ND Football

Okay, I’m going to stray from US/Canadian topics and talk about something near and dear to my heart- Notre Dame Fighting Irish Football !! Football will soon be upon us (the CFL here is already underway) and it’s time to get excited !

I will pull no punches and say that last year had to be the worst year in the history of ND football. There’s no two ways about it. Charlie Weis must be mortified to know that last year’s team was worst that any of Gerry Faust’s teams or Bob Davie’s worst teams or Ty Willingham’s last ND team. It was just plain awful. Being an avid follower of ND football, this was colossally painful.

A consensus formed among ND fans (particularly NDNation.com, a particularly well informed audience with a bent for sophisticated statistical and personnel evaluation analysis) that 75% of last year’s problems can be traced back to Tyrone Willingham. I agree with that analysis. He had only one good recruiting class, which occurred after his first year at ND. The ones that followed were historically awful.

It is well known in college football that one bad recruiting class could, if properly managed, amount to only a hiccup. Two sub par recruiting classes, on the other hand, is quite damaging and it would take quite a while for a program to recover. Unlike the NFL, the option of free agency, trades and draft are not available. You are stuck with what you have.

The other truism of college football is that, in order to have a top 10 teams on an annual basis, you need to have great senior classes. There is nothing like the combination of talent and experience. A good or great junior class would help too.

Going back to last year, ND had only 14 juniors, 8 seniors and 5 fifth year seniors. Given that 85 scholarship players are permitted per team, the fact that ND had only 22 players between the junior and senior classes spelled trouble for the Irish even before the season started. The vast majority of the talented was concentrated in the freshman and sophomore classes (both highly touted recruiting classes).

Bottom line, ND just did not have the personnel. However, I was not prepared for how absymal they were going to be. Just awful.

What is amazing is that after such an awful season, one would think that ND’s recruiting would suffer accordingly. There is precedent for that belief. During the Davie and Willingham era (often referred to as the “Davieham” years) a down year often resulted in correspondingly weak recruiting class. Imagine the amazement among ND fans when Charlie Weis and his coaching staff were able to pull in a top 5 recruiting class after last year’s disaster, making it the third year in a row that the Irish were able to pull in a Top 10 recruiting class. Just unbelievable. All the signs are for the Irish to pull in another stellar recruiting class for next year.

There is no doubt among ND fans that Charlie is pulling off the best recruiting job since the days of Holtz (specifically the late 1980’s).

Going into this season, ND will have considerable talent in the freshmen, sophomore and junior classes, a situation that is much improved over last year. More importantly, the young players will have experience.

What do we expect ? I would expect a 7-5 or 8-4 season, a substantial improvement over last year. But we ain’t looking at a National Championship caliber team here. There are a few reasons for this:

(1) the senior and 5th year senior contingent is quite weak. As I said above, the great college teams are those who have great senior classes. Nothing like experience.

(2) Question marks remain with regard to ND’s offensive line, which was historically terrible last year.

(3) As talented Jimmy Clausen is (and I thought that he was impressive last year, given the swiss chess OL, and less than stellar arm strenght due to preseason elbow surgery), he is only a sophomore. Gaining more game time experience will be key for Clausen.

I mentioned above that 75% of last season’s problems were traceable to Willingham (it should be noted that his recruiting at Washington has received mixed reviews). Obviously, the remaining 25% is Weis’s fault. One thing that stuck in my mind was his admission that he did not have the team hit each other in pre season practice and therefore, were not prepared for the hitting at the beginning of the season. ND fans were understandably upset at this as I was.....”what in Frank Leahy’s name is going on here ?” I’m sorry but you gotta hit in preseason practices. True they may not hit as much in NFL practice due to the long season and limited numbers and yes, Weis may have had quite valid reasons due to the thin depth chart, but you gotta hit. Hopefully, he will have learned his lesson.

The other big error was installing a variation of the West Virginia spread offense for Demetrius Jones and then junking that offense in favor of his offense; essentially re-installing it after the second or third game. Not real good there either.

So let’s hope that the improved talent, a more palatable schedule, and Charlie Weis’s learning curve combine for an improved season. A National Championship does not look likely for this year but it will definitely be a foundation for what appears, on paper, to be a bright future. He still has a margin of error for this season....but it will be fading fast and the pressure will be on him and the Irish in the 2009 season.