After calming down on Sunday and taking in the embarrassing loss to Duke it appears Brian Kelly’s mind has been changed. Following a tumultuous 30 games on campus, defensive coordinator Brian VanGorder has been fired by Notre Dame.
The Irish had entered territory where a move had to be made and frustration was building that Brian Kelly seemed unwilling to even entertain the thought that VanGorder should leave town. Ultimately, Kelly wasn’t afraid to say one thing in the media and pull the trigger with his actions where it matters most.
Brian Kelly announces Brian VanGorder has been relieved of his duties. Greg Hudson assumes responsibilities.
READ: https://t.co/P80b15ENZb
— Michael Bertsch (@NDsidBertschy) September 25, 2016
Where does the defense go from here?
Well, off-field analyst Greg Hudson takes over as the interim defensive coordinator for one. Hudson was a linebacker on Lou Holtz’ first two teams and came back to Notre Dame as a grad assistant in 1993 after a couple years as a linebackers coach at the D-3 level.
Over the last 20+ years Hudson has carved out a nice little career, first at UConn (1994-96 OL), then Cincinnati (1997-2000) where he rose to the position of associate head coach. Hudson then moved to Minnesota for for 4 years where he’d take his first DC job in 2002. From 2005 to 2009 he was the East Carolina DC before being hired by Florida State in 2010 as the Seminoles’ associate head coach and linebackers coach.
From 2013-15 Hudson moved back into a defensive coordinator role at Purdue which wasn’t very successful. Of course, it’s Purdue so who knows how much of that tire fire is on him but it ultimately allowed Notre Dame to scoop him up into an off-field role and put him in place to take over the Irish defense.
Greg Hudson, in a statement: “We have great student-athletes and a tremendous defensive coaching staff.”
— JJ Stankevitz (@JJStankevitz) September 25, 2016
Statement from Greg Hudson: “We’ve got to improve on defense, without a doubt, and I’m confident that we will.”
— Irish Illustrated (@PeteSampson_) September 25, 2016
VanGorder needed to go no matter how unusual and uncomfortable an in-season firing is for everyone involved. Things were rotten on defense and the head of the snake needed to be cut off immediately.
At the very least the narrative will change this year. I personally couldn’t muster the enthusiasm to watch VanGorder play out the string this year. Now, something new and different will be interesting and hopefully a little better than the product offered in recent games.
So long, BVG.
I am pleasantly surprised by this move. Let’s all hope that yesterday was the low point of the season.
I wonder if Kelly is smarter than many of us thought. I read many suggestions regarding who would take over the defense when/ if BVG were to be fired, mostly Elliott or BK himself plus random outsiders. I don’t recall Hudson’s name ever coming up.
I’m thinking this was BK’s backup plan all along.
im also thinking he was forced to do this. Given his statement that coaching wasn’t an issue on defense yesterday. Just goes to show, if your boss has to be publicly defending you, it’s time to pack up.
That Hudson came out of nowhere is an abject failure of the ND football media (Scout/Rivals etc.). ND had a guy *we were already paying* who had *very recent* defensive coordinator experience, and yet nobody was pointing out that we had this super-obvious short-term (at least) replacement already on staff. Seriously, each of these sites keep a number of people employed whose sole job is focusing on a single football program; it’s really incredible how much of a collective blind spot they can have on occasion.
Heh. So true, and yet I’m laughing about it.
I guess we all have our blind spots.
A nice start.
I don’t know that he was forced to do it. I bet the comments yesterday were out of anger and to attack coaching is a little personal and when you are angry you can be a little overly defense. Taking a second more calm look at it meant firing BVG.
I’m just happy we are trying SOMETHING else. Have no idea who this guy really is or how much the scheme can really change, but if he can coach a little more fundamentals then we have a lot of room to improve.
It also means we can openly be on the market for a DC, and talk to Todd Orlando or Dave Aranda (sp?) at LSU (who, let’s face it, will be out of a job come December when Miles gets fired), etc.
Exactly. I was just talking about this year, but no doubt helps us get first in line for next year DC.
According to Fox Sports, Aranda signed a 3-year deal at LSU starting at $1.3 million a year. The deal also cushions him away from Miles if he were to be fired.
I didn’t find anything out there about Orlando.
“cushions” doesn’t mean he’s guaranteed to keep his job. The incoming HC will always have a choice to retain or let go of assistants. And if we can make a better offer….
Absolutely, I’m just pointing out how unlikely either of those things happening are.
…and then LSU fires Les Miles and Cam Cameron.
Dear lord, the carnage!!
and it’s only week 4!
When programs fire guys with records like Miles and Richt, all I can think of is the AD and fan bases acting like this regarding wins:
I agree completely with Richt. They won 10 games last year, and might just be a tire fire this year.
