Notre Dame (football only discussion)

[Pheasant]

Originally Posted by bukIpower

I'm also going to go with Georgia Tech over ND... I mean they have P.J Daniels/Bilbo/Johnson/and also Reggie Ball all returning...

I look at their defense and I'm honestly surprised at the number of Seniors this team has. 9 out of the 11 starters on Defense are all SENIORS. Let's be realistic here you don't have to completely shut down ND to win a game. You just have to get a stop here or there and move the ball on their horrible defense. With those weapons on offense and experience on defense I can't wait till the night of September 2nd. I just bugs the hell outta me that ND gets as much hype as they have. They have a good year last year, but in that course lose to the only 2 teams that are remotely talented but are dawned the next best thing. I think the media just needs to calm down and wait to see them play a decent team. Not to mention their schedule is once again horrible aside from USC/maybe even GT. They have to beat GT and of all teams MICHIGAN STATE before I'll buy into anything they're trying to sell... I mean ND hasn't beat Michigan State for a pretty good while now.

They won't beat MSU this year...but they'll kill Georgia Tech. Think about it.....Charlie Weiss with 8 months to prepare!!!!!!!!!
GT doesn't stand a chance. Notre Dame may set a new record for points scored in an NCAA game (I'm thinking it's Georgia Tech that currently holds it- how ironical)

edit: guess I was wrong, not GT.... still, they may break it

[bukIpower]

haha very true on Reggie Ball may not be a good thing... Problem with Reggie has been his maturity level and getting a hot head. I 100 percent agree with all of you guys so far though.

While They have talent they COULD underachieve as usual, but the problem I see with Charlie/ND is they put too much into the past. With that being said maybe 8 months is too much time for charlie to prepare? We saw what Charlie did against the defenseless buckeyes and the uneducated coach Jim Tressel having 2 months to prepare. I think Charlie takes so much pride in thinking just because he coached to a super bowl that he's by far the more superior coach than any he'll face. I think what Charlies downfall is is having too much pride, and not respecting other opponents. As can be testified to the "Have you Seen Tennessee's Defense" statement. Which Brent Museburger replied "yes I have coach, and I say you're playing the best defense right now on the field" (something like that).

I mean charlie was [censored]ed that everyone kept asking him about our defense and instead of just saying something like tressel would "They have great talent, and it'll take our best to beat them" he totally goes out of his way to demean what our defense accomplished.

lol I guess I just don't like Charlie, but to be honest I don't really dislike Notre Dame. I just think any man who comes in after they had a severe down year in 2004 and puts his team into the Fiesta Bowl with a great Ohio State team only to call their season a failure when they lose? I mean what the hell? What about those seniors like Stoval who put their best into that season??? No but he puts on this big act about we win championships at ND and we dont' accept defeat.. I mean after USC lost to our friends from Texas coach carrol said he was dissappointed but it was a great ride for him and he'd never forget it. That's the way you make sure you don't put down your players' efforts and still make it known you're dissappointed with the results. So overall I think Charlie is a arrogant, cocky, and selfish man... Everyone shoots for championships but when they don't happen don't make it seem like you failed the world, and it was more of ND not showing up Rather than good teams getting the job done...

[IrishBuck]

Originally Posted by bukIpower

I mean ND hasn't beat Michigan State for a pretty good while now.

They beat MSU in 2002 and 2004.

[OregonBuckeye]

Originally Posted by IrishBuck

They beat MSU in 2002 and 2004.

MSU had a 5 game winning streak against the Irish before Willingham's first year.

[bukIpower]

hmmm I didn't know that Irishbuck... from what I understood last fall was MSU had their number... I could have sworn someone on gameday said that MSU had a streak going...

[BB73]

Originally Posted by bukIpower

hmmm I didn't know that Irishbuck... from what I understood last fall was MSU had their number... I could have sworn someone on gameday said that MSU had a streak going...

ND won 8 in a row from 87-94, they didn't meet in 95-96 (tOSU took care of ND those two years). MSU won 5 straight from 97-01, and the visiting team has won the last 4 years. So the streak was 6 of 8 going into South Bend last year, and is now 7 of 9.

[ScriptOhio]

I guess it is no big loss to Notre Dame; however, when was the last time you heard of a football player transferring from Notre Dame to Temple?

