Not Ready for Prime Time
by John Vannie
USC rolled into town as a nine point underdog and left with its fifth straight victory in Notre Dame Stadium, a dominant 31-17 victory over the Irish. Matt Barkley led a perfectly balanced offense and the Trojan defense suffocated Notre Dame’s running game while holding Michael Floyd to four irrelevant receptions for 28 yards.
Curtis McNeal, at 5’8″ and barely 180 pounds, paced USC’s ground attack with 121 tough yards as he ran through Irish tacklers all night. The Trojans gained 219 yards at a five yard clip while Notre Dame gave the ball to its backs only ten times all night and recorded a measly 41 rushing yards.
The Irish returned to their mistake-prone ways in disastrous fashion, as safety Jawanza Starling picked up a third quarter fumble and ran the length of the field for a 24-10 advantage when it appeared Notre Dame would tie the score at 17. Dayne Crist, in briefly when Tommy Rees was briefly injured, could not handle the exchange from center Braxton Cave at the Trojan one yard line. Starling grabbed the bouncing ball and ran untouched the other way for the score.
Notre Dame had spent most of the night attempting to fight back after quickly falling behind by 14-0 as USC ran at will and carved up the Irish defense. The Trojans extended the margin to 17-0 before George Atkinson returned the ensuing kickoff 96 yards to get Notre Dame on the board in the second quarter. The offense finally started to click late in the first half as Rees began to find Theo Riddick and drove the team inside the Trojan 10. The Irish had to settle for a field goal, however, when Rees missed a wide open Tyler Eifert in the end zone on third down from the seven.
USC opened the third quarter with a promising drive, but a holding penalty forced a punt. Rees responded by connecting with Eifert, but Crist was forced into action when Rees limped off after a scramble near midfield. Crist kept the drive alive with his own passes to Eifert, and Coach Brian Kelly inserted Andrew Hendrix when his team reached the Trojan three. Hendrix kept the ball on first down and pushed inside the one, but Kelly elected to get cute at this point by re-inserting Crist and calling for a pass.
After Starling’s touchdown, Rees came back to lead a successful Irish drive to cut the deficit to 24-17 at the start of the fourth quarter. USC missed a chance to put the game away when Andrew Heidari missed a short field goal, but the Trojan defense reasserted itself and forced turnovers on Notre Dame’s next two possessions. Barkley converted one of these miscues into a touchdown pass to Robert Woods, and the game ended with a long, punishing drive by USC to run out the clock.
The fumble by Crist leading to Starling’s score underscored Notre Dame’s football frustrations during the past decade. It seems that every time the Irish are poised to make a statement that they are returning to football relevance, they find a way to regress. In this contest, however, it was more than one play that did them in. The Trojans physically dominated the line of scrimmage throughout the evening and Notre Dame’s coaches and players were simply not ready to face a team of USC’s caliber.
Let’s review the pregame questions for additional insight:
Will Rees be able to adjust to the speed of USC’s defense? Rees had flashes where he was effective, but he was not able to carry the offense by himself. The Trojans took away Floyd and Kelly inexplicably abandoned the running game.
Can the Irish pass rush make a dent in Barkley’s completion percentage? Not at all. Barkley was a 68% passer coming in, and was 24 of 35 for 68.5% in this game. He was not sacked and even scrambled for a couple of key first downs.
Will Woods and Lee torch Notre Dame’s secondary? Woods displayed his exceptional talents by making people miss in the flat and with an acrobatic touchdown catch, but the Irish secondary was not as inept as seven players in front of them.
Which team will be able to sustain its running game? The surprise answer is USC, and by a wide margin. More than any other factor, their success in this area determined the outcome.
Will the Irish shoot themselves in the foot at an inopportune moment? I hate it when I have a nagging hunch about stuff like this.
Did Notre Dame’s special teams improve during the bye week? George Atkinson provided a terrific spark, but Woods blew through the Irish punt coverage team to set up an early score.
Will the night time atmosphere and home crowd be a positive factor for Notre Dame? USC dampened the enthusiasm with 14 first quarter points, and the piped-in music dissolved into black comedy as the evening wore on. The traffic jam following the game added a final insult to my injured sensibilities.
