while he was at Notre Dame, things might have been different.
I wonder if BC would be willing to share those. It never hurts to ask.
“The second time around, I didn’t go for the brand. I went for nothing other than the people. I found really good people in Hafley and Cignetti and I made this decision for a chance to play for them. ... Coach Hafley is 100 percent real."
And here I thought all the good people were at Notre Dame. Best guess...Kelly is 33 1/3% real. At best.
who are the last ND QB's that have made it in a meaningful way in the pros. The ones that I can think of:
- Lamonica 9-6 as a starter - he was 5-1 in '62 & and an All American
- Theismann 20-2-3 as a starter
- Montana 20-5 as a starter - 19-3 in his last 2 years - National Championship
Some other QBs that were great in college, but not in the pros
- Huarte 9-2 as a starter - in '64 9-1 Heisman winner & one bad call at USC for a NC
- Hanratty 21-2-1 as a starter - NC in '66
- Clements 29-5 as a starter - NC in '73
- Rice 28-3 as a starter - NC in '88 - 24-1 in last 2 years
5 of the above 7 QBs were recruited or developed by Ara.
Some other highly rated recruits that did a strong job in college, but were not in the same category as the above:
- Mirer 28-7-1 as a starter - if he had a NC he would have been in the above group
- Clausen although 16-18 as a starter - had some great moments, best was yelling at Harbaugh
- Quinn 29-17 as a starter
- McDougal 10-1 as a starter in '93 - should have won the National Championship - not sure of his rating as a recruit.
Biggest disappointments in their development:
- Powlus 29-16-1 as a started - Top Recruit in the Country
- Clausen 16-18 as a starter - # 2 recruit in the Country (#1 was McKnight USC)
- Crist 4-6 as a starter - last 5-Star QB recruit at ND - in '07 #1 Pro QB #20 National recruit
ND has certainly not done well in the development of QBs in the last 12+ years. Jurkovec appears to be the highest ranked QB that ND has recruited since Powlus, Clausen, Crist and Mirer. You can always miss on an individual, but the lack of successfully developing QBs makes Jurkovec's departure even more damning. It was critical to work to make him successful for the sake of future QB recruiting.
P.S. Edited, due to forgetting to put in Rick Mirer
that think coaching can "ruin a QB for life." That is complete bullshit.
There are several recent examples of QBs getting new coaching that completely turned them around (including the last three heisman winners).
Joe Burrow went from probably undrafted free agent status all the way to the heisman just on a change in QB coaches.
We have several examples in our own ND history where a change in coaching dramatically turned a career around. The most recent was Brady Quinn.
He got really shitty coaching from Ty and could barely complete 50% of his passes, threw a lot of picks, and had few TDs. Charlie came in (who is an excellent QB coach, just not a HC) and Quinn's completion % went up by over 10%, his TDs tripled and picks halved. Under what is said below, you just cant turn it around in one year, which is complete and utter bullshit.
I think if a coach tinkers with a player's throwing mechanics, it can really screw him up. If a new coach doesn't start to fix those tinkerings until the player's senior year, it's pretty tough for the kid to overcome that and perform well enough to play in the NFL.
That said, I don't know why people get so bent out of shape over Jurkovec specifically. Book has seemingly outperformed every quarterback in Jurkovec's class except Trevor Lawrence and Justin Fields (unless I'm missing somebody who was ranked pretty low and ended up performing very well.)
The biggest issue I have with Kelly is that his system sucks and I don't think it gets the best out of the quarterbacks (or much of our talent) in general. But if we're being intellectually honest and are going to rip him for not making enough out of Jurkovec, doesn't he also deserve credit for Book's success?
(IMO - the guy who should really be pissed at Kelly is Dayne Crist. Crist was ranked behind Blaine Gabbert (Career NFL earnings $22.2M) and ahead of Mike Glennon ($28M) and Andrew Luck ($97M).)
Any of you BC fans care to wager?
Wow.....only thing keeping Ian from greatness is his mental performance. Certainly not mechanics. Kelly video linked below.
