Wow! Not one word about the Irish after our victory last evening. Perhaps this is the greatest measure of the program under Charlie's tutelage. :wink: I was stunned to hear that this is the first time since 1992 we have finished a season with two straight wins. Now that is a wacky statistic. Back to the game.Two teams that couldn't shoot straight led by two coaches obviously learning their craft on the fly. We are tied at half in spite of three turnovers, a blocked punt, 2-3 sacks and one of Charlie's patented mid field brain freezes to go on 4th and 1.5 and to actually lose a couple of feet and the ball in the attempt. But God was on our side. The positives: Robert Hughes is definitely the #1 back. This kid looks like another Jerome Bettis in the making. He hurts defenders. The defense hit hard the whole game. That open field hit on the Stanford QB is highlight reel material. Trevor Laws was a monster again, guaranteeing himself a high draft position and a big paycheck. I haven't seen a better DL all year.... anywhere. LB Joe Brockington was crushing people ( does he have another year left?) and Darrin Walls and Rashon McNeil cemented their starting positions for next year. Walls was fantastic. And let me give going away kudos to Tommy Z... his coverage was not that hot but he was flying around the field and laid the lumber on the more than a couple of Cardinals. He went out bustinhg his ass for the first time this season and may be a mid-to late round pick after all as a special teams type player. RS frshman Dan Wenger in his second start continued to make us all forget the departing Sullivan. And Kamara will be an AA before he leaves. The same goes for David Bruton. The negatives: "Kick me in the Jimmy". Clausen, that is. Man, does this kid need to hit the weight room. He looks like a 12 year old out there and he's 20. Weis now admits that he only weighs 195, not the 207 they listed him at all year. He has a LONG way to go in his development and if I was the incoming Dayne Crist I would be licking my chops. With all of that said, I'm not sure if it is Clausen's fault or Weis' ham-handed way of handling him all year. The passing game plan is primeval, Pop Warner stuff. It's either a swing pass to the flat, a screen, a rare seam pass to the TE or the fly pattern to Kamara. The O-line of course is at the root of this whole season. I would think that a new line coach would be the order of the day along with a new strength coach. I would also think that Dan Wenger at C is the only guy who can relax at all in the off season and that includes the much ballyhooed and often beaten Sam Young at LT. Of course, we have no kicking game at all. We also have no prospects recruited for next year. We have two scholarship kickers, neither of whom can kick at all. A good kicking game covers a lot of sins... a bad one really accents other shortcomings. We have a bad one. And then we have Charlie.He came here with a fistful of SB rings earned as an offensive coordinator and zero HC experience. His coaching style emulates the pros ( light contact, emphasis on schemes, no emotion ) and it has completely backfired. This guy truly wants to succeed but really does not understand how to do it at this level. So what is he going to do? He's going back to New England to be critiqued... a complete waste of time. Here's what he needs to do... throw down the headphones, hand someone else the laminated game plan and COACH! Yell, laugh, pat backs and kick butts. Have full contact practices, show emotion, TEACH fundamentals. Forget the pro style, that stuff does not apply at this level. Get some EMOTION... his style sucked the life right out of this team. OK my friends. I 've laid it all out for you. Let's hear from you.
A win is a win. One plus for Charlie is that these kids kept playing hard all year despite the adversity they had. At least all the experts saw first hand yesterday why Charlie didn't try to kick that field goal against Navy. GO IRISH PJ in Jersey
The 117 rushing yards by the Irish gave them 903 total for the season, breaking last season’s single-season futility record by 731 yards...Speaking of dubious, Stanford recorded five sacks against Clausen, giving opponents 58 this season, 27 more than the previous record of 31. Ouch! :x
Agreed, PJ. I thought at the time that the percentages of our getting a first down were better than the percentages that our kicker could make the FG. The only thing I would change in the above quote is to put the word "experts" in quotes.
