The thing about winning a big game is it usually leads to more big games. So that fate awaits Notre Dame coming off an undefeated regular season as a rematch with Clemson looms large in the ACC Championship Game next weekend. The national spotlight is always on the Irish but now the heat is going to be turned up and they will be judged again on the game’s biggest stage as the program seeks its second College Football Playoff bid in 3 years.
It’s been a great season, no doubt. You have to constantly remind yourself to enjoy it while it’s good because collegiate player careers are so short and you never know what tomorrow may bring. The rebuild since the beginning of 2017 has been a smashing success but right now things are different. Another level is within reach, and very possibly, is expected of the Fighting Irish. This particular team, more than any in the recent past, would throw fists at you for merely suggesting that they’re just happy to be in the ACC Title Game or just make the playoffs.
Not Backing Into Anything
It’s no longer about taking care of business against weaker teams, defeating unranked opponents, or beating ranked Navy or Northwestern teams. All of this has been repeated ad nauseum over the past 4 seasons. On Saturday night our writers were debating whether it would be better for Clemson to trip up against Virginia Tech and have the Irish face Miami in the ACC Championship instead.
That isn’t happening, nor should we want it to happen.
Facing a less talented Miami team would’ve clearly made Notre Dame’s path to the playoffs far easier–and as we discussed recently on the site–make the odds of beating 3 top teams in a row for a title a little less grueling. However, this is a Notre Dame team that has the goods and should relish the opportunity to beat Clemson with Trevor Lawrence at quarterback.
Sure, it’s hard but it’s supposed to be hard!
Avoid a Flop
This has been a special year in many ways, but maybe the biggest is that the national consensus regarding the strength at Notre Dame is as high as it’s ever been this century. It feels so good!
But, what if Notre Dame can’t beat Clemson again?
Prior to this past weekend’s game against Syracuse I was thinking to myself how nice this winning streak has been and how great it would be to send the Seniors off with another victory. Then, it hit me. What if this is the last win for Notre Dame in 2020? What if the Irish are soundly defeated in the ACC Championship and then in the Playoffs? What if they’re blow out by Clemson and snubbed for the playoffs, only to lose the Orange Bowl? Yuck.
The prior win over Clemson felt like it ushered in a new era for Notre Dame, it still makes me giddy to think about that night. Yet, a big flop or two in the coming weeks could leave a really bad taste in the mouths of Irish fans and color 2020 in a way that frankly many may not be prepared to discuss yet.
The Best Coaching
One of my favorite things to remind fans is that Notre Dame has never been a National Champion without super elite recruiting. It’s one of those strange anomalies of college football–one of the game’s most storied programs has often been cast as the gritty, try-hard underdog but in all of its several golden eras the team has been loaded with blue-chip talent.
The current 2020 squad is talented, but a healthy step below all 3 of Clemson, Ohio State, and Alabama when it comes to recruited talent.
This team has been a joy to watch.
This is one of my favorite storylines of the post-season. A strong finish to 2020 and it’s quite the feather in the cap for Brian Kelly, Clark Lea, and Tommy Rees. Anyone would admit that making the Playoff Championship Game at this point would be an absurdly terrific coaching effort. And, as unlikely as it may be, winning a title would be hands down without a doubt the best coaching season in Notre Dame history.
Building for Tomorrow
In the Syracuse game review, hooks orpik wondered, “Is this the peak of Brian Kelly?” In anticipation of personnel losses next year, and Brian Kelly entering his 12th season in South Bend, it’s fair to question whether this is as good as it’s going to get. If the team finishes strong, well that’s probably going to be tough to beat in the future!
I wonder if many years from now we’ll truly regret missing out on building a more potent roster both in this 2017-20 window and beyond. You can’t help but see that narrative forming around Notre Dame football if they don’t finish strong in 2020. Of course, you can point to the mistake of hiring Brian VanGorder and other slipups over the past decade, but a lack of recruiting breakthrough has continued to hold the Irish back.
The big question is if an ACC Championship or playoff success in 2020 can finally turn the tide for Notre Dame recruiting?
Right now, Notre Dame is good, successful, and perhaps most importantly for recruiting as cool as they’ve been as a program in maybe a quarter century. You have to hope that gets translated to better recruiting.
This is unlikely to happen for the upcoming 2021 cycle, most of whom will be signing with Notre Dame next week before the ACC Championship Game even kicks off. This ’21 class is rated 8th in the country with no 5-stars and no blue-chip prospects at running back, defensive end, inside linebacker, or safety. That current finish would be the best since 2013 (5th) but still well short of expectations for a program experiencing this much success on the field as a national blue-blood.
Quest for a Trophy
It still does feel like the Irish need to finish with a bang and bring home some hardware in a way they haven’t experienced yet under Brian Kelly. Remember when we kept harping on the quest to finish with back-to-back 10+ win seasons and what a stepping stone that would be for the program? Well, they’ve blasted through that goal for 4 straight years and left it behind as a necessary benchmark.
The problem is that throughout a current 43-6 stretch in South Bend there hasn’t been a real splashy finish in the national consciousness for the Irish. You could walk the halls of the Guglielmino practice facility right now stuffed with National Championship trophies, Heisman’s, and dozens of other awards while in comparison the best trophy for the program under Brian Kelly is….the 2018 Citrus Bowl maybe?
Is this the highlight of Kelly’s post-seasons?
I get it, the post-season is about 50% luck with matchups and you can’t always control your destiny. There’s been no random 9-3 team to face in an easy Orange Bowl and the odds right now are favoring Notre Dame being matched up with #1 Alabama in the playoffs. As I said, this won’t be a year to back into anything.
