Tim, I agree. Wait til mid-January to start worrying. Some of these kids seem to enjoy the turmoil. 8)
Well I watched the tape of the ND spring game. It was terrible, oh not that the guys played terrible, saw some good plays and Zaire looks like he's made a lot of improvement. RB's showed some power and stuff. But the whole format was sort of ragedy, and the scoring system was incomprehensible and that field...yeessh. Of course really all that anybody is talking about is Swarbrick announcing that ND was going with Field Turf in the stadium. That blew up the Irish internet. Naturally many like me don't really care, I'd prefer grass if they could do a good job with it, but mainly I like winning and consider that to be our greatest tradition not natural grass. But there certainly are those who feel betrayed and think that Swarbrick is lying to us when he says that they explored all possible avenues and this was the one that made the most sense. They think he made up his mind mainly to please Kelly who hasn't made it much of a secret that he prefers turf. Oh well just more drama. We now enter into the Spring Evaluation period, the coaches can now get out on the road and visit kids, schools, etc. It' s pretty important time for recruiting. I expect we'll pick up a few more kids before the end of May.
ND <r>Terry,<br/> <QUOTE><s> </e></QUOTE> I was thinking the same thing. I don't think the Coaches and players take this nearly as seriously as fans do. I guess I won't anymore either. At face value though, Zaire looked pretty damn good to me. course I said that after a spring game before about a QB named Hendrix and we call know what happened there.</r>
I've always taken the spring game with a grain of salt, but I actually saw things I liked this year. It definitely was not disappointing for me. Terry, I'm not sure why you thought it was terrible, but to each his own. As far as scoring, I never pay attention to that. That's not why I watch the game. Re: the field turf. There probably are more drama queens among Notre Dame fans that any other program. Terry, I feel exactly as you, that our prevailing tradition is winning regardless of the playing surface, which by the way increasingly is field turf at away stadiums. I read that 37 of 47 major Div. 1 programs in ND's section of the country, going as far west as Nebraska, have field turf. I've worked with several public school corporations in Indiana who analyzed the cost/maintenance of maintaining natural turf vs. installation and maintenance of field turf. It was no contest. Field turf won hands down even before considering that it was usable 365 days a year. I would suggest to the drama queens that they think about how the team will be able to practice on the field as often as desired before and during the season, even in December prior to bowl games. The band will be able to practice on the field during the summer and during the season. There are other advantages that I won't list, but you get the picture. To accuse Swarbrick of pandering to Kelly is beyond ridiculous and shows the ignorance of the accuser regarding the process of analysis and decision-making by which ND operates.
I'd rather see an artificial turf field than a grass field that is constantly torn up during normal play. As long as injuries aren't increased, I really don't care.
The current technology make the turf as close to the real thing as possible, unlike the old astroturf, which was a rug on top of concrete. I don't know the statistics, but I'm guessing that there are no more knee injuries that there are on real grass. Knee injuries were a huge problem with the old stuff.
There are conflicting stats on the injury situation with real vs artificial turf and I think players in general prefer real grass. But that said the grass at ND stadium has been bad for awhile, whether or not Swarbrick gave a fair review of the various grass systems I doubt we'll ever know. Those who feel he didn't probably can't have enough documentation to prove that he did in fact take them into serious consideration. He said though that the Green Bay system was too expensive for us, which is the system I thought for sure we could go with. Also what system does Northwestern have, they have a great grass field.
It will be forever controversial, and Terry is correct that those who are not in favor won't budge. C'est la vie.
The trouble with watching the Spring game is if the offense looks great, I start to worry about what is wrong with the defense. If the defense looks great I worry about the offense. So I usually just go out and cut the grass. :?
Yeah Terry, I didn't think about that. I am mostly cutting weeds right now but you get the point. :wink:
Terry, thank you for your assistance. I did this through Flickr. The first photo is three of my son's kids at the spring game with last year's QB, what's-his-name. :lol: The second is one of the boys wearing Marc Edwards' Super Bowl ring.
Glad I could be of some help...those are awesome pictures. Save the one with the no-name ND QB when he replaces Tom Brady for the Patriots Joel will want to have one autographed!!
Jaylon Smith has been moved to Inside ( Will ) LB today by Brian Kelly. This is interesting because he will undoubtedly be the fastest ILB in college football this year. He will play at 232-235 lbs. I like it. If this kid can find his way through heavy traffic he could be really special. I say put him down for 100+ tackles if he stays healthy. He had almost 70 last year as a true freshman playing outside on instinct only.
Re: Jif. LOL! I was having trouble changing my avatar. The Skybox profile page kept saying that the url was not correct. Finally, I realized that "https" means that the url is secured, so I dropped the s and it worked. I'm learning cool new things from "techno-wiz" Terry. Thanks again. Nice move for Smith. Either Coach feels comfortable with the candidates for starting OLB, or he sees the potential for Smith at MLB, or both
ND <t>Let's hope the Morgan kid is as advertised at the LB position. He may be asked to do a lot in his freshman season.</t>
Quite a few of the better defenses in college football, as well as the NFL, have played with MLBs at that size. Smith has freakish range, so he presents an interesting matchup in the middle.
Reggie Ho is going to be the subject of an ESPN 30 for 30. ND fans all remember Reggie...the rest of you are going who? <iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/-RBOGTc7P08" frameborder="0"></iframe>