the recruiting impact I was expecting either.
In the end, I’m hopeful yet not optimistic that Freeman moves on from Rees this off-season. I would prefer if he made a proactive move as opposed to Rees taking something else but don’t think that either will happen. For Defense, think it would be great for Freeman to either take back more of the defense or go hire a younger Co-DC to pair alongside Golden. Jim Leonhard would almost certainly never, but I would take a 1 or 2 year mercenary if he wanted it. Hell, ND isn’t throwing the bag at the players, might as well the coaches.
If Rees probably gets a F this year what did BVG get a few years back? FFF or something? Curious on that grading scale!
BTW, a lot of the talk about Rees gives me 2010-11 Kelly vibes in the way people are reacting/grading things.
So how do you feel about Rees as our coordinator? Not just your grade for him this year; do you feel confident he can get this team back to the Playoffs without Kelly guiding him? The offense looked bad with Buchner. The offense looked bad with Pyne (who Rees recruited).
Overall grade I’d say is about a B-level or so. He’s shown good development of 3 different QB’s (3 different styles too) with a TBD on Buchner. For the most part, I don’t have huge issues with his coordinating. We’re multiple, can get varied and incorporate different gameplans pretty well.
In terms of confidence, I don’t wake up thinking Rees is holding us back. In players terms (since he’s mentioned in this thread) similar to TJ Jones’ career, maybe. There are better #1 wideouts but he was a good and reliable receiver.
BVG gets a flunked so bad he was kicked out of school. The man got an F in every single subject, other than facial hair and Michigan. Sadly facial hair is pass/fail (passed with flying colors) and Michigan was a freshman seminar.
For me Rees is an A- developer, B+ recruiter, D evaluator, B+/A- play caller, B game planner, with a C+ scheme. That more or less averages to like C in talent management, since evaluation might be the single most important aspect, and B+ in game strategy. Which averages to a B-/C+ OC, which is pretty much exactly how I would grade our offense.
The strong B+ recruiter grade might sound weird considering the talent currently on hand. But Rees did land the guys he wanted, and by many accounts coulda/woulda/shoulda (was at least very highly in the running) with guys like Moore and Howard. And flipped Minchey and landed Coan. Obviously, the overall recruit results are quite poor, but that is due to his evaluations, not his ability to convince a kid to come to ND. He’s still not an A recruiter, would never be able to beat out tOSU/Bama/USC, but he’s a solid top 10 QB recruiter in my opinion.
I agree with those grades for the most part.
Very good and fair grades (noting your recruiting/evaluation distinction), assuming the D evaluator is for picking Coan out of the pile for 2021 transfers (only Hooker would have been better) and/or eventually getting to the right place on Book > Wimbush. Otherwise he’s basically an F down the line.
Don’t forget his evaluation of first round Phil!
For the record, I am also giving him the benefit of the doubt on Angeli right now. But wouldn’t argue with an F.
mmm, I suppose it’s early but man based on what we’ve seen I’d rather Drew Allar be our starter in the Gator Bowl than Angeli
Well yeah. But that doesn’t mean Angeli stinks.
What are the parallels you see between 2022 Rees and 2010-2011 Kelly?
Just a general vibe of setting the bar really high and perseverating on slices of a season without any wider acknowledgement of any good things going on.
Many thought BK was an offensive genius and never recovered when that wasn’t the case–and it colored a lot of criticism in his early years. You can see some parallels with Rees in that regard.
BK got a lot of the “Hahaha no one in the NFL wants him!” and look at Rees today.
Yes. The typical range for an F in school is what, 0-60? 0-65? Rees can be a 60 and BVG can be a zero where he spelled his own name wrong on top of the paper
BVG got expelled and banned from campus. Zero point zero GPA.
Haha BVG failed so bad they held him back 2 grades. Hell, the nuns even came out and said I don’t think school is your cup of tea, the world needs ditch diggers too, son.
My opinion is that we had 2 losses and very bad losses at that, that came down to Rees IMO. Marshall and Stanford both were terrible offensive game plans if you ask me. He was handed the keys to the offense fully, has been the OC for 2 years, and we had heard that he was a wunderkind. He also doesn’t get a break from me for Buchner’s injury. If Rees develops a competent game plan then I don’t think Buchner gets hurts against Marshall, I know impossible to prove.
I could be talked into a D for Rees. I just think the Marshall and Stanford games are such a black eye that the other games are hard to overcome. You touch on 2010/11 Kelly and the hate he received being similar to Rees and I can see that. I would also argue that if the next 5 years are the same for Rees as 2012-2016 were for BK then Freeman should definitely move on from Rees immediately.
Marshall was bad, Stanford was terrible. To me, the second half of Navy was the worst of all. ND’s worst half of offense since at least 2008, and that includes some very pedestrian offenses.
I mentioned this above, but I think it’s telling that Rees’s name has not been connected to any job of any kind, at any level, this offseason. The rest of the football world does not see what some of our fans and media see.
Do the Rams still need him as super genius successor to Sean McVay?
The decision not to bury Estime was one of the biggest moves of the season. I really thought he was going to ride the pine the rest of the year. Great work by McCullough and the staff to stick with him.
So to distill down a large majority of the comments:
Recruiting is terrible because there aren’t 5* players up and down the depth chart and that’s absolutely on the coaches. None of them have thought to exclusively get the best players available to them at all times. Every other school gets all of the players they intend to get, and when they do get them, none of them get injured and they all perform exactly as well as they possibly could. Every game and every play should have been thought through prior to the season starting and had different options for each individual on the team, incase someone does get injured.
Did I miss anything?
Mrs. Rees, please
Don’t forget if your starting QB gets hurt…
Indeed, Rees defenders do seem to think QB personnel management doesn’t matter as a strike against him
In fairness, every QB discussion going into the season including some back-and-forth you and I had about how many passing yards Buchner would have often came down to “exactly how hurt is Buchner going to get this season?”, so it’s not like that was unforeseeable.
That’s true.
Which brings us back (again!) to recruiting. It just seems like that’s all Rees’ detractors want to talk about.
(Which I think is DrIck’s point…..)
“Pyne isn’t very good, that was a recruiting miss. If he starts the offense will probably struggle.”
“Yes, but Pyne shouldn’t have been recruited.”
There’s only so much room for discussion when it keeps going around in circles.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that there is scant evidence that TR is a poor QB recruiter, evaluator, or developer. Mind you, I’m not saying he *isn’t* a poor QB recruiter, evaluator, or developer. I’m just saying there doesn’t seem to be a ton of evidence of it at this point. He seems to be recruiting fairly highly rated recruits (including a 5 star in 2023), and he seems to have gotten a good deal of high level play out of the QBs that are on the field.
At the time of his recruitment, Pyne was fairly highly rated. Others (Alabama) saw it too. Turns out, he was limited physically and maybe Rees should have known that to begin with. But, then, Rees didn’t choose him to be the starter. And Rees still went 8-4 with him and beat the snot out of Clemson.
Perhaps Buchner, Angeli, Minchey, and Carr will all be total busts. If so, there’d be evidence that Rees is a poor judge of talent and maybe a poor developer of talent. Perhaps Rees won’t recruit another QB above a 3star. If so, there would be evidence that he is not a good recruiter.
