ND <t>Well say what you want about Kelly but you can't say he is just putting a band-aid on in terms of revamping his coaching staff. He's covered just about all his bases and then some with these hires and for the most part they are good ones as far as I'm concerned. Guess he must figure that if he doesn't get it right for this season that it's over in SB for him. I'm hoping it works cause I really don't want to go through another HC change right now.</t>
I wish I had been able to watch, but I was at a professional meeting. Women had an easy time with Pitt I see. Another tough contest with a very good Va.Tech team coached by former Marquette coach Buzz Williams. Women go to Knoxville Monday to take on the Lady Vols, who are a likely a year away. They have a fabulous recruiting class coming in next year. This year they are 10-6. We should win but at Knoxville it won't be easy and I'm sure they will be ready for us.
I'm with you Tim, I have my doubts for sure about Kelly, 7 yrs in he shouldn't have be in this position. Plus while 2012 and 2015 were excellent years with the team in the race all the way. But the other years were just average and last year was a disaster. I do wonder how things would have gone if instead of BVG, he'd hire a real good college DCoord who actually was a good recruiter? That's on Kelly. And keeping Booker when it was clear his ST's were not up to par, that's on Kelly. I like the new hires, but experience has taught me to withhold the final evaluation till we see what they actually do for the team in the win's and losses.
ND <r>Terry,<br/> <QUOTE><s> </e></QUOTE> I agree. I keep asking myself, why couldn't he have done this type of hiring before? We need at least 9 or 10 wins this season to get things going in the right direction again.</r>
You can't expect much from any jockey with a lame horse. We have some players coming back from a 4-8 team and a disappointing recruiting class. We'll have a starting QB with almost no game experience. Our D line last year was an embarrassment. I'm not optimistic for next season at all.
No doubt Kelly has earned the lack of confidence that ND fans have in him. On a more positive note Irish men get another road win knocking off Va Tech in dramatic fashion. Never been 5-0 before, nobody expects them to have an undefeated ACC record but right now this is a better team than was generally expected.
Irish women lost a close game at Knoxville to Tenn. Had a shot to win it but clanked it off the front of the rim. While I can't say I watch a lot of their games, but from the comments I read and what I see this team was pretty over rated to start the year, they seem to lack leadership and don't have the same level of team play that we've seen in the past. The good news is that we'll still win a lot of games but we are unlikely to be a top seed anymore. We could still get hot at tournament time and make a good run. But somebody will have to step forward as a leader and take charge on the court.
Terry, I watched the game last night. I agree with your assessment of the lack of leadership. It looks like the best players on the team are the younger ones. The team certainly is not able to step on an opponent's throat and finish them off. That's the attitude I see lacking. I saw it last night.
Tarean Folston leaving early for the NFL? Now this is a head scratcher. Career went in the wrong direction for two years and he was not even a starter. Good luck.
Taurean Folston has graduated so good luck to him. It was really his best move I guess, he would have likely been at best the #2 back and maybe the #3 or #4 back on a team that doesn't emphasize the run. I thought he might have used the 5th year transfer thing, but then I guess he figured that if he was shooting craps with his career he might as well try the NFL. Realistically the most he can hope for is to 1) stay healthy enough to catch on and make it through OTA's to the training camp as a FA and 2) catch on to a practice squad.
ND <t>Just watched some video on Avery Davis, the QB coming in with the 2017 class. I like what I'm seeing. Should be a great QB for the Irish in the near future.</t>
Yeah I think we're OK at QB esp if we can hang on the the Jurkovec kid from PA. Wimbush likely starter 2017 and 2018. Jurkovec would be a freshman in 2018 and could RS, and Book and Davis could back up Wimbush, then in 2019 we'd have some good competition for the starter. Right now though things are looking bleak, we have a bunch of B list type of offers out there trying to fill out this class but no verbals. A bunch of visits coming up in the next 2 weeks, but it's unlikely we're going to fill all the scholarships available and if we do it might be with players who are barely 3 stars. This is going to be our lowest rated class in awhile. Basketball: At FSU tonight, FSU is a really good team, much longer and taller than the Irish. Hard to predict a win in this one.
ND <t>Terry<br/> <br/> I agree with you that things look bad as far as the incoming class but I'd rather end up with a smaller class with a lot of quality than give scholarships to kids who are just going to be fillers and not very productive for us. Hopefully we land at least a couple more quality players at least on defense and hang on to the rest of the scholarships for next year which hopefully will end up being much better in terms of win/loss than this past year.</t>
I was able to watch most of the 2nd half of the men's loss to FSU last night. They gave FSU a run for their money, if there is such a thing as a good loss a 3 point loss to FSU on the road when we had our chances to win is a good loss. Too many turnovers and missed free throws, something that we are usually very good at, were critical. FSU also shot the 3 very well and had a lot of blocks on us inside.
Interesting article you guys might like...about a guy who graduated from a local HS here in Mansfield (after coming over from a WWII refugee camp) and started the soccer team at Notre Dame...without ever having played on a soccer team before. The part I like is how he tries out twice to be an NFL kicker...but ended up competing against George Blanda...and then Lou Groza. :shock: http://www.mansfieldnewsjournal.com/story/sports/local/2017/01/18/irish-nd-soccer-echelle/96724216/