Miles, on the other hand…how many years of bad offense with amazing talent being wasted can a fanbase take? It’s pretty clear that for as well as LSU did, they could have been a lot better. Miles’s problem was continuing to entrust the offense to Cam Cameron, and failing to recruit a quarterback with an arm (he focused to much on their chests, hah!). (And I’m not talking arm strength so much as arm ability). Oh, and his complete inability to manage a clock.
While I think it’s tough to fire a coach who has been that successful, I think there are legit questions as to whether or not his success was due as much to the talent LSU could get. Sure, he had to recruit that talent, but there’s a lot of room for criticism of Miles. I think it’s less crazy to fire him than it was Richt. UGA can have losing seasons from now on, when I used to like them. Plus I think Kirby Smart is an ass.
I was pretty fascinated by the Richt firing last year. From what I could tell, UGA fans were more desperate to fire McGarity, the AD. There were a lot of complaints about the quality of the facilities.
I think this has been handled as well as could be expected.
Ultimately, I am just glad we didn’t find a way to bring in Tenuta or Greg Robinson to take his place.
Yes yes, I know, it’s a dick move to be happy that some guy lost his job…but he was getting paid over a million, I’m sure his family won’t starve.
So Imma be happy, because while it may not get better, it likely can’t get worse!
I feel pretty alright about this. Maybe the staff can salvage something out of this season.
BVG can return to the NFL. Like LaFleur.
How awkward is this season going to be for Montgomery?
The team we have, right now, is not very good. It is obvious, in hindsight. I’m also happy BVG is gone. I’m hoping the new guy can simplify what is in place, and for God’s sake, get these kids to tackle. Enough of the diving at people’s ankles from the DB’s. Even with the change though, they have a lot of work to do.
I was only able to watch the first half, I won’t allow myself to rant about a country that expects you to put work in front of an ND football game and how wrong that is. I thought Q had a pretty good first half, he always seemed to be in the scrum moving bodies around on our good runs. Rochelle looked like he was on roller skates, and Tranquil showed perfect form in the dive at people’s ankles and come up empty technique. It felt like our success was through the air, and we didn’t have a lot of run plays in the first half. Hunter appears to be a good, not great receiver right now, but EQ seemed pretty flashy to me. Our entire defensive backfield needs serious work. It can’t be that different from Highschool. It’s still about covering your guy or area, and then making a freaking tackle. There has to be some kind of serious disconnect going on back there for those guys to be in that much disarray. If this guy can just get this defense to perform at a great Highschool level, we can win some games. We should be able to outscore a bunch of teams on our schedule if we can just hold some teams to four touchdowns. That’s like two or three stops a quarter. That should be achievable.
I placed myself on a self imposed exile from reading or commenting on any ND websites last night, because I knew I would be unable to communicate with rationality or coherence. I’m glad I did, because I feel better knowing BVG is out and hope this is the bottom and we’re starting the climb out of the hole.
PS, I can’t help but wonder if firing BVG was a BK Decision, or if it was forced on him.
I just wish Kelly hadn’t ripped the players (I’m going on what my friends told me). That’s just embarrassing, and I feel like it’s the hallmark of a coach who has lost control.
Lots of turnovers the last couple games. As bad as the defense was, we could have won each of the last games if we had two less turnovers. Kind of reminds me of 2011. I think Deshone is a well above average college QB but not good enough to carry this team. As a sports fan once said, “Don’t get it twisted, he ain’t Vince Young. Even Vince had help.” Still, I think he has a bright future. I think he could have a better ND career than Brady Quinn.
I was also hoping we’d get Dave Aranda. Who knows? Eventually, if only by accident, we will make a great coaching hire.
This might be my last post for a while. My depression about ND football reveals to me the emptiness of my personal existence. Might be time to re-evaluate my life. Still, I’ve never kicked the habit before, so there’s a good chance I hang out with you all (which I enjoy!) for next week’s game.
Don’t go away, Orlok. Even when losing, the games have been entertaining. Instead of leaving, just lower your standards expectations. Then all the surprises are to the upside 😀
Hang in there.
Seconded. I enjoy the commentary here so much, even when we disagree about things.
Re: ripping the players, I really hope Kelly has some sort of team meeting where he has a “come to Jesus” moment and levels with them in a brutally honest way. “I shouldn’t have thrown you all under the bus” “I’ve made mistakes” “I believe in all of you, who I have recruited to ND” “Let’s work hard as a team and program to get better every week.” I think it was a different article where one of the commentariot mentioned how Holtz used to keep the players engaged when a natty was out of the picture; it’d be great to see something like that.
Thanks Kiwi (and RiseUp). This is an amazing community, and it’s already proven difficult to leave you guys, at least 😉
@Kiwi – my ND roommate’s family was from West Virginia. At one point, he imposed the rule that he would only watch football games when West Virginia was trailing by three scores – because this was his way of watching with only upside. I’m considering that.
@RiseUp: I really hope he does what you’re suggesting. I mean, this team is talented. We’ve scored an average of how many points in regulation? We haven’t been out of any of these games. This is a talented team, we just need to reverse the psychology. But damned if I know how to do that, and I’m sure it’s not easy even if you know how.