Until that happens, I don’t see convincing evidence that supports the whole “Rees is a terrible QB recruiter/evaluator/developer and the QB room is a mess” story.
I would like to + this more than once.
1) CJ Carr is a 4 star. I’m very excited we got him, but I don’t think any recruiting service has him as a 5 star, though I could be wrong.
2) I think your point on Drew Pyne being highly rated as a recruit is where a lot of the confusion is coming from. I see a kid who was the #18 QB recruit in his class. To me, that doesn’t scream “fairly highly rated” and certainly isn’t the type of player who is likely to lead you to the Playoff. Maybe that’s an unfair standard, but if we constantly bring in QBs outside the top 10, we should expect our offenses to end up outside the top 10.
3) If the QB room isn’t the problem, fine, but then hopefully he can spend this offseason figuring out what the problem is. Because he hasn’t been able to lead us to a top 15 offense so far, and I don’t see us getting back into championship contention without a top 15 or better offense.
Drew Pyne was more rated when he committed. Thing is he committed on 4/6/18 for the class of 2020. It’s a good bit of obfuscation over the four star classification too which has some guys like Kyle Hamilton who barely miss out on being a 5 and were shooting up the board and some guys who were ranked well early and keep falling but never fall out of the range
1) fair enough. I thought I had heard 5 star said a few times. It’s hard to keep up on some of this stuff – I feel like, as a casual observer, the services are all over the map sometimes.
2) I think maybe I was unclear on my point. My point is just that the recruitment of Drew Pyne does not appear to be conclusive evidence that Rees is a bad recruiter. I’m not contending that Drew Pyne was some great recruit. I’m saying that, at the time of his recruitment/commitment, it was reasonable to be after him, and others thought so too.
3) I think that’s a fair point for sure. At some point, the results on the field matter. Again, my overall point, though, is that there isn’t a ton of evidence just yet that Rees is a bad recruiter/developer/evaluator. Perhaps after next year that evidence will be there – i.e., to your point, if he doesn’t figure it out this offseason. But, as we sit here now, I don’t think the evidence suggests that he’s bad. In fact, it seems to *suggest* (not prove) otherwise.
Carr was a 5 star earlier. He has been sliding a bit. On3 updated their rankings and dropped him to #133 and #12 QB. Rivals still has him #15/#4 QB, but a 4 star. He’s #33/#5QB 4 star on 247.
On point 2, I would just point out that he was a fallback option for a lot of those other schools that were in on him. I’ve seen it referenced a few times that Bama had offered him. Sure, but Bama then went out and got the #1 QB in the country (Bryce Young). I don’t expect our recruiting to be at the level of Alabama, but it’s very clear that Drew Pyne was never going to be the #1 QB in their class. Heck, Texas took 2 QBs rated higher than Pyne that year.
But that’s really not the main point. Point 3 is the main point. And I would agree with your assessment that there isn’t evidence he is “bad” at anything QB related. I think it is quite clear he isn’t “bad” at anything QB related. But at some point, I need him to prove to me that he is GOOD at that combination of 3 things. I think you’re right that the signing of Carr and the 2023 season will be a great chance for him to prove he is “Good.”
Well said on point 3. Totally agree – at some point he has to show he’s good. And I also agree that said point is probably 2023. If after 2023 the best we can say is that there isn’t evidence that he’s bad, that’s plenty of reason to move in another direction.
It kind of is, yes. If Rees were a terrible coach, as many are suggesting, not only would he have recruited the awful Drew Pyne, who no other school wanted, but he would then also have to make him the starter, play horribly game after game and continue to see no change in his performance. Those things are all demonstrably not true.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think Rees is a terrible coach. IMO, he is a bright and inexperienced OC who, as a playcaller, shows flashes of true brilliance mixed with some irrational panic. I think he could be quite good as a playcaller someday, but he’s still in the learning phase of his career and should go somewhere he can be mentored, which is not currently Notre Dame.
As a QB coach, I think he is a poor evaluator of talent, poor at roster management, and decent at developing the QBs he does have on hand. You could probably convince me to keep him on as OC for another season or two, but not as a QB coach. The position is too important and we are too far behind the 8-ball here.
There’s not a chance in heck that he is not both OC and QB coach, if he’s at ND.
If that’s true, it’s unfortunate, because I feel like it would be a good compromise solution to the current situation.
I really don’t think anyone is coming to hire Rees away.
Right, it’s nonsensical that Rees would become less active with the QB’s or that somehow his offense would become better by him having less input and interactions with the quarterback. It’s uh, kinda the exact other way around.
And to that end, though Drew Pyne’s only at ND because his family donated $10 million lol reasonable comment section strikes, I think if you took 2021 Wisconsin Drew Pyne or 2022 Marshall/Cal Pyne compared to the development to the end of 2022, there was some really good improvements made, which might be masked by those who go red with rage at the mere assertion that Rees and/or Pyne can correctly tie their shoes in the morning.
Didn’t say that’s why he was here, please try reading again
It’s weird that Rees’ defenders keep saying that people are calling Rees terrible, getting red with rage about Rees, etc. I’ve seen one person in this entire comment thread imply that Rees is terrible, and that person cited Marshall, Stanford, and the 2nd half of Navy as his reason for giving Rees an F this year.
In terms of Pyne’s development from the Marshall game to the end of 2022, well, sure, he looked better at times. On the other hand, in the 10th game of the season, we had 18 yards on 16 plays in the 2nd half against Navy.
I think Rees is pretty bad though I’m more annoyed with the constant defenders than the guy himself at this point. I’d probably say he gets a D at best for this year and a C-ish overall for his time here because I believe Notre Dame football should be better than 42nd offensively and have a QB who you would mistake for a high school back up out there if you saw him without pads
I think you can be graded on a season and not be a terrible HC. I don’t think Brian Kelly is a terrible CC, but he had a few seasons at ND where I think you could grade his performance as a F or D.
I don’t think Rees is a great developer of talent. I didn’t see huge leaps in development out of Book from 2018 to 2020. Jack Coan should have been benched last year and then we hit a 7 game stretch where the best defense we faced was ranked in the 90’s. As for Pyne, I don’t know what to say, If you look at his 4 game stretch between Stanford to Clemson, I don’t think anyone would say he was developed. Sure, a great lasting memory against USC.
I think Rees has showcased in multiple games that he can be a great game planner. Clemson 2020 Clemson 2022, Ohio State 2023 even. I also think he can be a lazy game planner and is almost trying to disguise things for future games. Marshall and Stanford stand out to me this year as examples. Same as he was as a player, I think he fancies himself a better OC than he actually is, just as he was overconfident in his abilities as a player.
As an evaluator, I actually think this is where he gets the most leeway from me. I think it’s unfair to TR that his Dad heads up the scouting room. I think that’s a tough spot to be in especially as you’re starting out as a QB coach at 26. It’s clear he has missed and it’s clear that most programs miss on these kids. Tough to go against your Dad, tough to be the underdog kid and not have a certain affinity for that kind of recruit.
I’m not going to touch the recruiting here. But overall I think Rees is probably a C+, B- offensive coordinator. I think he’s someone who if you sent him to Bama or OSU tomorrow he would probably be considered an A+ OC and on the other hand if you sent him to Virginia or NC State he would be considered a C-, D level OC.