The Irish dropped to 4-3 and will attempt to regroup against a relatively weak Navy squad. Any lofty goals for this season have been destroyed, however, as Notre Dame’s date with destiny was simply more of the same old song that has played at every meaningful game since Lou Holtz paced the sidelines. That the music was louder and more obnoxious on this occasion almost seemed a fitting complement to the team’s poor effort and the abject failure of the coaching staff to develop a cogent offensive or defensive game plan. The Trojans won by executing the things they are built to do with precision, while Kelly’s Irish failed to stop the run, threw the ball 75% of the time and grab-bagged themselves into oblivion in the game’s defining moment.
I think everyone is overreacting. If we score on the drive to the one, the score is 17-17…….The game could have had a much different conclusion. Kelly is the guy, right or wrong, so let’s give him the time and support to get it done. This knee jerk reaction, by most ND fans over the last 20 years, is getting to be an albatross around all of our coaches necks. The players are only 30% Kelly’s and 70% Weis’……The spread offense needs to be run by Hendrix or Golson, not Rees. Brian will get us there, folks……
couldnt agree more rees/crist are square pegs in round hole. rees is an adequate backup option. spread offense needs to be run by someone with mobility….four week opportunity against less talented opposition to figure out who should start in 2012…time s/b split equally between rees/hendrix. i’d say golson, but probably worth saving a year of eligibility. yes rees has heart and lead legs and a subpar arm…good kid, just cant believe this is the solution for next two yrs?
That is what I’ve said. at 17-17, ND siezes momentum.
Losers say ‘if’.
Agreed. My comment was that we could (and should) have siezed momentum in that situation. The fumble at the 1-yd line was catastrophic (along with the two turnovers which followed).
Great Dane … Nice to see a good loser and sportsman. LOL
PS: very old and tired references.
ESPN just used the word “bludgeoned” to describe the beatdown.
Until next year
Having just returned from SB today, i have a message for Jack and Brian. You have taken away our traditions one by one over the last few years. No player walk from the basillica. No Pep rallies in the JACC. You decided after a gazillion years that the helmets were the wrong color, so now no student managers paint them any more.
I am going to stop a few of mine. No more annual stops to the bookstore to drop 500 on ND stuff. No more Sorin Society dues. No more trips to help the South Bend economy once or twice a year. Its progress after all, right guys ?
Lets face it, you need to belong to a conference to get to a BCS game. You have no leverage in the negotiations any more. Save the Big East now before they dont even want you.
Great response! ND is becoming irrelevant in major college football. The administration keeps hiring unproven coaches. Ara, Devine and Holtz had won in major conferences, and won at ND. Kelly won in the Big East, which is a basketball conference, not football.
Hire an experienced, big time coach and we will win again. Urban Meyer should be available.
Mack I agree for the last twenty years we have traveled there to enjoy the weekend and more often than not you come home with another bizarre,unexplainable,gut-wrenching loss. Its hard to be an ND fan when so many times Nd gets the tar beat out of them every week. Crist has taken thousands of snaps over the years and he fumbles near the goal line? Unexplainable? Why does this keep happening to Nd? The USC dominance,the Mich State dominance,the Mich dominance? The Tulsa loss,the syracuse loss,the academy losses? Whats wrong there? I don’t want national titles every year I want to be competitive…is that to much to ask? I still want to believe in Kelly but im tired of losing and spending all that money to go there and see your team get embarrassed….dammit show some pride ND! Make it fun there again because right now it is not!
The good news is that the Curse of Lou should wear off in about 80 years, if the Boston Red Sox Curse of the Bambino is any guide. Yet, it could last 100 years, if the Chicago Cubs are the standard for measuring a curse’s duration. So we members of ND Nation should just chill, relax, and enjoy the losses, offset, of course, by the happiness that our new helmets and stadium music will bring us. For those who doubt that the Curse of Lou is real, look no further for evidence than to our opening game loss this year to his son, Skip, who is also a former ND player! Maybe the Football Gods are telling us something: “Hire Skip and all will be forgiven” or something like that?
Coach Kelly needs to re evaluate his QB’s. Rees is an average QB who can’t run which is the system Kelly is running. It’s like oil and water mixing. Rees is a good back up at best much like Crist. Rees will never take ND to the “Promise Land”. By the end of the yr his interceptions will outnumber his TD passes. Throwing into double coverage several times a game seems to be his specialty!