I’m keeping my hopes up that Hudson can provide some sort of spark to the defense so they can get going and play like everyone expected them to. His track record at Purdue wasn’t great (no total defense ranking better than 83 in his 3 years there) but here’s hoping it’s because Purdue is Purdue.
Honestly, if this defense ended up ranked at 83 it would be an improvement.
Literally, it would.
Orlok, Kelly had every reason to say what he said. I didn’t think it was to bad. He should have been more harsh IMO. They are not getting the job done. Year 7 we should not lose a home game to Duke. We should not be a 1-3 team with this offense. I am not comparing BK to Saban but he rips his coaches and if a player isn’t performing he calls them out as well. Coaches challenge their players through the media all the time.
I think you are dead wrong about Kizer. With this defense no other QB could carry this team. Kizer is playing ok. Could be better and it will. He is the best QB we have had in a couple of decades. This kid will be a top 10 draft pick.
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Congrats on the new site Murtaugh.
Really glad BK pulled the trigger and gave BVG his walking papers. I would have fired him after the Texas game and made him walk back to South Bend. A little harsh but that’s me. Kelly needs to hit a homerun with the DC hire in the offseason. Whoever he is he HAS to be a good recruiter. There is no way around it. If the Irish don’t find a way to start bringing in elite defensive players every cycle we will never be a championship program. We have to find a way to bring in at least a elite DL and CB every year. Its going take a chunk of money bringing in the right DC but its badly needed. They just have to be willing to spend it on a DC.
King Kenny aka the infamous lightskin350
After ESB’s fumble Saturday I said to my buddy,” I can’t really blame the kid with 4 guys pulling at the ball, after he made the catch.”
My buddy replied, ” I know what you mean. How come Notre Dame never has 3-4 guys around the ball carrier when they’re on defense?”
He was absolutely right. Instead of the first guy grabbing on and the pursuit helping out, it just seems the first guy misses and then maybe the second too. You just never seem to see any “gang” tackling. Why is that?
That’s tough. While I agree, in that example it’s a not-fumble away from being, “Why did they let the receiver keep gaining yardage!!??”
I finally figured out why it bugged me when Kelly said the coaching was the least of this worries after the game. It wasn’t because we all knew the coaches ought to be among his chief worries. And it wasn’t because he was calling out the players, because they deserved it too. No, it was 100% because anything Kelly says right now is like nails on a chalkboard to me.
So I’m having a harder and harder time being objective about Kelly and his public comments.
But then I calmed down and started thinking it through. Of course Kelly is worried about the coaching. But I think he’s more worried that this group of players is, to a large degree, uncoachable. I suspect Kelly knows in his heart of hearts that BVG and some others on his staff aren’t the best in the business. But I have a pretty strong feeling that Kelly thinks they are, if only by the smallest margin, good enough if the players just did what was right in front of them. We (me too) complain about scheme and emphasis and practice, and I think those complaints have some merit, but Kelly knows football better than any of us and I think he believes we have a bigger problem than coaching. I think he is really ticked off at the players for not making the plays they should make. All the missed assignments and missed reads and missed tackles have to wear on a coach. Naturally, any coach will ask himself, “are we doing something wrong?” but there is room for the answer to be “could be, but all too often players in the right position are not executing, too.”
I just think Kelly had gotten to the point on Saturday night where he knew the results were going to get someone fired and he was pissed at the players for their role in it. For sure, he knew BVG was going to be sacrificed and even though he knew it was the correct thing to do, he hated that it was his friend and he hated that poor execution had forced his hand. So he was mad at the players more than at his coaching staff. Basically, I think Kelly believes his coaches have been trying harder than his players. It’s hard not to agree with that basic statement. But it doesn’t mean ND should keep underpowered coaches who simply work hard.
BVG had to go. For a bunch of reasons. Players could not execute his defense. It doesn’t appear that players liked him. And don’t get me started on recruiting. He was a terrible fit. It was an easy decision, yet it was still hard for Kelly to do it because I think he likes BVG more than he likes this particular group of players. I’m wondering if that’s a fair conclusion or if it instead represents Kelly’s core problem at ND.
A really good post Dawgler.
Perhaps at some point in the last 2+ years these players checked out on Van Gorder. Can you blame them when ND continues to play historically bad defense game after game? Kelly rolled the dice 8 months ago that “his friend” could fix this. That was a mistake.
i don’t think Kelly was referring to just the defensive players, he was talking about all of them, IMO.
I’d feel bad for him if it wasn’t expressly his job to pick the players he wants, to motivate them, and ensure they are skilled enough to make the plays that are in front of them. If what you say is true (I have no idea if it is), then it’s a searing indictment of him as a head football coach, or at least the job he’s doing currently, that he can’t even field a team that’s trying hard enough.
I can imagine a lot of the defensive players go into each game feeling nervous/scared/angry that they are going to be out of position and put at a disadvantage before the ball is even snapped. That’s on BVG.