Overall, I think for Freeman’s tenure at ND it would be best to move on from Rees, plus his dad. I’ll gladly eat my hat and post it here if we jump up to a top 5 offense next year with Rees.
I mean that happened.
It’s almost like recruiting, especially when you define it to include roster management, and then developing the players you do get is a huge part of being a college assistant. Shocking, I know! I also don’t think Rees is a particularly great play caller though he has his moments. Nor is he typically dreadful at it.
But you’re not really being honest about the argument here. The argument is that the offense hasn’t been elite at any point since Tommy has been involved, and it was actively not good this year. Tommy is responsible for the offense. If the ceiling with the offense is “not elite” and the floor is 42nd in FEI, what is the point of keeping Tommy around?
You can say the same about 95% of the coaches who have been at Notre Dame this century.
We can turn the staff over every year, actually.
This is why it’s not good enough to just think whoever we have hasn’t done good enough. One has to genuinely consider who can we get who is actually better.
Notre Dame’s preceding 2 offensive coordinators didn’t have an offensive FEI lower than 28, and they reached as high as #7 and #12. Hell, Mike Denbrock put together the #22 offense.
Maybe it was really Brian Kelly putting together those offenses, and Long, Sanford, and Denbrock all coasted off Kelly. But if that’s the case, I would really like to see Rees put together a strong offense on his own next year, to give me the confidence he can run a good offense without Kelly.
Every year? No. But I think 6 years as QB coach and 3 as OC is a reasonable amount of time.
Who is suggesting that we turn over the staff every year?
It’s more the “not elite” comparison. It’s thrown around like candy for the OC but if it’s used more widely for other areas of the program (which most of the time it is not) we’d be an extremely unhappy bunch most seasons.
Have you met ND fans?
How about this phrasing: “Notre Dame’s offensive and quarterback performance can and should be better, at least some of the time”
That would be correct for sure.
This is absolutely true. I’d like it to be better all the time, but that doesn’t mean its realistic. I’d like ND to go 14-0 / 15-0 in the expanded playoffs. I don’t think TR is the OC to do that, but I also don’t think that OC exists for ND.
It seems like Bama has a different OC every other year and yet the recruiting stays elite. So either Saban is consistently poaching the best OCs in the land, or the recruiting is program-based and not just coach-based. I feel like that’s what MF is trying to do at ND – develop a program that recruits well.
I think it’s both for Bama. Obviously to some degree Alabama recruits itself at this point. But Saban also seems to hire every ex-HC to be an analyst then churns them upward until he gets a new position coach and then OC
makes sense. What role does the over-recruiting play, do you think? I remember reading an article about a decade ago that talked about the abuse of grey shirts and medical red shirts and other things that Saban uses that sit on the edge of the ethical wall (maybe worse) that really helped build monster programs – stuff that ND will just never do
Oh that definitely helped especially early on when recruiting rules were tighter. For what it’s worth, I think Notre Dame and everyone who can is going that way. Not with the grey shirts and medical retirements but you can already see the increased roster churn in the portal, whereas ten years ago that would have been the sign of a collapsing program
Interesting.Yeah, the portal stuff has been crazy. Seems like the whole landscape is turning on its head. I guess that’s probably a good thing from a parity standpoint.
ehhhhhhh, I think it helps USC or maybe Colorado or other programs get a leg up on a fast turn around if they handle it right but from the looks of it, other power programs (namely Alabama of course) are going to take on lots and lots of guys from lesser programs
One very striking difference — Saban hires former P5 head coaches as his OC. We…do not do that.
But what if we hired Mike Sanford again?
BRILLIANT. You reject your own OC because it represents the glories of tradition. Why didn’t I think of that? Cut, print, moving on.
via GIPHY
We hire former P5 head coaches as DC! That’s gotta be almost as good, right? …Right?
That’s an absurdly high bar to set. Is ND even an elite program – have they been for 30 years? If TR doesn’t field a top 10 offense YoY, he should be fired? I think putting together a top 20 offense and a top 15 defense is a good combo, which is what ND has done with TR – except for this year.
No, but a top 10 offense one time sure would be nice.
YEAH, no shit. So would a National Championship. Doesn’t mean it’s a thing that’s going to happen.
I’d like that, too!
Notre Dame sucked during the Davie / Willingham / most of the Weis eras, no one denies that. To his credit, BK showed that yes, Notre Dame football can still be a top level force and I am fine saying we are and should be an elite program. We aren’t Nebraska
So then why is TR getting held to a higher standard than the program at large? I couldn’t give a crap if TR was fired tomorrow, I’m just annoyed with the unrealistic expectations put on him.
Who is setting these expectations and what are they? You seem to be reading things that I have not seen anywhere.
5 comments up, man.
And the one below
Do you think it’s unrealistic for ND to ever have an elite offense or QB play? That’s a genuine question. I am very big on realistic expectations.
I think it will happen, but I don’t expect it YoY – unless a program is truly gifted and lucky.
Here’s a list of Top 10 FEI Offenses from ’17-’22 (excluding ’20)
School # Ohio State 5 Alabama 5 Georgia 4 Oklahoma 4 Michigan 2 Tennessee 2 Clemson 2 UCF 2 BYU 1 Utah 1 Western Kentucky 1 Wake Forest 1 USC 1 Washington 1 Oregon 1 UCLA 1 Florida State 1 LSU 1 Wisconsin 1 Minnesota 1 Memphis 1 Texas 1 Navy 1 Washington State 1 Ohio 1 Missouri 1 Texas A&M 1 Oklahoma State 1 Penn State 1 Louisville 1 Army 1 Arizona 1
As expected, there’s 4 consistently good offenses and then mostly scatter after that.
Exactly — the key is that ND does not appear on that list at all.
I actually do not think that ND can replicate the offensive success of Oklahoma or Bama. I do think we can be at least as good as Michigan.
I think we could do an Oklahoma, though it might require similarly putting more eggs in that basket at the cost of defense
I mean that’s basically what Weis’s first two teams were. I know that was a long time ago, but this stuff is not impossible.
In the case of Oklahoma, there’s a strong argument that their recent success was more Lincoln Riley than the campus in Norman. But he’s clearly a freak and not the standard by which other OC’s should be measured.
I know that Lincoln Riley is so hot right now, but his teams were not really any more successful than Stoops and before this year OU has been a remarkably stable program.
Right, I added in “recent success” for that exact reason. But, LR took Caleb Williams with him to USC and won a damn Heisman, that’s pretty good.
The best offense under Chip Long: 12. The worst offense under Chip Long: 28.
The best offense under Tommy: 17.
The worst offense under Tommy: 42.
He has been worse than the guy that came immediately before him. I would like for him to be as good or better than the guy that came before him. If that is unrealistic, then that’s a bummer for the program.
Drlck, please read this — this is the argument. It’s not that Rees fails to be Lincoln Riley, it’s that he’s not much of an improvement over Long and might be somewhat of a downgrade.
It could be true.
At the same time, I feel like most of these conversations are revolving around adding nuance to why there was a 42nd ranked offense and why that’s not all Rees’ fault.
But, some just don’t care.
I don’t think I’ve seen anybody say that having the 42nd ranked offense is all Rees’ fault. Losing a starting QB is brutal, especially when the backup has a completely different skill set.