This will be BC's first game of the season. Jurkovec is listed as the 1-A QB on the BC depth chart for Saturday. So he'll almost certainly get some playing time.
Will be interesting to see how his performance against Duke compares to Book's performance last week.
We won't be able to make a complete apples-to-apples comparison, because Duke will have two advantages this weekend that they did not have last Saturday. First, Duke will have the benefit of already playing one game. Also, they have some advantage of the game being in Durham.
On Waikiki.
I will put it on my list. We only spent three days on Waikiki before moving on to Maui.
We did however manage to get on stage at Don Ho's show. He sang to my bride with me backstage surrounded by shimmering Hula dancers.
After the show, Don and his daughter saw us walking back to our hotel and asked if we wanted to hop in his van to party. We were on our honeymoon and Don still sounded a bit drunk so we declined.
I learned later that Don slurred his words because of a hearing loss.
Glad you’re back posting. Always love your stories. Maybe a book someday titled “Moff’s Adventures.”
BC on the ACC Network. I'll be watching both games intently.
I question how well informed his choice of Notre Dame was, given Kelly’s history with quarterbacks. I get it, though. If someone had offered me a scholarship to play football at ND when I was in high school, it would have made no difference who the coach was. Though, when I was in high school, Holtz was coach.
Did Phil ever go to one of those “quarterback guru” guys in the offseason? Seems like someone in his situation, as he lays it out, could really benefit from “another set of eyes” so to speak. Is there a standing edict that this is verboten in the ND program? I remember Kelly pitching a little shit fit over Golson going to Whitfield before one season.
All joking aside, I really hope Jurkovec finds success at BC, and he only has one bad game all season.
Whitfield's methods have been criticized by many and I believe he even shut down his camp. ESPN doesn't even put him on Gameday anymore.
I believe Kelly was more annoyed that he picked Whitfield and not another camp.
hands all over it. It’s in as good of shape as I’ve seen it.
Yeah that’s right. F*ck you Jack.
If he had, then he’d realize just how great Brian Kelly is. He’d also know that teaching footwork and other fundamentals is not Brian Kelly’s job.
I really wouldn’t mind seeing him rub Kelly’s nose in it. Even if it might end up costing ND a win.
I won't defend the crappy quarterback coaching our guys have received (it has been terrible), but I would prefer not to see it played out in the media like this, especially from a kid that hasn't done anything of note yet. Why don't you prove how shitty our coaching is by going out there, playing great, and getting yourself drafted. We've seen second-stringers leave before and do nothing at their next stop. We'll learn soon enough, but I imagine if BC tailors their offense to run him quite a bit, they might be on to something.
Departing quarterbacks and players who have made errors? Post game press conference comments, statements to press about draft prospects?
He has never passed up a chance to blame a player.
You goddamned moron.
Keep that shit behind closed doors. Kelly doesn't because he's an ever-loving, insecure prick. Everyone knows it. It's why he hasn't had a sniff at another job opening.
Jurkovec isn't exactly knee-jerk defending himself here, now months later. He's was a second-stringer who bailed and is now crapping on his old coaches. That's Kelly level bullshit. He should shut up and put 100 yards rushing on us.
from our athletics director in response to a question about the weather conditions surrounding the death of Declan Sullivan, conditions that the athletics director did not directly witness at the time and location of death.
a concept that seems to be on the tips of many people's tongues these days.
I'd propose that in this context justice would be that Jurkovec gets the coaching he has sought out at BC and that our game with BC reflects the relative quarterback coaching/development at each program.
I'm rooting for justice, not rooting against Notre Dame.
I still hope we pound BC into oblivion. I’ll never forgive them for 1993.
I'm not rooting for BC, not this season and not ever.
But to my unique view, justice would be Jurkovec badly outplaying Book, and that's not because I don't like Book or I want to see him do badly.
But that's what Notre Dame deserves.
