I'm not on the Rees band wagon. I'm not against the kid.. He's very limited physically and when he makes a bad read, good god is it bad. At the same time, I have a hard time faulting any of our QBs. Your coach has not faith in you. Kelly needs to balance himself or he'll lose the team.
The bleeding continues in Notre Dame Stadium, where the Irish are 13-15 since the start of the 2007 season. The loss to South Florida made it 13 consecutive years the Irish won’t finish a season at home unblemished. The previous school record was eight from 1956-63. It’s not just the record, but in each of the past five years Notre Dame has lost at home to a program that just 10 years ago it might have seemed unfathomable. -excerpt from BGI.
So? This "record" is meaningless. That period was one of the worst stretches in school history....Brennan, Kuharich, and Devore. Our record during that 8-year period was 34-45. Ugh! IMO, there are plenty of reasons to be upset. I know I am. However, every turnover, every penalty, every mistake that led to USF scores or that prevented us from putting points on the board is correctable. That's what I see as the difference between this team and the teams from the past 10-12 years. The question for me is, how in one week do we 1) put this debacle behind us, 2) settle down and play with confidence, and 3) focus on finishing? It's a long season. There will be plenty of time to organize a lynching if after 3-4 games, we still are playing like we did yesterday. I'm going to swallow hard and take it one game at a time.
Didn't get to see the game, except for the 1st 2 plays then I had to leave to meet family for the Texas/Rice tailgater. Unfortunately I didn't get to see that game either had to spend the whole first quarter in the medical tent with heat exhaustion then I went home. Played golf in the morning and it was brutal hot and I just didn't drink enough water and also hadn't really had anything to eat to speak of either. By the time I got to the stadium I was feeling dizzy and asked the paramedics to check me out and ended up in the med tent with ice pack on my neck and taking fluids. Unlike Joe Montana I didn't make it back to the game! But I do agree with Stu in a sense, I do wish Kelly was not as animated on the sidelines, even though yesterday I would imagine most of the Irish fans who are criticizing him were throwing fits at home, might even be a few who are today shopping for new TV's! Can't believe the 5 turnovers, 3 in the redzone. 500+ yds of offense to 250yds for USF, defense really only gives up 1 TD. But the personal fouls really hurt from what I read. Dumb plays like TJ Jones not paying attention to the ball as he ran his route, I guess he figured hey I'm the 3rd option it's not comming my way just run the route...boink right in the shoudler...ay yi yi! It looks like Cierre Wood did a good job in the 1st half and then the 2nd half well we had to throw the ball so much..forget the run game it's catch up time now. So I'm encouraged that at least with Wood we have a good running game. QB, well 24-34 296yds...maybe Crist would have done that as well but I don't know how Kelly doesn't start Tommy next week. Rees just looks like he's a cooooool customer. Not the most talented in terms of arm strength and all but he does look like a kid who just somehow gets it done. I don't believe he'll be intimidated by the big crowd in Ann Arbor next week. Hey Gip...where were your seats?
Sorry guys but I don't think Kelly's actions on the sidelines are much different than Lou's. And I loved Lou. Some coaches yell and scream, some don't. I would imagine that Kelly acted the same way at Central Michigan and Cincinnati.
the difference is.. Lou didn't always scream. Someone on NDN (amazingly) retold the tales of games against Michigan and Florida in which Lou remained stoic and kept encouraging the team to not flinch. If all you do is scream, you eventually become white noise.. I have no problem with screaming and losing your mind from time to time, but when it's all you do, you are limited as a coach. You list me all of the great screamers of all time (Woody, Bo etc) and I assure you, they would tell you the best lessons were usually taught with an inside voice.. Kelly has to get better or get gone.
