I'm not calling for Kelly's head. I certainly don't want to can Uncle Rico. I'm trying to take a level headed approach to this (scoff though you may) and I've got some questions that I want answered. 1. Game management play calling: Gip mentioned 2 instances in the other section from tonight. We could all cite instances in Kelly's tenure in which we openly question the football soundness of the decision. I'm not talking run vs pass.. or woulda coulda shoulda. Why go for 2 when a PAT makes it a 2 TD game? Why throw a ball into the end zone when a FG wins the game (the loss to Tulsa)? We have, in each season, some call that even an average high school coach would not make and we wonder (I think justifiably) WTF is this guy thinking? Even Tubesteak didn't do that many dumb things and that moron made his bones as a 'river boat gambler' going for it unnecessarily all the time. I would like a real OC, and not one that is a mere puppet. If you think Nick Saban doesn't want to choke the **** out of Kiffin 10 times a week, you haven't been paying attention. At the same time, I strongly believe Nick knows that Kiffin is exactly what he needs. That's what a real head coach does. I believe Kelly has that ability. He has to put down the headset and overlook the entire operation. 2. Situational play calling. Again, this requires a real OC who can tuck his pride and approach the game with a sound plan that may well be overruled by the HC but he'll at least have his say. Tonight is yet another example in which the other team simply cannot stop something that we are capable of doing, yet we refuse to do it because 'it's not who we are.' That's ********. We've been that team before. His ego won't allow him to be 'that team' more than once or twice a year, and it hurts the team. I'm not calling for the excavation of the Holtz career and a return to the triple option, but if the other team can't stop the run..run the god damned ball. If they can't stop the pass, throw a pass. Templates are for hobbyists, not professionals. 3. Special teams. It's something every year, but we're actually (oddly) better this year than the previous seasons. Anyway, does anyone understand them in this program? You do not start holding open tryouts and swapping out holders 8 games into the season. You had almost an entire year to find a holder, a backup holder and a backup backup holder. If Flutie is telling the truth, Zaire is learing on the job and we can't have that right now. 4. QB management. Kelly is supposed to be a QB guy and I just don't get it. There are times when things aren't going well and you need to sit a guy, even if it's just to get his head back on straight. We keep rolling guys out there no matter how bad things are going and it makes you wonder just how bad the guy behind him is. (spoiler, he's not bad) As the announcers noted today, Golson ran a few times today and you could see him clench because he's so worried about fumbling the ball. That's a guy with major confidence issues... so those worried about a benching, or sitting out a few series hurting his confidence, there's the other side of the coin for you. When Kelly was at Cincinnati, he had a 4 man rotation at QB that grew out of necessity but eventually just continued because he could ride the hot man in the offense. Where did that go? 5. Defense. Oddly, the only thing that makes sense to me IS the defensive struggles. I don't get hung up on the yardage they are giving up because that is a unit literally decimated by injury and suspension. I don't want to hear this 'injuries happen' ****, these guys are gutted before the coin flip. We have a talented MLB who just isn't mentally ready to play MLB yet. That's not his fault. He's replacing the original starting MLB who was replacing another injured starting MLB. Our secondary is so thin that we might as well hold open tryouts among the student body for depth purposes. We're running true freshman out there and putting them on an island. Despite all their shortcomings, they still manage to create turnovers and stops that are more than enough to win the game. Coming into the year, we KNEW that our problem could/would be defense and they've actually faced more adversity than any of us could have anticipated. Still, they compete and make plays. It's really hard to not recognize that this incredibly young and thin unit spends all day on the field as it is, but when you have an offense that is a turnover machine, that makes the job almost impossible. Overall: I have some serious questions about how the team is run. As George mentioned last week, we seem to live and die with Golson. Last year, we lived and died with Tommy. It seems that every year, we live and die with 1 guy and the backup option is just so unthinkable that we dare not touch it. I'm calling ********. The only season in which we didn't have that problem, we went to the NC game using both Rees and Golson. Now, be mindful that I'm not advocating a 2 QB system. I'm saying that no one guy is the entire program. We can talk all that **** we want about 'Next man in' but it's hogwash. We only seem to take 'Next Man In' when we're talking about a suspension or an injury. If it's performance related, especially at QB, we aren't true to our own word. Due to a variety of factors, we're in a tough situation and we need to make the best of this season, or what's left of it. I do believe that we have the tools to be a playoff team/title contender. However, in order to do that, we're going to have to take a hard line assessment of how we do things and what we really are as a program in the off-season.
Well, this has received no interest but I do believe the question to be a valid one.. Where the f*ck are we going? We've been in the car for a while now and some of the scenery is starting to look familiar. It's fine if we're just driving around, but I want to know there's an actual point to all of this.
Corey, I think there is plenty of interest in ND Nation. However, the shell shock has not yet worn off.
I'll respond later, I'm still too bummed out to make long posts or take part in deep conversations. We lost.
Hey guys good news, Muschamp is available. Seriously though I feel your pain, our game yesterday with S. Carolina was won but way to conservative playing not to lose in fact caused us to lose. I like Will Muschamp as a person but did finally reach the conclusion that he needed to go. Hey I saw some columnist who said that Florida should consider Brian Kelly.
Corey Let me first make the observation that football coaches even the most successful have character issues. Some have the personality of a Kimono Dragon. Some can't stay at a school more than 3 years. Some have scandalous personal lives. In short, none are perfect. Brian Kelly has some strong points being a good recruiter and being able to assemble a good staff. If he has one flaw, I think it's paying attention to details. Sat. was a perfect example. He made 2 decisions that completely ignored the reality of the situation. I can't help but think of how Lou always was aware of the situation and paid attention to every detail. Special teams require attention to detail to be successful. It's more than the kicker, it's the snapper and the holder. Teams that pay attention to detail slow down defenders enough to return punts. Ball security is so much attention to detail. We've seen in the past week what the lack of attention to detail can cause in football games. What we need are strong, confident coordinators that can take care of the little things and advise Kelly during the heat of battle. Kelly needs an OC and BVG needs a little more time with him before they can have meaningful input during games.