South Florida, Michigan and USC. In every game ND was out coached. Totally unprepared game plan in all aspects. This is just this year not going into last year- Jim Harbaugh took BK to school last year, Tulsa, Navy in every game he was out coached. Who is more arrogant Charlie or BK? ND Football really is the Chicago Cubs of college football-the are both terrible, but people keep buying what they are selling and wait until next year we are going to be really good.
Did Dantonio’s recruits make BK look like he knew what he was doing at Cincinnati?
I agree.He thinks just because HE calls a play it will work
He put Hendrix in at the goal line and every USC player
and everyone else knew it was going to be that little counter run.Now, if he passed it would have been a surprise.What a freakin mess.There are now 3 losses that should have been wins.
Yeah Kelly has never beat any team worth mentioning. If he is fired the AD needs to go too. I really think Meyer was sick of all the stupid stuff that went with his players at Florida, I think he loved his players but everything got to be to much.
To me I think he would love a place like ND, its not like ND doesn’t have issues but not nearly as much. I’ve never been one of those “we just need Urban” ND fans but now I don’t care, I just want to wake up on game day a see an actual defensive scheme for Notre Dame.
Kelly’s biggest mistake occurred last spring when he refused to pick his starting quarterback then so that the entire Fall practice could be devoted to getting Reece’s timing and play calling down. Instead he continued the competition for two and one-half weeks in to the fall practices. The result is now obvious. The manly thing for him to do last Spring with three quarterbacks (one experienced, another with high school spread experience, and another option high school quarterback) was to let Crist know that things had changed with regard to the offense. Crist could have transferred to Stanford, sat out this year, and replaced Luck next season with two year’s of eligibility and played in an offense more suited to his talents and abilities. But, that would have taken some class on Kelly’s part. He has none. He’s a talker all right. He really believes he is a good big time football coach. What calls of his are we going to have to “get use to” for the rest of this season?
After the Crist fumble on the one-yd line, I experienced both game (1) deja vu and amnesia. Did they at least give Crist a police escort out of town after the game because I know I was plenty mad at the kid? That one play simply knocked the wind out of the sails of Notre Dame for good and regardless of ‘rust’ from not-playing, receiving the ball from the center should be football 101 for a supposed all-star QB.
The “Crazy Train” song every 3 minutes was a splendid touch, especially on national television. Eye-eye-eye… How about Aye Carumba? I don’t know whose idea that was, but consider it a bust. Quit turning ND stadium into a bad rock concert. Everyone on this team was responsible for this loss, especially the coaches. The players seem undisciplined and lost at times. True, the coaches aren’t fumbling, but stressing the fundamentals at all times can’t be understated. Didn’t Coach Holtz make players carry a ball with them at all times, with a penalty if they set it down or dropped it? Perhaps that’s overkill, but it seemed to drive the point about holding onto the ball.
The coaching staff, IMO, gave up on using Floyd and his height advantage way too early. If Floyd is your go-to guy then go to him already. Still, Floyd reminds me of Randy Moss – doesn’t seem to play every down to his potential. Sometimes, he’ll make that awesome catch, other times he seems uninterested and even bored.
I love Notre Dame football, but I guess we still have to give Coach Kelly some more time to both implement his program and get the type of players he needs to succeed here. Yet, sadly, the days of ND being a college football powerhouse seem to be over. The bigger schools have the money and the power to manipulate the system and get what they need. True, once-in-a-while a team will get caught and made an example of, but it’s a paper tiger. It’s like Fort Knox: it appears they’re guarding the gold, but the illusion is the gold itself… it doesn’t exist but it’s important we think it exists.
Advise to Coach Kelly: winning builds tradition and maintains excellence, not your reputation or the promise of a better tomorrow. We’ve already heard all that noise from the previous few coaches.
God Bless ND, their fans, and our patience.
PS. Telling people to “stay in their seats” is the kind of Gestapo crap that has infiltrated even the NFL of all places. Where did this ridiculous rule come from and why are the minority always getting their way over the majority anymore? PC, I guess.
