Well no sense in crying over the spilled milk. We had our chances vs Clemson and Stanford and didn't get it done. It would have been nice to have played better vs B.C. for sure, but it was a win. Hard to complain about 10-2 with all the injuries we've had. I do think though that if Malik Zaire hadn't gotten hurt the season wouldn't have likely turned out much different. Maybe would have lost to UVA, as we were down when Zaire broke his ankle. Maybe he throws the TD pass or maybe we finish off that drive and score that way. I don't know. Maybe we're better in the Red Zone. What if Folston hadn't been injured? Maybe we'd never know how good Josh Adams is or is going to be. Maybe the defense would have been just enough better with Dru Tranquil and Jarron Jones healthy all year, they'll be back next year so we'll see. We don't know the bowl destination but likely Peach or Fiesta. Recruiting is in the critical phase right now, the banquet is coming up and we've got some good players coming in, not a ton of them like in the old days when it was our biggest recruiting weekend. Still I hope we can get a couple of these guys. Caleb Kelly Brendan Ferns Jordan Fuller Donnie Corley Jonah Morris We reportedly are in a good position for Daelin Hayes, it's either us or Ohio State. We have lots of needs, as do all teams, and the word is that will take as many as 25 kids. Irish mens basketball is at Illinois tomorrow for the Big10/ACC Challenge and the Women are at home for Ohio State. The women are going to be missing their best player and pre-season ACC Player of the Year Brianna Turner who has a shoulder issue that could knock her out for the season. She's getting an medical eval today and there should be some word on her tonight or tomorrow. Hockey is doing ok, not great, but not bad. Men and Women are out of the NCAA Soccer Tourney. Women were a fixture in the Sweet 16 and above, but since Randy Waldrum left for the Pro Houston Dash, the program has slipped some.
I posted this under another topic. It's more appropriate under this topic: This article in the South Bend Tribune focuses on ND but in a wider sense describes how the playoff committee looks at the contending teams: http://www.ndinsider.com/football/a...5-897a-1fa84f8844b9.html?utm_source=hootsuite he article cites the obvious, i.e., absent a crushing win vs. Stanford, ND lost its chance to be among the top 4 teams with a lackluster performance vs. 3-9 Boston College. It's nothing we don't know. It just confirms, along with the facts cited in the article, that a 1-loss ND will be eligible for consideration on an equal basis with a 1-loss power 5 conference champ, regardless of number of games played.
I would agree, ND's performance vs BC was a killer, they maybe could have survived a stinker like that in Sept, but in Nov everything is magnified.
Not good news for the Irish Womens Basketball... http://www.ndinsider.com/basketball/womens/discouraging-injury-news-for-notre-dame-hoops-turner-reimer/article_db7016ac-9880-11e5-83dd-6b7027305d6a.html
Yup and we have a very very good Ohio State team coming in tonight and then Sat a UConn team that is beating everybody by about 40 points and is the odds on favorite to go undefeated and win the NCAA championship this year.
An interesting aspect to ND's #8 ranked schedule is that the following teams **** the bed. -Texas -Georgia Tech -Boston College and to a lesser extent -USC -Virginia Texas is one of the premier programs in the nation. Last we saw of Georgia Tech, they were bitch slapping some SEC team in the bowl game. Boston College always seems to be good for anywhere from 6 to 9 wins a year. Virginia usually floats around 500 and USC, I'd normally put up there with Texas, but they had a weird season with a drunk coach, yet still wound up in the Pac12 title game. Some of that is offset by Temple being good, but not enough.
Corey, you touch on something I had discussed with Scott previously that I wasn't sure I wanted to bring up here for fear of causing a firestorm of people thinking I was trying to knock down the Irish. But, since you've touched on it, I'll go ahead and post my thoughts, hoping my caveat is sufficient notice that this is definitely not my intent. My feeling is that the AAC (worse than the old Big East) isn’t good enough to have a team in the playoff, even if they were undefeated. Although I’m not 100% behind that opinion, I am about 80% sure I would vote to keep an undefeated AAC team out of the playoffs. I am 100% sure that a 1-loss AAC team does not deserve a team in the playoff. By the same token, my feeling is that the ACC isn’t good enough to have a one-loss team in the playoff. If the ACC champion ends up with a loss, they should be out without many other catastrophes occuring above them. So I say that to say this. A story I had read about ND’s chances of making the playoff made a pretty good point. ND plays a “half-pregnant” schedule (UVA, GT, Clemson, Pitt, WF, BC) and a couple other AAC teams (Navy, Temple). Now, they’ve filled their “non-con” slate with typically impressive competition (tu, <UMass>, USC, Stanford) so that normally would give them some clout. But, compare that to FSU and it comes off about equal on non-con strength. For instance, forget FSU's loss to GT for a second. IF FSU’s only loss was to Clemson, even assuming Clemson goes undefeated the rest of the way, would FSU have a snowball’s chance without winning their division? FSU’s non-con slate of TSU, USF, Chat, Florida is one toughie (either USC or Stanford) different from ND’s, but even if FSU had played tu, USC, Florida, do you think they’d get in? A few weeks ago, the biggest wins weren’t tu and USC, they were Navy and Temple, (at the time) 1-loss and ranked AAC teams. Granted, ND lost a close one to Clemson, the “#1” team in the nation, but does that put them at #4 prior to the game with Stanford (which had to be a win to have any hope)? In the end, our discussion pointed out that there is a big difference between how the schedule ended up for ND, and how they scheduled. As you pointed out, usually tu, GT, BC, USC, and UVA (especially big names like tu and USC) can be counted on to bring some meat and relevance to a schedule, which is a far cry from how some other programs on the edge schedule. And this is in addition to Stanford! ND actively searches out national, relevant schedules while some others actively avoid anything but a W. So in the end, if it had to have come down between 1-loss ND and some of the other 1-loss teams, I would have definitely had to throw my support behind ND. Well, until the second loss happened.
