Archive for the ‘Notre Dame Football’ Category

Well, if the first half went about as well as we could have hoped, the second half went about as badly as it possibly could for us.

• After getting a gift steal on the heels of a McAlarney 3 to cut the lead to 6 with 45 seconds remaining, Tory Jackson and Luke Zeller threw up threes from the corner that weren’t even close.
• McAlarney was not much of a factor until the final two minutes when he hit a couple 3’s to keep the game close and give the Irish some hope.  He wasn’t able to get open for the large part of the game though and it hurt the Irish offense.
• Despite having a good size advantage over Marquette, the Golden Eagles straight up owned the glass in the second half.  This wasn’t more evident than during a 1:15 long possession where Marquette got back to back offense rebounds before finally putting it in the basket.
• Tory Jackson played tough all game and was the only reason we stayed in the game over the final 10 minutes.  He was the only one able to drive and dish to create some open shots.
• The first game after being named Big East Player of the Year, Harangody had his most disappointing performance of the season.  Foul trouble early took him out of the game and in the second half he just couldn’t get it going outside of a 2:40 stretch where he hit 4 straight shots.
• Maurice Acker’s back to back 3’s were really the dagger for the Irish.  They took the life out of Notre Dame.
• ND’s loss means the only team with a bye advancing in the BE Tournament is Georgetown.
• Very disappointing trip to New York for Notre Dame who now could be looking at a 5 seed.

Since we’re still a few weeks away from Spring practice, I figured it would be a good idea to take a look back at a couple posts I made this time last year. The first one I’ll revisit was called 5 Things I Want to See in 2007 and was a quick little list of things I was hoping to see during the 2007 season. Here’s how those things played out.

“1. A Kick Return for a Touchdown” - Going into last season Notre Dame hadn’t taken a kick back for a touchdown in over four seasons. Well, we can make that five now. Golden Tate and Armando Allen looked pretty good at times in 2007, but the longest kickoff return the Irish managed was a 40 yarder by Golden Tate against Michigan in week 3. On the season Tate averaged 21.7 yards a return and Allen averaged 21.3. Both have the speed to take one the distance, but the blocking was just not there. Weis has placed Brian Polian in charge of special teams without having to coach an individual position and will be assisting in the special teams as well. With athletes like Tate and Allen returning kicks in 2008, there is really no excuse for Notre Dame to go empty in this department again.

“2. Touchbacks - Lots of Them” - Moving kickoffs back five yards in 2007 didn’t help Notre Dame out in this department much, but even when the Irish were aided by penalties, they couldn’t get the ball in the end zone. In 41 attempts, Brandon Walker and Nate Whitaker combined for 0 touchdowns. Notre Dame opponents netted 6 touchbacks in 68 attempts.

“3. A 50+ Yard Run” - Going into last season the last Notre Dame running back to bust a 50 yard run was Julius Jones. Today Jones is still the last Notre Dame back to break a 50 yarder. Both James Aldridge and Robert Hughes had runs of 40+ yards this year, but neither eclipsed 50. The offensive line play had a lot to do with Notre Dame’s inability to create big plays in the running game last year, but even Armando Allen, who many thought would be the big play guy, had a long of just 15 yards.

“4. Real 4 and 5 Wide Receiver Sets” - Mark this down as another thing that we’re still waiting to see. The wide receivers were inconsistent last year and while we had four wide receivers who were capable of playing, we still weren’t seeing four and five wide sets on a regular basis due to the inconsistency. With Duval Kamara, Robby Parris, and Golden Tate emerging last year; the additions of Deion Walker, John Goodman, and Michael Floyd this year; and the presence of David Grimes having effective four and five wide sets on a regular basis should be attainable in 2008.

“5. 3rd and Short Conversion”- And this one makes me 0 for 5 because last year third and short conversions were still an issue. The offensive line had a lot to do with this, but so did some ineffective running from the likes of Travis Thomas (2.1 yards/carry) and Asaph Schwapp (1.2 yards/carry). Will Robert Hughes and an experienced interior offensive line be able to make third and short failures a thing of the past in 2008? Let’s hope so.

Ok, so none of the five things I listed actually occurred in 2007. Maybe this spring I should make a similar post and say I’d like to see 1) a Michigan win 2) a USC win 3) Navy start its own streak 4) a win for Ty and 5) the return of Bob Davie to the Notre Dame sidelines. Maybe reverse psychology will work this year.

One of our readers based along this job listing from the NCAA’s “The Market: Careers in College Athletics” website to us today.

Design and implement sport-specific speed and skill development programs for all student-athletes in conjunction with the Director of Strength & Conditioning. Conduct training sessions for the development of speed. Assist with various strength training workouts and conditioning sessions for the student-athletes as assigned. Responsible for maintaining all equipment associated with speed, skill and conditioning programs. Oversee general activities of the strength and conditioning department and assist when needed.