For Skip…The only tradition I want to see is a winning tradition. I am 52 yrs old and have loved the Fighting Irish since my gradeschool football years. I am not an alumnus of this fine university, but I am a loyal fan..down to my fighting irish leprachaun tattoo. I grew up watching Theisman, Montana, Tim Brown, Ara, Devine and Sweet Lou. I have suffered through the past 20 or so yrs of mediocrity.Faust, Davie, Tyrone and Charlie…. I don’t care if a student paints a helmet, or what direction the team comes from when they go to the stadium, or where a pep rally is held at. It really gets tough being a loyal fan, flying my Notre Dame flag, wearing my Notre Dame apparel. I just want the winning tradition to come back to South Bend. I want them to win with integrity, bringing players and coaches to the University that won’t tarnish the Golden Dome.(Tressel, Pete Carol, Miami U thugs, the Bush scandal etc..).
To Irish Jack, I agree with you to this point. This is Kelly’s second year, at least Tyrone got three. Give the man a chance. He seems to be getting top notch recruits. However, I definitely don’t agree with everything he’s doing. He has got to find a way to get Floyd open. USC had no trouble getting their top receivers open. Putting a slightly used defender on their top receiver, yes we had an injury, but do something to protect the new kid. Bringing Hendrix in for 1 play at the goal line on our biggest opportunity etc..Run the ball…We have two very good runners, use them.But that is typical fan stuff though, monday morning quarterbacking, questioning the playcalls, after all, we know more about this game than these coaches with 20 some years of experience.
To every ND fan out there: Is it me or what. I am so tired of our announcer, Mayock, making verbal love to the opposing team. I thought he was acting like a school girl talking to Pat Haden and talking love about USC. It was very annoying. Last thing I want to hear while my team is getting beat down is how great the opposition is..over and over..This isn’t the first time he’s acted like that.
As for Mike: seems to me none of the big name coaches want to come here. After all, that is one reason Meyer left Florida. I know he talked about all the outside pressures of coaching at ND when he was just an assistant. I know it was rumored he turned down the ND job when it was offered to him. Not sure if that is fact or not..but why would he want to when he could recruit any type student and compete in the SEC. You actually think being a member of the Big East would draw successful big school coaches? Maybe the big Ten, but we missed that boat. I personally like seeing them play some different teams each year.
Look, I get just as frustrated as anyone. I am losing patience also, but maybe we need to forget about the past. Not forget it, but accept that it was the past. Many years in the pat. Maybe we will never be a contender for a national championship. One or two loss seasons would be nice at this point. A top 20 ranking.. I’m not saying we settle for mediocrity, but people need to calm down a bit. As a coach or player, you always shoot for the top spot, but as a fan, you can think a little more realistically while wanting more.
USC was the better team. Line of scrimmage, running and moving the ball, total gameplan–I think if we played them 10 time we lose 7.
Thinking that we were somehow worthy of a BCS bowl game (and are therefore a top 10 team) MAKES ALL OF THIS VERY DISAPPOINTING, especially for those of us who might have believed were were good when we whipped a MSU team that went on to beat a good Wisconsin squad, that humiliated Nebraska, and on. But top 10? You have to be delusional like Lou Holtz–we lost to a now unranked South Florida team, and Michigan squad beginning to show it’s true mediocre colors in the Big 10.
This year, we just are not that good.
And at times, it’s beyond painful to follow this team. I understand the anger.
But I’m confused by the continual call for a new coach, a new AD, a new president–I think this intolerance of the process of rebuilding is part of the problem.
Albeit at a different level, I remember when teams I played on turned the ball over in high school football. When we played bigger, better, faster teams in bigger games–we coughed it up. This pattern of turnovers, as much as I hate to believe this, is not random. It’s just another symptom that we really are not very good. Kelly is right about that. Better players and teams handle the pressure of 1) Opening game, 2) 1st Michigan Night game and 3) 1st ND Night game 20 years. We clearly, have not. I would not be surprised to see the fumbles largely disappear for a few weeks, until the end of the season when we are poised to show the nation why Andrew Luck is a Heisman contender. Recurrent Fumble-itis. National stage. Night game. Big pressure.
