Sadly, Wimbush who is a great kid (reportedly), excellent student, well liked by his team mates, is just not a good Qb. As Gip said he hasn't Improved as the season has gone on, teams figured out you could just come after the running game and not worry about his passing. While I'd like to think that the bowl practice, spring drills and fall camp will fix all that and he will develop into a good passer to go with his superior running ability... But I think that's unlikely. Book should start early in the season while getting Jurkovec ready to play.
is it the kid or the instruction? I got called away on princess duty during the game and also had to baby sit a forum comments section for a buddy of mine, but I did watch the whole thing. Ask yourself this... is this the only ND QB to regress as the season has gone along? How many ND QBs have gotten better as the season went along?
Well,I've slept on it. And I'm still upset. My season report card and comments.... QB: C- Wimbush is a RB playing QB. As the season wore on more teams cheated up to the line to stop his running, unafraid that he could beat them deep. And it took his toll as he was completely beat up at the end. Poor accuracy, questionable judgement. RB: B Adams played hurt the second half of the year. Others were dinged up. Of course the Satnford RB had over 100 yards hopping on one leg. TE: B Big improvement over last year. Would have been even better if Wimbush didn't miss them so much with high or late throws. WR: B Stepherson is the class of this group. OL: B Tale of two cities. Left and right. Nelson far and away the most dominant player on the entire team. McGlinchey seems like a great guy with slow feet. Center was above average. Right side average. Slow developing run schemes out of shotgun put added pressure to hold blocks longer. K: C Yoon had an average year. Kind of like he was there but not there. DL: B- Played hard all year. Quickest line we have had in years. Not particularly physical but a high motor. LB: B Good group. Nobody will remind you of Luke Kuechley but as whole tackled well. Less vulnerable up the gut than in recent years but I credit Tranquill with that. He was the defensive MVP. DB: C Much better on the outside. Still vulnerable up the middle. Tackling much improved. P: C Saw some real good ones this years. Our guy was not consistent. Coaching: B Elko was getting a lot of kudos in in Sept-Oct. Then November came. I liked their overall scheme. They may simply lack top shelf personnel. Offensive play calling a head scratcher but that may be Wimbush aborting plays early. Special teams were solid if unspectacular. Kelly: Unfortunately for him, his M.O.remains the same. Has trouble finishing what he started. Loved his new demeanor and delegation of in-game decision making but his reputation remains that he cannot beat the good teams. As a comparison: OSU on the road finds itself down 14-0 and then loses its QB . Urban Meyer coaches around thise obstacles and wins. I do not think Brian Kelly is capable of that. We were favored in all three games we lost, I believe. Probably why I am not a coach: I hate the shotgun. Too predictable. Slows our RBS down. No misdirection. But I doubt that Wimbush could ever run an offense fom under center with multiple RBs. The Future: More of the same, I'm afraid. 7, 8 or 9 wins. 50-50 chance in bowl games. Next year we celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Irish drought.
Hey, Gipper, I stunned too. The Irish looked like world champions against Miami....of Ohio. :roll: :wink:
Not to be a dick, but I seriously wanted this question answered. Ask yourself this... is this the only ND QB to regress as the season has gone along? How many ND QBs have gotten better as the season went along?
When Kizer came in against Virginia he was totally untested andimproved dramatically throughout that entire season. In his second season you could argue that he regressed.
Looking back 1. Josh Adams has not been 100% all Nov. I give Kelly points for loyalty but loyalty doesn't win football games. He hasn't been the same since they started selling #33 Trucking hats. 2. What happened to the aggressive turnover producing defense of Sept. and Oct.? We lost the turnover battle in Nov. badly. 3. Blitzing the Stanford QB seemed to be effective last night. Did we blitz at all in the second half? Our D backs were just awful. Not only were Stanford WRs making catches on good throws but they were making catches on bad throws or drawing PI calls. No pressure + poor coverage = getting blown out. Todd Lyght might have to be replaced. 4. QB. Wimbush is blessed and cursed with great running ability. He relies more on his leg than his arm. He's not patient and if a receiver is not open immediately he's quick to run instead of waiting. The minute he feels any pressure he takes off. When the team falls behind because of his passing ineffectiveness he places even more pressure on his legs refusing to throw the ball away and running keepers way too often. He's mentally not ready to play in big games. I can't see how Tommy Rees relates to this problem. 5. Coaching. Why do we call plays like the flanker screen? First of all we've run it over half a dozen times this season and it NEVER gains 10 yds. Second, Winbush CAN'T THROW THAT ******* PASS. HE DOESN'T JUST THROW IT AT THE RECEIVERS SHOE TOPS HE THROWS IT INTO THE ******* GROUND. WHAT ASSHOLE KEEPS CALLING THAT PLAY? Kick returns are a part of the game but apparently our head coach never realized that. Our coverage is poor, we lose the field position war way too often.