This season gave me an even greater appreciation for that insane 2015 offense. Lose your starting QB, move to a 3 star backup, and put up a top 10 FEI Offense. That’s absurd.
Exactly – that was absurd. Almost freakish, accidental even.
Will Fuller really does wonders for programs.
Exactly why speed WR’s are all the rage across CFB & NFL. They make everyone’s job so much easier. A 10 yard slant turns into a 55 yard touchdown. So much stress on everyone.
I obviously think Rees deserves a huge portion of the blame. But Del Alexander deserves a heaping helping of scorn. And I think BK smelled the rot and ran fast. But those two aren’t here anymore
An additional problem is that in each of the past three season, Tommy has had to junk the offense early in the season and figure out something else. Couldn’t pass to start 2020, couldn’t run or hit deep passes in 2021, and couldn’t pass at all in 2022. I mean good job by him on finding a way through, but why do we keep starting the year with offenses that just don’t work and have to be replaced mid season?
fwiw, I remember talk about whether Chip Long was actually good or not during his tenure. Nowhere near this cadence, but it happened. Then he left and the line became “yeah Chip Long kinda sucked”
and he was a meanie, don’t forget that critically important fact
I thought he was fired/left because he was a jerk more than his actual OC performance though.
That was part of it, how huge of a jerk do you have to be to have his career arc though if you look at what he’s done since?
probably pretty big. It probably affects recruiting too at some point. I wonder if he’s lasted long at many of his stops.
he has not!
2017–2019 Notre Dame
2020 Tennessee
2021 Tulane
2022–2022 Georgia Tech
Chip was good OC. That absolutely has to be on record.
This is frustrating to read. Do you actually think this is the view of people who regularly comment here? Obviously we disagree on stuff, but this is the single most moderate and thoughtful ND football site currently in existence.
That doesn’t at all remove the possibility of garbage takes every once and awhile.
And who’s innocent of that ?
Of garbage takes? No one, that’s what I said.
Oh, I must have missed that.
ACS said this is the best ND site, which I’m suggesting doesn’t mean there aren’t ever garbage take here even if it is usually the most moderate/realistic group of ND fans.
We all have our blind spots.
I said Buchner could total 4,000 yards or something!
Bad takes are the lifeblood of the comment section! I said Kedon Slovis would be good this year! (That’s of course on top of possibly being the loudest fire-Kelly person in 2016 here, whoops.)
Still the worst take this year here was the 2019 LSU thing, which will probably be an in-joke down here until the end of time.
Don’t lose hope. He could have a hell of a Gator Bowl.
Let’s go, hop on the Buchner train (again)!
Well sure. But I really don’t think the overall position of this site or its commenters is anywhere close to what you’re pretending it is.
Again, I said of these comments, not the site in general.
Let he who is without sin cast a garbage take across his body into double coverage.
To distill the other half of the comments:
Looking at the last six years (the three Rees has been OC plus three more just for some context / roughly one recruiting cycle more)
Year – OFF/ DEF
2022 – 42 / 31
2021 – 20 / 12
2020 – 17 / 10
2019 – 25 / 6
2018 – 28 / 20
2017 – 12 / 15
This year was a step back, which I think we all expected? Clark Lea was really good. Tommy appears Chip Longian
Offense in ’22 regressed because of loss of the starting QB (presumably/hopefully) . Defense regressed because they got more experienced? And over that same time period, which group has consistently seen the better recruiting? Arguably, the offense is doing more with less.
Yeah well we’re in a fantasy world where not having multiple QBs ready to jump into the fold and operate the offense at at top-10 FEI level is proof Rees can’t evaluate the position and has failed as a coach by not signing and keeping that level of talent.
Tommy is in charge of the offense and is specifically the QB coach. If the QB situation continually puts a ceiling on Notre Dame football or actively handicaps it, like it did this year, maybe, just MAYBE, we could consider that the guy in charge of the offense and QBs might just deserve a tiny smidge, one iota, one inkling of an ounce of a part of a blame.
I think continually, is the key word there.
Fleshing that out would do a lot of good.
You may recall I am also a noted Ian Book Hater(TM). Not that I actually hate the guy, he seems lovely, but that as good as he was he was also clearly never going to be good enough to win us a playoff game and that was frustrating.
There are maybe 8 QBs a year that could do that, and they’re some of them are #2 on the depth chart.
There are more and our real lack of WR and CB depth also killed us, fwiw.
Uh-huh. And not great LB play. And a slow developing O Line. And lack of forced turnovers.
Talking about the playoff (and ACC championship) games for Book, not any weakness at any point for the time.
Yeah but that’s a bit of sophistry, I think. Alabama isn’t Alabama because Bryce Young, Mac Jones etc. Ohio St. isn’t Ohio St. because Stroud, Fields, etc. Clemson isn’t/wasn’t Clemson because Watson, Lawrence etc. It’s so many more jimmys and joes than that. That’s why they win playoff games. And USC IS Caleb Williams, which is why they can’t beat Utah.
Do I want Williams? Yes, I absolutely do. But I don’t think NOT getting him or the like is what’s holding this team back from long term success. I don’t think that we didn’t win a playoff game with Book because Book. And I don’t think that’s the same thing as saying that maybe we could have won if Book was Caleb Williams, which it sounds like is what you’re saying. Maybe I’m splitting hairs there.
Yes but Ohio State and Alabama and Clemson looked at the football landscape and said “we can’t keep doing this if we trot out Craig Krenzels and Greg McElroy”. Clemson kinda shows the flipside – as we’ve seen before their total recruiting rankings have been pretty similar to Notre Dame but they absolutely aced the QB part of it
You say that as if Alabama and Ohio St. were purposefully recruiting at a lower level and then figured out that wasn’t working. I think your point is a good one: recruiting needs to be better if ND is going to be able to compete for NCs. I think the question is whether TR is getting us closer to that goal. My point is just that there isn’t evidence that he’s getting us farther away – i.e., that he’s “the problem.” As Juicebox mentioned, however, at some point that’s not enough. At some point, he needs to put up numbers that show he’s raising the ceiling. You’re clearly at that point now, which I respect – it’s a reasonable position. I think 2023 is the test.
I don’t think they were purposefully recruiting lesser QBs, but McElroy was a three star. So was Blake Sims, though McCarron was highly ranked. Hurts was the composite 192. But I think Saban and others identified that it’s not 2005 and football even at the college level can really be dominated by high level QBs so they shifted their focus to getting the best QBs possible
Agreed. I think ND has too, though. And maybe to your point, ND was late to that party, which makes it far more difficult now.
It’s weird because Kelly had QBs put up huge numbers and be the focal point of his offense at Cincy and CMU in ways that he didn’t seem able to do at Notre Dame and, as time went on, seemed less interested in doing.
totally agree on this point
I have this pet theory that 2011 really spooked Kelly and made his #1 priority in QBs not turning the ball over, regardless of what their other limitations were.
Confirms my theory that Golson’s tiny, tiny hands are the gifts that keep on giving
Before getting injured, the starting QB had completed 56% of his passes, with 0 TDs and 2 INTs (against Marshall). He was rushing for 2.6 yards per carry. We were losing 26-15 (to MARSHALL) and coming off a drive where he had just thrown a pick-6 when he left the game with injury. I think the offense was regressing whether Buchner got hurt or not. I doubt they would have ended up down at 42, but ND did not have a great offense with Buchner on the field.