What I saw on Saturday evening was deeply disturbing, even in the context of nearly 20 years of disturbing sights associated with Notre Dame football. I saw a team not in the least prepared emotionally to take on its arch-rival in a heavily-hyped home game. I saw a coach and staff completely befuddled by the opposition strategy and utterly incapable of responding to it. I saw mistakes by the players both in execution and in deportment that a good high school team should not make.
What I did not see – again in yet another game this year and ad infinitum since the 90s – was anything resembling Notre Dame football, at least as it was for most of about 80 years.
As an alum from the Hesburgh/Parseghian years, I have been dismayed as a succession of mediocre presidents have hired a series of mediocre ADs and mediocre head FB coaches. I have been appalled from a distance by the emphasis on building the physical plant and packaging the football program as an income-producing commodity at the expense of the commitment to excellence (a phrase that Ted the Head employed a decade or more before the late Al Davis) in all fields of endeavor, athletic as well as academic, that would lead as it did in the Ted/Ara era to genuine and not merely cosmetic achievement in both regards.
As far as the football component of this goes – it would be unrealistic to expect that a sports team would flourish in a university that seems far more interested in its image than in its performance. Swarbrick commented as he fired Weis that it was a really difficult decision for him because so much of what Charlie was doing was good – though what ephemeral good Swarbrick thought that he was seeing was visible only to him. Weis’s teams provided fans with many such Saturdays as last….games in which Notre Dame teams were humiliatingly unprepared and hopelessly outplayed.
I had thought that Kelly might well be the best of recent hires since he had the kind of pedigree that the most successful of our coaches historically have had – dramatic success at a small college to a mid-major to a low level FBS/BCS program, and whatever the outcome of Kelly’s tenure at ND, his record of prior achievement is beyond question.
But the similarities to the Weis era are beginning to become too obvious to overlook. Lack of team discipline and motivation. Inability to make in-game adjustments. An offensive scheme alien to what had worked best over many decades for our best coaches. A refusal to take the blame full-on after a loss – and worst of all and hand-in-hand with that, such a refusal or inability to change that the same scenarios of defeat recur like a nightmare. Has anyone ever seen a fumble from the opponents’ 1 returned for a TD once in a decade at a major football power, much less twice in a year…so far?
I suppose that Kelly may yet prove that he is able to field and coach a competitive football team, and he should have more time to do so. However – Ara’s original contract was for three years because, as he has been quoted as saying, if you can’t do it in three years at Notre Dame you can’t do it at all. And quite a bit is riding on this – we are already a long-running irrelevancy in major college football, an irrelevancy whose brand is derived from an increasingly-distant and ever-fading glory from decades ago.
Next year is the 100th anniversary of our emergence as a national football power, following the fabled Nov.1, 1912 Dorais-Rockne conquest of Army at West Point. The top football programs in the nation at the time, in addition to the Black Knights of the Hudson, included Harvard, Yale, Navy, Penn (not State), Colgate, Holy Cross and others who have slipped into small-time anonymity. We are much more perilously close to that status than most of us who love what Notre Dame football used to be care to admit.
JimK71 has stated my feelings eloquently. And, the fact that there are only 109 comments to this news story (as of Tuesday, 9:30 AM, EST) means, to me, that more and more fans have just accepted the painful truth rising out of the mist. I am truly beginning to the think the Irish are cursed.
The problem we are having is that we do not have studs at the linebacker position. Say all you want about TEO he is not a difference maker. It does no good to make a tackle for a 3 to 5 yard gain and say they are great because they have 10 tackles. Barkley made us look like rookies on his runs. Just like everybody is saying you gotta have heart to win the big games and my blessed notre dame was out played, out executed, and out coached. I never seen a Lou Holtz team come out of 2 weeks to prepare that flat. he may have lost but the team was ready and had heart…
USC is a talented team — some (not all) losses to teams of this caliber are inevitable given where the Irish program is currently at. No one expected this team to finish 12-0. However, with the talent on this team, 10-2 or 9-3 was certainly within our grasp.
The issue with Kelly is not that he lost to USC — its that via his game management, he manages to lose games that should be wins. Then, by the time he gets to a USC game, rather than being 6-0 or 5-1 with a “cushion” in his record, he’s 4-2 and in a must win position against a quality opponent.
