I know its bad form to blame anything on the players, but what gives with their soft, timid, mistake prone, underachieving play? I thought we recruit top talent, physically gifted, intelligent players, born leader types. Where is the leadership?
three opportunities to lead a game winning/tying drive at the end of the game and has not even come close. One poster on here said he was an 8-4 type quarterback and his record as a starter is actually worse. His performance in the second and third QTRs against Michigan State was very bad and included many three and outs as well as throwing an interception into coverage which did not aid a suffering defense. His two turnovers against Duke were horrific, the fumble in which he simply dropped the ball was Reeslike. The forced throw at the end of the game which led to Duke's winning drive was a throw he obviously gave up on. Frankly I don't care how high he is on draft boards because the college game requires a different type QB, one who is more able with his legs, and does not take bad sacks by holding on to the ball too long. He has a ton of pass protection and still picks out the wrong receiver too much.
So your runon sentences do a good job of showing that
Kizer isnt high up on any draft board.....
something call ocular myasthenia gravis. Sometimes it is difficult for me to go back and correct. My eyes act like they are 86 when I have flareups, the rest of me reacts like it is 26. I am really 66 so please forgive me. I will try to correct more often.
during games way way too often. Needs some fire in him.
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Some of it is certainly on the players, where our guys simply haven't been executing like they should. Sometimes, the coach can do everything right, but when your players screw up, all you can do is pull your hair out. After all, if Ricky Watters didn't have a severe case of fumble-itis in 1990 (especially against Stanford and Colorado), we could have added another NC trophy.
Execution on the defense has been a disaster. Tackling and pursuit have been horrible, and I've seen more Ole`! moves in these last four games than I have in the entire last season. Some of the blame does fall on the players here, especially due to inexperience, but a lot of it falls on the players for being sloppy. The defensive line was supposed to be our strength and forte, but they can't generate any kind of pass rush, and it makes these freshmen and redshirt freshmen quarterbacks look like established 5th year starters gunning for Heisman seasons.
A lot of the blame does fall on Brian Van Gorder, who tried to fit too many round pegs in square holes, and was in over his head. The way I see it, he was the wrong guy at the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe it is all too similar to what we experienced in 2009 with Jon Tenuta, where his "jailbreak blitz every down" philosophy cost us four, possibly five wins...
Right now, the depth chart on defense doesn't look very promising for the rest of this year. When you have that many true freshmen and inexperienced sophomores on the 2-deep, you're not going to be able to hang in there with the big boys. In a way, it almost look as if the 2016 defensive squad resembles the 2007 offensive squad, where the very meaning of ineptitude was well-defined.
The biggest blame here, though, falls on Coach Kelly. It's not quite the same situation where the worst years of recruiting in 2004 and 2005 led to that disaster. This is Kelly's team, 100%, and everyone on that team is someone who he recruited and developed. He doesn't have a "bare cupboard" excuse card to play, and he's played his last mulligan for the season by discarding Van Gorder.
I'm willing to give him a chance to salvage this season, though. He's not going to be able to fix the defense during this year, barring some holy miracle and divine intervention, but he can at least help slow the bleeding that's coming out of a punctured aorta right now.
Thankfully, the offense seems to be doing fine. We're scoring 38 points a game, give or take, and we can move the ball on anyone. We don't have to stop opposing offenses, just slow them down enough.
Don't blame Ricky Watters against Stanford, Bettis fumbled three times. Tackling in the secondary has been horrific starting with the transfer from Cal having a guy completely wrapped up on third down and the guy breaking the tackle and getting the first down which led to a touchdown. the pass rush is horrific and I expected both Jones and Tillery to be greater forces. The defensive scheme with the stunting is stupid when Daelin Hayes is lined up to beat the right tackle simply with quickness and the scheme takes him counterclockwise around the pile and gives the QB ample time to get rid of the ball.
Kelly did a superb job coaching last year with all the injuries and getting us close to the playoffs but now he is stuck with numberous young players, one key one, Shaun Crawford, going out with an injury again. A coaching change for Kelly would be ludicrous at this point but Van Gorder had to go.
