ND

Don,

As Terry mentioned I will be keeping an eye on IU basketball to see if the new coach can get them going in the right direction again. Also there will be a lot of bowl games to watch before we get to the end of the year. It’s been a great season for the Irish and hopefully another win or two before it’s over. By the way, you do know I pulling for your Buckeyes against meeeechigan right? I loved it!

 

Do you have one of those reversible jackets Tim? :wink:

 

Terry,

No reversible jacket but I think I just watched the best ICON video of the year. Check it out:

https://youtu.be/sf4ZCFqAg0w

Go Irish!!

 

You know what the best thing is about that video? It ends with 12-0.

 

That was awesome!

 

Tim, I am following that development as well. The Mack family has some very excellent coaches.

 

After the usc game I started to put up a post reference to how the sports media seemed to view ND this whole season but.....YouTube beat me to it! This video sums up my feelings pretty well. Fellow Domers enjoy!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5i5fUEi-pUU

Getting Desmond to ever say anything positive about ND is almost impossible.

 

That was good, every prediction Desmond made was wrong! :shock:

 

Tim,

Thank you for that. It was great. This year, perhaps more than any other year, I've not cared what the talking heads have to say. I know what we have and I've seen with my own eyes what we can do. I welcome all challenges laid before this team.

 

Irish Women's Basketball has a big game with Iowa coming up tonight. Iowa has a great post player in 6'3" Megan Gustafson who is one of the top scorers in the nation and has a shooting % close to 80%. She and Arike are both from Wisconsin, while Megan is from some small town in Northern Wisconsin and played in the lowest classification, Arike is from Milwaukee and played in the highest classification.

It's the ACC/Big10 Challenge on the women's side.

 

Well the women just crushed Iowa tonight. Starters really didn't play the 4th quarter and it was still a 30 point rout. Next up are the #2 ranked UCONN Huskies, a team as equally loaded as the Irish and with maybe the greatest women's basketball coach in history.

 

Irish Women were soundly beaten yesterday by UCONN. I'm not surprised that we lost, UCONN has as much talent or more than the Irish and Geno is the best coach in women's basketball. I was surprised by the margin though, and surprised and disappointed that Arike lost her composure, which she apologized for after the game.

Lots of basketball to be played, 1 loss is not a big deal. That's the good thing about College Basketball. You are not likely to have an undefeated season no matter how good you are, but it doesn't matter...win a lot of games and you'll be playing for your conference title and in the NCAA's with a shot at winning it all.

Irish Men are in New York for the JimmyV Classic and play Oklahoma tomorrow night. Neither team is ranked.

 

Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi:

Narduzzi was asked to compare Clemson to Notre Dame. He did not need much time to contemplate his response.

"There's no comparison," Narduzzi said frankly. "Clemson is the best football team we've played so far to this point."


AP Coches poll

- Nick Saban - Voted Clemson #1
- Dan Mullen, Barry Odom and Gus Malzahn voted UGA over Notre Dame. Kirby Smart did not.
- Ken Niumatalolo voted for UGA at 3, ND at 4 and UCF at 5.
- Pat Narduzzi put Clemson #1 and ND #4 and UCF at 5. Pitt played all 3.
- B12 coaches were basically the only others to vote Notre Dame out of the 3 spot and it was in favor of Oklahoma.
- Overall, it looks like Notre Dame has some respect from the coaches for going 12-0. I believe Dan Mullen had Notre Dame the lowest at No. 5.

 

It's award season, with the Heisman topping the list. It will be awarded this week.

A lot of the awards, actually most, end up being recognized on an ESPN Show.

Drew Tranquil just won the Danny Wuerffel Trophy. Previous winners include Tim Tebow.

https://www.wuerffeltrophy.org/news1/drue-tranquill-of-notre-dame-selected-as-14th-wuerffel-trophy-recipient


Sam Mustipher is a finalist for the Rimington Award, named of course after the great Neb center Dave Rimington.

The OL is also in the final group for the Joe Moore award for the top OL unit. I don't expect to win, but it's pretty cool to have won it last year and to have been in the conversation as one of the best OL's in the country again this year. Surprisingly when you read most of the ND sites they don't give a lot of praise to the ND OL this year. But that group who evaluates things for the Joe Moore award is a stellar group of former players and coaches.

 

Forbes Article on the Money in the CFP.

For the Irish it's:

$6 million for CFP participation in the semifinals
$2.34 million for expense reimbursement (travel, lodging, etc)
$2.9 million for meeting the APR standard

Note: they would've gotten the $2.9 million for the APR regardless of our record this year. Also, because ND is not playing in a bowl using an ACC tie-in this year, they will not receive a share of the ACC bowl "pot" that the conference divvies out.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristidosh/2018/12/04/alabama-clemson-notre-dame-and-oklahoma-differ-when-it-comes-to-college-football-playoff-payouts/#30379ede3fa7

 

ND has a playoff package of behind the scenes prep for the Cotton Bowl. It's 9$, I'm in!

https://und.com/watch/for-nd-cfbplayoff.aspx?Archive=7330&sport=52&type=Archive

 

ND Men lost a relatively close game to OU last night in Madison Square Garden for the Jimmy V classic. I watched most of the 2nd half and we kept it close and at the end had a chance but our Sr. Leader Rex Pfleugger bricked two critical free throws and that was pretty much it.

Young players are looking better, it's still going to be a rough year with our Sr's so far not playing like expected and the young guys are young guys. It's not like most Brey teams where the best players are Jr's and Sr's. and where we have good leadership. Obviously this can all turnaround, but I expect to be at best middle of the pack in the ACC, and likely not make the NCAA's or maybe make it as one of the last 4 in the tourney.

But these freshman give me a lot of hope that the future is looking pretty good....as Al McGuire used to say, the best thing about freshman is that they become sophmores!

 

Brian Kelly is the Home Depot Coach of the Year. I didn't know there were so many Coach of the Year awards, maybe Saban will get to win one this year!

Dabo won the Woody Hayes, and I think there is a Bear Bryant Coach of the Year award, maybe some others as well.

 

That loss to UConn by the Irish women just seems to be getting worse, with both Arike and Coach apologizing for things that went on late in the game. Coach McGraw was embarassed by the play, the chippy play and the lack of character. It's sort of messy to say the least. They play next at Toledo this weekend, as coach says they have a lot to fix including attitude. So surprising for a team that is loaded with upper class leaders, who right now aren't doing a very good job.

They have the talent to win a lot of games and get back to the final four. But they have to get their heads together and focus on this season. There is a lot of speculation that they have been reading their press clippings and reveling too much in what they did last year rather than the business at hand.

We'll see.

 

Terry, I like AJ's signature

8)