If I told any savvy football fan that I’m going to give you a 17 point lead going into the 4th quarter, you are going to go in averaging 6.5 yards a carry, you are also going to get an interception and score a touchdown in that quarter and you are going to lose — you would reply “that’s not even possible — I’d run it out on offense, drop 8 and let Robinson run for 10 yards a carry and just take the win.” However, we managed to manage away the Michigan game.
Go back over two years — 2 Michigan games, the USF game, the Tulsa game, the Navy game — all of those games we were overmatching our opponents from a talent perspective and we managed away the game. Nobody is asking to win all of them, but the difference between average teams and very good teams is putting away games and grinding out victories.
The difference between Kelly and his recent predecessors is that he actually knows how to develop talent and is fielding talent that is easily within range of the teams ranked 15th to 20th– that’s what makes these losses such stomach punches — they are totally winnable.
The difference between Kelly and Holtz is that Kelly wants to win a game his way, and Holtz wanted to win a game. That’s what makes the arrogance of the post game interviews so unbearable to watch.
In terms of round pegs and square holes — the only other recent coach that uses that excuse is Rich Rodriguez. The clock runs the same in a spread or a pro set. And bagging on Rees isn’t the answer — Rees may not be the guy, but this is the only team I know of that complains about having someone on the team that is so determined that no matter how you try to bench him he just keeps being good enough you have to play him. When you manage a group that has the talent this bunch does into mediocrity thru arrogance, or stubbornness or simply not being smart enough to adapt, the criticism is going to be justified.
Agree completely. Lou was a great coach, developer of young men, and motivator. Mix in a little self-deprecation and always building up any opponent, and you have a NC and are 2 wins away from 2 more (equalling Pete Carroll’s tun at USC over a 10 year period). And speaking of Kelly, I feel sorry for his wife if he publicly throws his players under the bus after a humiliating loss. I may be wrong, but if I were a young man, I’d rather play for a leader who is fully accountable – and I’d be more likely to play harder for a guy that has my back even if I did drop the ball, so to speak.
Sorry, left out why I feel sorry for his wife… you know, the whole public criticizing thing when you make a mistake thing ; )
Lou always said: Things are not always as bad as they seem, nor are they as good as they seem.
Evaluation should wait to the end of the year………in the interim we just suffer………..hope we can win 8.
Dear BOBC,
I am not some bitter subway alumni but a graduate student who has been to the Coliseum 5 times. The crappy reference is more about how ND people are treated there and it is not good.
I went to the UCLA-ND game back in 2007 and it was a very classy venue and I did not feel like my life was in danger as when I used to go to the Coliseum.
Comparing South Bend to LA is like comparing apples to oranges.
ND fans are from all over the US and flock to ND. I came from a long distance myself. A USC graduate told me back in 2000 that the only games USC could fill up were ND and UCLA. The “lots” to do excuse is just that an excuse. The bottom line is that USC are fair weather fans. They only go to games when they are winning.
As far as the cheating thing, that is not old but rather recent. It went to the basketball program and women’s tennis too.
I was at the game Sat. and sat right behind the USC band I know what I heard and they did drown out the alma mater and also played their song about UCLA.
I usually do not hate, but I do like USC.
That being said, I was very disappointed in ND’s play. I think this giving up thing is being played up more than it should be.
GO IRISH Beat Navy!
In the end, it is just a game. And our heart forever Love thee, Notre Dame! (Our Lady).
First, stop the Run . . . and other ramblings
You only had to watch the very first series with USC in possession of the ball to know we were not well prepared for this game. So, did we change our defense? Second series for USC, same result.
We really need to stop believing the hype and understand that we play two entirely different tiers of opponents. Performance against the service academies and the also-rans really is not the same as performance against traditional powers. Too often, it seems, we derive expectations from our play against the former, and then we fail against the latter.
Now we will go beat up on Navy, Wake Forest and other less fortunate outfits and again blow expectations all out of proportion. We should live for the likes of USC and Stanford. Is this not what we aspire to?
And can we please have an end to the pious self-serving blame-shifting statements of our head coach? Stop blaming the players. Admit that you failed to prepare our players. Stop telling the world you know how to handle a bye-week (obviously, you do not . . . if you did, USC would not have run all over you, and you might have had something new to present on the offensive side of the ball. As it was, it seemed like USC knew every offensive call you were making . . . just be the adult in the group and take some pressure off the fine players and admit that you screwed up.)