Still, even if you spot me the idea that Notre Dame won’t win the National Championship can you imagine the perception bump the team would receive should they win the ACC Championship and grab either the Rose Bowl or Sugar Bowl trophy?
Updating the Hall of Fame
Since our Notre Dame Hall of Fame Pyramid series wrapped up in July 2019 there’s been a lot to discuss. At some point, we’ll probably create a fully blown out new update in the off-season. For now, let’s talk about the players who are in the discussion to be in the HoF Pyramid over the last 2 seasons:
2019
TE Cole Kmet – Probably a firm no for me. John Carlson (161), Kyle Rudolph (165), and Anthony Fasano (183) are the last 3 tight ends in and Kmet didn’t exceed any of them in a single-season impact and definitely not in career terms. Based on his NFL Draft position you’d think Kmet would’ve been an All-American in 2019 but he wasn’t.
WR Chase Claypool – This is a tough call, but Claypool’s single-season peak and career numbers are very close to TJ Jones (173) and Rhema McKnight (158) who are the last 2 receivers in the Pyramid. I believe Claypool would deserve a spot.
DE Julian Okwara – We’re basically asking ourselves if 15.5 career sacks (and lots of pressures) over a career would make Okwara worthy. My gut says no.
DE Khalid Kareem – This one would hurt me personally to keep Kareem out. He’s among my favorite players of the Kelly era and will go down as one of the most underrated linemen in school history. Is he in the same class as Bertrand Berry (162) or Renaldo Wynn (151) who made it in? I would say yes but maybe I’m biased. Kareem’s career numbers are shockingly good though (108 tackles, 13 sacks, 26 TFL) for a strong-side defensive end.
2020
LT Liam Eichenberg – He’s already locked up induction it’s just a matter of placement in the Pyramid. We’re looking at a 3-year starter who should be a finalist for the Outland Trophy in 2020 and could be a 1st-team All-American and maybe even a consensus All-American. This could easily move him past his former teammate Mike McGlinchey at 71 overall.
LB Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah – Our own JOK is largely in the same boat as Eichenberg. He’ll be an All-American it’s just a matter of how many honors he’s going to pick up after this season. He’s in the running for the Bednarik and Nagurski Awards and has a shot at winning the Butkus Award, too. He may not reach Jaylon Smith territory (55) but it could in that neighborhood.
QB Ian Book – I’m not sure even the biggest Book fans would’ve predicted he’d be making our Hall of Fame but he’s zoomed up the rankings over the past 2 months. For reference, here were the quarterback rankings prior to the 2019 season:
185 Kizer
153 Powlus
132 Mirer
130 Clausen
129 Dancewicz
72 Stuhldreher
69 Montana
59 Dorais
54 Huarte
52 Theismann
49 Rice
39 Williams
36 Clements
32 Guglielmi
30 Quinn
13 Hanratty
10 Carideo
7 Bertelli
5 Hornung
2 Lujack
It all comes down to how you rate players and how you weigh different things. For Book, his career numbers are going to be memorable. He’s first, second, or third in nearly all career statistics across the board and will have the feather in his cap as the guy with the most wins for the foreseeable future.
When you look at single-season personal success and peak it gets a little murkier. I think Irish fans understand Book’s impact and success in 2020 right now, but I wonder how much that will trickle through nationally? No doubt, Book has been receiving a ton of respect but at the same time the rest of the country sees him as well below the Trevor Lawrence, Justin Fields, Mac Jones, and Kyle Trask group.
It seems like the next couple games are going to be absolutely huge for Book’s legacy.
If Notre Dame beats Clemson and Book plays well, he may earn himself an invite to the Heisman ceremony. Even if he finishes 5th or 6th that’s a huge deal, plus he could play himself into a quality finish with the Maxwell Award, too. I do think he’s received a lot of respect in 2020 and should be, at worst, 2nd-team All-ACC for a quarterback.
But, it remains unclear if he will get any All-American nominations and the top 13 quarterbacks in the Notre Dame Hall of Fame Pyramid all ticked that box. Now, you could claim some historical bias against Book (no way would a Notre Dame quarterback in his position not receive All-American votes 40 or 50 years ago) but the game has changed so much, especially offensively, and writers are no longer tripping over themselves to nominate Irish players.
I’d personally slot Book in somewhere near Montana–someone he’s often compared to in terms of being a clutch winner without flashy stats or All-American love–but Cool Joe did win a title. With a strong finish to 2020, it’s possible Book could move all the way up toward Clements (someone whose career strongly parallels Book’s but he also won a title and was an All-American, plus Heisman finalist) into that range when it’s all said and done.
It’s exciting to think that ND could win the ACC against Clemson, leading to ND finishing #2 and getting to play OSU. They’re good, no doubt, but IU showed that their corners can be beat by receivers willing to go up and get the ball. You win the ACC, and you potentially get a huge reward.
But if you lose this game and make the playoff, boy that’s a brutal spot to be in. I’d say there’s next to a zero chance the committee would immediately match ND and Clemson up for a rematch, so we probably fall to #4 (assuming we stay in the top 4). Now you’re looking at playing Alabama, quite clearly the most talented team in the country. There’s a chance ND gets absolutely blown out by them. You go from talking potential ACC Champions to all of a sudden getting the “ND can’t win big games” narrative blasted in your face; twice! In back to back games! This would be the most brutal offseason since after 4-8.