I agree that BVG was doing a poor job and needed to go. However, the problems for the ND defense run deeper and need to be fixed systematically. Here is one viewpoint:
1-For some reason, ND cannot attract uber-talented d-linemen. To address this, switch to a 3-4 base, which requires fewer d-linemen (as was done during the Diaco years).
2-When recruiting a talented player that could play either offense or defense (e.g., Niklas, Claypool, Brent, etc.), put them on defense – ND has a lot more difficulty recruiting talent on that side.
3-Hire a COLLEGE d-coordinator. Pro schemes do not work on college offenses (more variety of offenses to prepare for, plus students have less time to devote to learning a scheme / preparation).
4-Hire a d-coordinator who likes to recruit. With ND’s restrictions on recruiting (e.g., test scores and GPA), all coaches need to be helping with recruiting with full effort.
5-Reduce some of the outside / extra-curricular commitments of the ND coaches in terms of media and speaking engagements. Let the coaches focus more on coaching and recruiting.
Bonus-Do whatever possible (beg the administration and faculty, beg them some more, and finally, beg again) to adjust the entrance requirements and graduation requirements JUST SLIGHTLY so that ND is not initially shut out from even considering some top recruits. Yes, ND is an excellent academic institution, but not all freshmen need to take calculus (see books like The Math Myth for academic perspectives on this) and add/drop procedures can be adjusted (see Stanford).
Finally, for the fan base – acknowledge that talent (reflected by star ratings) matters. Some 3 stars can be coached up and turn into great players, but the odds are better for 4 and 5 star athletes (look at the probabilities / statistics; also, see Teo, Smith, Morgan, Tuitt, etc.). ND needs to recruit defensive talent consistently every year (see Hamilton article on si.com).
Sorry for the long post.
1) Were we really that bad at recruiting D-Linemen before BVG? I don’t know the answer, but Tuitt, Nix, Lynch, etc. all were highly recruited, right? Could it be that (a) Van Gorder doesn’t do any recruiting and (b) coaches telling recruits “don’t go to ND, they won’t have you pass rush, they’ll have you drop in coverage, and that doesn’t get you drafted?”
2) Makes sense to me. I think Kelly’s love of offense has blinded him in this area a little bit.
5) Are the coaches really doing that much media stuff outside of Kelly?
Bonus-Please no. The requirements have already been reduced for most football players (i.e. Kelly saying none of the players on his team would have gotten into ND if they weren’t football players). There’s no way some of those top recruits could handle the rigors of ND’s course load. I know many people care more about the football program than the academic institution, and I don’t fault them for that. I, however, would be sorely disappointed.
1. On the other hand, most (including Diaco’s) 3-4 schemes require a space-eating, war daddy nose tackle. Nix was one of those, but there’s at best maybe 2-3 in the entire country in each recruiting class. The odds are not good on ND getting one each year, or even every other year. It works in the NFL because you have much more selectivity. With a 4-3, the linemen don’t have to be as specified. Yes, you need one more, but you don’t necessarily need that huge fireplug in the middle (though it’s always nice to have).
2. Onwualu, Kevairae Russell….we’ve done that at times.
3. Amen.
4. Amen
5. I don’t know that DCs and other coaches have any major “requirements” to speak to the public, so that’s not a big deal in my mind.
Bonus: PREACH–I’ve made the argument that not everybody needs to take calc since I was a freshman escaping with a C. And here’s where I disagree with MikeyB–change the requirements for ALL students, not just football players. I almost didn’t go to ND, even though it was by far my #1 choice, because I felt it ridiculous that I had to take calculus as a Japanese/Govt major. I can imagine, even motivated student-athletes look at that requirement and think “huh…maybe I’ll go elsewhere.” Engineering majors aren’t required to take Japanese–if they have to fill a language requirement, they get to take Spanish or something. So let lib arts/business people take math designed for them.
Other than that, change things on the ADMISSIONS end–not the graduation end. I’m fine with an athlete having a little lesser academic requirement to get in (and, let’s be honest, they do). Lou famously got several players in, like Tony Rice and Chris Zorich, via Prop 48 and reduced admissions standards. Zorich went on to get a law degree (though apparently didn’t learn to pay his taxes). There are almost infinite resources to help athletes pass classes.
The only other thing I’d change is PERHAPS…maybe our 5th year seniors don’t need to be grad students. First of all, they all end up in the MBA 1-year program (because it’s the only 1-year grad program, I think) and @can you REALLY call an MBA a “higher degree”?@ But seriously, sure, there are kids that finish their degrees in 3 1/2 years. But I knew kids who, without playing football, took 5 years to finish their “4-year” degree. Let those who can spend their 5th year as grad students, but let others who might need to take a bit longer spread it out.
Calc is not the reason many athletes are struggling at ND. A reminder: many players at the most elite football programs literally should not have middle school diplomas. I care more about the university than the football program. I completely understand if you have a different level of importance; I’m not here to moralize or something silly like that on a sports blog.