Report: Temple to get Notre Dame player

<!-- begin body-content -->So, when was the last time a football player transferred from Notre Dame to Temple?
Yahoo Sports has reported that Nathan Schiccatano is about to become an Owl. First-year Temple coach Al Golden can't comment until it becomes official. But sources familiar with the situation have confirmed that it's now just a matter of completing the process of getting him enrolled in a graduate program on North Broad Street.
Schiccatano, who played fullback, linebacker and defensive end the last 3 years after redshirting as a freshman*, has one season of eligibility remaining. Because he graduated on time from Notre Dame, he can play for Temple this season if he's a full-time grad student.
The 6-2, 240-pounder was highly recruited coming out of high school, but couldn't get enough playing time in South Bend. He's expected to compete for the starting fullback job here.
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/sports/15035916.htm


* Gee, I didn't think that Notre Dame redshirted players.

[scooter1369]

The line as of this morning...

Notre Dame
Georgia Tech -1

[t_BuckeyeScott]

-1 to Tech? With that kind of line how can they be favored to win the Title?

[osugrad21]

Link

Notre Dame's task: Fighting the hype

<!-- begin body-content --> SOUTH BEND, Ind. - Charlie Weis talked politely for 45 minutes about his football team yesterday. But Notre Dame's second-year coach assured listeners that his vocabulary expands in the locker room and on the practice field.
"I use my New Jersey rhetoric," the Trenton native said yesterday.
He believes he needs to be "much more demanding" this season - of players, coaches, even his star quarterback, Brady Quinn - because of all the hype surrounding the Irish.
The USA Today preseason coaches' poll, released last week, has Notre Dame tied with Southern Cal at No. 3 in the nation. Quinn is the early Heisman favorite. For yesterday's media day, reporters were in from Denver and Boston, New York and Kansas City. Yahoo.com's national sports columnist showed up. ESPN was taping.
For his players, Weis wants all the focus to be on opening opponent Georgia Tech on Sept. 2.
"I teach our players - and our coaches, for that matter - to be very shortsighted... . If I hear five guys telling you, 'Yeah, we're trying to win a national championship,' then I know I have a lot of work to do," Weis said.
So, Quinn, what's the goal this year?
"Big picture: national championship," Quinn answered without missing a beat. "We want to make a national championship a reality. We're just going to take one game at a time, but ultimately that's our goal."
Weis had talked of letdowns he had seen as an NFL assistant coach, how the New England Patriots did not make the playoffs the year after they won their first Super Bowl.
"Everybody got caught up in it and we had a bad year," Weis said.
"I always try to be truthful with everybody," a smiling Quinn said when told of the earlier words from his coach.
Weis won't have to lecture his quarterback, though. Quinn had this to say about Notre Dame's 9-3 season in 2005, when he set Irish records for completions, yardage and touchdown passes: "Last year was great, but we really didn't do anything."
For all the success the Irish had on offense in 2005, their pass defense did not hold up. Ohio State's Troy Smith said after last season's Fiesta Bowl, a 34-20 Buckeyes victory over the Irish: "The scheming today was set up for us to make big plays."
Ohio State coach Jim Tressel piled on with more painful truth: "The one thing we talked about was we didn't want to overthrow the deep ones, because we knew they'd be open."
All that has been addressed here. It took 31 minutes for Quinn's name to leave his coach's lips yesterday. But in the first 10 minutes, Weis had this to say: "We're going to get more athletic on defense." And: "We're not going to get beat due to lack of team speed."
There was a lot of "research and evaluation" by all the coaches throughout the off-season, Weis said, on how to achieve this. Backup tailback and special-teams whiz Travis Thomas, a team captain, has been converted to a linebacker. Freshmen will get their chance if upperclassmen don't cut it. But Weis also believes part of the problem was the adjustment to a new system.
"I think we played slow sometimes," Weis said. "That doesn't mean we ran slow. Anybody who has to think about what to do - not just let it loose - is going to be hesitant."
As they begin practicing today, the Irish can look at their high national ranking as a burden or realize that starting high offers the surest path to finishing high. They won't have to worry about jumping over teams in the polls. They're already there.
Some of the early attention here comes because Notre Dame's schedule is front-loaded with difficulty. The Irish have three preseason-ranked opponents, and they play two in the first three weeks of the season - No. 19 Penn State on Sept. 9 and No. 15 Michigan on Sept. 16. Both games are at Notre Dame Stadium. Then the Irish will go all the way to Nov. 25 before playing Southern Cal in Los Angeles.
Die-hard Irish fans already know this: The school's ticket office, which holds a lottery for approximately 30,000 of the 80,795 seats for each game, had to return $11.7 million to fans who missed out on the lottery. That's up from $5.2 million in 2005.
Just for the Penn State game, there were 66,670 requests for those 30,000 tickets. Another 61,631 were requested for the Michigan game.
The high preseason ranking makes sense. And the other schools ranked in the top five all lost cornerstone players. No. 2 Texas lost the most indispensable player in the college game, Vince Young. Southern Cal lost two Heisman winners, Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart. No. 5 Oklahoma has Heisman contender Adrian Peterson at running back, but just lost promising quarterback Rhett Bomar, who was thrown off the team because of a car-dealership job at which he got paid for not working. Ohio State is top-ranked on merit, led by a pair of Heisman candidates in Smith and receiver Ted Ginn. But the Buckeyes also lost nine defensive starters and five first-rounders in this year's NFL draft.
Although Notre Dame lost just two draft choices and has 16 returning starters, it won't take long to figure out if the proclamation from Weis about his improved defense falls under hype or reality.
The coach knows the fallacy of solely looking at returning players on a roster and trying to determine how a season plays out.
"Sometimes experience can [be] a negative, not a positive," Weis said.