For me it was sort of bitter sweet end. I'm glad we got the win, I was hopefull for a better offensive showing than we had, after all Stanfords defense is not good. Defense played well, and as usual was on the field way too much and in short field situations due to the offense and wasn't rewared for any of thier big plays. Things I liked. Robert Hughes running the football, he is the #1 back. He has a great future if he stays healthy. Armando Allen will be a good change of pace back. But I like Hughes to be #1. I think we should build Aldridge up and see if he can play FB, Schwapp is just terrible. Schwapp maybe should just go into body building because he sure can't play FB. How bad is Luke Schmidt that he can't beat out Schwapp. Being Scwhapped now means the drive was killed by a fumble or missed block. Duval Kamara made some good catches, I think he can be a good possesion WR, but he clearly doesn't have the speed to be a deep threat other than on jump balls vs a 5'9" CB. He'll be good going across the middle and on slants. Seems to be a tough kid. David Grimes looks like maybe he's gotten over his drops, maybe he'll be a good slot reciever sort of a Wes Welker type. We still need that guy who the DB's fear because of their speed, I don't know if either Mike Floyd or John Goodman can provide that next year. Goodman becuase he's played QB all year will probably be slow to get up to speed as a WR next year and I wouldn't be surprised if he red shirts. Floyd is another big WR who doesn't have blazing speed but maybe should start. Continued developement of Kerry Neal and Brian Smith they both look to have great futures in this defense. Bruton and Walls have played well in their first year as starters. If some of those freshman can play right away in the DL we might actually make it to the top 50 in defense next year. Things that made me cringe. Schwapp: Being Schwapped was supposed to mean that you got pancaked run over stomped on, etc. Instead it means that the drive was killed by a wiff on the blitz pickup or a Schwapp fumble. I wonder if his carries without a fumble = his carries with a fumble? Dave Ragone...fugettaboutit that kid can't play TE. He knows wiffing not blocking. The way we left the middle of the defense wide open when we blitzed, the Stanford QB just had to step up into the void and he had easy first downs. Shouldn't somebody be home in the middle to prevent just that? Special teams Kickoff coverage. Pollian: He's got to go! Charlie of course needs to fix a lot of things. I don't know if he'll fire anybody. I hope that Pollian is not with us next year, I dont' know about Latina though. He had good college OL's before and he was the 1st choice of Spurrier for the job at So.Car. So he's well thought of in the college ranks, maybe he just can't coach the Patriot blocking schemes. My biggest fear is that we lose the opener to San Diego State, while it is no where near as big a deal as losing to Navy or App State, it would still be a big blow to our season. Charlie needs to win 7 games min next year and go to and win a bowl game. If throws another stinker then he needs to go. Terry
George <t>I agree with some of what you say but I don't about his trip to New England being a waste.<br/> <br/> No one ever contended that it was a waste of time when Urban Meyer parked his ass at the Patriots camp. Somehow everyone seems to forget that Urbie set up shop at "Hotel Cheater' in Mass. He seemed to learn quite a bit there.</t>
I think what Charlie learned at New England is the reason he is off to such a start in college. He should avoid going back there or to any pro camp like the plague. The two games are totally different as are the personnel.
Are we keeping you up, Sid? There is no team I follow more closely than the Irish. I have been a die hard fan since 1964. So when I see a version that is easily the worst I've seen in 43 years I ask why. I do not accept this level of absurdity without question. Any other team.. so what? Not this team.
No. <t>Mention of another miserable O-Line performance?<br/> <br/> Poor Sam Young was benched in the first quarter and my man Duncan continues to play like he just doesn't want to get hurt. That is the # 1 problem for CW fixing that mess.<br/> <br/> Hughes gives me hope and Claussen has a long way to go IMO.<br/> <br/> Defense needs loads of help from the rcruits coming in on that side of the football.</t>
George, I agree with some of your analysis, about 40%, but I choose not to get worked up over the tragedy of this season. It's over and time to move on. I have no control over the situation, so all I can do is hope that time and good decisions by those who have control will change the program for the better. That includes primarily coaches and players. If there is not noticeable improvement in the areas of concern that have been pointed out here and everywhare else, then you will see me coming over to your side, but that's a minimum of a year away, maybe two, and a lot can happen between now and then. I'll take a wait and see approach.
I'm yawning with Sid here. I've never had any success by panicking or sh!tting my pants when things go wrong. If you try to solve any human problem without taking time into consideration as a major factor, then your analysis is doomed to failure from the start... re: "yell, laugh, pat backs and kick butts" What does that cheerleading stuff have to do with coaching or teaching? In the real world the two best methods of teaching are modeling and trial/error. The modeling on a football team comes from the older players. This is called "senior leadership." If there aren't many seniors and most of the few that you have are no good or not good role models, then you're screwed until time gives you another batch of seniors. The only effective method that you're left with is trial & error, which means sending your kiddies out there to be slaughtered or embarrassed until the Pavlovian principles of reward & punishment establish the desired results. Those are your only two choices; unless you have a magic wand...
If I'm not mistaken, Charlie was a head coach in high school and his team won the NJ state championship for their class. Now I'm just going to bet that his team had good fundamentals and like every other high school team there played with and won with emotion. Therefore, it seems to me that this criticism of Charlie not being aware of the need for fundamentals and the lack of emotion claim is just made up crap like so many other beefs ranging from his NJ arrogance to his kid being on the sideline. Could it just be that kids who should have played better didn't?
I can relax. Charlie won a championship at Frankling Twp. HS nineteen years ago. I know he has it in him now 8) But just to hedge our bets, may I introduce the new O-Line coach. Biography Who is Ivan Pavlov? The Russian scientist Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was born in 1849 in Ryazan, where his father worked as a village priest. In 1870 Ivan Pavlov abandoned the religious career for which he had been preparing, and instead went into science. There he had a great impact on the field of physiology by studying the mechanisms underlying the digestive system in mammals. For his original work in this field of research, Pavlov was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1904. By then he had turned to studying the laws on the formation of conditioned reflexes, a topic on which he worked until his promotion to Notre Dame Fighting Irish O-Line coach in 2008. His discoveries in this field paved the way for an objective science of behavior and improved drive blocking technique.
:lol: 8) For me, which is the majority of uninterested ND observers in the country; the only one player worth anything in the squad was the polish kid # 9 Now, thats a player with heart !!! Charlie looks sometimes totally befuddled on the sidelines....he keeps looking at his plastic-covered play sheet as if he can pull a rabbit out of the hat......camera caught him in the Navy game actually slobbering....gross !!! Oh yeah....yada yada....another #1 class coming next season......snooze time.....it will take eons to even get competitive.
I don't believe we will accept criticism from someone who's program is as desolate and inconsequential as Miami is. The scrap heap of college football.
Yeah getting criticism from Gonzo who really knows only slightly more about football than my dental assistant, it's sort of weird.