Just curious if Nd beats Clemson, any chance they’d draw Texas am in the 2/3 matchup. Texas am is already in front of Ohio state and I don’t imagine the playoff committee would want a rematch between Bama and them. Kind of makes beating Clemson really really important
tOSU is 4, A&M is 5 right now in latest CFP. I would think if Bama, ND, tOSU all win, that’s 1-3 right there in that order.
Kinda sucks for ND, really. Hard to imagine a scenario where they don’t play either Ohio State (with a ACC win) or Bama (with ACC loss) in the first round..
(Or if ND gets blown out by Clemson, there’s a terrible, terrible world in which ND falls to #5)
Especially since that would mean playing in the Orange Bowl (potentially against Florida). Vomit all around.
That’s truly the worst case scenario: embarrassed by Clemson, back to the house of horrors in Miami to face a very strong team and fail to win a major bowl game again.
Now that OSU is playing in the championship game I think you are right. Before that detail, I had wondered if Iowa st with a win over oklahoma and a Big 12 championship could leap into the #3 spot which would have been the best case scenerio.
I do feel good about matching up against OSU this year though.
The other things that tOSU has proven this year is that you can’t count on them to field a 100% healthy team. Every week they’re going to have 2-3 key players out and they’ve been lucky with timing. If they had played Indy last week instead of 3 weeks ago, I have no doubt they would have lost.
And the second thing they’ve shown us is that Justin Fields absolutely can be tricked by a great defense. He was piss poor in that game and I feel like ND could really make him pay if he played like that again.
If they had played Indiana last week, they would have faced a backup QB who only put up 14 points on Wisconsin. I think they would have beaten IU even down all those players.
If ND beats Clemson, is there any chance Clemson stays in the top 4? Seems pretty tough to do. A&M or perhaps Iowa st would move in one would think.
A&M could jump in, although the committee has set the stage for the Big 12 winner to potentially leap to #4 with its treatment of Oklahoma and particularly ISU.
“The problem is that throughout a current 43-6 stretch in South Bend there hasn’t been a real splashy finish in the national consciousness for the Irish”
It’s true there’s no Heismans or major bowl wins, but over 10 million people (highest TV audience of this season) watched ND beat Clemson. That has to count for a little something that Notre Dame gained some national attention to win the biggest regular season game of the year.
As far as HOF: I’d def put Claypool in, he carried the team on his back for much of the second half of last season.
Also, crazy to me Eichenberg is that high. His accomplishments and longevity of playing at a high level are what they are and he’s worthy of being on there, but idk, to me he’s not in McGlinchey’s neighborhood for quality.
Book is a really tough one. Let’s hope he makes his case with adding on to career accomplishments for the finish..
I know this comment will make it look like I hate Book (I don’t) or that I’m saying he’s a terrible QB (I’m not) but really the only case he has as a great QB is that he wins games. I think most people here understand how silly that is because ascribing a team win to an individual player is absolutely ridiculous. In baseball, the pitcher win has started going the way of the Dodo bird because people are realizing how little and how ridiculous it is to ascribe that to a single player. It’s a little more foolish in baseball because a player can get a win simply for playing a third of an inning in the 4th after the starter comes out of the game and his team gets a lead that it never relinquishes, but the point is that a win is a TEAM effort. Ian Book doesn’t sack Trevor Lawrence, he doesn’t tackle Etienne, he doesn’t catch the 56-yard TD with 15 seconds left. He’s a big part of the win, absolutely and his contributions are tremendous but without Clark Lea and his defense, ND isnt 10-0 right now.
You’ve been banging this drum for quite a while.
ND All Time Stats,
Ian Book 2nd -passing yards, passing touchdowns, total offense and QB rushing yards.
So, “really the only case he has as a great QB is that he wins games.” is nonsense.
Do I think you hate him? No. Do I think that you hate being wrong about him? No doubt.
I agree that you have to give Book credit. Include rushing TD and he’s responsible for 61 TD vs 8 INT since the start of 2019. He isn’t a perfect player, but absolutely has to be acknowledged for being one of the steadiest QB’s we’ve seen at ND, maybe in my lifetime.
Also, let’s be real, Book’s weapons are a great freshman TE (but a freshman nonetheless), a 5th year WR who hasn’t done much, a QB-RB-WR-CB-RB-WR senior who has bounced everywhere, and a Northwestern transfer.
If Claypool and/or Kmet had another year of eligibility, or ND had recruited better WR (or Austin/Lenzy didn’t get hurt) this offense would have been a LOT better in 2020 and that’s not on Book if we’re going to survey the whole team and see where the strengths and weaknesses are.
…And even then they’re still putting up 37.7 points/game, which is nothing to sneeze at, and another point of credit to Book. He’s totally efficient running the offense, he almost never gives the ball away, makes great choices, scores a lot of points and wins almost every game he plays. Sounds pretty good to me!
I don’t think this is much of a knock on Book, to be honest.
The 1977 team featured 9(!!!) players outside of Joe Montana in our ND Hall of Fame, 8 of which were major cogs in winning that title. Do they win the title without some of those players? Do they win it all without 3 defenders who are in the top 25 of the Hall of Fame?
I’m not sure we have to belittle QB accomplishments based solely on playing with a good defense. You’d be cutting out a lot of Irish quarterbacks then.
Completely agreed, E. ND fans know quite well what happens when very good or great QBs are saddled with terrible defenses. Brady Quinn and Jimmy Clausen certainly come to mind. I don’t think it’s a negative reflection on Book that he didn’t win these games by himself. But he does a good deal to help win them.
