If I hear one more comment about Rees, I'm going to burst. Geezus! I say thank goodness he came to ND and thank goodness he was our QB when we needed him. I say to those who think they know the game and who say, "I'm glad his time has come", ask yourself, what if he wasn't on the team when Golson couldn't handle the pressure early in the 2012 season? When Golson got hurt? When Golson committed an egregiously stupid mistake that hurt the team for the entire 2013 season? What if......? What's with this "Golson is our savior"? Bull crap. You have short memories. We didn't go undefeated in 2012 because of Golson. We were undefeated because of our defense and because Rees put the fires out that Golson couldn't. We didn't lose 4 games because of Tommy Rees. I can't say the results of those 4 games would have been different if Golson had been our QB. We lost those games because this team did not have leadership or the heart of a champion. The seniors let us down. There are 85 scholarship players on the team for a reason. It never comes down to one player. It's a team win and a team loss. There are 22-plus players who share responsibility for a loss and who celebrate together the wins. To anyone who even implies that Tommy Rees was remotely responsible for our four losses, I say, bull crap. We will win or lose in the future if leaders emerge and if the team has heart. We will win if we tackle with ferocity and run the ball over and through our opponents. Despite the absence of all of those elements from this year's team, we still managed to win 8 games. Imagine what we could do if we can somehow find on our future rosters the leadership and heart exhibited by the 2012 team. I look forward to that.
Sid's recall of actual events is right on the money. Terry, Carlo Sr. did not like Diaco. And he has known him for 20 years. Thought he was first and foremost an opportunist who would sell out his players to save face.
I woke up this morning realizing that I must correct one comment in my above rant. The seniors did not let us down. They played their fannies off and they played well. They just were not able to contribute the same intangibles that personified our 2012 team. It's not their fault. They should be proud of their contributions to the forward progress of the program under their watch.
The 2012 team was opportunistic. They were a much better tackling team than the current version and in better physical shape on defense. Golson without question made the 2012 offense much more difficult to defend against but he was not the mythical hero that many ND fans have created in their minds. Tommy Rees saved his bacon numerous times, especially in the first half of the season. The seniors played as well as they could. The biggest difference between 12-1 and 9-4 was luck. Last year we got every break in the book and took advantage of them.
Sid my point wasn't that we'd have been better off without Tommy Rees, in fact I agree with you that without him we'd have really been toast. It's just odd that a guy who is so prominent in the ND record books now is not more highly regarded. But if Tommy had transferred after Golson won the job for 2012 we'd have probably not won 12 games, and this year would have been a disaster even if Gunner Kiel had stayed. I wish Tommy a lot of luck. RE: Sr. leadership, supposedly that is why Kelly took the team off campus for the 1st week of August. He recognized that there was a problem with leadership on the team and was trying to build some with that move. I often wondered why Tommy wasn't a team Capt since he was clearly a guy the team respected.
Re: Brian Van Gorder http://m.southbendtribune.com/sport...8e6-710d-11e3-ba39-0019bb30f31a.html?mode=jqm
Well I hope he's a good hire, we should be good on offense next year and if he's a good DCoord and LB coach then maybe we can have a good defense as well. Would also help if he could heal the wounded as well, we have a lot of guys coming back from injury.
ND <t>Depending on what your opinion of Bill King is, here are his comments this morning on his radio show reference the Van Gorder DC hiring:<br/> <br/> He began the segment by calling out all the people out who want to use Auburn '12 to evaluate this hire. He called them all absurd and went on to say that you could have grabbed any of the Top20 DCs in the country and not one of them could have done a thing with the dumpster fire that was Auburn '12. He went on to call BVG a sensational hire by BK and talked about his ability to develop top-flight college defenses, highlighted by the "Junkyard Dawgs" of Georgia in the early 2000s.</t>
I was going to stay away from anything but positive Rees commentary but.... Why do we assume that Golson would have lost those games? Why do we assume that Golson wouldn't have grown? We lived through YEARS of trial and error Tommy. He grew... but we lost quite a few games that we should have and he was a contributing factor (no one man loses a game) in those losses. This love affair with Rees is selfish and short sighted. He gets credit for 'saving the team' in 4 games. I call ********. A perfect microcosm of that is the TD pass (against Purdue maybe?-Stanford?) in which TJ Jones picks the thing an inch off the ground, ankle high and behind him. It was one of the single greatest catches and plays I've ever witnessed. People take the incredibly athletic ability and fluidity of movement these guys have for granted. Try running full speed (even at our old ages) then plant immediately and dive backwards (assuming you don't throw your back out), then snatch a POORLY THROWN BALL before it touches on blade of grass. The end result was 'Wow, Tommy Rees is the hero.' When the reality of it is that Jones was the real hero. He made that play in spite of Rees, not because of him. We've seen countless other programs have to turn to freshman regularly and stick to it. We don't stick to anything. When we aren't tough, or when we aren't consistent or when we don't show enough heart, we wonder why? I'll be glad when he's gone honestly. I actually agree with Terry's original post in that he's the most divisive player (among fans) since Ron Powlus. That's not to compare him to RP because, as Gip pointed out, the guy was a 3 star at best while the other walked on high school water. However, those 2 players draw more passionate responses (in either camp) more than anyone I can remember. The very fact that we keep attributing so many wins to "Tommy" than the team just pisses me off. I love the kids heart and his head is top flight. I can't remember anyone the fans (myself included) wanted to succeed more, but the disparity between desire and ability could not have been greater. You can wish in one hand, **** in the other, and see which gets filled up first. Rees is a great kid, but he's been bad for this program because even the best people seem to find a way to put this kid ahead of the team. Any time you have that, it ain't a good thing.
