I didn't once mention recruiting. I'm talking about temperament and understanding of the University and the Football Legacy. I'm sure Faust loved/loves ND, but for various reasons I don't know that he "got" ND enough as a coach to be properly successful. I can't see players or students responding to him like they did/do Ara/Lou and now perhaps Freeman.

Davie and Ty sort of fell into the position, both in over their heads, and neither capable of self-assessment to bring in assistants capable of making up for their own shortcomings. Faust and Charlie both loved ND in their own sort of way and both desperately wanted to succeed at the position but neither could translate their previous experience to a college system. Kelly had a bit of both his "system" didn't fit and his "persona" didn't fit, his ego wouldn't let him "fail" and he was allowed to move the goalposts in order to keep his job. I've said before and will continue to say that any of the 4 I mentioned before would have killed for the treatment that Kelly received in his tenure.

I would say every ND coach I've ever talked with left me with at least a decently positive impression of them. That said, I could "feel" something off in the non-NC winning coaches that perhaps spoke to the flaws they had as leaders/coaches. I didn't really get that "feel" with Coach Freeman. However, this is only a first impression and I will be interested in if/how that changes in the next year or however long it is until I have a chance to talk with him again.

To go back to “everything about this program is doomed” levels of Crossian dialogue.

I defend NDN among other boards/ND fans when it is often called the old-man get-off-my-lawn back-in-1973 crowd, but these kinds of posts from you make it harder to do so.

Nobody knows if Freeman will do well at ND. We are simply saying it’s nice to go into the next few years with the possibility of a higher plane of achievement than the Kelly era. Maybe he ends up being in over his head. Maybe he can’t keep up this level of recruiting. Maybe Rees can only run Kelly’s shitbird offense. We don’t know any of that yet, though. The Oklahoma State game means nothing to me and it shouldn’t to anyone here. Give Freeman the three years test and see what he does. Using a tone like this before he has even coached a game(again, I don’t count that bowl game for a bevy of reasons that should be obvious) is ridiculous.

You’re one of my favorite posters on every other board, but this kind of thing is becoming exhausting to read on Rock’s.

Is fair, and mostly reliable (with a few, very few, exceptions).

And accurate thought.

You declared our new coach to be a vastly inferior recruiter than a guy from 40 years ago, when the new guy hasn’t even been around for a full cycle and is currently on pace to land a top 3-5ish class in the peak of the Wild West of the NIL era.

I’m the one displaying undisciplined and inaccurate thoughts that aren’t well grounded?

I think it would behoove you to listen more to a guy like Mike Frank, who you called “the most credible source and analyst of ND football for a quarter century”.

Results. Different era, different scholarship limits and roster size, less diffuse competition. We had remarkable talent, if not ideally distributed. Especially at the top end. Recruits like Allen Pinket, Greg Bell, the Francisco brothers, Allen Jefferson, Alvin Miller, Mark Brooks, Eric Dorsey, Brandy Wells, Tim Brown, Mike Larkin, Steve Beuerlein, this list goes on and on amd on and doesnt even include many elite OL or TE. Like Tony Hunter and Larry Williams

He has a decent shot at the #1 rated group. The QB (Moore) is the linchpin. His commitment will enable the staff to close on a couple of outstanding receivers. Both lines are shaping up to be the best we've had in years.

A pair of corners is a must but that should fall into place. We have one running back and have a couple of good options for a second. There are also a couple of skill position athletes we might take who can play in different spots.

Freeman's job is arguably harder than Faust's. The 85-man limit means he cannot have many recruiting misses, and the competition is more fierce. The SEC was hardly as dominant then as it is now, while the talent base has weakened in the Midwest and shifted to the South.

year under same. And yes, Faust started off with No. 1 or No. 2 recruiting classes from 1981 to 1983, including Alonzo Jefferson.

Even in the later years he got Parade All American like Mark Green, Frank Stams, Ned Bolcar (Parade defensive player of the year, etc., etc.) who formed the core of the 1988 leadership. He was a great recruiter and was very good at rounding up guys already anointed by recruiting analysts, but Holtz and Cerrato, et al, were better at making their own talent evaluations.

As you note, it was a different era, and Gerry's job was far easier. We were still "Notre Dame" and the recruits understood we were a team that had just won its 11th National Championship a few years ago, and had the highest winning percentage, the most national championships, the most All Americans, the most academic All Americans, the most Heisman Trophy winners, etc. We just had a run of 16 years with two future HOF coaches. Joe Montana was already winning Super Bowls.

Tonight I met an incoming Freshman student. He did not know who Knute Rockne or the Gipper were (let alone Leahy). He kept saying he did see Rudy many times though. I told him to watch Wake up the Echoes. The current recruits only know ND as a second rate program from before the time they were born. It's an incredibly harder sell now and Freeman is doing a great job. Don't take my word for it, ask any of those greats that Faust recruited because they know first hand how talented they were and are all in. You have decried taking low hanging fruit and Freeman now has a class with 12 guys in it already and none of them are three stars. Enjoy it while it lasts, there will be plenty of time to say you told us so later.

And somebody who was a bad fit and a royal douche from the get go, who also happened to have a shit offense as his secret weapon.

I have no way to predict what may happen on the field. So I can only hope.

Whereas I was certain that Kelly would chow ass.

whatever it was years with Kelly, consistently hating the guy from 2011 forward. Even in 2012, right after the Michigan win, I emailed a Michigan colleague and told him that was the last hurdle for Kelly until the bowl given our relatively weak schedule. I also told him that Alabama would then curb stomp us in the bowl game. Low and behold. Kelly never had a prayer of winning it all, or even exceeding his greatest bowl win over an 8-4 LSU team. It was 10 more years in purgatory. At least we have a chance now and with a guy I really like and want to see win.

Before Davie coached a down I had standard rant including about the knife in Holtz’s back and the fact that he would fail, and sat out his whole tenure. I was agnostic re Ty for about the first year or so. I drank the Kool Aid with Charlie and 2005 and 2006 were fun. As for Kelly, I remember seeing him on the TV coaching Cincy at the end of Charlie’s tenure. Kelly was turning purple over something and threw a kicker under the bus in an interview and I thought, “Oh no.” I heard him speak early on and it was akin to the DMV speech and I thought “Oh no.”

Long story short, other than 2005 -2006, it’s been about 26 years since I felt this good about the head coach. Guys from all eras, from Ara’s to the recent guys, are glowing about him. I know that’s not science but I think he is going to do well after some bumps as part the learning curve. It will be good to be all in rooting for him either way.

Job at Nd. Step 1 is loving ND as it is v wanting it to be something else. Sans that you can’t win at Nd at our desired level. Then it is the aptitude and desire I described in my post above.

Kelly could have had 22 starting 5 star players and still
Could not have won a title - because he was dead set on never fixing the offense. Freeman is very unlikely to repeatedly do something he sees is failing every time against elite teams. He unfortunately lacks the experience to already know what to do. He will have to cost us a title or two first by in game mistakes - but then he has that experience to learn how to not make those mistakes again.

Then layer in he can recruit at a Faust level so with elite talent and experience he can equal Holtz level results. I doubt the 3 year rule will work with him - title wise - but it will be clear by then if he is the real deal or not.