It was a good run that ended on a sour note and took all the air out of our balloon. We battled key injuries all season and still managed to miss regular season perfection by 4 points. I say "regular season" because in the bowl game we played a team that is on a completely different level than our regular season opponents. What did we learn today? For me, it's that our defense and our OL are not championship-worthy. You can say that not every team is as overpowering as OSU, but if we want to play for a national championship we have to be able to stop an OSU on defense and establish a strong running game on offense. IMO we have some of the best skill players in college football, but we are not yet strong enough in the trenches or fast enough in the defensive backfield to be considered an elite program. I hope we can somehow continue to develop the overall strength and speed to compete with the big boys. I feel like we're definitely moving in the right direction, getting deeper and faster every year, but we're not there yet. Any thoughts?
I would concur with most important of what you said. Injuries and the two suspensions definitely played a role but OSU was better Its time for a new DC. Uncle Rico gives up tons of points and no aspect of his defense is dominant. Very poor tackling throughout. Trumbetti sat on the bench all year yet was the best player we had on defense today. Joey Bosa made Steve Elmer his personal hand puppet until his ejection. If he had stayed in the game it would have been worse.
I said at the start, if we couldn't block Bosa, nothing else matters. I tend to agree with both of you although it's a steep scale to grade Rico against. The only teams who have faced injury decimated ranks the way he has have had far worse years. I do wonder about his use of personnel. Where was Jerry Tillery? The return of Jones was fine, Cage did well and did Trumbetti. Sheldon is Sheldon... but against a big physical team that can move at tempo, where is your big, physical NG that can move at tempo? ****, put him at the 3 technique but do something. We let that game be dictated to us and that's why we're not ready. As a parting note, I would like to add that this was Zaire's team and it was built to be a sluggo team with HR capabilities. Kizer was never that, and our offense seemed to lack identity. Now that's just my opinion of my perception, but I do feel strongly this team was never supposed to win 10+games once we lost Zaire. We still had a hell of a run and the season was fun because we never knew which team would take the field. That's not a bad thing.
I saw OSU play a number of times this year. This wasn't the same team that played Indiana or MSU. With the exception of the Michigan game they were no where near this explosive this season. At the same time, the defense today was just like the defense at the start of the Clemson game. We coughed up 2 easy TDs in the opening minutes and never caught up. While the D was fairly stout in the second half vs Clemson, we were gashed all day by the Bucks. You're in for a long day if you're giving up 7 and 8 yds. on every first down. Very poor pass coverage.
Well there certainly is a tremendous amount of unhappiness with BVG amongst the Irish fans. Everybody assumes that Kelly will be making a move and he'll be gone. But I'm just not so sure, I agree he hasn't been a success and it does appear that his defense is not a fit for college kids. But we've already missed on a couple of outstanding college DCoord in the guy from BC who went to Michigan and the guy from Wisconsin who went to LSU. But other than the 2012 defense, we have been very average at best. That is what keeps us from being great going forward IMHO. Scheme, Coaching, talent, it's all integrated. We don't have Alabama or Ohio State level talent that's for sure. I'd pick Bosa over Jaylon Smith every time and Joe Schmidt would have never made it past walk on at Ohio State. As long as our defense is just average we'll have a very hard time getting to the playoffs. We might have some really good years but always just come up short till that is fixed. Ara's great teams were great defenses first and good to great offenses next. On offense, I think we are fine. We have good qB's maybe even great QB's. We finally have some outstanding RB's, our OL finally has depth and talent and we have more than enough talent at WR and TE to be a great offense. Fix the defense. Until that is done, it's very iffy that we'll make that next step.
I'm not as happy with the O line as you are. Too often our running game was ineffective (like yesterday.) It is part of the red zone offense problem.
On Elliot's long TD run up thr gut he was untouched. They blew a hole through the line so big thst Gipper could have scored. Both LBs were caught up in t backwash and both safeties were somewhere unknown because they eere never in the picture. Unclr Rico's defensive scheme is too busy. Every body is running to assigned areas and nobody is keying the ball or the QB.