But just be clear; changing academic standards to keep up with the elite schools would not just require that ND drop the Calculus requirement. It would require admitting students who literally cannot write a grammatically correct paragraph.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/07/us/ncaa-athletes-reading-scores/
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/272649-florida-state-players-read-at-2nd-grade-level
https://sports.vice.com/en_us/article/how-much-is-a-degree-worth-to-college-athletes-not-much
So, I didn’t say Calc was why athletes struggle at ND. Not at all what I said. I specifically said:
I also said:
You say you’re not here to moralize, yet by suggesting that *I* prioritize the football team over the university, you’re moralizing. Nothing I said should indicate I prioritize football over the university. ND has specific rules–for all students–that adversely affect RECRUITING, which I specifically noted. I also specifically said that once in, they should be held to the same standard as other students–which, as I stated, I feel should not include calc for every student on campus.
I’m a PhD student at an Ivy League school in the humanities, with an MA from another school. My goal is to be a college professor. I grew up in a family of professors. I don’t say that to be “oh I’m so cool”–merely to point out that I’m hardly the type of person who would suggest we prioritize football over the University. Yes, I understand to “keep up with the elite schools” like Bama or Ohio State, we’d have to admit kids who cain’t read gud. I’m not suggesting making it a “level playing field.” I’m suggesting changing a few things about ND’s academic requirements that aren’t really important to ND’s academic integrity. I’m highly offended that not only did you ignore my specific caveats, you then go on to completely mis-characterize my argument as prioritizing football success over the University’s academic integrity, and then try to paper over it with a “not judging, man.”
Stanford–who I doubt anyone here would criticize for academics–takes an opposite approach: harder (or, equivalent to the general population) standards to get in to the school for athletes, but there are easy classes where athletes can hide. I personally find that less “honest” than admitting kids who may not make it on their own academics, but then holding them to the same academic standards in the classroom (assuming they have the help to succeed, which ND amply provides).
Let kids spread their classes out over 5 years, like the NCAA allows. Let those who aren’t in an engineering or science track–which is usually most of the football team–take math that applies to business or something, rather than calc. These seem like common sense to me, not “prioritizing the football team over the university.”
I knew as soon as I hit post I was going to come off as sounding like a dick, and for that I’m sorry.
I guess I just don’t understand your point. That’s what I was trying to say. What requirements exactly are you talking about changing? I keep re-reading your post to make sure I’m not misquoting you, and all I see is “don’t make Calc a requirement” and “let players spread classes over 5 years instead of 4.” I don’t see how that is going to improve our recruiting. Additionally, you then mention Stanford, who doesn’t even recruit well.
I feel like I’m missing something here, and again, I’m sorry for mis-understanding/mis-quoting you.
A bit off topic: apparently Arts & Letters majors are allowed to take 2 math classes that are not Calculus.
I can see both points of view, KG and Mikey. I confess I’ve always hated the way Hesburgh tried to gut football while I was at ND, and almost killed the program. I think there can be a happy medium, such as KG suggests.
The only thing I know for sure is that there is a disconnect in the fanbase’s expectations. Most don’t want any changes to standards and requirements, yet expect national championships, competing against teams that have no such strictures. Not only don’t we get our fair share of the cream of the crop recruits, we also likely cannot get the next Saban or Meyer. Kelly’s trials and tribulations have likely reinforced the message Meyer sent when he eschewed ND for what he knew were greener pastures.
So all that’s ok so long as people don’t place expectations on the coaches and players that are emotionally driven and unrealistic. I love Seeing ND win, and would love to see us get into the CFP, but shudder at what would happen if we did. Eric was totally correct and I was totally wrong about ending up in the bowl vs tOSU last year. I said “play the top team we can”, Eric said ” we’ll get creamed” (paraphrasing). We all know what happened.
I no longer believe we can win an NCS under the current culture at ND, which I don’t expect to change anytime soon, if ever.