Defense gave up 26 points (to MARSHALL) at that point, but no one is discussing that Al Golden isn’t elite and should be fired. That Marshall game falls more on CMF, as no one on the field or sideline seemed prepared/invested in that game.
Defense gave up 19 points to Marshall. Last touchdown was a pick 6. Marshall also had a drive start at the 47 after a failed 4th down conversion, which gave them a field goal. The other two Marshall scoring drives were back-breakingly long ones, however.
Mrs. Golden?
You literally credited Marshall with scoring a touchdown against the defense that they didn’t
The defense gave up 19 points on 11 possessions to Marshall.
Troy gave up 0 points to Marshall, should ND get their DC?
If Golden does this again next year. Yes.
Lancy Guidry DGT?
He coach’s safeties too, so we could hire him and get someone else on the linebackers.
Can he recruit? That’s basically all I care about for the beginning of Freeman’s tenure.
It’s a bit silly to only focus on recruiting, though. Take a look at aTm to see how well focusing only recruit$ is going.
Hugh Freeze’s Ole miss program is also a good example of how 1-2 huge recruiting classes and really raise your profile but also aren’t a guarantee of the highest level success
Or North Carolina. Or Texas mostly.
Those more generally, yeah.
ND is not any of those programs.
All that I personally care about is recruiting now that MF makes me think we can elevate our talent. If we don’t recruit better, we aren’t winning a playoff game. At that point, I will care about coaches who get the most our of the 8th ranked class.
I do not pretend to know if this is the best path forward. But this is what I want to see.
I’m with you, I want to see Notre Dame basically be consistently 4-6 in the rankings for recruiting but we’ll see, again with the caveat of us sorting out NIL. And even then, locking ourselves out of the portal would functionally make it lower too. But those aside, I do think Texas is a bit of the fear even if recruiting goes well – consistently talented but miscoached into mediocrity, though I am not particularly worried about that as a reality right now
Yeah. NIL is a huge question mark for the direction of the program.
I think transfer portal right now is almost just as big.
Put another way….
ND offense was 4.68 YPP against the #11 FEI defense.
ND defense allowed 5.12 YPP against the #118 offense.
Which one of those is more surprising?
Wow, that’s pretty interesting stat to consider.
For context what is 4.68 YPP ranked (if that was an average for the year)?
It would still be quite bad. 120th nationally.
Taking a quick check and we basically have 2.5 offensive clunkers <5 YPP per season.
The name Marshall makes it seem crazy. But new QB/coming off the OSU game against a good defense isn’t shocking at all.
right, having a bad game against an elite defense is obviously far less surprising than having a bad game against a bad offense.
You rated Al Golden a D and Tommy a B. I saw no reason to talk about the defense, since you didn’t rate Golden as a B. I’m not sure why the defense keeps coming up in conversation about Tommy.
But yes, the defense could have done better against Marshall (although allowing 19 points on 11 possessions doesn’t seem horrible). But the offense was bad against Marshall and gave me no reason to think it would have been a top 20 offense if Buchner had been healthy over the course of the season.
The offense was uninspiring to that point, but I disagree it couldn’t have rebounded with Buchner. Patterson wasn’t 100% (some reports said he might not be back until end of Sept) and there’s a direct correlation between OL performance going up as he settled in and got healthy.
Notre Dame is an OL driven team, once that gets better, everything gets better. I don’t know if that makes Buchner hit on those deep shots or what, but I suspect the offense they wanted to run and meant to run > using a backup and mostly just trying to grind out on the run game all year.
I also think it’s kinda limiting to equate OC performance with FEI ranking completely, but understand why it is a popular measure.
Speaking of Patterson, I wonder where he’ll go in the draft. C isn’t the most coveted position. He gets less hype than Linderbaum last year. But others also identify how huge he’s been for our line and that no sacks stat is awfully purdy.
The Gator Bowl will be interesting on this front. I have a suspicion that Buchner’s skill set was never a very good match for this team to begin with, but we shall see.
I think the offense would have surely gotten better with Buchner. I don’t think it would have been a top 20 offense, but that’s talking in hypotheticals. Maybe the O Line getting it together would have gotten us there.
I think it’s fair that FEI isn’t a perfect measure. Since it’s the one that was used in the article, that’s the route I’ve been arguing, but I can certainly understand if someone opts out of any arguments that focus mainly on FEI.
Yeah I don’t love FEI either fwiw but it’s the regularly-used number here so it’s what I turned to
Points for Buchner: he easily beat out Pyne in pre-season. By all accounts, the competition wasn’t very close (granted media barely saw anything). He faced far and away the two best defenses (especially pass D) that we played all year.
Points against Buchner: Literally gets hurt walking down stairs.
I really loved the way he was used in 2021. I doubt there is a world in which you could sell him on staying at ND to be that guy who plays 3-4 series per game, but man I think that could be a perfect fit, especially with the right transfer QB.
If you have two QBs you have no QBs!!! (ignore Tua/Hurts bama and Leak/Tebow Florida)
Agreed, I think the range of possibilities could have included that level, but by no means would have been there 100/100 times.
I think it’s important to look at the reactions to both coordinators. Granted, Rees has been here longer and thus doesn’t get as long of a leash and that make sense.
But, I think it’s pretty obvious that Rees is being held to a very high standard whereas things with Golden it’s more, “yeah could have done better I guess.”
Well, Rees has been here for longer and has had considerably more control over the roster than Golden. So I don’t think a somewhat higher standard is unreasonable.
I don’t see anyone that’s high on Golden, but he’s just an after thought since it’s his first year. No one is really jumping on Washington either, again, first year.
This is decidedly NOT TFR’s first year at ND. He has a loooong history of being more of less replacement level at ND in nearly everything he’s done. Whether his fault or not, the results are the results.
I honestly think many ND fans do not realize how long he’s been here because it all just runs together.
He’s been at Notre Dame since 2010 in some capacity with a two year hiatus.Feels nuts when you lay it out like that
I for one wasn’t excited about the Golden hire last year so my expectations weren’t as high. At this point my expectations are higher for Rees. Fair or not, it’s what it is.
Would also be ok if they moved away from Golden as well. Doubt it happens though.
I didn’t like either hire.
I kind of don’t really like Rees in more of a personal way. When he was hired I didn’t like it because he was not easy to root for as a player and it was just weird.
Don’t forget the stink of nepotism.
Yeah, it bothered me a lot 4-5 years ago.
I do think he’s proven himself pretty well.
Couldn’t agree more on this. And people will hate this, but honestly why Freeman needs to move on from Rees IMO. I feel they have different personalities. Rees is a suburban North Shore Chicago guy who’s Dad is on the staff and then you have CMF who would be just about as opposite as you can get from the North Shore. Probably my own personal issues, but feel like TR has this smugness about him that I just don’t like.
buddy you don’t gotta ask me twice to hate on the Northshore
This is the best reason I’ve seen for why they should move away from TR. This makes sense to me
I would have preferred Joe Rossi from Minnesota as DC. Golden is fine for now, we can move on in a season or too.
Rees is well past his expiration date.