One of my first posts this season concerned my shock and dismay when I saw the depth chart for the defense. While Kelly's recruiting has put better athletes on that side of the ball, they're all young at the same time......and that's never good. What I saw was freshmen and sophomores everywhere...teenagers......18/19 year-old kids. Their on-field leaders were a former walk-on middle LB and an oft-injured senior safety. Then BOTH went down... The injury to Joe Schmidt was the killer. He's a coach on the field and a respected team captain. He made sure that all the kids knew where to go and what to do. Since he went down, we have given up a bazillion points against some pretty mediocre competition. Without him, the Irish often have two freshmen and a soph at LB; a freshman at BOTH DE spots; and another freshman over the center. They took out Morgan to talk with him for awhile and he was replaced by Martini......another freshman... Meanwhile... in the back of the defense; chaos reigned. In the first half, Northwestern had receivers wide open over the middle...deep over the middle...every time Collinsworth was brought up to play run. The others seemed to have no idea what to do or where to go, and the NW WRs dropped several TD passes that went over their heads. That didn't happen in the second half, because BVG made a simple adjustment. He put his best athlete back there (Drue Tranquill: another freshman.) and he kept Collinsworth back there with him. The result was to shut down the deep stuff over the middle late in the game, but by then it was too late. You can't make them older and you can't spread a thin senior class any farther.. This kiddie-corps will just have to learn the hard way. As for Kelly, I don't know why he doesn't understand basic arithmetic. If he kicks the extra point; we win. If he teaches his players NOT to reach over the goal line; we win. If.......Oh never mind. At least they finally wised up and moved Flutie to the booth. I loved his analysis during the game and he criticized (properly) Kelly during the game for his playground clock management and strange decisions. I hope they keep that up...
And in spite of all this, it was only Kelly's inexplicable decision to go for two when one would seal the victory that lost the game. That decision was so bad, so incomprehensible, that the imagination runs away with all kinds of crazy theories. Perhaps in the end he simply did not understand the situation. And this why I have always despised thee idea of Kelly being his own OC. He can't multi- task under fire. Period.
haha AJ is still punch drunk from this weekend. Misery loves company, so stick around Husker. Gipper, you make a really good point there. JOCO/George-See, that's the thing for me. I think Kelly can do it. He was a clusterf*ck when he multitasked. He became a focused HC making all the right decisions when he was left to making only the executive decisions. I don't think Kelly is as great as he thinks he is, but I think he can be close to what he thinks he is. That's one reason I want to keep him. The other reason is that I have a bit of Tina Turner syndrome. You can compare a 4 or 5 loss Kelly team to the **** we experienced under Ty or Chuckles, but it's just not the same.
haha damn it Ralph. I'm going to post these numbers over here in this topic because they're about to get lost in a non-ND subject. People keep bashing the defense. All parts of this team have been **** for 3 weeks, but people keep blaming the 1 part of the team that has been hurt the worst by injury and suspension.. meanwhile, while they are giving up yards, they are creating turnovers and making plays. These numbers do not lie. Pulled from the NCAA's DB. Look right at that and tell me this offense isn't the problem?
:roll: Nearly all the turnovers are being caused by one guy. I think we've reached the point where Golson needs some bench time after the next blunder. He can contemplate his mistakes on the Tree of Woe...
At least Notre Dame has an entertaining 4 or 5 loss team. They lose with flair. Muschamp is out because his offense was boring to go along with the 4 or 5 losses.
For those who are mesmerized by Doug "Dipsh*t" Flutie, the next time you listen to his analysis, do so with the understanding that he does not like Notre Dame and never has. Of course he takes Kelly to task because it gives him great joy to say something negative relating to ND. Case in point: He questioned at length the PI call on Robinson's defender late in the game but was completely silent earlier on the PI call on ND on the exact same type of situation (ball thrown well short of receiver) on NW's first 2-point try. It gave NW a second chance, and they made it. Those who are obsessed with Kelly's decision to go for two might want to look at that call as one of several reasons for NW being able to tie the game at the end. I learned many years ago that as annoying as ND fans can be after a loss - and this was an especially ugly loss - most of those who are critical fail to take into account the total picture, not just of the game but of the entire season. IMO Corey hit the nail squarely on the head when he talked about the youth and inexperience of the defense. They simply don't know yet how to handle adversity. The entire team is young and relatively inexperienced in dealing with adversity. They are paying their dues. The negatives of this season will become positives over the next 2-3 years. I've seen it before in my life in other venues. A team with good coaching and promising (key word...promising....but not yet there) talent does not perform up to the expectations of the fan base, so the fans turn on the team, the coach, and anyone else close to the situation. The team matures over the next year or two and begins to blow the socks off the opposition. FWIW, I believe we have excellent coaching at the top and on both sides of the ball, and we have outstanding talent in all areas. For that reason, I believe that we will pay our dues this season, and we will grow through the adversity of experiences like the NW game.
Sid is correct. I don't know if Flutie hates ND, but I do know he doesn't like ND. It's funny that Sid mentions the PI hypocrisy because I noted that same situation here during the game (although a lot louder, with far more profanity mixed in there). Interestingly enough, watching the ass kicking in the desert and then the discombobulated clusterbomb last week, I've been hearing Sid in my head mentioning his annual speech about senior leadership. This team doesn't have any. Hell, they don't really have any seniors.