Fair enough–no worries. We’re talking past each other–2 completely different points. So, I was initially responding to spider-man; he and I agree that some tweaks need to be made to the admissions/academic requirements. You said in response to him: Please no. The requirements have already been reduced for most football players (i.e. Kelly saying none of the players on his team would have gotten into ND if they weren’t football players). There’s no way some of those top recruits could handle the rigors of ND’s course load. I know many people care more about the football program than the academic institution, and I don’t fault them for that. I, however, would be sorely disappointed. I, in my response, said I disagreed with you–my specific point of disagreement is NOT that I think things should wholesale be made easy. My disagreement is that there aren’t further tweaks than can be made. This is probably the point of confusion, as your point was, if I read it correctly, saying not to make any more concessions. As spider-man mentioned the calc requirement, that’s what I seized on in agreement, as that’s a big issue for me. (we’ll get to your ending statement of the last comment in a minute). I said very clearly (I thought) in my first response that kids, looking at ND, could possibly think twice about it knowing they have to take calculus. I’m not an athlete and I was almost dissuaded from coming to ND because of the requirement. I’m not sure how you couldn’t see how that relates to recruiting–if Player A has a choice between two schools, and one of them requires calc and one of them doesn’t, it’s one more factor in the “ND is too tough, go to State U.” narrative. If ND has changed the Arts & Letters requirement and calculus is no longer required, that’s news to me. If true, then FANTASTIC. Both Spider-man and I are obviously coming from the understanding that it’s required–it certainly was for me in 1994. God, I feel old typing that. As for my other factor–ND requires football players to finish their degrees in 4 years; all of our 5th year students are graduate students. That’s a self-imposed rule. I’m all in favor of kids getting a chance at a grad degree. But compare that to other schools, where they have 5 years to do 4 years of bachelor-level coursework. We talk so much about the pressure ND players are under to excel at both schoolwork and on the field. I can’t imagine taking 15-18 credits per semester at ND AND having football practice, film sessions, not to mention games. So let them take 12 credits (still full time) and stretch their degree out to the 5 years allowed by the NCAA. Your 17-year old HS Senior may not think about this in terms of recruiting, but it would go a long way to making it easier to manage both schoolwork and football at a high level.… Read more »
Actually, it sounds like we’re on the same page after all. I’m all for making life better for all students (including the athletes), as long as it doesn’t cause the high quality education offered by ND to suffer. I 100% support no Calculus for anybody who isn’t in the STEMs; I support making a 5 year track available (although I would prefer this option only be offered to any student on a full scholarship, as the cost of tuition for an extra year is crazy-high); I’m all for offering more/better tutoring to all students.
At the end of the day, if the NCAA/universities are going to maintain that a college education is sufficient payment to athletes, then my #1 concern is for them to actually receive an education. No African American Studies courses where you don’t ever have to show up or write your own papers. No chemistry classes for people who have a 4th grade reading level. No telling players that they cannot enter difficult majors if that is what they want to do.
I think the only place I differ from you; I don’t think making things easier for students/athletes will improve our recruiting all that much. It might make it easier to avoid Frozen 5 situations, which would be nice, but at the end of the day, we’re never going to be able to compete for about 50% of the 5 stars without admitting a player who just wouldn’t be able to complete the necessary coursework at ND.
Yep, we agree. These changes won’t get 50% of the 5-stars or even 4-stars. I’m okay with that.
So you also accept that an NC is not a realistic expectation then? Not disagreeing on what you are saying, just asking if you also accept the consequences of the point of view.
No program outside of Bama or maybe tOSU can list “National Championship” as an “expectation,” as in, you expect to win one. I “expect” that with competent coaching and recruiting to be in the conversation for the playoffs most years, and in the playoffs with a chance at to get more than a participation trophy once every few years. There’s nothing about our recruiting restrictions that prevents that. Sure, you can’t get 50% of the 5-stars out there–work your ass off to get the ones that can qualify. It makes it a lot harder–not impossible. Stanford recruits more restrictively than we do, and I’d say that’s a good description of where they are at. We have less margin for error than most teams, yes. Am I going to hang my head and say “oh, gosh, we’ll never win an NC?” No, no I’m not.
I don’t think that’s realistic. If you can’t touch half the 5 stars and half the 4 stars, your recruiting funnel is mathematically too small. So no matter how hard you work as a recruiter, you’re at a severe disadvantage in getting sufficient talent to compete effectively against the biggies. This also directly leads to our inability to attract the top of the coaching pyramid, which is just as important as getting the actual players. Throw in the harsh disciplinary regime at ND and we lose players we’ve recruited just about every year. Those are facts, not emotion. As for who can expect championships and CFP selections, Bama, tOSU, FSU, USC, Texas, LSU can certainly aspire and achieve that when they have decent coaches. Other programs can too when they attract a Lamar Jackson, who I’m not sure can even read but is a touchdown machine. I don’t think Stanford recruits more restrictively than we do, but they do seem to give their athletes more academic flexibility than we do. Last time they won a national championship was in 1935 or so, when Pop Warner was their coach. So far no CFP appearances for them. After watching their UCLA game last weekend, I don’t see it happening this year either, although I think Shaw gets high marks as a coach. I don’t ever hang my head, and I’ve rooted for ND likely as long as anyone on this board, going back to the Leahy teams when I was a kid dreaming about going to ND. I’ve done very well in life being fact based. The best team we’ve had in decades went to the national championship game in 2012 and got embarrassed. I went to the Fiesta Bowl when we played tOSU, with Brady, Shark, and Zibby. Embarrassing loss. Davie played dirtbag Dennis Ericson’s Oregon State in a big bowl and got run out of the stadium. We lost last year badly to tOSU even with Bosa out in the first quarter for targeting. We haven’t won a major bowl in many years, and most of the time in the last 27 years haven’t made one. Football has changed dramatically from our last glory years. There are way more programs that can attract top players now. And one or two difference makers have a huge impact– the Reggie Bush, Vince Evans, Cam Newton, Lamar Jackson types, players who can personally carry their team to a championship. I love watching ND play, would love to see us win it all or make the playoffs. But not to get blown up. Every game we’ve lost this year has been entertaining, so I’m ok. I’m an extremely competitive person, so I’m not just one who settles. But I get paid for giving fact based advice and I’m not swayed by how badly I truly want to see ND win. Being realistic about ND’s ceiling makes me a happier, less frustrated fan. Unless and until ND makes enough palatable changes ( that may be… Read more »
Switching to a 3-4 will not help that much. Even when we employed the 3-4 the team was still in a four man front a ton.