Golden wasn’t anything special this year, and I’m open to the argument that he was straight up bad. I’m interested to see what he can do in year 2 of his system, but the play of the LBs this year (the position he coaches) makes me very nervous that we could be looking at a permanent step back with him as DC. That would be bad! You rated him a D. I think that’s a bit harsh, but not unreasonable.
Tommy is being asked to be better than Chip Long. If that is too high of a standard for Notre Dame, that’s a bummer for sure.
But let’s be realistic about Tommy: this year’s offense was the worst we’ve seen from ND in quite some time. The QB got hurt, and that makes things extremely hard to piece together. But the offense wasn’t good before the QB got hurt, so there’s only so far that excuse can go.
Also, speaking only for myself, I gave them the exact same grade. The idea that Rees vs. Golden is a zero-sum game is wrong and, IMO, points to over-defensiveness of Rees. It is literally a “but whatabout” argument.
I had a comment in here that probably got missed by many but I’d love to see an actual rankings of OCs and see where Rees would fit in those rankings. Are there 15 better than him? 20? 25? 35?
I love this question and did some deeper dives earlier in the season on this because I was genuinely curious as well. Happy to go back and do some digging here and come back with the results.
A couple of questions for you?
How many years as OC? Do we care about 1 year in the job?
Do HC/OC’s count? Like Lincoln Riley for example
I assume OC’s that just were named HC are good?
Any rankings beyond FEI you care about?
Lastly, how many years do you want to go back? 2015? 2018?
Let me know and I’ll start putting this together. I ask mostly cause I don’t want to put this together and have ppl say well you just cherry-picked info.
yea those kinds of questions make it harder to make a list than with head coaches who are typically on the job a few years before they can be ranked whereas OCs are typically on the job only a few years before they may get promoted or fired.
I’m not sure what the best answers are to those questions to come up with a list exactly. I’m open to other’s thoughts.
I guess I think you’d have to be on the job for at least 2 years to have enough of a track record to track.
Well with other rankings would have to include recruiting and developing QBs.
These might be the kinds of things you’d want to rank and compare but it’s not easy to make judgments about these things!
It would be a super hard project. Especially because people are fickle AF about offense and I’m not sure it’d be easy to agree upon what is a “good’ offensive scheme.
Air Raid
Pro-Style Pass Heavy
Pro-Style Run Heavy
West Coast
Triple Option
Spread Pass Heavy
Spread Run Heavy
So, you’d have guys in those schemes who may be DGT™ but many may not want to run their offense.
Then you have things like Wake Forest’s RPO, slow mesh, spread offense that is really non-standard and doesn’t fit in a neat box.
Ruggeiro’s career is fascinating. Abysmal start (116th, 114th, 99th FEI offenses) before blowing up in 2017 with the 21st offense. Then some struggles with a young QB/injuries (63rd & 55th) before the last 3 seasons of 33rd, 10th, and 18th with a veteran Sam Hartman at QB.
End of the day I am a firm believer in the Jimmy’s & the Joe’s. Alabama is on their 6th or 7th OC of the Saban era, if I’m correct? Yes, most of them would be considered good OC’s but it’s been an absurd long run of good offense because of their talent level.
That’s why I don’t think the OC really matters that much for ND right now in terms of scheme/play-calling. Either we are going to recruit a lot better, or we’re not. Rees is a part of that, but it’s largely a Freeman/program effort.
Also, it’s insane that Ruggiero has been at Wake since 2014 and only had 2 quarterbacks (outside of when Hartman was hurt for 3/4 of a season).
I would say OC is a gigantic part of us recruiting better.
Freeman showed that a coordinator can make an immediate and HUGE impact in recruiting. Rees is nowhere near that level. Don’t know who is, but it stands to reason that if it exists with MF at DC, there’s probably someone out there who can do it as OC.
Yea, that’s why I’m interested in a kind of rankings because while we may not be happy with the totality of job that Rees is doing – is there a clear upgrade to go get? If so, let’s do it. If not….. It’s easy to think the grass is always greener.
And I’m ok if we take a Freeman like approach where we might get a little worse (so the floor is lower) but the ceiling is significantly raised with some new candidate. (Maybe like Brian Hartline?)
I’m not really that sure. Off the top of my head how many Power 5 programs have we seen that made a big jump in recruiting due to an OC?
There seem to be way, way more OC’s turned head coaches who then make that impact.
I have no examples on offense, but I don’t follow other teams nearly close enough. Maybe Freeman truly is a unicorn.
I think Freeman really is a unicorn which is why we were so excited to have him move to be the head coach.
If we lose Peyton Bowen I’d think people will like the 2023 class a lot more on offense.
Interesting to think about given all these discussions.
True, the skill position players in this class have to be the best we’ve brought in in a long time such that losing Edwards is more like “meh” because of the riches that are still in the class.
Yes, not saying MF hasn’t had a huge impact on the offense. And likely will always be the best recruiter on staff.
But, I think to actually elevate our recruiting into top 5, we need another difference maker, like MF, and ideally one at OC and DC.
The fact MF exists, and I’ve seen what he can do as a coordinator, makes me believe there’s someone out there than can have a bigger impact than either Golden or Rees as a coordinator.
but even if that’s true isn’t it going to be a rarity and not something ND could ever consistently count on since a guy like that wouldn’t last more than 2 years at ND anyway ever?
Very rare. Doesn’t mean I don’t want it.
I would have been fine with BK winning us 10 games a year the rest of my life. But we have something different now, so I want to at least try to get the #1 class. If that fails, hopefully we can get back to 10 win seasons. But for now, I’ll risk some losses for a little bit of hope.
And even if it exists, doesn’t mean it would come to ND (honestly if I were a top coach, I wouldn’t).
I’m with you on that. But I think it’ll take more luck than skill to find and get that person.
Absolutely. Blindly hoping. Not trying to suggest it’s realistic.
And what’s the point of being fan without blind hope!
Amen!
Your last point is what gets me about the FIRE REES crowd. In terms of recruiting, PJ, TB, and Carr are the highest rated QB recruits at ND in the past 10 years (outside of Wimbush). I’m not saying they’re the greatest. I’m saying what is the expectation here? Dude landed two high 4 star QBs, just grabbed the first 5 star since like Dayne Cryst, just flipped Minchey, and the response seems to be “yeah but he didn’t get Dante Moore.”
maybe he doesn’t get credit for PJ – I’m not sure my history is correct on that one.
Jurkovec committed in May 2016 and was recruited by Sanford. Rees was hired 7 months later.
By the way, in looking that up I saw Phil was the no. 9 overall in the initial 247 rankings in early 2016.
Ah ok – so no credit for PJ. But I feel like the point still stands. He’s getting better recruits. ND needs to get even better recruits, for sure, but it’s hard to look at what he’s done so far and think boy we really need to get away from this guy.
I was curious as to just how different recruiting has been. Assuming Carr doesn’t move up or down in the rankings:
Rees:
2024: #31 player in the country
2023: #164
2022: #365
2021: #71
2020: #225
2019: #521
Last 6-year average: 230
Last 4-year average: 157
Last 2-year average: 97
Pre-Rees:
2018: #83
2017: #246
2016: #517
2015: #46
2014: #242
2013: #162
Average: 216
The good news is, as Rees has gotten more responsibility (QB coach to OC with BK guiding to OC with full authority), he’s really started to pick things up. If he can maintain where he’s been these past 2 years (Minchey and Carr), that’s certainly something to be very excited about.
