Three year starter
29-7-1 as a starter
3 bowl games going 2-1 (major bowl games...not the crap we find ourselves in today)
2nd pick in the draft


I thought he was an excellent qb

I can only imagine the hundreds (thousands) of hours he had to practice the option in his 4 years at ND - he would have been much better served in a passing/west coast or pro style offense.

Even some comments by boardcasters after he "sailed" a ball on a receiver said as much (starting with Bill Walsh on NBC).

Holtz probably figured he would be doing the same with Powlus.

Sadly - the really great ND teams were 1988, 1989 and 1993 - the off years of a pro style (non naturally option) QB.

Gary Darnell running the defense. 1990 actually reminds me a lot of the 2015 team in that regard. Enough offense to win comfortably most games, but bad defense kept too many games close.

1990: shouldn't have lost to Stanford. Penn State is a tossup. Let's not talk about the bowl game
1991: should have played better defense vs TN and PSU, don't get in shootout with Hawaii
2015: shouldn't have lost to Stanford. Clemson is a tossup. More competitive with OSU in bowl game. Shootouts in reg season kept 2nd string from getting time.

wasn't able to run those pass heavy offenses all that well -- and he was in the pros long enough and given enough time as a starter to learn a more sophisticated passing offense and a knock on him was he couldn't.

Mirer certainly had better rushing numbers, at least in his junior year.

Mirer
91 - 75 att, 306 yds, 9 tds
92 - 68/158/2

McDougal
93 - 55/85/4


Mirer certainly wouldn't win a dance off against McDougal, but rushing a football, I'm not sure they're that different.

i thought that he was fine in the offense; I don't know that the option was as much of an issue as the lack of sophistication in the passing game. When they brought Powlus in, the plan was to start to incorporate more advanced concepts and I believe that was Skip's role, but the problem was that everyone else on the team was recruited for a different system. I think that the other problem was that Ron (God bless him) was never really the same after his injury and definitely wasn't as athletic in his later years.

That said, I don't recall too many issues with Rick running the offense. I might be wrong.

passing scheme? That seemed to be the complaint about him in the pros. Holtz probably would have run the same offense either way since he generally stuck with the "if it's not broken, don't fix it" methodology -- but perhaps Holtz knew Rick's limitations better than people think he did.

I don't think that we needed them to.

he had a much better offensive coach in 96.

I sincerely have no idea what you are talking about.

He ran the O very well. Won a lot of big games. Had a few great comebacks. Had a winning record against Southern Cal (Undefeated) and Went 1-1-1 against Michigan (Senior year should have been a win). 2-1 in bowl games with the loss being to Colorado (still disputed in my mind...Rocket return)

In that era, what qb would you have preferred?

that Holtz tried to pound into a round hole. Powlus did seem like a good guy and it appeared that he tried very hard to master the Holtz offense but it just wasn't a great fit.