CJ Prosise announces for the NFL today off one decent year. Finally got steady playing time and got beaten up so bad he has bssically unable to play for seven weeks. I hope he earned his degree.
CJ probably caught in a tough spot. Looking at next year with Josh Adams, and Taurean Folston..barring injury he wasn't going to get the same number of touches so his stats would be worse and unlikely help his draft position. He's on track to graduate, so I wish him luck. I'd have liked to have had him back but we should be good with Adams and Folston and then throw in Dexter who I think has a lot of upside. I just hope he gets drafted, RB's with the exception of guys like Derrick Henry, Elliot and Fournette are most likely to go in the 3rd round or later. He's got talent and can catch the ball out of the backfield so he might be able to play slot or rb in the NFL. Good luck to him. He gave all.
I see where Fuller may be considering leaving. I thought that he'd announced that he'd be coming back. He's a special weapon that we can't easily replace.
If a guy is wishy-washy about staying then he has already left in is mind. Nobody on this team is irreplaceable.
Well Fuller leaving is less of a crap shoot for him. He will be a 1st day draft choice, maybe not a 1st round but he's going to get picked. The question is always can they improve their draft stock by coming back. I don't think Procise was likely to improve his, mainly because there are going to be more backs in the rotation. Fuller could improve his hands with another year in college, or he might look at his friend Jaylon and think...that could be me. I wouldn't blame him. On the OL: Our OL was good this year, not great and certainly not what I hoped it would be although if you look at running game stats, they were great ..but sometimes stats lie. They had difficulty with Temple, BC, and a number of other teams in moving the bad consistently on the ground. They just weren't a dominant OL, the running game stats were bumped up by the number of big runs Procise, Adams, and Kizer had this year. Also it was a little disconcerting the number of false starts we had, started with the Texas game and continued all year. But no doubt we have our best OL situation in a long time, we have a full compliment of guys, we didn't have to play any freshmen and we have good players in the wing. Reports are that Hoge is set to be a great OL. Bar's will be good, Nelson remember was a RS Freshman. I think the future is bright. Question is whether HH can develop these guys into a dominant OL or is he just a pretty good OL coach who is a great recruiter. I can't imagine what Joe Moore would have done with this bunch.
Even with Procise, Fuller, Stanley and Nick Martin leaving on offense we should still be a very good team on offense. While you never can replace a NFL 1st rounder, that doesn't mean the next guy won't be very good and I think our OL across the board will have a lot of potential to be better than the 2015 group, certainly as good. QB's Kizer, Zaire, and Wimbush are the best depth ND has had at QB in I don't know when. RB's: Folston, Adams, Williams all are excellent. WR's. Tori Hunter Jr, ESB, Holmes, Boykin, Guyton all are very talented and who knows maybe Corey Robinson has a consistently great year. He made some key catches vs Ohio State. TE: Alize Jones and Durham Smythe along with Luatua should be a good group. The season will turn on having a top notch defense that disrupts the oppostion, forces turnovers, just having an average defense will result likely in another season where the overall record is good but we fall just short.
I think Fuller is a long shot to have success at the next level. Even more than his questionable hands is his obvious lack of size and strength. They let 'em play in the NFL and I think he may be manhandled. They know how to negate speed with physicality. I hope I'm wrong but I see Santonio Holmes "Lite" at best.
Some NFL type has said that both Mora and Sumlin are reaching out and letting the NFL know they would be available. I doubt if the NFL calls back though. Not to mention it's an unconfirmed rumor.
Kevaire Russell is reportedly going to the NFL. He definitely would benefit from coming back but is caught in some rules issues. He woul have to petition the NCAA for an extra year and they would be highly unlikely to let him know one way or another if they will grant it before the deadline for him to announce for the NFL. So he really can't take the chance of missing the NFL Draft and also getting denied by NCAA for an extra year.