Sounds like Rees is gone to Bama. As Tim said the same empty barrels that wanted him fired are now upset he's leaving. I wonder if it's just the money or he didn't like the unwarranted flack he was taking. Kelly wanted him to go with him, Saban apparently thinks highly of him, says a lot about the nitwits who post on some ND bbs.
I don't believe the money was the issue. He made a lot of money at ND, and he'll make a lot of money at Alabama. This decision should be about what is best for his career growth and development. He will be coaching better talent at Alabama. Plus if he's has a good 2 or 3 year run there he'll be in demand as a HC at a good Power 5 school. Plus working for a legend like Nick Saban is also a plus.
I'm thinking maybe just learning some of the mechanics from maybe the best college coach in a long team may be a draw. He will also have maybe the best talent to work with in the country. He will have a challenge at quarterback right off the bat.
Irish Men lose again, this time to Wake Forrest. Not sure we can win again. Michigan State Hockey sweeps the Irish. Good news Irish Football picked up a nice 2024 CB recruit. From what I read while he's a 3 star right now the guru's feel he'll be moving up and will be a solid 4 star recruit when he arrives. Round Rock (Texas) high school three-star cornerback Leonard Moore is the latest class of 2024 prospect to commit to Notre Dame. The 6-2, 177-pounder chose the Fighting Irish over Arizona, Arizona State, Cal, Colorado, Duke, Houston, Kansas State, Missouri, Oregon, TCU, Tulsa and others.
Well this quote from A Tim Brown tweet would indicate he won't miss Tommy: "This is a great day for Irish football and maybe even a better day for Tommy Rees. I've been around a lot of offenses, but the Irish offense last year, with maybe the exception of the North Carolina game, was extremely predictable. Seeing the offense struggle told me"
Back on the Tommy Rees subject. Again I felt more disappointment I guess than anything. I think I really wanted him to be successful at ND simply because of who he is and his career with ND as a player and a coach. At times especially this season if you would have asked me I would have said I would be glad to see him go! I was still willing to chalk the offensive performances we saw up to the QB we had and hoped we would see a big difference when that was resolved and we had a quality QB starting. We will never know now. Saban seems to feel he can get things done in Alabama so we'll see. For ND now hopefully we can find an experienced OC that runs a pro-style offense and can take advantage of the run game we have and the obvious potential of an outstanding passing offense. We don't have time for a young up and guy with very little experience to see if he can cut it at this level. We may have to pay a premium to get the right guy but hopefully the staff finds a way to make that happen.
Apparently the OC at Washington is making $2M a year. O'Brien was getting 1.2M at Alabama last year. I'm not sure what Moncken at Georgia is making but he's supposedly thinking about leaving for the NFL.
Irish Women have a disappointing loss today to Duke. I didn't see the game but it sounds like Duke just clamped down on them in the 2nd half defensively, we only scored 15 points. This will likely drop us out of the top 10 and also drop us from a 2 seed to a 3 or 4 seed. Of course a lot of basketball left to play but right now Duke is in the driver's seat for the regular season ACC crown. Also of note on the football side there is a lot of speculation that Al Golden is looking for an NFL job.
Even though he has a long history in College Football it seems that the new situation with recruiting and NIL are not his cup of tea and he longs to return to the NFL. I'm not very upset about this if in fact he does leave, in his 1 year the Irish defense was good not great and I think he can be replaced easily.
Unlike TR I know I won’t miss Golden. My least favorite of the coaching hires made by MF. The only upside to Golden was having an experienced HC on the staff for Marcus first year.
By the end of August we may know who the coaches and players are for the ensuing three months. Maybe.
Watched two bad teams, ND and GaTech play tonight. Tech won at the buzzer on a tip in. Tech had lost 9 straight games, the Irish have not won a single road game. I have no idea who will be the next mens basketball coach but he's going to have a mountain to climb. Of the 7 players that get the majority of the minutes only 2 can come back next year, they are JJ Starling and Ven-Allen Luben both of whom are freshmen. Also our 3 guys who are 2023 recruits at least one of them has asked for and been given their release due to the coaching change coming. I'm not sure if the other 2 will stick, one of them is another local kid. In todays world of no penalty transfers, both of those guys IMHO are huge risks for entering the Portal. Both were talented recruited HS players and both have shown a lot this year, neither is ready for the NBA though. So they should definitely play another year or 2 in college. But will they want to comeback and be a part of a rebuilding team with a new coach? They do have a kid who was a good HS player in JR Konieczy a local kid from St. Josephy HS who was red shirted this year. A big roster rebuild is coming. Also consider for the most part ND only takes Grad Transfers, that's not 100% true as we have had a few transfers of undergraduates but nothing like what is typical for schools who fill out rosters with transfers. Also of the 3 players who signed LOI's in November 1 has already been released from his LOI and I won't be shocked if all of them bail on the Irish. This is not an attractive job right now IMHO, they are going to have to hope that they can find a diamond in the rough like they did with Digger who was young and not well known as the Fordham coach.
Speaking of the coaching search. Much more is known about the Irish search for a OCoord. Names are out there and being discussed. In reading the Internet boards I don't think there is one that will be a great hire as viewed by the majority of the "online" fans. Every name that comes up there are equal number of guys who complain that he doesn't have enough experience, they don't like his offense, etc. I am pretty sure short of the SF 49'ers OCoord it will not be well received by the fans. There are as many as 10-12 names that are supposedly being considered. Freeman is reportedly doing preliminary interviews right now, I keep reading that they will bring candidates to campus. It's amazing how leaky these things are, of course who knows how many of the leaked names are just some reporter or internet guru making stuff up and posting it to get clicks. Still no word on whether or not Golden is staying or going. Might not be till after the Super Bowl though.
So we have this tweet.....Brian Johnson the Eagles QB Coach to interview, right... Then Brian Johnson gets wind of this and tweets back...
Terry, your post triggered my memory of Digger's first season 1971-72. The circumstances couldn't have been worse. I remember that he didn't have a full roster, so he brought over football players. The score vs. IU (also Bob Knight's first season), 94-29, is permanently etched in my memory. I googled the details. We shot 13% from the field, 8 of 61! The most notable football players were the Townsend brothers, Willie (junior) and Mike (sophomore). Our record that season was 6-20. The following is from the NYT article reporting on the game: The Notre Dame coach, Richard (Digger) Phelps wasn't down on his young team. He said, “We have one way to go, and that's up, even if it's step by step. If we score 30 points the next game (at U.C.L.A.), that's progress.” In the next game vs. UCLA, we scored 56 points. UCLA scored 114.