So we got clocked in the Suga, we will get clocked again if we don't make a move at DC. I am not an 'off with their heads' type usually but this has to be taken care of. Chuckie promised us nasty. That defense has been anything but.. A lack of talent you may say?? Fair enough... Just remember this is the same guy who had an untalented defense with future pro-Bowlers Bryant Young, Bobby Taylor etc. The non-NFL players on that defense were guys like DeMetrius DuBose. Anyway, lets just say our talent level does in fact suck... Ask yourself this question: What was our obvious defensive strategy in the bowl game against LSU? ok what? is the pain too fresh...alright. how about USC?Michigan? GTech? Navy? 2005?? To anyone that chooses to defend the guy, give them this twisted version of the Pepsi challenge... Its the Minter challenge... Find the flavor... The thing that has bothered me the most is that there is not a thesis, a statement, or a philosophy that this defense seems to center itself on. Ergo, it has no identity... Teams with no identity, have no leadership....and that starts at the top. Davie's defense, that psycho bastard that Willingham hired... sh*t, even Darnell's defenses all had a recognizable feature or style that typified what type of defense they were... Not Minters'... They just are...And that leaves us with the bottom line... Well the bottom line is that they are terrible, and getting worse... I'd walk barefoot on flaming glass shards proclaiming my love for all things Michigan if we could hire a Joe Kines type of DC.. Its all that we are missing. Unless I'm wrong and someone can tell me what our defensive philosophy has been. We 'show' a lot of things, but do none of them well. That must change.
I wholeheartedly agree with you Corey. Notre Dame has some good athletes on D. I think the schemes and the coverage make them look worse than they really are. That Polish kid Zibitkowski is a heck of an athlete and tough as nails. I know Mr. Krebs beats him up , but he plays very much like that safety for the Steelers. With better coaching and play recognition and defensive schemes these guys would play much better D. Abirami sp? and Landri are excellent lineman. You don't have to have a team full of superstars to play great defense. There is no one here who can tell me Notre Dame has worst athletes on defense than Wake Forrest. WF plays outstanding defense. They get a lot of mileage out of their unsung players. John Abbate # 5 will NEVER make it to the pros, he's too small and too slow yet plays as well as any MLB in college football. Go back 10 years when Northwestern was kicking arse defensively. They didn't have great athletes. They didn't have great cover guys. Of course SC exposed them , but leave them on an island with no offensive support and that will happen. I know your db's get the brunt of the criticism, but the only one I would question is your MLB. MLB is the brains of the D. That's where you need experience. That's where you need a John Abbate. They put a great athlete in there, Thomas, who had no experience playing LB except for HS. That guy should have been on the outside, not the middle, if you really had to play him. ND doesn't blitz a lot and when they did, it didn't look effective. They never looked aggressive to me. Who do you blame Minter? or does Weis establish the extent of aggressiveness. Anyway, that's just my outsider opinion. I'm sure there are Domers who are much more in tune with the team who could deliver better insight. This is just what I see from my distant view.
