Post Reply to Rock's House

This is not a vent board or any other kind of therapy. Before you hit the POST button, ask yourself if your contribution will add to the level of discussion going on.

Important notes on articles:

Handle:
Password:
Subject:

Message:

HTTP Link (optional):

Poster's Email (optional):

 


Post being replied to

Monday made me want the next Lincoln Riley by tricio

The offensive line play reminded me how good a good coach Heistand was. I can’t imagine a line of his playing so erratically and poorly.

Kelly’s comments about Book’s performance during his halftime interview sounded like he was talking about Jurkovec – happy feet , poor pocket presence, missed open receivers, not executing his progressions, poorly thrown balls. Could have repeated himself after the game had he been asked again.

Book seemed to lock in on the primary receiver, often overlooking open receivers. There was one instance when he had two receivers so open to his right, they had the whole half of the field on that side to themselves. But he never even glanced that way. He apparently thought they were hidden by the 11 Cardinal players to his left.

I think Claypool lacks the speed of a legitimate deep threat WR. He certainly ran well after one catch in the second half, but the Irish need to find someone with better top end speed. Supposedly they have several WRs that do, but none of them were utilized to any meaningful extent to expand the passing game. This must change soon, especially to have a chance to win against Georgia, Michigan, and possibly Stanford. As part of such a change, both Claypool and Finke should return to the roles they had last year.

Similarly, I was disappointed that Jurkovec saw zero playing time – not even the last 3 ½ minutes when the game was solidly in hand. Like the WR situation, this game should have been used to provide meaningful playing time for him as well as several of the young WRs lest necessity requires they are asked to assume major roles down the road, possibly as early as the Georgia game. Meaningful to me is more than 3 minutes at the end of a game. Someone may want to remind Kelly et. al. that these guys used their red shirt years last season, one in which they weren’t given meaningful time either - even in games that were well in hand as well.

The defense played sloppily with lots of missed tackles and assignments. There also was a noticeable lack of speed overall. In my opinion, Hamilton demonstrated he should be a starter. The man is a stud and needs to be on the field longer in order to reach his full potential as quickly as possible. Even before he gets to that level, he will be a dominant DB. I know that there are more experienced safeties the coaches rave about, but at least one of them needs to give way to a player with his talents.

The Irish have a lot of things to fix before Georgia, the most pressing of which probably is Book’s deficiencies at QB, ones he manifested last season. Given the amount of time they have had to correct them, it is difficult to imagine enough transformation by September 21. In all likelihood, there will be no Heisman or QB awards for Book (or Rees) this year, and no playoff for the Irish.

This was a dismal performance. One I fear says much about the quality of the coaching staff. It simply doesn’t compare well with those at Oklahoma, Clemson, Alabama, LSU, Texas A&M, Texas, tOSU, Auburn, Georgia - the list can go on. Hell, even Wisconsin’s staff gets far more out of what is viewed as less talented players. So, I find myself looking for the next Lincoln Riley who can be enticed to take on the task of making ND great again and hoping Kelly's legacy doesn't make the task of doing so damn near impossible.