I have managed people (Not sports programs) for 25 years and realize everyone has his or her management style but I have always felt blowing your top when talking to people is not the most constructive way of getting your point across....Just my opinion... <iframe src="http://videos.sportsgrid.com/embed/player/?r=4692328346427530&content=GNM2Z82G1WL164PM&widget_type_cid=svp&read_more=1" width="630" height="450" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" allowtransparency="true"></iframe>
How can anyone blame kelly? Did he fumble The ball? He fumble punt? He throw the ball with zero accuracy? No...this team was ready, just the players forgot how to play. Defense was great and made it watchable to the end. Also yelling at crist 23 year old leader is perfectly fine and what these kids need. Behind the scenes these kids say they talk about it and have no bad feelings from the reaming. Its over and now let's beat up um this sat night.
Because we showed an outright lack of composure that continued to spiral out of control while he continued to simmer and cook over on the sideline. Execution, discipline, composure, leadership... you name it, we lacked it. Draw yourself together a list of any elements of a well coached football team, and you did not see those characteristics out on that field with the notable exception of the fact that the kids did not quit. The defense was far from great. How many times did we need the stop and not get it? How many facemask penalties by our lone senior captain did we have? I could go on and on.. That was a piss poor effort by a team that we were MUCH better than. How much of that is the kids? He's had 8 months to prepare for this football game.. and THAT is what took the field? That's shameful. I gave Chuckles a lot of room because we hired a guy that was never a head coach before. I always thought it was comical when people would get pissed when he'd made a rookie HC mistake. This guy has been a head coach many times before. He should know better, but he does not...or at least there is no evidence to the contrary.
:idea: My criticism of Kelly has nothing to do with screaming. That's certainly not my style, but every coach has to do what works for him, and I assume that this has worked for Kelly in other jobs. My criticism is about putting the right player into the right slot. I believe that's the most important thing that any coach does. You have to put a kid into a situation where he's likely to have success, then give him opportunities to prove himself. I'm not sure that Kelly knows how to do that. By his own admission, he's never had players of this caliber to coach before. ALL of them, are simply bigger, faster and better than what he's had before and the new level of talent is something that he hasn't mastered yet. -QB Dayne Crist looks exactly like he did last year. He has the "beach body" and the big-time arm and he's a leader in the lockerroom...but sometimes he makes decisions so poor, that I would probably blow my stack at him too. Remember, he's a local kid from Notre Dame High School. Shouldn't JO'Co be telling you what a great leader and all-world QB he is? If I were the coach, he would never have been the starter. Tommy Rees, whom I have little faith in, seems to be winning the position. I would still prefer Andrew Hendrix, but Tommy is a coach's son who knows how to take charge of a huddle and run an offense, while Crist has demonstrated the ability to take charge of the lockerroom and Kelly thought that was leadership? We've seen this before, with a quiet coach's son who looked much better in games than in practices...some kid named Montana. How many years did Dan Devine refuse to start him, because he "didn't look good in practice?" Rees is no Montana, but he's a gamer and Crist isn't and Hendrix may be better than either of them. Kelly needs to learn how to sort them out using the criteria of putting the gamers on the field and leaving the lockerroom heroes in the weight room... -LB Carlo is the starter. It isn't even close. If you want to substitute for him in passing situations with Foxy or McDonald that's fine; but this kid is every running back's nightmare. Funny thing about nightmares, you tend to remember them much more than the good dreams... Like when you're going out for a pass, you remember how hard you were hit the last time that you wandered out in that area...where Carlo plays... Kelly needs to REALLY think about this one. -KR/WR Theo Riddick is another guy who's in the wrong slot...literally. He's a running back and a good one, but he's no slot receiver and he's a disaster-waiting-to-happen as a punt returner. He doesn't even know how to set up to receive a punt. His feet are moving around; his body is going around in circles; his head and eyes are bouncing. He will drop more of them, bet the farm on that. Put a baseball/basketball player back there. They all have good hands and footballs whizzing past their heads don't bother them after years of ducking baseballs thrown by homicidal maniacs. I recommend Austin Collinsworth here. He's totally fearless and he throws his body around like Mrs. Collinsworth can always make another one who looks just him. I also didn't like the pathetic way that Riddick stood out there screaming excuses at Rees after he dropped a perfectly thrown ball. With so many other options, Kelly needs to think about this one too... -Punting Kickers are like QBs: some guys look great in practice, while others are game day animals. How many shanked punts do you give a guy? The Irish are handing out a lot of scholarships to kickers, let's put them to work. - Scheme Why did it take a long rain delay for someone to figure out that Michael Floyd is our main weapon? If you find him first, it opens up everything else. Why not stop the run first on defense? Never mind, you'd probably want Carlo in the game for that... - Special teams Bennett Jackson and Austin Collinsworth are special teams demons. Let's let them return all the kicks too. BTW- Kelly suggested that Cam McDaniel is physically ready, so why not toss him in there? Like Collinsworth, he's been returning kicks all his life...