The time has run out on Minter. I have no idea if he's good, or if he's saddled with terrible athletes or a combination of the above. I just know that our defense is bad. Some have said that his scheme is too complicated, but 3 years ago at So.Carolina it wasn't too complicated for the Gamecocks players, his defense finished #20 in the Nation in Lou's last year. Even if it's not him, he still needs to go, so much negativity has built up around him that he's a millstone around Charlies head. I do agree with AJNJ, you don't have to have top athletes on defense to be a good defense, to be a great defense yeah, but we haven't been a good defense. I look at Texas and Gene Chizik's defense, there were athletes at all positions, his entire defensive backfield will play in the NFL, yet Texas pass defense was 113th in the nation. For most of the year they had a great run defense, but sometimes that's because your pass defense is so bad that nobody bothers to run against you. In a must win game at home vs the Aggies they ran over, around, and did I say over, the Texas run defense. They hardly tried to pass. Sometimes it's the scheme, the coaches, etc, sometimes it's the heart. Texas defense had the athletes just not the heart or the scheme or the coaching...I don't know which. If Minter is allowed to return, he will have to have a tremendous year next year. The Irish are starting to remind me of Texas in Macks early years, where he had a lot of talent but his OCoord and DCoord couldn't get them to perform in big games. Finally, under duress, Mack let go his DCoord but he has steadfastly stood by Greg Davis his OCoord. So far only Vince Young has been able to rescue the offense from Greg Davis. I think our offense will be fine next year, young and will make some mistakes, but fine. But without some new direction the defense will be just as bad or even worse. Terry
Agree.... <t>It is time for a change regarding Minter and maybe the secondary coach as well. Watching the two corners 6-10 yards off the receivers never up in their faces was sickening but predictable. I won't even get into the safeties as my opinion on those two is in line with most on the other Irish boards. Non producers. Could they be better with different coaching sure how could they be any worse?<br/> I don't buy into this thing we have top talent on defense at all. Besides Victor A who was a real blue chip recruit out of HS. Z had tons of pub and we beat Iowa to get him. They are small and there is little speed, so man you are in trouble with that combination versus the big boys LSU, SC and Michigan. <br/> Charlie has his work cut out for him getting that side of the football corrected but talent wise I think by 08 he will be close. Back to Corey's subject will Minter be gone, it has to ahppen but I'm not confident it will. CW may wait till after signing day to make a change but IMO he cannot stand pat or get ready for more of the same next year but this time there will be NO BCS bowl game.</t>
I can't believe you are comparing Tommy Z to Troy Palamalu. Her couldn't carry hsi jock. Oh my god! :lol:
First of all, AJ made some valid points especially about LB. We were so thin there that we had to move our most experienced RB to LB in the off season and he started. The LBs made few tackles and their pass coverage was less than average. As to Minter, I've got a number of concerns. The defense, no matter how ineffective, has not changed in two seasons. Of greater concern is the lack of quality defensive recruits the past two seasons. While top O players seem to want to play for Charlie, our defensive side of the ball doesn't seem to be desirable. When Cutliff had his health problems, it left Minter as the only one of staff with college head coaching experience. I'm sure CW relied on his experience for advice. That is probably not as much as a factor at this point. Our lack of depth has been a real weekness especially against top teams. I watched SC run fresh legs in on almost every play. Their depth is awsome. Meanwhile, Even if we can hang close with a team for a half, the second half can turn into a runaway. I'd estimate that 70-75% of our roster this year was seniors and freshmen. The gaping hole in depth comes from two years of inept recruiting by our former coach. Next year's team will be even younger with aprox. 2/3 of the roster being sophs and frosh. It makes sense to me, that if you were not sure of your DC, now would be the time to make the change so that in two years the new system would be established. It's CW's call. He's the one that has to live with it.
I don't have any problem with Minter at all. You can't make chicken salad out of chicken sh!t. We have one linebacker. Does everyone understand what LBs do? This reminds me of the arguments I heard when Notre Dame had zero QBs. Then we had one for two years. How many offensive coordinators did they go through? Did hiring/firing them do any good? I was at the Coliseum when USC beat us 10-0 with Arnaz Battle at QB. The Trojan players said that he was wide-eyed scared and his voice was trembling. He was no QB. Minter's plan has been to do what he can with one prime-time LB. He can't do anything else. He put the one real LB in the middle, borrowed a running back to stop the run on one side and played a nickle pass coverage all year on the other side, using Zbikowski in place of the strong side LB, with Lambert or Wooden covering deep to help Chinedum... That made Tommy the defacto LB and one of the bench corners as a defacto safety. It was a Band-Aid solution to a critical problem , because HE DIDN'T HAVE ANY OTHER WAY TO DO IT! Read my lips: one linebacker. ............JO'Co
If you had 11 Zibikowski's on defense, you would be playing for the national championship !! That kid goes all out, lays out for his team and is a very good athlete to boot. He is a consumate football player, a leader and a fighter. Without him you would have lost 2 more games !! :evil: Troy Palamalu is a linebacker in disguise. Worst cover safety in the NFL, but hits like hell. I'll take a tough Pollack over him any day !!! :evil: :lol:
Tommy Z wants to come back next year for one reason... he stunk so bad this year that he dropped off the charts and has nowhere to go. He's a LB with no size. He's a S with no cover skills. He's a player without a position. I know, he has a lot of heart. Well so do I but you don't want me playing safety for your team either! :wink:
JO'Co. I agree with you on the problems that we've had the last couple of years. As we say in golf, we have a LOFT problem.....Lack Of F$@#ing Talent.) The solution is of course to recruit better. This is where I have my doubts. Who's doing the recruiting on the D side of the ball? Why does it seem that we do so much better on the O side? If talent doesn't improve, it will be more of the chicken **** scenerio. I don't blame the jockey if the horse is lame. If the jockey is selecting horses, he's his own problem.