The 3 TD in 3 minutes stretch against Syracuse is a good example. A replacement-level QB probably doesn’t pull that off, and then ND has to work a little harder in the second half to dispatch that crummy but scrappy Orange team. But because Book (with, obviously, help from the defense) led those 3 quick TD drives, the game’s essentially over at halftime. That’s valuable. If you don’t believe me, watch the 2018 Ball State and Vanderbilt games again.
You can’t just discount winning. Lots of things a QB does or doesn’t do contribute to winning. Not turning the ball over. Escaping lost yardage plays and many more. We seem to forget how frustrating it has been to watch just average, mistake laden, QB play in times gone by.
I think next season we are all going to find out, in rather painful fashion, just how important Book was to winning games.
Maybe up until the Clemson game, this would have seemed like a better argument. But including that game on, he seems to have been an elite QB. Maybe being a very steady/good QB for 2.5 years and an elite QB for .5 year (depending on how he finishes) is not enough to get in – but I think it probably is.
I still have no idea how to rate Book. If we were to win out, that’s obviously enormous for his legacy. But at the same time, if we win out, it’s highly likely JOK has done something absurd again, like stealing a football from the top RB in the country and running it in for a TD. When I think about Book and JOK as college athletes, I immediately think that JOK has been a better player. But how much do you weight the fact that Book is a QB while JOK is an LB? No idea.
If I had to give up one of those two, as great as JOK is, Book is the more critical player to this team.
I totally and completely agree with you. This is WHY you want to win games during the season. This is WHY you go undefeated. So that you get to play the biggest challenges of the season and test yourself against Clemson and Bama and tOSU (blah) in the playoff. You’re not going to go into a playoff game and face a BAD team. I know some idiot Clem and Bama fans may say that we were that, but that’s a ridiculous statement. Even though we lost and lost roundly we certainly were a good team in those years.
So for me, I’m not shying away at all. I have supreme confidence in this team and I think there’s a VERY good chance we win the ACC title. We’ve all heard the same line from our side…in spite of only winning by 7 in OT, we could have won by so much more and ended the game in regulation. So many points left on the board and we could have really strangled the Tigers in the first game. Their defense, of course is that TL was not playing in the game and while his impact can really be minimized when you see how great his backup played, they’ll then argue that having Venables and Skalski out of that game was a bigger impact.
Well, if that’s true then Venables has a broken arm right now and even if he gets it in a cast and is able to play, that’s a major hindrance. There’s a reason people don’t put casts on normally and if he’s able to put one on and still be in the game he has to be limited. Skalski was pulled early in the VT game and the report is that it was a precautionary move (seems a bit fishy IMO, but I’ll go with it) but the injury is a groin issue. Those things don’t heal quickly nor do they heal without serious inactivity. The fact that he’s playing through it really would worry me if I were a Clem’s fan. He’s GOING to hurt that again before the season is over, it’s only a matter of when.
All of this to say, I welcome these challenges. I don’t want to hide behind “I hope ____ crummy team makes it and we get to face them so that we can sneak into the title game.” I’m tired of that mindset. I want the first Clemson game to be the turning point for this program. I want to be the team that walks in with our figurative member slung over our shoulder, we walk onto the field and slap it down on the midfield logo and say, “you want us? Come take us down.” I want that supreme confidence that Clem and tOSU and Bama have. That will only come with making a run this year and defeating those programs.
On Venables, I’m pretty sure Dabo has already said he won’t be able to play in the ACC title game. If Skalski plays, that’s probably a wash in relation to their Nov. 7 lineup, but worth noting.
The big problem is Tyler Davis back and playing well, matched against our loss of Patterson and injury to Correll (and Luggs’ hand). There is a cascading effect to having trouble in the middle.
Having said that — I am with Clearwell. The only chance to create a long lasting positive vibe which will help us get to the very top of recruiting, is to win out — and the only chance of that is to have character and traits and spirit and genuine swagger prevail. So enough wringing of hands. The odds are great — but we have a song. And this year’s players seem like they believe it…
As far as long-term perception goes, I think the ACCCG matters very little — so long as we don’t get blown out. The current perception is that we are basically Clemson’s equal on the field. That’s a pretty big deal.
We cannot no-show the playoffs, however, even if it’s Bama. The last four years have done a lot to soften the national perception about ND being overrated frauds, but a 24-point loss in the semifinal will undo that.
If we beat Clemson handily or win a semifinal, I think that narrative will disappear for good.
Exactly my thoughts. Just don’t look outclassed at any point and we maintain a shift in our national perception.
Venables was not first string. He subbed for one of their injured LBs when we played them.
I of course want a natty. But I will be happy with this season if we win at least one more game and look good/don’t get blown out in any games. That means we at minimum either beat Clemson again or win a major bowl/playoff game and don’t look outclassed at any point. I think that would 1) just make me happy overall and 2) sustain any momentum and recruiting mojo we’ve built this year.
2 more wins this year would be a gigantic step for this program. 3 would, of course, be earth-shattering – but 2 would be huge, too.
It’s so important that we beat clemson so we don’t play bama as the #4. They are again in their own class. So if we include another win over OSU e.g. that would help make this season successful then getting to the champ against Bama where anything can happen.
Yep, and an extra game before playing them is an extra game and week and a half where (not rooting for this) someone could get injured, ejected for targeting, get sick, or any number of other things. Buying yourself time.
