This program will go no further with this coaching staff

This program will go no further with this coaching staff
by wearendhockey (2024-02-24 21:22:42)

than it has gone in the last couple of years. Go back and listen to Jackson's recent appearance on Adam Wodon's College Hockey News podcast. To me it screams about how disconnected he has become from the current game. He complained about losing skill over "three or four years." Well what the hell are you doing about it? It's one thing to lose a player or two and struggle the next year, but three or four years? Recruit better.

He compared the situations of his to Red Berenson's and Jerry York's, and how people whispered to players about the pending end of their tenures and the struggles in the last few years. Well, what do you think it happening here? And what did those programs do over most of the last few years of those coaches time? Very little.

What's most frustrating is he clearly thinks the criticism he receives about his offense is unfair. He challenges anyone to watch his team and tell him they don't play to score. Did he even watch what his team did this weekend in two must win games? They scored one goal and it took them almost 3/4 of the 3rd period of a tie game to get their first damn shot on net. Maybe he is coaching them to be offensive, but if so, it clearly isn't working. His reasoning that his teams are playing to score largely seems centered on how much rubber Bishel faces. Maybe his teams don't play 5 man defense as well as some are thinking. Michigan's game winning goal today surely illustrates something different to me.

He clearly is as frustrated with the state of the game off the ice today as many of us are -- me included. But as the head coach you don't get to be frustrated with portals and NIL and agents you need to steer clear of.

He trots out the same tired excuses about how young the team is. Yet plenty of teams win when they rely on freshmen. Yes, the freshman class is doing well. Far better than the last few years. But it is not enough. And the program's track record of getting better sophomore, junior or senior years out of freshmen who show promise is spotty. To be generous.

When the same problems sink this team game after game and year after year something has to change.

Maybe Notre Dame can't compete in hockey any more than they can in the cesspool that is college football or men's basketball. If that's true, so be it. But if it is not, Notre Dame needs to do something quite a bit different than what they are doing now. I really hope Jackson decides to make this his last behind the Notre Dame bench because this program will go nowhere as it is presently being run.

I thought Saturday nights game was one of the better games

we have played this year. I don't think the issue is "coaching" it's recruiting. I'm surprised how mediocre Michigan's record is when they have an offense that's up there with BC's and better than anyone's in BIG IMHO. However, I certainly hope they miss the tourney. Go gophers next weekend. Maybe it will require a coaching change to get the higher end talent but we are never going to have the talent that Michigan has given their proximity to USNDT and the other inducements ($$$) they can offer

Saturday night was clearly a better effort than Friday.

But I don't think our struggles are only about recruiting. We have more draft picks (9) than 8 of the ten teams directly ahead of us in the pairwise. All ten score more goals per game than we do. The team right behind us, RIT, has no draft picks. Yet they throttled us earlier in the season. Even if it was mostly a matter of recruiting, that falls on the staff almost totally.

I also think Jackson's frustrated statements recently about the negative recruiting Notre Dame deals with is purely self-serving rhetoric not based in fact. While I don't follow this sport as closely as I once did, I still watch enough college hockey to know our style of play is almost certainly impacting our recruiting. There is no way that the offensive game plans I saw this weekend are sufficient for the way the game is played nowadays, either to win consistently or to attract offensive players who are more skilled. And it's not like Michigan plays the kind of a defensive game that Wisconsin does. Until we rolled into town they had not played a weekend series where they allowed fewer goals that what the Irish managed. I think no matter how it's sliced we are a poorly coached team when it comes to all facets related to goal scoring.

We may not consistently win recruiting battles with the blue bloods of the sport, those 7 or 8 teams who still have won most of the NCAA titles. There will also always be 2 or 3 teams each season doing something unique in terms of NIL or realizing new-found success who poach a player or two from us on the trail. But we should be in a position to recruit enough talent to score more than 3 goals a game and to be better than a .500 program.