Yeah sometimes schedules work out and sometimes they don't... Nobody expected Texas to be B12 conference champion, but they weren't going to be as bad as they ended up, and who would have seen Temple as the media darlings that they were when the Irish rolled into Philly? Navy with Keenan Reynolds had a shot at New Years 6 bowl till they lost to Houston. GaTech was ranked and everybody thought, including me, thought those guys were really good and going to be a tough out. Clemson is Clemson they have a very good program going there in So.Carolina and they recruit very well. I expected them to be tough, same for Stanford and USC. Anyway you never know really till it's over and the results are in..some years you played a bunch of teams having good years and some years you play a bunch of teams not doing quite so good. Irish being an independent have always had their schedule questioned. Around here my whole life when I say I'm a ND fan, the typical response it they need to join a conference. One guy told me that they play all exhibition games, that nobody takes them seriously because it's not a conference game. Cheers!
If Clemson and Temple win the championship games we will have played 3 conference champions. If SC wins we would have beaten 2 of the 3.
Yeah the schedule sort of fell our way this year in terms of most of our opponents having good years. One thing that didn't fall our way was playing 4 of the last 5 games on the road. Next years schedule doesn't look as good right now, but who knows maybe some of the teams on it will be better and the ones we expect to be good will stay good (Mich State, Stanford, and USC). On another note the Irish playing without their All American from Texas, Briana Turner, still found a way to beat the Buckeyes tonight 75-72, Buckeyes were at full strength and as expected their All American Kelsey Mitchell played extremely well and showed why she is one of the countries leading scorers. Next up is UConn.
Irish beat the Illini in their part of the Big10/ACC Challenge. Nice games from Zach Auguste, DJ Jackson and Steve Vasturia. We fell out of the top 25 after losses to Iowa and Alabama in Fla, not that it really matters all that much other than it's nice to have the team in the top 25. From what I've been reading Kelly and his staff hit the road recruiting the day after the loss to Stanford and have been on it all week and will continue till Dec 13 dead period. Arrows seem to be pointed up for Daelin Hayes, and he's going to announce Dec 10th. The rest of our top targets are all down to a couple of schools, on ISD most of the them are in the category of "Too Early to Tell". So if things fall right we'll finish well if not well we'll have some thin spots in the class. The top area is the OL we have 3 coming in and all three were top targets for Harry Heistand. The kid from Wisc that chose Michigan is the only one that got away. We are pretty heavy in CB's and safety's with 5 already but they are targeting 7 or 8, Linebacker is really thin with only 1 kid onboard. If Daelin Hayes is a LB that's 2, but some say he might move to DE to rush the passer from that position. Anyway it's a race to the finish. We need to finish strong.
Terry, one of the BB team's losses was to Monmouth, not Iowa. The play-by-play guy in last night's game said Brey referred to this team as a work in progress. It shows the enormous impact by Grant and Connaughton on last year's team. This year's edition is the same group minus those two, but it has a much different air. To me, after watching 3 games, including the two losses, it's not nearly as intense from beginning to end as last year. It's as if we're feeling out the opponent, and when we find ourselves down by 10 or so points, we ratchet up the effort. That won't work when we get into ACC conference play.
You're right Sid we beat Iowa, lost to Monmouth. Thanks! You're also right that the team is still trying to figure out some things and whether or not they will is up in the air. We went to a 2-3 zone last night and it worked well for us. But naturally I'm hoping for a good season, I won't make any bets that we'll win the ACC Tournament again, If we could finish in the top 4 or 5 of the regular season that would be a great season.
I completely agree. For a program like ours, the final result last season set the bar for future teams. To go farther than the Elite Eight, i.e., Final Four, would be an amazing accomplishment. I don't see this year's team matching last year's performance over an entire season.
Johnny Lujack....still going strong. http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-johnny-lujack-erskine-20151203-column.html
I'm sorry, what is the "Fremeau Efficiency Index. " I've never heard of it. It has quite a bit of difference than the NCAA SOS or Sagarin. It that what the Playoff Committee uses?
FEI!!! Who the hell knows about all these new stats. But if they favor your team then they must be right!! This one is for Kes: <iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ffQQXi7YnNk" frameborder="0"></iframe>
This is for the gipper...Lions Golden Tate when he was just a collegian! <iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OD380XDs-NY" frameborder="0"></iframe>
2009, Wazzu was 1-11 that year, the only W being against SMU, in which the Cougars scored 30 points. They also scored 20 points against Hawaii and 17 points to Cal. Those are the only teams against whom the Cougars scored more than the 14 they scored against ND that year. So I guess ND had only the fourth-worst defense we saw that year. Impressive feat that. :twisted: