Tim, I do not have access to anyones picks until after the games have commenced. Now if Notre Dame wins, you will have to eat some crow!
Womens basketball had a good day recruiting. Today was the start of the early signing period and the Irish inked 5, 4 of which were 5 star top 50 players. The class was ranked #3.
Hey, I’ve seen this Navy team play. That QB can run the option to perfection and rack up tons of yards on his own and hey, they even throw some passes now! No one except Memphis has been able to slow them down and that was because they knocked their starting QB out for a big part of the first half and then when he did come back he looked like he was in pain the rest of the game. That might be the only way to be them....knock their starting QB out early!
Well Oregon had the #1 class with 5 - 5 star players and UConn was #2 they had 3 5 star players including the #1 overall player and 2 top 25 players.
Jack Swarbrick announced that Saturday's game with Navy will be the 1st non-sellout game since Nov 23 1973 game with Air Force, a streak of 273 games, only Neb has a longer streak and it's still going. Sellout streak at Notre Dame Stadium ends at 273 games
That is going to go over like a fart in an elevator. While Swarbrick is often looked toward as one of the great ADs in the country, he sure has overseen a lot of dark moments. It's a bottom line society and game, and he's hit a lot of bottoms. Maybe that's fair, maybe it's not. Either way, there should be no excuse for that streak ending. Well, other than this sends a very clear message of discontent with the fan base. Just my 2 cents, anyway.
Re: non-sellout. I'm not surprised. I somewhat agree with Corey's thought re: fan base discontent, but IMO the current ticket pricing scale was bound to backfire for the lesser attended games in November weather. I'm sure it won't affect the university's pricing policy, but I believe this is the first of a trend of non-sellout games based on weather or opponent or both. I know I'm on an island with my thinking, but I've never felt that ND's fan base is as die-hard as some of the other major powers' fan bases. Students? Absolutely among the best. Others, not so much. Re: Oregon 5 star recruits: One of their 5 star recruits is our high school's phenom, Sydney Parrish. She was a key factor in the school's 4A (highest) state championship last season and a sure candidate for the best player in Indiana. Side note: my oldest granddaughter is a senior on the team. She comes off the bench.
I think you'll find that many ND fans (at least those that voice their opinions online) think that Swarbrick is a terrible AD and they like him even less than they like Kelly.
Unbelievable. I know 1 or 2 of you have noticed that I seem to have recently turned negative on Kelly. For 10 yrs I have pretty much supported him on just about everything and said so or reflected it in my posts. The recent Michigan game changed that. I really thought there was no way you would ever see a performance like that again from ND again. The last time I felt this bad about Kelly was the losses to Duke and Northwestern a few years ago at home! He has reached his peak and it's not going any higher. I give him a lot of respect for bringing the program back to respectability again after the Davie, Wilingham, Weis years but it's time to take the next step. No, I don't want him fired, that doesn't help the program. As I mentioned before he needs to retire or just leave on his own. We need a coach that can get us to the next level. As far as the rest of the season is concerned I honestly don't see anyway we can beat Navy unless they have a lot of turnovers and we all know Navy doesn't do that. I always hate this game. I hate Navy's style of play and think some of the stuff needs to be outlawed. This game never gives us anything positive when we win because of the common perception of Navy(just a service academy team right?) ND fans know different but that doesn't help. A win over Navy means nothing, a loss is disastrous! The whole week of the game Navy becomes the darling of the news and sports media. We've heard the story over and over and over again. How hard it is to be a Naval Academy student and play on the team. The devotion, dedication etc, etc, etc, etc. Don't misinterpret me here, I'm a retired military person myself and I have the greatest respect possible for our military services. However, this is a football team we are playing. Those are college football players the Irish will be facing on Saturday. Until they finish the Academy and their training they are just that. We need to treat them as such and find a way to beat the hell out of them on the field because I can assure you that's what they have in mind for the Irish. Once they put the uniform on and start their active duty time I, and all others owe them all the respect possible for the job they will be doing for our country. Until then it's game on! I still don't think we have the offense to make it happen this year against this Navy team
I think if you look at the ND athletic department over all you'll see that Swarbrick has done a very good job. Our hockey and Women's BB team and lacrosse teams have been to final fours with the ladies winning the NC. Our other sports often do well. The more money in a sport, the more agents are involved the harder it is to be elite. Players today pick schools based on the type of offense or defense that they play, the chance to play for a NC or a place where books are not a problem. The transfer portal now threatens depth. Swarbrick has parked ND in a major conference for our non football teams and put together pretty good football schedules considering the challenge the ACC agreement presents. Getting to and staying at the top of the mountain is nearly impossible, ask Nebraska, Miami, and Florida. Just because a coach is successful at one school doesn't mean he can be successful at ND. A successful coach at Wisc. might fail at Ark. a successful coach at Boise St may fail at Col. If there are coaches that can do better than Kelly at ND they're probably rare and not interested.
You guys had to know I have some opinions to share...… re: Non-Sellout. Its expensive to make the pilgrimage. Like Dwight Yoakum sang.."I'm a 1000 miles from nowhere". Remote location . Mid November. Small student population to help fill the stadium. Teams has played sub par all year. Injuries mounting. Most people are sour on Kelly. Etc. Etc. It had to happen sometime. re: Kelly. I've been down on him since he first started for his segregation of players recruited by Weis. He has improved in recent years because he hired some good assistants and got the hell out of their way. When he was the Purple Man he couldn't coach his way out of his hat. But make no mistake... we've seen the best Brian Kelly has to offer. If he couldn't win it all with last years team he never will.
Tomorrow's game is all on the players. I'm confident that they know what their assignments are. I'm confident that overall they are better athletes. I know that Navy really wants to win tomorrow, I'm not sure if the desire is the same on our sideline. Shake down the thunder Irish.
Well it's game day, we'll find out soon if all the angst over facing Navy is worth it. As far as the sellout streak. I do have a few thoughts. 1. Why was this ever a deal in the first place. Other than Neb, I can think of no other big time football program who claims any kind of sellout streak. When did ND first decide that every week they would announce the Xth straight sellout. 2. Swarbrick said that the 73 game was actually sold out but because back then the turnstile count was the standard. If that was so then I don't believe it was ever a streak. I mean until you go to tickets sold you can't tell me that every weekend nobody no-showed for a game rain or shine, Aunt Tilly never got sick and had to stay home. Doesn't pass the smell test. 3. It's well known that for years they would do things to insure the streak, like some supporter would buy up the remaining tickets and then donate them to local groups. They would count as sold tickets sent to opponents who returned some portion of them unsold. 4. While the blame is put on Kelly/Swarbrick. I just don't believe that during the Faust years when things went South that the sellouts were 100% legit. Then all the years after Holtz, Davie, Willingham, Weiss that we had legit sellouts, that they didn't manipulate the sales so they could say it was a sellout. If they'd have just let the public buy what tickets they wanted and not intervened to figure out a way move the final thousand or whatever tickets it would have reached where it ends today. 5. Sure in today's world with the rising costs of tickets to big time programs that's an issue, it's still cheap to get into Rice games though. Fans go to ND games for a lot of reasons, but a lot of us go to get back on campus, to tailgate with friends, etc. If it was strictly the quality of the games, we'd have had seasons like FSU is experiencing where the attendance is down over 20k per game because the team isn't good. Go Irish, Beat Navy!
Irish Hockey loses on the road to Wisconsin. Irish Women lose at home to Mich State, reason? Well we are young and thin, but we only made 18 of 31 free throws in a 3 point loss. Irish Men on a wining streak against lesser competition. Beat Marshall last night, John Mooney had a great night. Schedule is favorable for the rest of Nov, but we start Dec with Maryland.