Our offense is not fine as we are very inconsistent and cannot generate a drive at decisive moments of the game. Thirty eight points a game is nothing in today's modern football and we did have an overtime that included 10 points.
Bettis was a true freshman in 1990. The last time I checked, he didn't fumble that year, given the extremely limited number of carries. What proof do you have that he fumbled three times even all of that year?
Ricky Watters, on the other hand, handed Stanford the game on a silver platter with a flourish with his two punt fumbles, and gave away the 1991 Orange Bowl when he fumbled away the ball. He almost even gave away the Miami game that year with his Butterfingered fumble.
That was the year that the joke was going around, that he tried to kill himself after those games, but kept dropping the gun...
Fast forward to today's games... Brian Kelly is certainly to blame for a lot of the problems. These are all HIS players, HIS system, and HIS development that has basically produced a defense that flat-out stinks. If they can't hold a team that was scoring fewer than 20 points a game against substandard competition to less than 35 points, then it's certainly not the offense's fault.
Deshone Kizer has done a decent enough job. Averaging 38 points a game should be plenty, even with a halfway decent defense.
On another note, Malik Zaire blew the only passing play he was in on last week, by simply curling up into a ball and taking the sack, instead of throwing the ball away. The was no need to resort to gimmick plays, given that the offense was moving the ball quite capably already.
fumbling after he ran with a screen pass and fumbling another time when going into a pile after a John Lynch hit. the third I can't recall. It was either 1990 or 1992. Watters also had a fumbling issue at times and both of them contributed to losses to Stanford. Both were excellent players. Bettis obviously became dominant as a running back and Watters was a very good running back and one of the best receivers for a running back who played in NFL. Much of his development as a receiver came when Holtz used him there.
I'm going to put your false assertion to rest once and for all.
Page 18 of the link shows who was to blame.
Nowhere does it mention anything about freshman Jerome Bettis having three fumbles. Please stop trying to come up with revisionism. It's not doing any of your arguments any good.
Link: http://archives.nd.edu/Football/Football-1990s.pdf
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a shot at the national championship too. As I try to recall again in 1990, if we would have won at home against Penn State we might have had a shot anyway. That was the game where the Rocket missed the entire second half with a pulled hammy.
When asked about how Zaire has accepted his role as No. 2, Kelly hemmed and hawed and finally said, ask me Thursday. When asked about dissension in the locker room, specifically in the context of QB competition, Kelly said to look at the record which doesn't reflect the quality of the player talent or coaching staff. It has me wondering, is this the last week in the program for Moaning Malik?
[A transcript is now available so here are the questions and reponses:
Q. Finally, shortly before you named Kizer the full-time starter, you talked about whoever end up the number two guy, he better get out of the way. How is Malik Zaire holding up to that challenge?
BRIAN KELLY: You know, it's a tough role. It's a tough role. He is understanding what needs to do in that role, let's put it that way. It's evolving. It's evolving. Are you going to be here Thursday? You will be? Ask me Thursday.
...
Q. Lou Holtz was on a radio show this week where he said in his own times he had to look and probe closely to see if there was player dissension within the ranks, whether it's -- it can be taking sides on the quarterback or anything like that. Have you been able to gauge anything on that front?
BRIAN KELLY: We're 1-3. We're 1-3. Our players aren't that bad. Our coaches are pretty good coaches. I've been doing it for 27 years. Obviously, we're working through some things. We're working through some things and our guys are working through 'em. We're working through 'em, and we think we're going back in the right direction. So I think I've answered that question.]
times only to sit and watch that shit show. He finally got his shot, did very well and was injured.
Last year his backup, Kizer, did well taking his spot and putting MZ back in the same place he'd fought to get out of. MZ should have handled the whole thing differently but you can see why he is how he is now.
That said. MZ likely knew how he'd handle being #2 and should have put in transfer papers in July or August. I think there is definitely a divide in the locker room, likely from the QB situation. Kelly handled this whole thing wrong.