I agree 1000% about hiring a DC who loves to recruit. I have seen LSU DC Dave Aranda and Ohio State’s Luke Fickell thrown out as possible hires. I dont know to much about Aranda but I know Fickell can recruit.
I like it KG.
So, I decided to venture into “ND Nation” to see what the response over there was. It was the typical rantings that one might expect from that crew. However, there were a couple tidbits that I found somewhat interesting. First, two posters who claim to have inside information said that BVG’s firing was Swarbrick’s idea and that Kelly didn’t want to fire him. Second, as a result of the firing, this will be Kelly’s last season at ND and that he and ND will “mutually part ways” at the end of the year. I have no idea whether what these guys say is accurate, but frankly, I hope they are wrong on both counts. I have my problems with Kelly, but that would be true of any coach. We analyze their every move and any decision that does not come out the way that we would like gets criticized. Every word of every press conference is gone over with a fine tooth comb. (I wonder what Holtz’s reputation would be now if he had been coaching during this age of twitter, blogs, and instant media.) Of course there are going to be things he does that I disagree with. However, over all, he seems like a good guy and a good coach. I am not sure who we could get who would be a guaranteed improvement. Now, that is not to say that are not any other great coaches out there. I’m sure there are. However, it is not easy to find a great coach who is available and for whom ND is an attractive offer. I think it will be interesting to see how recruiting goes the rest of the year. If CBK is a dead man walking, then I can’t imagine he will be putting his all into recruiting kids that he will not be coaching. I also hope that BVG’s firing was not Swarbrick’s decision – at least not solely his. I think the AD and Kelly need to have a good relationship and if this was an ultimatum by Jack, then that does not bode well for the future. If it was more like this: Jack: You know he has to go, right? Kelly: Yeah, but I would like to wait till the end of the season Jack: No, we just last to DUKE! Look at the stats. I don’t care about the injuries, he’s got to go now. Kelly: Yeah, I guess so, but it sucks.” That would be OK. We’ll see. Last point – I watched the press conference from after the game and I really do not think people should be getting so upset by it. Kelly was pissed because the players played like garbage. I don’t think he was throwing anyone under the bus, at least unnecessarily. He was telling it like it is. Everyone ignores the fact that he also called out the coaching and specifically stated that the coaching was bad, too. The only players he criticized by name were… Read more »
I agree, I certainly hope this wasn’t a Swarbrick mandate. If course, I doubt it happened. If anything, I could see Swarbrick sitting down with Kelly and walking him through why it made sense to fire BVG. But I just can’t imagine him telling Kelly it had to be done.
On the NDN stuff… Football Scoop tweeted that BVG was out, and followed it up with a tweet that they were told it wasn’t BK’s decision. That’s it. Nobody at NDN has “inside information,” they just read the Football Scoop tweet. I think the “mutual parting” is a lot of conjecture and wishful thinking on their part as well.
I think your hypothetical conversation is most likely how it went.
Finally, I agree with your comments on the press conference. As usual, things are different in context, and it was quite clear from watching it that he was pissed with everyone and everything. A lot of players mailed it and and he said so – if they don’t want to get thrown under the bus for that, they should avoid mailing it in. My guess is Zaire went off script with the trick play; his instruction was probably make one read and throw it away if it’s not there, and instead he tried to force something and it was a disaster. And I think he also regretted calling the play in hindsight.
That all makes sense.
Based on years of reading NDN, I would say that several posters claim “inside information” or “intimate knowledge of the program” – always insisting on the anonymity of their source, of course – and that their insights usually prove wrong. That place is toxic.