Interesting to see it laid out this way. Couple of thoughts – no doubt some of the QB frustration also ties back to Kelly’s repeated woes of QB management so it can feel like a continuation. Part of it too that doesn’t show up in the numbers is a certain amount of defensive rhetoric for Rees – well he almost landed Moore, well Walker Howard was gonna join us. Maybe both of those are fully beyond his control but I’m also not keen to crediting him for something he ultimately didn’t do
The reason to “credit” him would be more about not blaming him if those “losses” were more about institutional things out of his control (admissions/NIL).
That doesn’t look particularly better to me. Also, the best data point is a guy who is a year from signing day and 2 years from starting in the best case scenario.
Rees:
2 top 100 and 2 top 300 QBs in 6 years.
Pre-Rees.
2 top 100 and 3 top 300 QBs in 6 years.
The difference in the numbers is that the not top 100 guys are better than before. Not exactly making a huge difference.
QB ranking by year (looks much better):
2019: 38
2020: 18
2021: 12
2022: 21
2023: 13
2024: 5
The big question is the expectations for the OC. Is top 10-ish QB recruiting (and offense in general) the expectation?
In a dream world, I would love a 5 star QB once every 3 years. At ND, I don’t think that’s realistic. But 2 top 100 QBs out of every 3 classes seems doable. I would like to think Rees can get us there, but we’ll see.
Pre-NIL likeness I think it was possible but now is more of a question mark, we’ll see how that shakes out. But I also quibble over the 5* designation in that a #40 overall recruit isn’t a five star five star but is also a 4* like the like 240 guy.
Yea I think this is right.
This I think is a good discussion and much harder to analyze across programs and years. With Ruggeiro, you’re also going to get people giving the credit to Clawson himself, to talk about that example. Jimmys and Joes is probably more what I lean to, certainly over any one particular scheme unless you’re a military academy. I think having a great, great playcaller on offense or defense is probably more important if you’re in the second tier of program than a Bama/Georgia/Ohio State who can simply outtalent anyone. Thing is, Bama/Georgia/Ohio State then get their pick of the litter in poaching those guys anyway. Or you can be a pretty ace recruiter and a pretty bad gameday coach – I’m thinking James Franklin here as a HC – and that’ll actively hinder you, but as a HC he at least could hire the right coordinators to fix it in theory.
To tie it back to Tommy, is there much outside interest in him at this point, a job that would be an upgrade? So for him one of the few bigger programs, an NFL gig, or a HC job? That’s not the only way to measure these things but it’s a pretty good sign that someone is interested. I think neither Golden nor Rees would draw much of any interest this year whereas Mickens and Mason clearly would. Again, not the end all be all but probably a decent back of the envelope way to gauge (perceived) value
100% this. ND offense, at this point, isn’t designed to need a 5* QB. More focus seems to have been put on OL, TE & RB. There’s only a finite amount of time and resources a program can put into recruiting, in addition to things outside of ND’s control.
Also, looking at schools that “develop QBs” as that’s what this discussion is ultimately boiling down to, there are maybe 4-6 schools who have been doing it consistently in the last 15 years? OSU, Alabama, OU, Clemson (maybe), USC (maybe), NC St. (maybe). All but NC St. have QB momentum at this point, so it’s gotta be easier to get more good QBs, All but OSU are “southern” so cold weather isn’t (as much of) an issue. All but Alabama are probably built as pass-first offenses (and possibly now Alabama is, as well). All of them have also had QBs transfer out and be successful-ish at other places.
Yea exactly. It’s not easy and I’m not sure there’s some surefire upgrade that makes this all possible at ND.
That list includes 4 of the 6 most successful teams in the past 5-10 years.
Uh-huh. And wealthy people get wealthier more easily than poor people get wealthy.
so is Notre Dame supposed to be NC State or is it supposed to be more like OSU, Alabama, Oklahoma, and Clemson?
That’s sort of the cycle we’re arguing right now, I think. At least the standards of some of the units are being held to the latter group, even though the team as a whole isn’t there yet. Seems unfair.
Yeah. It seems clear to me that the arguments aren’t really about how good Rees is, but more what should the expectations be for ND and the OC.
No, the two go hand in hand. Because if Rees is just okay and you expect Notre Dame to be NC state, that’s probably fine. If Rees is just okay and you expect Notre Dame to be Clemson, that’s not good enough. If Rees is good and etc.
That is exactly my point.
Rees is just as good in both of your statements. But in one instance, he is good enough, in the other, he isn’t.
This
We just landed transfer kicker Spencer Shrader, apparently the third best kicker in the AAC last year, so… I guess we’re not real high on Josh Bryan anymore. He does have a strong leg based on season longs of 49/52/49 and 50 of 62 kickoffs for touchbacks last year.
Yeah, gotta think Bryan is peacing out soon.
I saw it reframed that he’s almost automatic from anything closer than 40. I guess that plus having the leg to boom it into the end zone for touchbacks is better than what they have on hand now, which probably speaks more to the scholarship kicker not living up to his hype, wasn’t he like the #1 rated specialist?
So let’s not put that guy in charge of kicker evaluation for our next high school offer.
Automatic inside 40 is good, I didn’t see the list of missed FGs, just that he was about 70%, so that all seems at least okay.
Maybe Mason can’t develop talent
When we don’t block 6 punts next year, I’ll be here to complain about how Mason has let our special teams take a massive step back.
Here’s Shrader’s career stats:
only one season but at the moment I’m comfortable giving Mason carte blanche on his decisions
Relatedly: two of BK’s most prominent plays at LSU being special teams failures is so, so delicious
YCNHTMKLSLSTQ!
This dude looks so skinny I thought we were bringing him in as a QB. But then I saw he’s 6’2″ so that’s way too tall.
^^THIS IS A JOKE, FOR FUN^^
268 comments! Did Marcus Freeman just get hired at LSU?! Irishchamp here’s the start of some information I pulled together. To the Rees defenders, I will grant you that there’s definitely a perception problem with Rees. By no means is he terrible, but because ND isn’t very explosive it feels when watching that the offense isn’t very good even though some of the stats showcase them to be in the top 25 to 30 range. It’s a very NFL approach when most of CFB’s elite time are built on kill shots instead of methodical drives.
I grabbed information from teamrankings.com. I pulled Yards Per Play, Points Per Play, FEI Rank, and Passing Yards Per Attempt. As you can see ND clearly isn’t terrible, but they just aren’t very explosive. I would bet if you took a poll for fans and they asked what the most fun offenses of the past 20 years at ND most would say 2005, 2015, and 2017 in some order and they were either elite passing offenses or rushing. 2017 finished 2nd in Yards per Rush Attempt at 6.3 and 2015 was ranked 6th at 5.6 YPA rushing.
Rees’ offenses lack an explosiveness and that leads to a perception problem of him not being very good. Nobody wants to watch methodical drives, especially against inferior talent.
Points Per Play here
Yards Per Play here
Yards Per Pass Attempt here
We are getting murdered by Army at YPPA like it’s 1945 in Yankee Stadium.
yea what’s our record with comments???
interesting stats for sure – though it’s hard to sift out what OCs are good/better from this for many reasons.