Anyone else notice that LSU is self restricting post-season play this season while the NCAA investigates. How magnanimous of them. I hope the NCAA gives them 0 credit for that.
lol yea, they can only do it this year because the number of wins requirement to make it into a bowl was removed.
I really thought program stability and sustaining 10 win seasons would make top 5 recruiting a thing for ND. It’s why the multiple loss years after 2012 that saw Golson out for one and (ugh) BVG’s destruction felt like such a lost opportunity. But not seeing the recruiting bump yet even during the run now, I am not sure what ND needs to do get there. More splash wins certainly.
Is there some world where ND’l can use its advantages (that naturally lifts them above 95% all other cfb teams recuiting-wise) in combo with stellar talent identification/development and program culture, stability, and success to get around the talent gap that may always exist going forward against Bama, OSU, Clemson and whatever program next makes it to that level?
If I remember Eric has mentioned an interest in European, EPL soccer? So I’m thinking something like what Ajax has always done and what Borussia Dortmand is now doing to compete in Europe against the titan clubs. Is there a path like that for ND if recuiting plateaus where it is now.
I know this year has been very weird for sports in so many ways, but I’m surprised we haven’t turned this season into a better close for recruiting. We’ve gotten some solid players at positions of need, but I would really have hoped to turn this into a couple more top 100 level players.
For a class that started out with 5 top 100ish players, we’ve only got 10 composite 4 stars at this point. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed. We’re on year 4 of a legit top 10 caliber team, but have only marginally improved recruiting.
I noticed that too, but I also thought about the following: (1) The recruiting rankings might not be as accurate this year cuz of canceled HS seasons and games. (2) There might be a brief delay between success on the field and a recruiting bump. (3) Despite the recent success, ND might not be attractive to the 5 stars today because of academics and not as much success with NFL draft picks (ND has some, but no where near the numbers for schools like tOSU and Bama).
I think 3 is a very real factor, and think that it doesn’t just stop recruits from committing, but BK has shifted even targeting kids like that due to all the issues with them in his early tenure.
I am sure 1 is true, but I don’t think that is what is stopping our recent commits from being 5 stars.
For number 2. People have been saying that for the past 4 years, and it hasn’t come to fruition. We also saw an incredible bump after our 2012 NC game appearance.
I don’t want to suggest this isn’t a good class, or we shouldn’t have taken any of these kids. This should keep us in top 10 contention. But it isn’t one that’s going to raise our talent level to where we can beat Clemson, tOSU, and Bama in back-to-back-to-back weeks.
Yeah, I think 3 is real. Just look at 2021, I think only Shipley got any real attention from ND among 5-star kids. It’s not like now that they’re 10-0 that it would help that class. Though maybe it might, Donovan Edwards isn’t a 5-star, but he’s ranked really high and probably has more interest in ND given how this season has gone for them (and Michigan, lol).
Maybe I’ll be proven wrong, but I don’t think Notre Dame is really going to ever be a consistent top 5 recruiting place from here on out. The ceiling in place is real and there for a reason, between geography, academic constraints and the ease of other football factory super powers that are in full gear doing what they do.
I do think they could get better, be a more consistent top 6-10 recruiting program, try and improve blue chip ratio with more 4 stars, stuff like that. But idk if I ever see them beating out the big programs year in and year out.
Just feels like other places are playing a different game with how different the circumstances are out there.
I agree with a lot of this — I would love to see them get that blue chip ratio higher even if there are not a lot of 5 stars.
One thing to consider is that schools like Bama and tOSU that get a lot of the 5 stars, have those players peak (in college) their junior years, and then must replace them right away when they leave early for the NFL. ND has fewer players leaving early for the draft, so they are playing quite a few seniors and 5th years. That latter group, while maybe not as purely talented as a 5 star, might be a group of well-coached and well-developed 4 star players.
I still think that boils down to dominating in the playoffs and postseason. You look at all the teams that dominate the NFL draft and it’s usually a team that wins or is the runner up for the natty. Last year was LSU, year before it’s Clem and Bama and tOSU. All those teams have the same thing in common that we’re trying to build. That huge national perception that just being on that team means you’re a great player and that is bought by playing for the title.
I was looking at the QBs. Why is Dancewicz on the list? His completion rate is pretty bad. I know the completion rates were much less in the ’40s but 47% is his highest rate for one year. The ’46 team was a very good team though.
I don’t know anything about Dancewicz, and I think going strictly by stats can lead to odd ( to me) choices. Of the QB’s since Ara, I’d take Mirer, Rice, Montana, Theisman, and Clements, not necessarily in that order, over Quinn, who, while a good college QB, was not in the same class as the others. Yes, he has gaudy passing stats, but played for a pass happy coach. His win rate is about where Clausen ended up. No NC, not even close.
if I had to pick a QB to win for me, he’d be behind all of the other 5 I mentioned. I think recently and over focus possibly on stats put him so highly ranked in the pyramid.
I’d also take Book over him.
That will enrage some, I’m sure😉
That should be recency not recently
Re: recruiting disappointment this year — the inability to host live visits hits us worse than other schools, I think we pretty well discussed that on this site months ago, did we not?
Here’s our blurb on him:
“Historians would say Dancewicz was as talented a quarterback as any in early Notre Dame history–he did go #1 overall in the NFL Draft. Yet, he took over as starter in 1944 when a lot of the talent in South Bend was overseas fighting during World War II. Dancewicz was good enough to finish 5th in the Heisman voting during his final season.”