Justice is our continued performance in the top 10-15 range (but not cracking the top 10), the powers that be being happy with it, and those of us who see it clearly being bitterly disappointed. Justice will be getting our ass kicked by Clemson, then maybe losing to North Carolina and ending up in the John Deere Tractor Bowl or squeaking by North Carolina and somehow ending up in the ACC championship against Clemson and getting beaten by even more...and ending up in the TransPerfect Motor City Bowl. Kelly and Swarbrick will trumpet the season as a major success.
In other words, we are getting and have been getting exactly what we deserve.
Unfortunately for Jurkovec, Isaiah Foskey is the law.
Notre Dame fans have the right to see the relative merits of the coach who will be with us for at least 5 more years before Tommy takes over. It's obvious the administration doesn't care a whit.
to the dream of Notre Dame ...”
Ouch. BK is “what Notre Dame is like” now.
I will obviously still root for ND to win when they face BC--but if ND wins 45-42 I will gladly take it.
Wouldn't mind seeing Phil put up 6 TD's and 400 yards on his old ball coach.
Is it beyond hope that Kelly has any type of introspection on the way he recruits/develops QB's?
After 10+ years of utter failure--you would think Kelly would have some self-awareness and lose the bullshit facade that he knows more than anyone else about offense and QB play.
If Chip Long had him regressing, I'd hate to think what Rees (and Kelly) could do to him
So no real hope that regression of QBs will magically change for the better.
Hope he realizes it at BC.
but this one is telling.... Not of him, but of us.
“But talking with my family, I had to leave. And after I decided to leave, it was very hard. You understand that you’re leaving your dream school, the team you always watched growing up. But I didn’t really know what Notre Dame was like. I committed to the dream of Notre Dame and not everything else.”
Generally, our guys seem ready to play when they get plugged in. But then they stay at that level for the rest of their careers. It is so damn maddening and we have ample evidence to know nothing will change. It infuriates me when people say things like "Just wait til Buchner gets here." It's a rinse and repeat situation.
But I guess I'll just keep waiting until Kelly gets His Guy.
“I was going to eventually play at Notre Dame. I wasn’t going to go my whole career and not play,” Jurkovec said. “But really, the main reason why I left was the frustration of not progressing. I knew coming out of high school, I needed to go somewhere and develop. I thought Notre Dame was the place. I think I developed in a lot of ways. But in quarterback play, I think I regressed in certain areas over time. It was incredibly frustrating. ... At times, it got to the point where I could not even throw the ball at all. My footwork was all jacked up.
and if you didn't know that he said it and just asked people "which former ND qb said this?" and then gave a list of qb's under Kelly, you could easily point to at least 4 or 5 potential candidates. Dayne Crist, Everett Golson, Malik Zaire, Deshone Kizer, etc.
And the fact that none of these guys made it anywhere else (often pointed to by the homer brigade) isn't really proof of anything; it takes time to completely re-work mechanics, regain confidence, and be re-taught everything that was installed incorrectly. Some guys just run out of time.
Just heard that QB Dylan McCaffrey is opting out and transferring from Michigan.
Just wondering where you think he will end up or if you've heard anything? It seems like he never got a real fair shot at Michigan. Maybe somewhat akin to Jurkovec at ND.
but they were talking about McCaffrey transfering on ESPNU and they got talking about how everybody thought that Harbaugh was going to be a QB developing machine at Michigan, but so far he hasn't developed squat and has run through a ton of QB's in the process.
Greg McElroy specifically talked about Dylan and said that in his time at Michigan he never improved as a QB. Very athletic kid but not a good thrower and Harbaugh hadn't developed him in that phase of the game.
that was a mistake, IMO.
that's where his dad is coaching.
I would think Stanford might be interested, among others.
Part of my opinion has to do with my opinion of his dad.
Clemson, LSU, Oklahoma, Bama. Even USC or Wisconsin.
you guys might be right.
Since Harbaugh went to the candy assed spread.
no idea what he was thinking.
He worried me more when he entered the game vs ND in 2018 than the starter.
I thought he would eventually be the starter there, but it never materialized
UM he looked to have a ton of potential
but yet never underestimate the powers of denial of the Notre Dame homer.