I played football and sometimes we lost. I never needed some stuffed-shirt telling me that practice would not be fun the next week. We all went out and kicked each other’s butts out of frustration and disappointment and did not need anyone tearing us down. We all understood that redemption would come only from kicking the ass of our next opponent. We all appreciate the character of the Notre Dame players and you belittle them by telling the world they are not going to enjoy practice this week. Fool, the only people who enjoy practice are the biggest and meanest on the squad. Normal players hate practice almost as much as they hate losing.
Your pontification on what a tough leader you are does nothing to motivate the players. You neither elicit nor deserve respect. Your players deserve better. And USC deserves some credit for being better prepared and more focused. Those things are on you. Own up to your responsibility . . .
JimK71 is on point in my view. The similarities to the Weis era are very troubling. The elevation of Rees to the starting job over the guy who won the job is not unlike Weis elavating Clausen as starter over the first and second string qbs after only three quarters of football in the first game. When you make a move like that, it would seem to me that it could affect the team’s confidence in the coach’s decision making and their perception of the fairness of the process. The talent on Weis’ team in his third year was expected to compete for a national title, not go down as the worst team in ND history. All indications are that he lost the team with that decision and never recovered from it. I hope the same thing is not happening to Kelly with this team. The performance of Rees in the USF, Michigan and USC games would have put most qbs in the country on the bench – permanently. Whatever the reason, Crist will never be given a real opportunity to show what he can do, despite beating Michigan last year with a likely concussion, only to watch the brilliant defensive scheme we employ give the game back to Michigan. As soon as Kelly gave Crist the vote of confidence before the season opener in his press conference, I knew he was in trouble (any vote of confidence given to a coach or manager usually occurs only a few days before they are fired). No one likes looking over their shoulder. For some reason, Rees doesn’t have to.
On another issue, I do not view a new coach signalling a rebuilding process. Between Weis and Kelly, ND has allegedly had at least 6 top tier recruitting classes. How can teams with such alleged talent be so bad? The answer begins and ends with one word – coaching. ND was awful for 7+ years and said to have no talent until Ara took that talent to within one bad call of a National Championship and an undefeated season. I still believe that can happen. Stoops and Tressel both won in their 2nd year. While Tressel inherited a loaded team, I don’t recall that being the case with Stoops at Oklahoma.
As regards USC, we all have experienced boorish behavior by fans. I have always been treated well by USC fans, especially when visiting the Coloseum and think they are a classy group of people. However, I did have some drunk college students smart off to my wife and kids while we were heading into the stadium only to have other USC fans come to our aid and chastize the drunk students. Those fans then apologized to us and said, “unfortunately USC sometimes stands for University of Spoiled Children.” I like USC. If not for them, ND’s schedule would lose a lot. If you don’t like your biggest rival you are missing the point. Rivals need each other. Many USC fans actually want us to become good the same way many ND fans wanted USC to become good again after our long winning streak against them under Lou. A one-sided series does not make for a good rivalry. One final point on this fan issue, years ago I took my in-laws to the ND v Navy game with my wife and four young children. I purchased before the game 2 Navy sweatshirts for my wife’s parents to wear since her father served in the Navy in the South Pacific during World War II. We arrived at ND very early (between 7-8 a.m.), parking near the bookstore with very few cars (or people) around us when the 8 of us exited the van – 2 people in their late 60s wearing Navy sweatshirts and 6 people in ND gear. We toured the campus, had steak sandwiches, shopped the bookstore and watched the first half of the game. When we returned to my car, it had “Navy S*CKS” written all over it in white. I was embarrassed and humiliated by the so-called ND fans that felt a need to show their team spirit on my car by expressing their disdain for a retired World War II veteran wearing a Navy sweatshirt. Hard as it seems to believe, even we have boorish and obnoxious fans. I don’t paint any school’s fans with the broad brush of hatred for their team and fans. Colleges are cool places and they used to be places where you could wear the opposing teams colors and only contend with spirited and good natured teasing. More and more, its like going to an NFL game in certain cities where you take your life in you hands if you even cheer for the opposing team.