Tommy Hawkins and all time great Irish Basketball player died yesterday in his sleep. Was really a pioneer at ND for black student/athletes. There is a story about him and his white date being refused service at a South Bend restaurant and Fr. Hesburgh banned ND students from eating there, then Paul Hornung stepped in and took him back to the restaurant and got the owner to apologize to Tommy personally. He worked for the Dodgers for a long time as their director of communications and was also MC for 30 years of the Wooden Award presentation. Great man, RIP.
Tommy Hawkins was a legend out here. He was a sportscaster on the nightly news for many years. He also had long associations with the Dodgers and Lakers, as well as local high school sports... RIP
B <r>Kelly's interview on Bleacher Report has blown up in a furor on NDNation. <br/> <br/> He weakly blames outside responsibility for fund raising for last years bad record. Maybe he was distracted, but that's his fault. He should have told them to stick it he had a football team to coach and didn't have time for all that other stuff. <br/> <br/> Last season was on him and his decisions, to keep BVG, to attempt to placate Malik Zaire with a QB battle when he should have backed Kizer after what he did in 2015. Nope I'm not buying that last year was deep sixed by his fund raising duties. <br/> <br/> <URL url="http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2726550">http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2726550</URL></r>
Terry, How many years does he have remaining on his current contract? Certainly, a lot of obstacles to overcome if he stays. I would venture the odds are not in his favor.
I think he has 2 or 3 more years on his contract. Since they just got through paying off Charlie Weis, I would think that might have been one of the factors in him being brought back, the buyout. Either way he needs a significant improvement this year, now what constitutes that? doubling your wins to 8-4? That won't cut for a lot of ND fans. 10-2 sure that will cut it most likely. Those new guys he brought in will have to coach their asses off to save his and their jobs. This is so much like the Texas situation last year where they brought in a lot of new coaches including some offense guru's to try and right the ship for Charlie Strong. It didn't and they all lost their jobs. I would not be shocked if Chip Long, Charlie Lea and Mike Elko all have contracts that pay them for several years if Kelly is canned after this season.
Notre Dame has a well documented history of paying coaches NOT to coach for them so I don't think that will stop them if Kelly lays another egg.
Notre Dame and Purdue have expanded their football series and will now play 6 times between 2021 and 2028. Irish play at home in 2021, 2025 and 2027. The play at Purdue in 2024, 2026, 2028. I think that the new Purdue AD is a Notre Dame grad has a lot to do with this series being revived. Old Purdue AD was concerned with the new B1G schedule that might cause the years where the Boilermakers played at ND to not have enough home games.
I read Kelly's comments and didn't interpret them as laying blame on anyone or any activity. I see them simply as an acknowledgement that there were distractions. In further comments, he was up front in laying the blame on himself. I guess I don't have the negativity gene that exists among so many rabid ND fans who comprise a very small but highly vocal segment of the fan base. I also notice that there are sportswriters on the lower rung of the ability ladder who pay attention to the negativity and pander to it in their writings. It's very simple. If the team does well enough this year to convince the administration that last year was a blip, he'll stay. If not, he'll go, all weeping and gnashing of teeth notwithstanding.
Irish held a scrimmage Sunday in the stadium. Depending on who you believe, it was proof that Kelly can't coach or a reason for optimism. I want to be optimistic for the season, I was in Gerry Faust's last year. I didn't have much faith that Gerry was going to finally get it going the right direction, but before the season I hoped for it. Same for Davie, Willingham, and Weis....I was hoping. I'm hoping the new coaches, the more experienced offense, etc will produce a fun winning season. Hopefully that last's longer than Sept!
I am fairly certain we have seen the best of Brian Kelly. I am resting my hopes on the new coaching staff.
ND <t>Back in January I wasn't optimistic at all but there have been a lot of changes on the coaching staff that have changed me to now being mildly optimistic. Let's see if all the changes make a difference cause I really don't want to go they another coaching change and wait three years to see if it works.</t>
Never thought I'd see this day... Compton Family Ice Center at Notre Dame. I get it that once the CCHA went down and Hockey East wasn't a good fit this was the logical move. But still... [/img]
DeShone Kizer announced as the starter Saturday against Tampa Bay. This means he will probably be the starter for the regular season, unless he falls flat on his face Saturday. Biggest knock on him was that he was not ready yet for NFL style offense...yet despite still having a long way to go he has apparently impressed everybody with his intelligence and ability to learn fast. His athletic ability is a given. Will he be another Brown's rookie QB thrown to the wolves much too soon???
I hope he does well, I have a feeling Hue Jackson might be the guy who finally gets the Browns going again.
The various spread types of offense in college don't prepare these QB's for the NFL. While maybe Kizer would have benefited from another year of college in terms of growth and maturity and stuff like that I doubt if it would have made him any more NFL ready. Carson Wenz was ready for the NFL even though he didn't play big time football because not only did he have size and arm strength but he played in a Pro Style offense. The QB at Wyoming is supposedly NFL ready again because he plays in a Pro Style offense. Deshaun Watson with the Texans even though he was great college QB isn't really ready for the NFL, it'll take him awhile. You can see that he has talent and all but it'll take him a year or so to become a NFL QB.
As we get nearer to kickoff a lot of HS have already played their first game. ND QB verbal for 2018 Phil Jurkovec's first game was a dozzy he threw for a ton of yards and looked very mobile from all the reports I read. Our LB from Calif, Jack Lamb was injured and will miss a month. One of our targets at TE, Tommy Tremble broke his ankle and is done for the season. I guess we need to switch to a game week topic pretty soon for the Irish.