You have been messing up big time Krebs, really big time. I have to point out the mishandling of the Jiffer. We didn't even get a prediction from him on the Notre Dame game and you want to blame the loss on Zib ? Now we have the Jiffer predicting a Florida victory and you believe the Buckeyes will win by 19? No pierogis for you man !! :lol:
Lots of good feedback here <t>but not many still taking the challenge..<br/> <br/> can someone tell me what he is doing? what defense he has run? what is our 'base' and dont tell me 4-3.<br/> <br/> To use a baseball example....<br/> <br/> JOCO is of the "Earl Weaver' school of ball (eg he plays for the 3run dong). However, in years that he doesn't have long ballers, he can shorten the game up and go inside to force the action. When you watch JOCO's teams, even when they are short in talent, it is obvious that they have a plan of attack even when outmanned.<br/> <br/> My teams, speed and defense.. always, i actually dont change. those are my things...<br/> <br/> Can someone name Minter's thing??<br/> <br/> His defense had no identity when he had pro Bowlers in the lineup, and they still dont now that they have less talent.<br/> <br/> If you can't cover, you blitz the QB... That's football 101. We did neither. <br/> <br/> Maybe he is trying to create his own 'style' of football but it sure as hell isn't working..<br/> <br/> so again, what is our defensive strategy??</t>
While I won't miss Minter when he's gone, I do wonder why he has failed at ND. He had a very good defense at S.Car in his one year there, and his Cincinnati teams were usually defensively sound if I remember correctly. But even if it's not his fault, that he's been severely handicapped by talent..he needs to go because Charlie has to send a message that he wants a great defense at ND. He doesn't want to get into the Texas Tech mode where the standard is outscore the opposition.
Lots of internet buzz having Pete Carroll talking to Wayne Huizenga in Costa Rica at the moment. Also Ken Norton, Jr. talking to Charlie Weis. Don't know if its true or not...... 8)
DC <r>I'm pretty sure the Ken Norton talk is just a joke but as far as my opinion on Minter...GOODBYE! He may not have the most talent in the world to work with but should be doing much better with what he has..it's just that simple. <E>:?</E></r>
Just to confuse matters more, the Newark Star Ledger has supposedly written that Charlie Weis has expressed an interest in the Giants. Maybe AJ can confirm that..
George I haven't seen anything documented about Weis's interest in the Giants. Just a rumor I guess. Hey I also saw a post where Minter was fired, but I also chalk that up to unsubstantiated rumor.
There is no way that Charlie would leave the Irish. I am almost finished with "No Excuses" the book about him. When I'm done I'm going to write a book report on it, but I will tell you that if you screw him around he'll walk out the door and not look back. If you are honest with him and keep your promises he will stay forever. That's what I have learned, amongst other things, about Charlie.
There was an article in the Star Ledger about the Giants getting permission to speak to the Pat's president who is involved in player procurement. Late in the article it mentions how he and Charlie are close and that this could feed the rumor about CW. While I admit that it's possible that Charlie could leave, I think that he and his family are happy with the college town life. More and more I'm glad about the extension that they gave him last year. He could always get more money elsewhere but right now, his job security is pretty good.