Currently our 4th most commented article behind:
#3 Freeman hired as head coach
#2 2021 Fiesta Bowl review
#1 Replacing Brian Kelly discussion
#5 Keeping Gum in the Fridge
Ha, you know it.
Lol, #6 ketchup on hot dogs
I went back and checked, its the same thread as gum in the fridge. Eric is sweet but psycho.
https://18stripes.com/the-weekly-rambler-communists-in-the-nfl/
Well put. “Not terrible but not explosive enough for some’s likings” is a good way to describe Rees’ performance. And it makes sense being as what they have built is an offense that likes to run the ball, use multi-TE sets, grind up clock and churn it out.
Also, I would wager a lot that Freeman has more limitations for explosiveness than Rees — which kinda makes all the gnashing of teeth over the OC deliciously ironic and go for naught in the big philosophical picture when the HC has stated tendencies to play an old school “run the ball, chew up clock” guy, ala Freeman’s tOSU game plan. I bet if left to his devices, Rees would be more like the Fiesta Bowl game plan where they run a spread and pass the ball a LOT.
Press X to doubt
Quite a story you’ve concocted. And Tommy ran a spread and passed the ball a lot against Okie State which (1) only worked for a half, if you’ll remember, (2) was against a team with a nasty run defense so it wasn’t some insanely brilliant strategy and (3) still relied on a few long drives to score, but ultimately I put that loss more on the defense’s collapse.
If I had to guess, the lack of Notre Dame explosiveness comes from first off the WR issues (thanks again, Del!) and then QBs who couldn’t throw it deep well
Assuming your last paragraph is true (questionable, but let’s just assume that), I think that’s yet another reason Rees and Freeman need to separate. They don’t have the same vision of what ND’s offense should be.
Ladies and gentlemen your new 2023 OC:
Ope, just gonna run a 24 counter.
Nah, there should be more than enough common ground to find a shared vision for the offense. Rees has already shown that he is capable and effective (well, mostly) at adopting to the power run game and heavy formations. I wouldn’t be surprised if eventually he did leave the program in large part for new challenges to work in a different scheme and system.
I admit I hated Freeman’s comments about wanting to be a ground and pound team. The blind Freeman love in me combined with my personal dislike of Rees is spinning it that Freeman is publicly echoing what Rees is telling him behind closed doors. Probably not the case I know. I think there’s a perception that since Rees is a young, former QB that of course he wants to sling it all over the field and chunk play it up and it’s the HC’s (BK and CMF) who are stopping him.
I’m just not seeing it in the stats here. We’ve regressed every year in Yards Per Play under Rees. Last year’s Points Per Play which was 16th (.489) was closer to #59 Memphis (.397) than it was to #3 Georgia (.584). I know these stats don’t take into account opposing defenses like FEI does.
I mentioned this in a previous comment here. You put Rees as the OC at Bama at the beginning of the year we’re all fawning over him and saying we need him back. ND needs to upgrade at WR and RB with an emphasis on explosiveness. As for QB, definitely will take an upgrade, but more importantly I think ND needs a gunslinger. Someone who is going to ignore Rees and just heave it up there 10-12 times a game and just hope our guy makes the play. That’s CFB more often than we care to admit. All through Kelly and Rees that’s what we’ve had. Hell the most memorable play against Michigan in 2018 had no business happening. That ball to Finke should have never been thrown, but sometimes you just have to let it rip.
PS, not talking about throwing across your body in the middle of the field for a 16 yard gain. That is almost always going to get picked off.
I def agree with you that it’s wise to separate out the coordinator from the whole system, program and team (ala a potential Rees stint as a Bama OC would make him look really good). That can be difficult for some around here to really grasp.
I do think you’re just kidding yourself though, as you kinda admit, if you think that Freeman is going to stumble upon some dynamic, explosive, vertical offense overnight. I don’t think that’s a Rees influencing his comments — despite being young and cool, Freeman is very, very old school in a lot of his techniques and philosophies (frequent hard practices, perhaps overly so, mentors in the Tressel style of emphasizing the run and defense winning games, etc). Almost all of Freeman’s comments and vibes seem to be directed towards leaning into the OL/DL-driven program that controls the ground and ideally keeps the defense off the field and has the running game chew teams up more than it aspires to lead the nation in yards/play or points/play or anything.
Site navigation question: once you get down to a certain level of replies, the comments are impossible to read because they are one letter per line. Is there an easy solution to this that I’m missing? Not complaining – just wondering if it’s fixable from the user end.
I’m not sure but I am actually currently looking into it.
Refresh the page and it gives the narrow comments a bit more width.
Boom, fixed.
Thanks!! You guys rule!
Yea i was wondering too how people were reading and still responding on that one thread until i refreshed the page. Though I think sometime soon it still might be too narrow to read (or it won’t let you actually respond).
No, I think the truncation stops at a certain width, you just lose the nesting functionality for responses.
My problem was that I couldn’t read all the yellow comments fast enough to get caught up and refresh the page, so I didn’t lose any of the yellows that I had missed.
Admitting to the limitations of impressions, mine are:
Would not have predicted that this was going to be the most commented-upon 18S article ever
UPDATE EDIT: lol of course there is already discussion about this among the many comments
TFR, man. T.F.R.
haha yea, TFR quite a lightening rod!
Apparently there ARE some people willing to grade the assistants.
Shit, I forgot to grade them. TR = C-. Golden = C-.
Sorry if I missed this in the 319 comments below, but are we on de-commit watch at this point with a couple big names? Bowen seems like a for sure flip, no? Apparently there’s also some smoke about JLove to Michigan??
What I’m seeing is not looking good for Bowen but looking good for Love.
Losing Bowen would be a crushing blow since every elite player is needed to close the gap. Apparently the coaches are supposed to have an in-home visit with him tomorrow and Oklahoma on Friday.
I think NIL might be a big issue here but not entirely sure.
If we lose Bowen, this class would probably end up around 10th. It would still be the 2nd best class of the Kelly era but it’s huge loss. If it is followed up by not much in the transfer portal, it’ll be hard not to come to the conclusion that it’s currently impossible for ND to compete for championships in the new NIL/transfer era (unless things change for ND).
Unfortunately we may have gotten our ace recruiting a decade too late.
Apparently Oregon offered him 2 mil and Oklahoma said they’d match. You can imagine where ND is in this.
Wow, ok then! That’s an absurd amount of money. I agree with what you said above regarding actually competing for a championship. I’ve thought this for a while now.
We’ve been on de-commit watch with Peyton for 347 days and we only need to make it another week. It’s still better to have him saying he’s coming to Notre Dame next year and have it in his socials right now than it is to be in Oklahoma or anyone else’s position.
I pretty much 100% don’t believe Love’s commitment was an open secret for weeks until he could get his mom on campus to commit with her there and now he’s going to flip signing week.
I’m not sure I’d ever rather be ND when it comes to a difference maker deciding between us and another school on signing day. I warm up for NSD like Happy Gilmore in a batting cage. OMB.
Very true about Bowen! I don’t follow recruiting that much but this one has entertained me at least. I certainly don’t think he’ll come to ND at this point but would happily like to be wrong.
After being away for a few days and now going through the comments.
My answer is I am more interested in replying to a African Prince about his inheritance or earning $1900 a day working from home.
Thank you.