I agree with PJ. Those who say Lou didn't yell as much either have short memories or were not paying attention. Lou yelled every bit as much as Kelly, if not more. The only difference is that Lou's facial expressions were not as animated and his face didn't turn red.
Kelly hasn't gone on the field and grabbed a players facemask and dragged him off in front of 59K fans including his parents. That said I do wish Kelly would turn it down a notch, but as others have observed he likely didn't start this last year and he's been so successful that you have to assume that his relationships with his teams have been such that they accepted this from him. I don't ever remember hearing anything that Kelly was some sort of bully or bad guy, just the opposite.
Lou had both. I saw it at Arkansas, Minnesota, Notre Dame and South Carolina. He'd blow his stack, but there were also plenty of times he knew to keep it together. I've not seen so much as a hint of that flexibility from Kelly. That's not to say he can't learn, but he better start.
Yeah, Kelly got a bit put out. However it would be difficult to accumulate this many screw ups in one game even it were intentional. Things will get better.
I think Kelly is a good coach, a great recruiter and a man who is driven to success. I also think he looks like a buffoon on the sidelines. The image he projects is that of a madman, out of control and in full panic mode. Project those qualities on the authority figures at your place of business and tell me what you would think. He could have the best intentions in the world but nobody would see that because he's a screamer. Players, like workers, soldiers or students are looking for a leader under control, a person making reasoned decisions in the heat of battle. Not a guy all red-faced and wild-eyed, blowing snot bubbles, tearing his hair out, throwing his head phones. save the histrionics for the locker room or practice field or at least for time outs. Panic begets panic. I can hardly stand to watch him. He's almost laughable at times. I'm ready to go back to the radio but Don Criqui doesn't even know who has the ball half the time. Saturday was an aberration. The stats say we should have won by 30. Kelly was just a distraction.
I was wandering the Florida campus at the time and didn't see the Notre Dame game. However we have all been in similar situations where you gain a lot of yards and lose the game. The big one that comes to me as a Gator is our Sugar Bowl game against Notre Dame. The Gators gained over 500 yards and it appeared early we might make a rout of the game. However in the end we out gained Notre Dame but lost the game by 10 points or so. I am not sure what our new coach will be like in that type game. He is a very emotional fiery type guy. It will be interesting to see. But keep you heads up, it's only the first game.
I think Georgia and ND have a good shot at starting 0-2.....which if happens will supremely disappoint fans of both. Kelly will get his shot......no heat there but Marl Richt had better beat Tenn and Fla this year if he loses to SC this Sat. Hey....if Kelly ultimately doesn't work out there is always Skip! That's right you heard it here first......Skip Holtz to Notre Dame!!!!
You're far from the first person to make that call. George, The team puckered. They got worse and as his tirades got worse. This is football and things won't go our way always. As you said, panic begets panic... That is precisely what happened and it will happen again until either the coach changes or the team leadership takes the team away from the coach.
I call ********, that's revisionism at it's finest there. Lou was well known for his tirades and like his mentor Woody, it's a shame because that overshadowed all of the quiet teaching moments that he had. Just like Woody though, when he lost his mind, he really went off the deep end.. But the face mask drag and the official headlock got TONS of coverage and did for years. To suggest that they were just blips is ********.