Just as bad as MZ's body language on and off the field has been this year, Kelly has also given him the short end of the stick at every turn during his time at ND. Can't blame his (wrong) attitude, but it has hurt the team this year. Unfortunately, guys like MZ have the fire and passion this team is badly lacking.
Not that I am crazy about how Kelly handles any qb situation but Zaire never got the short end of the stick.
It would have been hard to justify say he had "outperformed" Golson going into 2014 especially given Golson's success in 2012. Kelly gave Zaire an opportunity at the end of 2014. He then seemingly beat out (or at the least kept himself in play for the #1 role) Golson in spring 2015 probably causing Golson to transfer. He then play 1.5 games, looked good against a bad team and look mediocre against a bad team and got hurt. He goes into spring and fall 2016 coming off injury and was apparently beat out by a superior qb (sorry Kizer is a superior qb to Zaire).
Zaire had little to gain in transferring going into fall 2016. I doubt he had much cache for any school to look at anyway, coming off a little more than 2 games of experience and a nasty ankle injury. He would have sit out 2016 and had the opportunity to play only in 2017 anyway which he still retains anyway. By staying, he gets his ND degree, something he clearly values and can play somewhere else next year if he chooses. The only way someone could opine he got 'screwed' would be based on what he was told by Kelly after the end of spring practice as to whether he was still in the running to start. We don't know what he was told.
I think just about right and I am a Kelly guy. I also think that MZ because of his fire and passion could come back and perform extremely well if the card flips his way.
Mostly because good coaching is suppose to be tuned into a team and work out these things.
But, and granted this is from the cheap (really cheap seats), but I am not crazy about some of our #2 qb's body language. I get that he is in a tough position, wants to play, has worked hard through an injury, and perhaps thinks he wasn't given a fair shot etc etc (the issue of #1 vs #2 doesn't seem to me even close despite #1's less-than-stellar effort vs Duke). But he doesn't look like he is engaged as much as a designated #2 should be. I know that #1 has made comments in the past that part of the team roots for one and part of the team roots for the other and you have to wonder if that is gurgling beneath the surface.
Kelly was quick to shit on Zaire for not throwing the ball away during his option but when I watched the game again the defense seem to collapse on him before he had a chance to do anything which is hardly a surprise as everyone in the stadium (including Duke) pretty much knows that Zaire was going to get the ball on a run/throw option...btw, very clever deception on our playcaller's part that fooled nobody..on a side note we sat around some Duke fans that called the play before I even noticed Zaire was in the game.
You won't be doing it for 28, at least not at Notre Dame.
What a shit head.
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Recall that Swarbrick in the Weis-firing press conference said the change then was not a foregone conclusion. If you think Kelly is in any danger, read the transcript of that conference. He's not.
Link: Jack Swarbrick Press Conference Transcript (Nov. 30, 2009)
It's not the offense. Mostly just the defense and they are young and confused. The confusion should end with BVG's firing.. Now comes the talent, coaching, development and execution. Kelly said in his presser today that BVG had 15 defensive packages. That's crazy. Set up to stop everything and ended up stopping nothing. Can you imagine how the freshmen DB's heads must be spinning? And only Luke and Tranquill with any experience.Tough to lead if you are lost yourself.
Is it the players or Kelly?
One of the key job of a coach, particularly the head coach, to create an environment that enables leadership to arise within the team.
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and not elected by the players. The coach may want certain players to be leaders the team just don't treat with that level of respect.
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Top 10 recruiting class consistently.
Smart, intelligent athletes who can pass admissions.
Usually from tough programs nationally as that fits ND's recruiting profile so most are ready for the ND type of schedule...
It's on the COACHES!
Soft, timid, mistake prone...all coaching. Sorry.
Maybe he's just lucky.
They can sing long into the night when they win a championship.
Want to stop playing the fight song after losses? Fine.
But at the very least the players should face the band the way it was meant to be honored. It comes as no surprise Charlie didn't get it.