(The Rock Report) – It’s been 16 years since Our Lady has seen this much depth on a Notre Dame football team. Quality depth is an important and underrated factor on any team with championship aspirations. Weis singled out depth on the offensive line, but there’s quality depth all over the field. For example, when’s the last time Notre Dame could go three deep at quarterback or at wide receiver? Two years ago the Irish were just trying to find one front line player; this year our second string units are probably as good as our first team from 2007… strike that, not probably, are at least as good. Read up on NDNation observations on the open scrimmage.

What we’re seeing is the emergence of a program level team, where depth creates competition and makes the program better in every way. Our second teamers are now practicing against players who would start at most other schools. Our front line players constantly have young talent breathing down their necks. Where in the past you might have seen a player run out of bounds instead of fighting for an extra yard , you won’t see that when you’re a couple of plays away from losing your starting spot. With depth, players play to the whistle, they spend extra time in the weight room and reviewing video and all of those incremental improvements have a very big overall impact.

In 2006, with no quality depth, it appeared to many that some of our first teamers were coasting… they don’t have that luxury anymore.

A look up and down the team shows that there are very few positions where a starter hasn’t earned a spot as opposed to just filling a spot, as has been the case the last two years. In 2007 and 2008 Weis was forced to play players before their time or go with a player with limited ability vis-a-vis other top schools.

2009 is the first time since 2005 that I feel optimism is justified. There’s too much talent for this team not to drastically improve. Combine the talent levels which what appear to be very good coaching hires and improved strength and conditioning (see Ian Williams as example number one) and you can start to sense “hoping” for a good season changing to “expecting” a good season.

As I’ve mentioned before, the sign of good coaching is when you start hearing reports of heretofore rarely mentioned players making big strides and we’re starting to hear those reports around players like Paddy Mullen and Scott Smith, guys who have been written off previously. Combine the emergence of senior players with a lot of young talent and you’ve got the fundamentals set for a good season.

Everyone’s optimistic with no losses, but this season, with depth, senior leadership and coaching, Irish optimism is justified. That said, this season will all come down to the lines as noted in Redemption Starts Up Front.

Order The Ten Secrets: A Short Tale of Redemption“I read this book when it first came out and it had a very powerful impact on me. Recently my daughter was going through a rough time and I thought this book would be just the ticket to help her and guess what? She called and thanked me after she read it and passed it to her sister who also got a lot out of it and she just gave it to her husband to read. Now my other 2 daughters are demanding to read it. It can have a pretty powerful impact on the young and the not so young.”