On recruiting, I agree with a number of commenters here that ND just isn’t going to break into that top top tier where we’re competing with the biggest boys consistently. How we need to make it up is (1) shooting our shot with every 5-star that is qualified to go to ND and conveys any interest whatsoever and (2) taking huge classes and pushing guys who can’t cut it off the team after their freshman and sophomore years. It seems like the program has gotten a bit more aggressive on that front, but I think it’s totally fine if we just straight up cut low-talent guys (while publicly pretending they have a career-ending injury or whatever) so long as we keep them on scholarship.
The implicit ND commitment to players should be four years of free world-class education, not four years on the football team. If the recruiting duds want to stick around and get a degree, great; if not, transfer.
I’m optimistic that this 25-man class might be the start of that. We need to do 25-man classes basically every year going forward.
Having the new NCAA rule where everyone can transfer once with no penalty might help that too for the player’s perspective. If you’re not even on the two-deep like 2 years in it’s a lot easier now to just bounce and pick a new program to get onto the field immediately.
I agree we will probably never be #1, and never consistently be top 5. But am I really the only one who is disappointed that we are going to turn this season, after 3 10 win seasons, into the 10th best recruiting class?
As to your specific thoughts here on recruiting, I couldn’t agree more. I remember there being a lot of outrage years back by people suggesting that liberal use of the medical hardship was immoral. I don’t understand that. Even middle schoolers get cut from their teams. And if they get “cut” they still get to attend ND for free. The medical hardship is way different than simply pulling a kids scholarship, which happens everywhere else. We are promising a free ND degree, not a great sideline view of games for being a tackling dummy and taking up a roster spot.
Most of the HS seniors this year were already well down the road into the recruiting process before this season kicked off. A couple big wins won’t change that.
Where we might see some gains, hopefully, is with the signing class of 2021-22.
I think that the liberal use of the medical hardship is immoral. It’s called lying, which is judged as immoral.
Medical hardship implies that they is a medical reason that you can’t continue to play football. If you can still play but just not good enough to see the field on Saturdays I’m just not sure how that can be called a medical hardship.
See my above comment about getting guys graduated in 3 and 1/2 years in order to allow them the degree and a free grad transfer as the moral solution.
This is where I am, too.
It’s recruiting and roster management so there’s always going to be some gray area involved. But, I’m not sure kicking down the door to pretty obscene tactics is the answer.
It’s still possible to, you know, just recruit better players.
Great point. I think that the days of ND being able to recruit like Alabama, tOSU, and Clemson might be over, but recruiting at a slightly lower level didn’t prevent Clemson from becoming an elite program.
However, I do think ND could get to a top 4-7 class (which really should be good enough to compete for championships) each year by doing several things.
I don’t agree with that statement. Clemson doesn’t really dominate recruiting like you might think. They’re pretty much where we are most seasons and they occasionally have a year like last year where they finish in the top 5. But here are their final ranks according to 247 (ND in brackets):
2020-3 (18)
2019- 10 (15)
2018- 7 (10)
2017- 16 (10)
2016- 11 (15)
Even with their multiple titles they’re only averaging around 11 or 12. We are right around 14-15 without the same on-field success. I certainly think we can get up to where they are. What we WON’T compete with are the SEC schools because they DO employ those tactics that E and others have mentioned here are immoral. They offer to kids they never plan on playing and boost their numbers and win the recruiting titles by oversigning. I do think we can win a legit top class regularly though once we start winning regularly.
Didn’t realize that about Clemson. I guess recency bias was kicking in. And assuming that with all their 5 stars, they are having better overall classes.
Kind of crazy that they finished #16 in 2017 with 2 five star commits.
Rankings are very misleading in this case. Clemson has had an absolute run on elite QBs and receivers, and their 5 stars mostly pan out, where ours more often don’t.
Since 2017, they have had 12 five star players, we have had 1. Our only 5 star was Chris Tyree.
I think our 5 stars pan out at about the same rate as others, or maybe better (since we get so few). Kraemer was borderline 5 star, he has panned out. So far returns on Tyree are good. Jaylon was Jaylon. Vanderdoes and Lynch panned out, sadly not for us. Redfield, Bryant, Ishaq flopped. Kiel was borderline 5 star, flop.
I’d say that’s solid development from 5 star players.
The issue is that I just listed every 5 star under Kelly.
My only quibble would be that Vanderdoes and Lynch not coming here is equal to not panning out.
Of those 7 that actually showed up, 3 did well and 4 bombed out of the 7. I’m not sure what the average is on 5 stars succeeding, but if it’s below 50%, maybe a different system would be better.
OK, fair enough, but then we should just cut guys and put them on academic scholarship. I was thinking of it as more of a face-saving thing for the players more than anything else.
To put it in concrete terms: there’s no competitive reason Micah Jones should have been taking up one of our 85 football scholarship roster spots for the last two years. It’s a good thing that he graduated in three years both for him and for the school, because in a normal scholarship number year ND would almost certainly not want him back and now he can transfer scot-free. But, if he hadn’t (and it were a normal year in terms of scholarships), what should ND do?
In my world, after his freshman year the coaches would have just gone to him and said “look, you can’t stay on the team. If you want to stay here, your school is paid for. If not, you’re welcome to transfer.” There are probably 2-3 people per class they could safely do that for after their freshman year, and another 2-3 they could safely do after their sophomore year. Drop 5-6 guys per year by design as a matter of course combined with less intentional attrition, and you can sign much bigger classes and your team is likely to significantly improve.