The employer listed is “University of Notre Dame” under the Category “Football, Strength/Conditioning.”

There’s been some rumblings throughout the Notre Dame forums the last few weeks about the strength and conditioning program after Notre Dame offensive linemen under performed in the bench press portion of the NFL Scouting Combine the last two years, but this is the first we’ve seen anything about any possible changes in the strength/conditioning department.

Reuben Mendoza has been the strength and conditioning coordinator for the football team since Charlie Weis arrived at Notre Dame and has gotten some praise from Weis during press conferences in the past. The listing describes the role as working with the Director of Strength & Conditioning so it sounds like ND is just looking for additional help in the department.

Getting anyone in the department who can get our OL to put up 225 more than 25 times would be a nice addition.

UPDATE: The position being filled is a replacement for Michael Joseph of left last month to be the head strength and conditioning coach at West Virginia. From the Times West Virginian:

At Notre Dame, Joseph worked with the head strength coach with football, assisting with workouts, testing, conditioning, speed and agility training in-season and off-season. He also had the same responsibilities in baseball, volleyball and softball.In addition, his duties included supervision and maintenance of the facility and equipment and scheduling of all student-athletes for the school’s 27 sports.

Thanks to commenter “Shadow of the Dome” for the update.

ESPN released their Pre-Spring power ratings today and not surprisingly, Notre Dame is not in their top 25. What might surprise some, however, is the geniuses over in Bristol have BYU, Fresno State, Boise State, Utah, Central Florida, and Tulsa all ranked ahead of Notre Dame in their Non-BCS Power Rankings.

Here’s what they had to say:

What we know: The linebackers and secondary look decent, and the defensive coaching staff adds veteran Jon Tenuta.
What we don’t know: How the offense changes with Michael Haywood as the playcaller and whether the line and backs can bounce back from a miserable season.
How the Fighting Irish can reach a decent bowl game: Establish the run game early and capitalize on a more favorable schedule.

Also note that for every other team on this list, ESPN’s last point for each was either “How can X win their conference” or “How can X reach a BCS Bowl.”  For us they wrote “How the Fighting Irish can reach a decent bowl game.” So, a team that’s been to a BCS game twice in the last three years can only hope for a decent bowl game while two teams who haven’t even sniffed the BCS have a better chance?

At least we can all rest well knowing that we are ranked ahead of Central Michigan, Florida Atlantic, Hawaii, and TCU.

Maybe it’s about time that Notre Dame stop being as friendly with ESPN as they have in the past because ESPN takes every possible chance it gets to bash Notre Dame when we’re down and every chance they get to pimp us out when we’re not.  Like maybe next time USC comes to town and ESPN wants to hype to no end like they did in 2005, Notre Dame should just say, thanks but no thanks.

I know some of you will say that ESPN just does this for ratings and that is definitely true, but come on UCF? Tulsa? Utah? That is a bit excessive.

Notre Dame released it’s spring practice schedule today and the dates are as follows.

• Wednesday March 26
• Friday March 28
• Saturday March 29
• Monday March 31
• Wednesday April 2
• Friday April 4 - Notre Dame Football Coaches Clinic
• Saturday April 5 - Notre Dame Football Coaches Clinic
• Monday April 7
• Wednesday April 9
• Friday April 11
• Saturday April 12
• Monday April 14
• Wednesday April 16
• Friday April 18
• Saturday April 19 - Blue-Gold Spring Football Game

I’ll create a page for this in the “Football Items” dropdown in the main navigation and pin it to the top of the football board as well tomorrow.

Notre Dame will be having two events in the next couple of months that are open to the public - the first of which is the Annual Coaches Clinic.  This year, they are are allowing anyone, and not just high school coaches to attend.  Here’s some info from a press release they sent out about the event.

On Friday, April 4, participating coaches and fans will have an opportunity to attend the FCA luncheon as well as a hosted dinner and social hour on Friday evening. Those involved in the weekend’s activities will have a tremendous experience - including interactive presentations from Notre Dame head coach Charlie Weis, the Irish coaching staff as well as visiting coaches.

Chalk-talk sessions will provide attendees with an excellent opportunity to become familiar with various coaching techniques and a chance to know the coaches and other visitors. In addition to various presentations, participants will get an exclusive look at the ‘08 Fighting Irish team practice as well as tour the Notre Dame Stadium locker room and peruse items from local exhibitors.

