Sid, Sid, Sid... I respectfully disagree When your child can recite their ABCs, you applaud when they are 4 but if they are 40, it's just proving that they still have a signal in the brain. The design of the offense is one for stats and fluff.. That was a very fluff game against a god awful team. The bottom line is, Rees is not good. Ask yourself this.. to win it all.. we have Floyd running a post route that has to be thrown on the slant 20 yards downfield before he enters safety support.. Where would you put Rees? How many other QBs would you rather have then him? Remember, this is the same offense that went thru 5 QBs in their BCS season at Cincy.. Terry, I don't see why one would come play for us, honestly. You can say he can see what an average to bad QB is doing in this offense..but who is to say he'd get a sniff? I agree with you. Kelly is 'all in' on Rees. I've seen no evidence that a young gun would get a chance. Honestly, recruiting AGAINST Kelly doesn't look like it would be too tough. I'm sure I am missing something but maybe not.. other coaches can point to how Kelly has used the QBs.. point to how he threw a kid under the bus.. and then stuck with one instead of using the talented younger players. Didn't this kid commit to Indiana, anyway? I do know I watched that QB camp show this year and it was rather interesting.. Again, not that it means anything, but it was an interesting peek into what's coming up. As for our LBs, I have to disagree.. With Carlo, he's a run stopper and heavy hitter who contributes. He does get beat in pass but he takes away certain other things. Fox gets beat in run, he gets beat in pass. He never fills that gap selflessly so someone else can step in to fill. He's another example of things this staff does that I just don't get..
And so I watched Hendrix get into the game against a "god awful team" and after 2 magnificent plays it was 3rd and 7. So Kelly puts in the fluff QB who throws a TD pass and I come to the conclusion that he isn't great but what is behind him that causes great anticipation. Sorry, don't see it.
the fluff QB has put us behind plenty of 8 balls.. the coach has only ever shown confidence in one of them. Again, if you were a QB, why would you come play for us?
Sure the coach whose job depends on his won loss record plays the QB who doesn't give him the best chance of winning because.....I give up.
Gip, that pass to Eifert was a beauty to behold. Perfect read, fast release, across the body on the numbers.
Welcome to the club Gip! There's lots of teams who play on Saturday and you can see the method behind the madness. You can see the process. Even those teams who aren't there yet, you can see where they are trying to go.. And then there are teams that are just incredibly talented and you have no idea WTF they are doing. We are one of those teams. As Terry mentioned, and I believe he is correct, he (Kelly) was trying to score more points to get into the top25.. Is that really where we're at? Running up the score against a hapless Maryland team so we can squeak into the bottom of the top 25? Had the guy been doing his job from the get go, perhaps wins over average squads like South Florida and Michigan (sorry Bob) would take care of all that.
I have no idea where you are coming from Corey? How is Kelly's offfense so different from the other spread offenses in college football that make it unattractive for a QB?
Terry, In its practical application. At other programs, there's a chance that the best QB will be on the field... not at ND. Please note, in an entire season of countless passes.. we have people hanging their hats on this game against perhaps the worst defense we will play all year as 'proof' that Rees isn't terrible. If you can't let young QBs grow and go out to make mistakes in a game like this, when can you? You said it yourself, he left Rees out there to pad the stats and bump the numbers.. against Maryland....
First of all, we did not run up the score. I wish we ran up scores more than we do because college football is a beauty pageant.. You can accuse Kelly of various misdeeds but running up scores isn't one of them. Rees limits Kelly's offense because he has zero running ability. When they line up in the shotgun with the RB standing next to Rees it is either a handoff or pass because Rees is going nowhere. They don't even assign a man to him on defense. We don't know enough about Hendrix to count on him. We are about a 100 point favorite against BC so maybe he'll get some PT this week. Considering that Maryland was never in this game, Kelly was animated and upset a lot on the sidelines.
I agree with George, I think everybody knows that Rees is limited in his skill set at QB and that is limiting the offense. All I had to do is watch the Cincy offense with Zach Collearos to see how much positive impact a QB who can run has on the offense, or for that matter just about any of the Spread offenses. Heck Colin Klein at Kansas State is a Tebow like runner and just an adequate passer yet that offense is hard to defend because you have to account for the QB in all phases. As far as Hendrix, again Krebs is spot on here, we have no idea what Hendrix can do we have only seen him very little this year and some plays in the Spring game. We can see that he's a strong runner but we know nothing about his ability to execute the passing game. Now that said I don't know why we haven't seen more of him late in games, but I have to assume that Kelly doesn't trust him yet and Kelly knows that he needs wins more than he needs Hendrix to get game action. I have to assume that he feels that Hendrix is not going to unseat Tommy this year and that Tommy needs every snap he can get to further his developement. As to why Crist was yanked so quickly and has never sniffed playing time again I have no idea of course. As far as RUTS or not, I do think he kept Rees in there to get the score over 40 points, that's maybe not the definition of RUTS what Stoops does is RUTS he would keep Bradford in throwing to the endzone when he was already up 60pts.
Hendrix <r><QUOTE><s> </e></QUOTE> Unfortunately, I think that's the crux of the situation. <E>:?</E></r>
Another postscript: As Bob W. indicated last week, FedEx Field is an absolute dump. Our seats were the worst I have ever sat in. Picture sitting under a bridge overpass, way up high on the slanted surface. Could not see any of the sky. had a four foot wide cracking concrete support beam directly in front of us which took the 10-20 yard line area out of view. Cracked concrete everywhere. Filthy inside the stadium. Bathrooms all flooded. $9.00 for a Bud Light! Told the concession guy I would rather drink my own piss. Horrendous parking and only one way out that I saw. Took us 45 minutes to get out of the parking lot... and we're from Jersey! We had a cute, drunk blonde in front of us who would flash her boobs every time she though the camera was pointed our way. One of my son's friends told her that if he had known she would be there he would have brought some $1s to stuff down her thong. Her husband didn't like that. My son then threatened to throw him out of the upper deck. Fun night. :?
I have seen mostly positive posts about game experiences, obviously not all can be positive. It was the same with the game in San Antonio, I really liked the game partly of course because we won but also it was just an excellent weekend. The Alamo Dome is no great shakes as a stadium, some posted it was a dump but I disagree it's not a dump but it's also not a palace like Reliant Stadium either. Last year's game in Yankee Stadium got lots of good reviews as well so it seems like in general the "Shamrock Series" is doing pretty well. The Yankee Stadium game was a sellout but neither the Alamo Dome or FEDEX Field were sellouts. I think that right now the Irish lack that certain something that we had in the days when Lou was on the sidelines and we were always loaded with good players and considered to be an elite level program. Now we are trying to get there but that affects interest in these games. I am guessing the game next year in Solider Field will be a sellout but there is no way in hell the can sellout Cowboyland for a game with ASU in 2013. Might have another 50K+ crowd like we did for Wazzu.
Corey, I'm a Jet season ticketholder. I have a PH.d in rude fan behavior from years of observation. This is what happens when college kids tailgate for six hours before the game and beer is sold inside throughout.
Did you yell at them to sit down during the game! This is a big hot button on a lot of ND sites, guys equating standing up while cheering as being greater than sitting down and cheering. Sometimes I think people want ND fans to stand the whole game like A&M students.
IMO, this always is going to be a hot button issue in any stadium in the country. It pits younger, more openly exhuberant fans against the older folks or fans with young kids. I don't know how you solve the problem except to call an usher if the folks in front of you are being intentionally discourteous.