You should have stayed away.... you coulda been a contenda! :wink: You are looking at this in "what-ifs" Corey, not in what actually transpired. When Golson came to campus as a true freshman he was so overwhelmed with scholastics and the playbook that he was red-shirted immediately. He was not grasping anything. Then in his second year, he showed some flashes but in the first half of the season would routinely come unglued DURING the game. He got better as the season progressed. This year he cheated in school, got caught and thrown out. It is a miracle that he was allowed back in for next year but he was completely unavailable for duty this year. Throughout all of Golson's drama only one guy was fit to step in. Nobody ever thought Rees was a great QB but he was the best we had at the time. I think he gave everything he had under extremely trying circumstances. Notre Dame has played football since 1887. For whatever reason, only one Irish QB has thrown for more TDs in his career.... Brady Quinn. Not Montana or Theisman or Powlus or Rice or Huarte or Hornung or Clausen or Beurlein or Jackson or Kiel or Hanratty or Lamonica or Lujack or anyone. Somehow, this goofy looking, slow footed three star scrub of a backup did what he did, all the while listening to a deafening chorus of naysayers and taunting.... from his own fans. The kid is a winner in my book.
Don't get me wrong. I think he is a winner. I think he's a great kid. I just don't understand how/why people put so much praise on him at the expense of his teammates. I agree that Golson wasn't ready for the get go. I also agree that it was nice to have something/someone there to help him during some rough patches. At the same time, I think that can stunt his growth. Golson made a mistake and hopefully he's learned from it. We'll see. Lest we all forget that Golson was given his big shot when Tommy got arrested and suspended before the start of last season. I know folks say Golson was going to get the shot anyway, but history has showed us that Kelly would turn to Tommy in a heart beat. The suspension was what enabled the change to actually take place. I think the numbers/TD thing is a bit skewed especially throwing those other names out there. I know you, as much as I, have thrown our hands to the sky on more than a few occasions due to Kelly's redzone play calling. That gets Tommy a ton of TDs and has also kept points off the board with costly red zone turnovers. In his 4 years we were 8-5, 8-5, 12-1, and 9-4. The one great year, he wasn't the starting QB. Read into it any way you want. At a school like ND that plays for titles or nothing, that's the bottom line.
Terry, I did not believe that you felt that way. My impression is that you simply were conveying what you read on the other BBs that you follow: George, your recitation of the facts is irrefutable. Also, you have validated Rees' legacy (Yes,Corey, I said legacy) . Corey, I have no idea what you are talking about. Certainly not anything said or implied here by me or anyone else. Anyway, George has addressed your comments sufficiently.
ND <t>On Tommy...I would just like to turn the page. He did what he could at a time when we needed him. In the end he did the best he could and things would have been worse without him. <br/> <br/> Now, we will finally get to see what Kelly can do with a run/pass type QB fully on board and having only that type of QB in the stable to continue with in his offense cause as you who are more X and O savvy than me know hasn't really been a true spread offense when your QB has no running ability at all.</t>
ND <t>Finally, 2013 is behind us. For the Irish is was a year to forget. here's hoping 2014 bodes much better than last year. Seems like just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong. <br/> <br/> I'm optimistic for the year to go well for the Irish. Lot's of returning players on offense especially. Looks like we'll end up with a good recruiting class again. New DC and maybe Tuitt returns on D.</t>
Agreed, Tim. The good news is, we still ended up 9-4. In retrospect, if that is the result of "..just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong..", it means the bar has been raised significantly from the dark years (between Lou & Kelly), which itself is good news. I hope I'm right.
It's funny how these things work out and can often look in the rear view mirror of history. By and large, I like the job Kelly is doing. I'm excited about the overall direction of the program and I believe Kelly has restored the bar of expectation. Not that we didn't stop being unrealistic zealots, but there is an actual reason to believe we should be let down in a 9-4 season these days. I'm not so sure higher expectations should have been placed on the Weis teams, but he did that to himself. I was bouncing around the BBs last night because I was bored and I came across a post that got a chuckle out of me. If you remember the O'Leary fiasco (and most people seemed rather 'meh' with the hire at the time, nor were they heartbroken when he was let go) but that would have been a staff of O'Leary as the HC, Bill O'Brien as the OC and Al Golden as the DC. I've seen O'Brien confirm that in an interview, but the Golden thing is something I never saw substantiated. Looking at the job he's done at UCF and did with the Vikings, damn if that probably wouldn't have worked out to be great. Then again, there's a huge microscope at ND and you can never really tell how someone will do under it. I'm thinking good things are ahead. I wish we'd take more guys who have us high on their list, rather than slow playing a few of them, but I do love Kelly's practice of taking big, fast and physical athletes. All in all, I'm pretty excited.
We'd have never seen either Willingham or Weis at ND. I'd be willing to bet that he'd have lasted more than 5 years. Whether or not he'd have won big we'll never know. But he showed a lot at Ga. Tech and what he's accmoplished at UCF confirms that he can coach.
Absolutely.. but woulda coulda shoulda I get a kick out of the BB experts who I remember well at the time were rather 'meh' about that whole line up. That was in 2001. Here in 2013, if I told you ND was hiring O'Leary, O'Brien and Golden, we'd sh*t ourselves with excitement. Back then, like I said... 'meh' Some jobs are just such a unique situation, you can't really know how people will do there. Sometimes, a coach is a fit for an institution. I don't think Pete Carroll would have done as well at ND but he built a monster at USC. I think Texas is one of those places. Massive money, probably unparalleled. Massive fan base. Quite possibly the nation's premier talent draw all right in your back yard. At the same time, the standards of success are through the roof high and the boosters are meddlesome.
HC: O'Leary OC: O'Brien DC: Golden :shock: That trio wouldn't have stayed together for more than three years, but that would have been monster.