We had potentially a great stable of RB's going into the season. Adams got off to a great start and was in the Heisman conversation. But then he started to get nicked up and his backups both Jones and Williams struggled to be healthy all year which is why the 4th and 5th string guys got playing time. Couple that to defenses deciding to just ignore whatever Wimbush could do to them throwing the ball and focus on stopping the run and that was it. Sure Wimbush made some throws, but as we could see in the Stanford game he couldn't make them consistently. Those were great plays where he threw the short passes that turned into long TD runs but those were the exceptions. Everybody who watches practices confirms what Herbie said during both the Miami and Stanford games. Wimbush looks good throwing the football in practice, but he's not able to translate it to the game. Wimbush was an outstanding passer in High School. Is it all Tommy Rees? I don't know, he has one of those QB Guru's who he has worked out with since HS. Tommy has only been there since Jan, was he not coached before Jan? Everybody said Mike Sanford was a QB guru, did he not coach Wimbush in his time at ND? I don't have the answers, but I do know that if you are a one dimensional offense any decent defense can take that away from you and force you to do what you don't do well. Also as Gip noted Stanford receivers were not just making routine catches of well thrown balls, they were also making excellent catches of not so well throw balls. In August not many people figured we'd do better than 9-3 and that's what we ended up doing, but in the meantime we got our hopes up and that's what makes the November collapse so hard and makes the season disappointing. But by the time Nov rolled around everybody had plenty of film on us and they just stopped us on offense and our defensive liabilities were exposed. I know there is a renewed daily outrage about Kelly and Swarbrick and Chip Long, etc and they are the coaches and that's what they get paid the big bucks. I do think the team was not prepared for the atmosphere at Miami, anymore than the 1989 team was when they went to Miami and that coach was Lou Holtz and that team was a great team. Kelly will be back, Swarbrick isn't going to fire him and some have suggested that Kelly might be tired of coaching and resign, but I don't believe that. I don't think he'd dump on the coaches that he brought into the program to "fix" things ( Elko, Lea, Alexander, Rees, Polian, and Long) by quiting on them after 1 year. If we'd been competitive vs Miami and Stanford and lost close games people would have been more likely to say it was still a good year. Or if Wimbush had improved over the course of the season, but he didn't. I don't know if he will improve, I hope he does. As far as play calling, that's always an issue when you lose. People want a downhill running game that wears down the opposing defense. You saw how as the Stanford QB settled down and started hitting his passes and he made some great throws it opened things up for the running game. We never could do that with Wimbush, the could afford to pretty much completely ignore his passing and come downhill on the running game. I don't know where we'll end up for the Bowl game, but unless during bowl prep they can figure out how to get Wimbush going in the passing game our opponent will stack the box to stop the run and just dare Wimbush to beat them with his arm. On a positive note, Irish Women had a great win tonight vs the defending Champion So. Carolina women. and the Irish Hockey team swept the Golden Gophers at home, that was a big series for them and keeps them undefeated in the Big 10 Hockey League.
Some thoughts on Rees. There are 2 main functions of a QB the first is obvious, throwing the football. The Second is reading the defenses and making decisions based on those observations. People throw differently just as they run differently. Tim Tebow had a flaw in his delivery that kept him from being successful in the NFL. Some people can't change their natural movement and revert back to it in "the heat of battle." What Rees was known for was his ability to read defenses and attack in the proper place. He can teach Wimbush to do that but he still has to make the throws. Major league baseball history if full of young pitchers who could throw smoke but who couldn't find the plate. Accuracy is very difficult to teach. If Kelly wants to keep Wimbush at QB he might want to consider running the triple option. (Who said that????)
Wimbush rarely throws in a classic step up and throw sense. He is almost always throwing while running or at least leaning. And he gave a textbook stare down of his receiver on that INT that broke the game open.
I agree with most of these criticisms, especially Gipper's. On the other hand, there is the other side of the coin: 1. The team showed tremendous improvement this year. 2. We now have assistant coaches and coordinators who actually know what they're doing. 3. Our three losses were to three schools with great programs: Georgia, Miami and Stanford. We beat the teams we were supposed to beat. 4. Our current problems are obvious. We need a prime-time QB to reach the next level.
I love a debate. Especially with JO'Co. I believe my report card format indicated mainly B grades across the board with special mention of several categories where the Irish showed marked improvement. I would like to reiterate that we were favored outright in every game we scheduled this year. The Georgia spread is the only possible exception but it would only be a point or two plus we were home. We were a favorite at Miami and a 3.5 point pick at Stanford. So as far as the money men go, we were supposed to beat everyone. I agree we need a big time QB . I would also like to see that QB go under center now and then to break up the predictability.