And it’s not like the kids are worse off – these aren’t NFL talents I’m talking about. They still get their shot at the ND degree, for the same cost as they were promised in high school. Plus, they can maybe get better grades if they stay since they don’t have to spend 40+ hours/week on football.
Agree with the commenters above that the one-transfer rule would make that even easier for the players, which I think would make this strategy even more palatable in terms of how it looks and how it operates in effect.
In a perfect world, I agree. I just don’t think it’s all that easy to apply to say nothing of the moral aspects to it. I would think the blowback would be pretty substantial and it would really start to get difficult bringing in raw 3-star guys if they know they’re going to get cut if they don’t develop quickly.
It also doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll improve the roster. At the end of the day, it’s still about recruiting better. If you’re going to cut the bottom 5 guys every year you’re just sweeping away recruiting “misses” so you can make room to sweep away more recruiting misses the next year, and the next, etc.
Do you think we can just “you know, recruit better players”?
If so, what makes you think this? I’ve seen 2 top 5 classes in the past 20 years. While the teams we aspire to compete with are top 3 every year. This whole discussion started because I brought up the fact that after the best run this program has had in 30 years, we aren’t, you know, recruiting better players.
Also, you mention the moral aspects, and even called this practice obscene. What about this is morally questionable? The only immoral example anyone has ever given is goldendomer’s example of lying. That is very upstanding**, but I’m guessing every team lies to the NCAA pretty regularly. Personally, lying to the NCAA would not make me lose sleep at night.
The teams we are aspiring to consistently compete with straight up pull scholarships. So a medical waiver seems pretty moral to me, when we wouldn’t be breaking any rules.
**I really mean this in a non-condescending way, but when re-reading this feel like it came off as such. Lying does not register as immoral to me in and of itself. In practice it nearly always is, because it is usually used to cover up something immoral. But to me lying is ubiquitous in 2020 and amoral. In this specific case, I see no immorality in the lying. This is obviously a whole different discussion.
Charlie Weis brought in 3 straight top 5 classes in a row. Willingham was an awful recruiter, and I’m sure if Davie’s classes were around during 247/Rivals they’d have been within the top 5-10 as well. Brian Kelly has brought in 4 top 10 classes, 1 top 5 class.
2006 – #5
2007 – #6
2008 – #2
2009 – #15
2010 – #15
2011 – #9
2012 – #17
2013 – #5
The rest #10-15
So yes, Weiss did recruit as a decent rate. I was incorrect in my numbers. We’ve had 1 top 5 class in the past 10 years.
Do you think our current recruiting is good enough to regularly compete with Clemson, Bama, and tOSU?
Yes, I do. We consistently bring in blue chip recruits and have a good staff that develops them. That being said, going forward, it would be nice to consistently bring in top 10 classes, which I do think is fully possible.
I guess this is where we differ. I do not think top 10 classes is enough to compete with these guys. I think top 5 is. I think we are still a significant step down from being able to beat Clemson and Bama in back to back weeks.
I suppose we will just have to see. But I would say, pay attention to the star ratings. Top 5 classes usually have 25-30 players in them to boost the overall score.
I’m very aware. I believe rivals only counts your top 25 players, but don’t know about the 247 composite (which is what I’m using).
But also, having an extra 5 players every year is very beneficial.
The mid-aughts top recruiting classes had scores much lower than current top recruiting classes. It has thus become harder to get a top class, as it involves breaking into truly elite company.
For example – Weis’s 2008 class, ranked #2, scored 295.57. That would have been the #5 class last year, barely ahead of Ohio State.
Sure, but it was still a top 5 class either way.
No program is cutting 4 or 5 players every year because those players suck. Sure, it happens everywhere but nowhere to that volume. And to get to that volume you have to be selling a lot of BS, in addition to admitting you suck at recruiting to be giving up on that many dudes every year.
Once upon a time, we saw only a couple good seasons on the field in 20 years, too. But, we changed that. No way am I ready to give up in recruiting, things can always change.
I have it on secondhand but reasonably good authority that Nick Saban openly threatened to cut Da’Shawn Hand at practice as a freshman, in a way that made it seem that this was a regular and non-specific threat. Hand was a 5-star, top-10 player in the country as a senior the previous year.
Point being: Alabama openly processes guys, and will threaten to cut the best of the best. If they’re doing it, why not us (but in a more humane way of offering the fallback of a world-class education for those cut)?
“Just recruit better” is easier said than done. They’re obviously trying and something isn’t quite taking. ND has been consistently a second- or third-tier (depending on how you define the tiers) program for four years with barely any recruiting improvement over the 2011-2016 era. You can say they’ve recently improved identification and development of three- and low-four star talent, which I’d agree with, but ultimately it doesn’t seem like the five-stars are much more interested than before.
The part about sweeping away the recruiting misses is indeed the whole point! I don’t think that my strategy would make the twenty best players on the team better much if at all (that would require getting more elite talent), but it would make the ~45th-85th best players on the team way better. We’re already seeing some depth improvements on that front from more aggressive use of the medical hardship and coaches telling players they’re buried on the depth chart if they want to transfer (hint hint); I’m just saying they need to turn that approach all the way up to 11.
On the raw guys, they wouldn’t *have* to cut them. It’s just like if some raw guy is an obvious recruiting miss (think Kofi Wardlow, who the behind-the-scenes reporting basically since he showed up on campus was “oh he’ll never play”), they can and would process him, freeing them up to take another raw guy sooner who might end up having more potential. Just as a function of logic, you’re more likely to hit on an NFL talent if you bring in more guys than fewer – and the only way to do that with the same scholarship limits is to weed out the non-talent quickly.
