Yeah that was a huge verbal for the Longhorns. It's been awhile since we've signed a RB that highly ranked.
Irish are through their 1st day of Fall Camp, and from all reports there were no injuries!! From what I have read the OL looks good, the starting 5 esp Hainsey and Kraemer are all healthy. Kraemer has slimmed down a bit and is more mobile, both he and Hainsey had leg/ankle issues early last season that impacted their play. WR's all, esp the Soph's all seemed to show some speed and some hands. RB's were solid, Jafar Armstrong reported in great shape and a little thicker to take the pounding that RB's get, Tony Jones Jr, actually lost a bit of weight but still in great shape. Kyren Williams the kid from St. Louis who had a great HS career looks like he's ready to play some in relief of the top 2. Defense, has a lot of talent, esp at LB but of course there is some lack of experience. We'll see how those young LB's take to the job. No mention of who will be the Captains yet.
This season could go either way. We are basically new up the middle on Defense and have a new punter and kicker. And they need someone to dominate across from Claypool at WR.
I think that's the conventional wisdom George. Lost Tillery, Lost Tranquil, and Lost Coney. Backups except for Bilal have very little experience. There is more than just a little talent though in those new guys at LB, I expect they will be very good (eventually). We do have a high expectations for the DE's Okowara and Kareem in the pass rush dept but up the middle we'll have to wait and see.
Irish Women's basketball lost one of their best asst coaches, Neile Ivey, took a job with the Memphis Grizzlies. Good luck to her, she won a National Championship as a player and an asst coach, she was integral in the recruitment of many of the top players we've had at Notre Dame. She'll be hard to replace.
Well 1. I've crossed the 50,000 posts threshold! 2. The Irish have their first injury of Fall camp. RB Jahmir Smith broke his hand, but is still able to practice with some sort of cast on it. It's bound to happen, injuries are part of the game. I hope we can avoid the major injury to a key player.
Yes I'm seeing that as well, he's a freshman and reportedly suffered a significant knee injury in practice yesterday. Lost for the year. He was very talented, not likely to have played this year very much if at all, but still will lose a lot of time that freshmen OL's use to get bigger and stronger in the weight room.
Another day another injury. Cole Kmet injured his shoulder and likely will miss multiple games. Was really looking forward to his play this season. We do have quite a few TE on the team, none with the potential that Cole has though.
Reading practice reports is frustrating, if the offense is making good plays does that mean the defense sucks. If the defense is making good plays does that mean the offense sucks? I saw one report that praised the interior of the Irish OL, said they had a good day. But those guys go against reportedly the weakness of the Irish defense, the interior DL and the inside LB. While the Tackles (Ecihenberg and Hainsey) weren't give very high grades, but those guys are going against Julian Okowara who a lot of people see as a 1st round pick at LB, and Kahlid Kareem who is also really really good. I have read some positive things about Phil Jurkovec. Saw one report that said he's worked through his mechanics on throwing and the ball is coming out cleaner with a tighter spiral and better accuracy. I hope so, that kid had such a great HS career maybe only Jimmy Clausen in recent memory hit the campus more ballyhooed.
Terry, I agree the practice reports are sometimes frustrating. It does sound like our defense should be pretty damn good. Questions there would be at LB but coaches seems confident. Sounds like Michael Young is coming into his own at WR so the combination of him, Finke and Claypool is a solid group of starting WRs. Ian Book is well....Ian Book and that is good all by it self. Jurkovec sounds better than he was in Spring Ball for sure. Hopefully Book stays healthy though. Kicking game???? I know I'm always more optimistic than others on the Irish but we should win 10 games, with some luck maybe 11. Too many big games on the road this year against really good teams
I would think two losses this year would be a resounding success. So far both of the new kickers have been erratic. Punter has good hang time but is punting 38-38 yards. Kickers have been so-so. We are spoiled in that department. Reading how Okwara has been owning anyone across from him. Good news. Bad news.
Pete Sampson had an article on The Athletic about the ND recruiting staff. He mostly interviewed Polian, who said the current staff was the best recruiting staff he's been associated with in his career. I do think for the most part that is true, but Brian Kelly comes under fire by a lot of people because he doesn't work as hard as Urban did, or Saban and Dabo do, nor Harbaugh and Ryan Day either. Some feel that he's the weak link in recruiting the high level kids. Sampson didn't say that but I've gotten that feeling from reading a lot of ND boards.
Thought I'd mention an unusual email I received today. The Morris Inn is advertising via email "select rooms available" for the Sept. 14 New Mexico game. In the internet/email era, I don't recall the Morris Inn ever advertising much less having rooms available on any home game weekend. Looks like the powers that be are speeding down the road of overpricing the product.