He became notably more accurate without sacrificing YPA and his TD/INT ratio was better. But he missed time in the middle of the season with a concussion, took a few weeks to get back in and then lost his job to Maguire with 9 throws against NC State.
They were all failures in some sense of the word. Namely, that they couldn't lead an ND team to win a big game vs a top tier opponent (@oklahoma being something doesn't prove that much in the ned). So is it that the ND coaches recruited flawed QB's that were never any good or was it good QB's that didn't have good coaching? Highly or lightly recruited QB's all seem to end out the same way. So either the coaching staff are crap at evaluation talent or they are crap at teaching the talent or perhaps both?
It makes permanent. I'm not sure who first said this, but it applies perfectly to Notre Dame quarterbacks under Kelly. If you repeatedly practice a flawed procedure then permanent habits form. These can be difficult to nearly impossible to break.
"Perfect practice makes perfect." Same concept.
I've heard "perfect practice prevents piss poor performance."
That was from former coach Chuck "Hard" Knox. As old school as it would get.
at how to develop a plan to avoid civil liability for sexual assaults and negligent homicide than your head coach is at developing NFL quarterbacks, you get what you get.
He's a Dick Addis-class weather forecaster. He can hair split on the WSJ op-ed page in a way befitting of his Stanford Law degree. He can quietly slide ND FB into a short-term conference affiliation that shows all outward signs of becoming a long-term commitment. He can turn ND stadium into a fully carpeted full-service network TV infomercial venue. He can pimp the brand in ways that us mere mortals have never dreamed of.
You don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't spit into the wind, you don't pull the mask off the ol' Lone Ranger and you don't mess around w/ him.
I'll leave it at that.
Does anyone have any thoughts about how we could get rid of Savvy Jack? I sent a letter to the board of fellows back in 2016 about how because of him I would not donate to the university, go to any FB games, etc. Should we all commit to new letters? Petition? Embed articles into the Observer? Find an influencer with a similar mentality? Or just keep hating the situation?
They share a vision. Of what, I'm not sure.
Full value for the brand
you probably have to know someone to get that type of secret info.
No way this can be true. Kelly is a football genius. His boss has been around championship coaches his entire career and knows that Kelly is a championship caliber coach. We did a national search for an offensive coordinator and found we had the best one in the country right under our nose. Once we get the planes for recruiting and a football player dorm all the pieces will finally be in place and we will beat a top 10 opponent and win a major bowl game. We won't just be in the conversation, we will be the conversation!
I don't know how anyone can defend the Kelly/Swarbrick regime. 11 years of mediocrity and counting!
It's mind-numbingly stupid for Kelly to have hired Rees as a QB coach, rather than getting someone with legitimate QB coaching bona fides in at ND. After promoting Rees to OC, why the hell didn't he bring in a legitimate QB coach at that point?
At least Jurkovec was quick enough to realize his ceiling at ND was going to be a 2nd round draft pick that quickly fizzled out in the NFL. I'm not sure he's a lot better off at BC, but his ceiling is almost certainly higher; it's been well established at this point that QB's never get better at ND under Kelly.
Had to leave. That's not quitting when it gets hard. That being sensible.
I wish things would have worked out better at ND, but best of luck to him.
Obviously, his comments don't say much for ND's coaching.
He is on the fast track to selling Herbalife products in about 3 years.
All the "talking heads" and other armchair experts out there will laud Rees for his OC acumen, citing how ND's points per game have gone up in such a short time (never mind the horrendous drop in quality on the schedule, how those numbers were high against the bad teams, terrible against elite teams, etc.), he's the next big phenom, rinse, repeat.
Some lazy MAC athletic director (let's say Bowling Green) signs him on as a head coach in 2022, and then he's gone from there after 3 years of floundering because he's learned bubkes in his time under Kelly. We'll call it the Diaco route. Or maybe the Sanford route. Or that OC whose name I can't even remember anymore because we've now had Kelly for more than a decade... ugh.
It took a lot of guts for Phil to leave, given his fondness for Notre Dame. Give him credit for seeing the handwriting on the wall when there was still time to do something about it.
And we're left with Five More Years.