In terms of blowback, I suspect there’d be basically none. Other schools cut players and leave them without anywhere to go. Our approach would be leaving them with a $300k degree they got for free.
I guess my point is….if you’re not recruiting appreciably better then bringing in more guys each cycle because you’re processing more to make room isn’t necessarily going to make much of a difference.
If you’re putting several guys on medical every year to make way for a few extra 3-stars yes you’re going to make the roster a little better. But probably not much to move the needle.
For example, I don’t think moving Olmstead, Mabry, and Franklin off the roster so we can sign Coogan, Onye, and Aupiu really does much for the program. Maybe once in a blue moon you’ll hit on one quality guy.
Now, if you’re replacing those guys with Top 150 recruits that’s a different story. But at that point, you’re simply recruiting better anyway. So no need to put guys on medical to sign extra large classes, just don’t sign as many 3-stars and sign more 4-stars then.
The point, though, is that you’re moving Olmstead, Mabry, and Franklin off the roster after their freshman year rather than their junior year, so you’re signing two more Coogan/Onye/Aupius per every Olmstead/Mabry/Franklin than under the “let them stay on the team” approach. As a corollary, you get 3x the opportunity for somebody to turn into JOK that way, versus keeping them on the roster and waiting for them to graduate. It basically guarantees that your depth is better, and if somebody turns into JOK then it also means your top-end talent is more likely to be better.
That said, I don’t disagree with you – I’d prefer to be signing a bunch of Top 150 guys. I just don’t think that’s going to radically change, especially given that (as this site has demonstrated) our main recruiting competition, especially for top-level talent, appears to be Ohio State rather than, e.g., Stanford or Michigan. The guys who claim interest in academics and then go to Ohio State were not really ever interested in academics, and they weren’t really ever going to go to Notre Dame.
We can’t and won’t just lie about a medical hardship would we? I wouldn’t want us to at least. The way ND pushes classes I think that the key is to have kids graduate in 3 and 1/2 years and then go the grad transfer route if they aren’t contributors yet. That is 3 years in the program so it’s not as quick of a roster turnover as you suggest but it gives the player the ND degree and frees up a roster spot one year earlier than otherwise.
I know that ND does this some already, but I would like to see it pushed even more.
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So, I don’t necessarily disagree that ND should be bringing in top 10 recruiting classes just about every year……but I do think far too many people act like we’re not recruiting well right now. It’s not as if we’ve been devoid of talent during the Kelly era.
That’s true, but it’s all perspective. Like, Alabama I think has 12 five starts and 58 four starts on the roster now. It’s 2 (Tyree and Kraemer) for ND five stars and 44 four stars.
When you’re trying to get in that stratosphere, Notre Dame isn’t recruiting well enough. But they sure do have better talent/coaching/development/strength training than probably 95% of programs, which is why they’re 33-3 in the past 36 games. ND is very good, that shouldn’t be lost, but trying to compete for titles these days means beating like 2 of Bama/Clemson/tOSU. ND isn’t really on their level.
Eh, don’t know if I agree. Team Talent composite has us within their top 10 (#8), and there are 4, maybe 5 teams that are ahead of us in those rankings that I’d take this ND team to beat. And we’ve already beaten one of the teams that I wouldn’t take us over.
Fair enough. IMO, just a matter of perspective. The fact ND is 8th in team talent speaks to the point I was making though that this is a very good team, but still one with a talent discrepancy from the football factory elites. To your point though, Notre Dame can compete with about anyone now, which is a plus. But we shall see how it goes. Clemson isn’t on the road and has the #1 pick in the draft back. I highly doubt they’re going 4/15 on third downs in the rematch with the far more experienced Lawrence at the helm of the offense.
Which is also kinda the problem too. Clemson can lose Lawrence, plug in another five star and take ND to double OT. What happens if situations are reversed and ND couldn’t play Book, would they have taken Clemson into deep water still? Highly doubt that too. Which is kinda the difference of talent levels from top to bottom in both programs still, even though Notre Dame happened to win the game.
Well first of all, I would argue we played a good not great game against Clem in the first game. We ended up winning, but we made plenty mistakes offensively (Mayer false start on 4th and 1 on the goal line, Book fumble into the endzone, etc.). And frankly, DJU is a top 5 QB in college football right now, he just sits behind the best QB in college football. And I know Trevor Lawrence is fantastic, but he isn’t perfect (no football player is). Lawrence was 15/25 for 195 passing yards, with 1 TD and 1 INT against VT. I do wonder how that game would’ve turned out if VT didn’t have its QB1 and QB2 knocked out in the same game. Lastly, Clemson is not #1 in the Team Talent composite, they’re #4. They were #9 in 2019 (National title runner up), and #6 in 2018 (National champ). They were also #9 in 2016 (national champ).
I get you, and I’m not married to team talent composite. But admitting Clemson has two of the best 5 QBs in the country is leaning into the point I’m making. They have more talent top to bottom.
ND can out-scheme them, and they have enough good players to win. But just looking at the 85 players, Clemson has more talent than ND. ND is old at the right places (QB, OL, DL). That’s all well and true and great.
The only thing I was trying to say was to your comment “ It’s not as if we’ve been devoid of talent during the Kelly era.”
By saying, yeah but we’ve never had 2 of the top 5 college QBs at the same time…(and go on from there)..
You’re right Kelly hasn’t brought in a lack of talent. But compare his skill players to Clemson. Or Bama. Or tOSU. It looks lacking in that light.