Replying here to Kiwi, as we’ve gone as far as it will let me in that thread: “I don’t think that’s realistic.” Ok. I do. “As for who can expect championships and CFP selections, Bama, tOSU, FSU, USC, Texas, LSU can certainly aspire and achieve that when they have decent coaches.” We have a different view of what the word “expectation” means. It doesn’t mean “aspire and achieve when they have decent coaches.” An expectation is different from a goal. It means, to me, that if you don’t win an NC, the season is a failure. The “expectation” is the realistic bar set of what a program’s fans and the outside viewing public see as their logical result. Bama has won 4 national titles in Saban’s 9 years there, or 44.4% of the time. A title this year would mean that there is a 50% chance of Saban’s team winning a title in any given year. So, to me, that makes it a realistic “expectation” that Bama will be in the playoff and win the title. There’s a demonstrated pattern of winning the NC. The only team that comes close is Ohio State, because Meyer won two titles at his last stop and one title at this one, and was an MSU FG (and idiotic offensive play calling) from being in the playoff last year. There is demonstrated coaching and recruiting at a reloading level to suggest that tOSU should be playing for a title. Not as airtight an expectation as Alabama, but if tOSU goes the next 2-3 years without being in the playoff, there’s something wrong. No one else in CFB has that combination of coaching PLUS talent PLUS proven success that I “expect” them to be in the playoffs year in and year out. FSU had a good 2-year run, but that was predicated on Winston. It remains to be seen if Jimbo can repeat that with Francois (or if he leaves for LSU, which I doubt, but it’s being talked about). Texas can’t say they “expect” to be in the playoffs because they aren’t even sniffing the Big 12 championship yet. LSU is coachless, and people are talking about USC possibly firing a coach for the third time in 4 years. Louisville has a really good player in Jackson, and a great shot at the playoffs if they beat Clemson this week and then Houston later on. But as a program, Louisville is far from a team that has year-in, year-out “expectations” of making the playoffs, much less winning an NC; you can’t even say they have “expectations” of winning an ACC title, as they’ve never done it. I “expect” our team to win games against inferior teams on our schedule, like Duke. I “expect” to win 10 games more years than not, because even with our restrictions, we’ve got better talent coming in than generally 8 or so teams on our schedule (you’re going to disagree, we know you have a different view of “talent,”… Read more »
This. Unless you’re some sort of death machine like Bama, getting to the title game is a crap shoot. The best you can do in college football is aim consistently have double-digit win season, and hope that enough luck shakes out your way one year to vault you to the championship.
Thanks for the detailed rejoinder, KG. Fun discussion. I guess you could say we come from different ends of the decision spectrum, logic vs emotion (and there is room for both) and will likely never agree, but in a friendly fashion, with congruent wishes. We both want ND to excel, not just in the classroom, but on the football field as well. I think, though, that you are implying the numbers aren’t very important. I can see why you hated calculus 🙂 Look at it this way. You acknowledge that we cannot go after half of the top athletes due to ND’s self imposed restrictions. If you are selling a product, and you only can serve half of the total market that your competitor can reach with a similar product, your sales volume is going to be less, all other things being equal. I think its actually worse for ND, since all other things are not equal (real classes, disciplinary regime, inability to attract the top coaches etc). We can attempt to recruit half of the prospects that almost all the other programs can attempt to recruit (save for the “academic” schools), and of those, many will back away from the ND peculiarities, putting other priorities and desires ahead of the education ND provides. Its a numbers game, and the math dominates, IMO. Also, more math, if Saban wins again this year, it will not mean he has a 50% chance of winning in any given year, anymore than tossing heads on a coin 10 times in a row has any bearing on whether heads will come up on the next toss. The 50% would be a backward look, not a forward predictor. Instinctively, we would say that Saban has a better chance than, say, Illinois, but each year all of the teams change so the same teams aren’t playing, and chance comes into play in CFB regardless of competence (eg the kick six against Bama , the muffed punt by UM that gave MSU a last second TD, lousy officiating, not to mention key, devastating, injuries, being put on probation etc.) I wont quibble over the meaning of “expectations”. You say tomato, I say tomahto etc. I do remember when we “expected” to win national championships under Leahy, Ara, Lou, even Devine. That wasn’t realistic maybe, but losing early in the year was a huge letdown from expectations then, as we usually lost only 1 or maybe two in the golden years. Looking back historically, the first two years of the CFP saw 7 teams compete. Bama was the only repeating team, and they won one of them. The other teams were tOSU (who won the first playoff), FSU, Oregon, Oklahoma, Clemson, MSU. None of them are considered to be high academic schools in the sense ND and Stanford, Duke, Vandy etc are. Most of them have been strong programs for a long time, with some ups and downs. Since 1988, our last NC, there have been 16 teams with a claim on the national championship, in… Read more »
Auburn won it with basically just Cam Newton. Nobody else from that team has proven to be an NFL talent. While I don’t expect ND to be a year in and year out contender, I don’t think it’s impossible for us to ever be in the National Title conversation. Heck, even with just a competent defense this year, our offense probably has us in the playoff hunt. Kizer is that good (if occasionally inconsistent).
I don’t expect us to have a QB playing at Kizer’s level every season. While my goals are much more modest than many fans, this season is obviously still a huge disappointment. My standard for ND, with the way our schedules should be shaking out (i.e. playing 3 or 4 garbage ACC teams plus Navy every year), is a minimum of 8 wins, and in the playoffs once every recruiting cycle (i.e. every 4ish years). So, I think I have a higher expectation than you, Kiwi, but I think I have much lower goals than most ND fans.