[BB73]

A big article on ND in the USAToday.

usatoday

[Taosman]

If I have to see one more article on how great this team is I'm goona hurl!
They need to brought back to reality.
That defense is still slow.

[BuckeyeNation27]

They did just get a little faster on D. Their second leading rusher from last year switched to LB

[OregonBuckeye]

Originally Posted by osugrad21

Die-hard Irish fans already know this: The school's ticket office, which holds a lottery for approximately 30,000 of the 80,795 seats for each game, had to return $11.7 million to fans who missed out on the lottery. That's up from $5.2 million in 2005.
Just for the Penn State game, there were 66,670 requests for those 30,000 tickets. Another 61,631 were requested for the Michigan game.

We heard that about the Fiesta Bowl too, how they couldn't get enough tickets. Come gameday we outnumbered them in the stands 60:40.

[Dryden]

http://nwitimes.com/articles/2006/08...c30004e3cf.txt

Good Charlie, stubborn Charlie, a fact of life
This story ran on nwitimes.com on Monday, August 7, 2006 12:19 AM CDT
Al Hamnik
Times Columnist

SOUTH BEND | Charlie Weis is as blunt as a butter knife when he warns the media: "Just follow protocol. That's all. Follow protocol."

Jump when he yells JUMP! Don't second-guess, sneak around, or be a distraction. Then, and only then, can you expect player accessibility and a sound working relationship with the football department. Disobey his wishes, pay him no mind and you're treated like a leper, banished from the pressbox.

It's Charlie's way, or the closest you'll get to Irish football is the car radio. Behind the scenes, away from cameras and tape recorders, we're told he's got the people skills of a prison guard. And a temper to match.

What's so frustrating is that Weis can be genuinely charming one moment, a tyrant the next. He had that split personality as an NFL coordinator with the Jets and Patriots, and continues to irritate other coaches at Notre Dame with his moody nature and short fuse.

A large number of alumni reportedly are upset by his behavior. As long as the Irish win, they'll bite their lip. But if the program struggles, his critics will multiply like roaches.

Notre Dame's Football Media Day was Sunday morning, not Saturday, if you can believe that. The media turnout could've been better. We have a Catholic university, on a church day, a traditional family day, basically forcing some to work.

It didn't take Charlie long to flex some muscle. Former Times Sports Writer Jeff Carroll, now working for the Irish Sports Report, was informed by school officials that he could not ask questions of Weis, his staff or players during the three-hour session. It seems Weis and senior associate athletics director John Heisler weren't happy with some of Carroll's reporting endeavors.

Here's an idea: Have someone ask the questions for you.

Personally, I think the intention was to embarrass Carroll, publicly.

Right off the bat, Weis said he appreciated the media showing patience and allowing coaches and players to use their summer to kick back and relax. He said working with us is important to him. But with high expectations, Weis doesn't want his team to buy into the hype and start looking too far ahead.

As for player accessibility, Weis usually allows media the standard 20 minutes ("that everybody whines about") before practices -- all of which are closed -- once a week. Next Saturday morning, he'll throw the media a bone by having the entire practice open, followed by a bribe -- lunch.

"Please follow protocol. Don't try to steal behind the scenes to get to any of the guys," said Weis. "We've been pretty accessible.

Meeting the Rolling Stones backstage is easier to do.

Twenty minutes to chase down local products Jeff Samardzija and Carl Gioia of Valparaiso, plus Merrillville's James Aldridge, is sufficient if you're able to clone yourself.

Great stuff ... Charlie's strong arming of the media has spilled over to SportsJournalists.com, where the Charlie Weis is an ASS thread has become a really popular topic!