Indianapolis Colts president Bill Polian has been named as a guest speaker at the Coaches Clinic and will address those in attendance on Saturday morning, April 5. Polian was hired by the Colts on Dec. 22, 1997, and has been a driving force behind the Colts success over the last decade as he drafted Peyton Manning, Edgerrin James, Reggie Wayne, Dwight Freeney, Bob Sanders and Joseph Addai, to name a few. Since 1999, no team has more regular-season wins than the Colts and they have made the playoffs in eight of the past nine seasons. The 2006 Colts capped off a great season by defeating the Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XLI to claim the fourth championship in franchise history.

For more information on the Coaches Clinic, including Registration info, check out the site they have made about the event.

Notre Dame will also be having their yearly football camps for kids grades 3-12.

• Day Camp, June 23-25 (3rd-6th grade): nonboarder only $120

• Session 1, June 15-18 (7th-12th grade): boarder $395 / nonboarder $340

• Session 2, June 29-July 2 (9th-12th grade): boarder $395 / nonboarder $340

 For more information including PDFs with more details and registration info, click here.

New linebackers/assistant head coach Jon Tenuta spoke to the media for the first time since being hired by Notre Dame on Thursday. Here are some highlights. (Full transcript available on UND.com).

On how he will work together with defensive coordinator Corwin Brown:

Obviously, with my experiences in where I’ve been and what I’ve done, with the packages that I have, and Corwin and his package, we just kind of melt the packages together. If something good, something’s bad, whatever, and work it out and game plan together and get ready for practice. Obviously some of my ideas but most of his will go into spring ball, then we’ll go from there. I’ve got to learn the players and what they can do first and foremost and adapt to that aspect.”

On if he envisions blitzing a lot with his linebackers:

I’m an aggressive attacking guy, so obviously, I hope and Corwin is, too. So we’re going to attack and get downhill and make things happen.

On whether it was tough to give up play calling duties after being a coordinator for so long to come to Notre Dame:

No. I’m just saying it’s happened to me before in my career. But I’m just saying this is Notre Dame. When that opportunity came up for me, this is where I wanted to be. So that part I’m still coaching, and I love coaching, the passion for the game, the players. So that part’s not a big deal. If people get into egos and all that, that’s where it creates problems. 

On if his philosophies mesh with Brown’s:

No question. There’s no question. It’s based on the people he’s been around and some of the people we’ve been around, I’ve been around, so all of it comes into play.

On how his philosophies will work in Notre Dame’s 3-4 defense:

If you look at my package and the fronts that I played, my ends dropped and they were like a linebacker. So I may be a 4-3 personnel guy, but I’ve been a 3-4 personnel guy. So the whole package meshes together, that’s not a problem. 

On coaching defense in an offensive era of football:

I think philosophically first and foremost, you have to stop the run, first and foremost. You have to stop the run or they’ll run the clock on you. Now with these wide open offenses and the way people throw the ball. Philosophically we want to confuse the front five the offensive linemen and not let the quarterback set his feet. So to me, you have to be the one that dictates and don’t let them dictate to you.

On how he prepared for playing against Charlie Weis in 2006 and 2007:

Knowing that you have to know your opponent, you can never really get into somebody’s mind, but I know Coach Weis is an excellent football coach. So at the end of January of that year I just started breaking down all the film and trying to get from his pro, what he’d like to do in pro football through that first season. Obviously, Brady Quinn was a tremendous quarterback and so on and so forth.

So it took me a lot longer to really get to understand what he was trying to do than the guys you see year in and year out. Because he definitely is not an NCAA Manual guy, and you won’t see the same thing two or three times week in and week out, because he’s going to have wrinkles and know how to attack and you so on and so forth.

On other job opportunities that came along:

To me that’s a loaded question. There were a lot of jobs I was interested in. There were a lot of jobs and people that were interested in me. But the first time I talked to Coach Weis, once that happened to me, this is where I wanted to be.

On what he brings to the program:

I just think knowledge, first and foremost, and different things to do against different people in your game plan.

On if he was surprised to get a call from Charlie Weis this off-season:

Yeah, obviously, a little bit. Obviously, he had to see where they were going with Coach Lewis and things like that. But very much impressed me, because instead of this guy or that guy calling you or somebody’s agent calling you to see if you’re interested in a job, Coach called me. So, to me, that big. That even put more in it for me.

The kickoff times for the 2008 home games have been released and are as follows.

• Sept. 6 San Diego State - 3:30 p.m. EDT
• Sept. 13 Michigan - 3:30 p.m. EDT
• Sept. 27 Purdue - 3:30 p.m. EDT
• Oct. 4 Stanford - 2:30 p.m. EDT
• Nov. 1 Pittsburgh - 2:30 p.m. EDT
• Nov. 22 Syracuse - 2:30 p.m. EST

After looking at that tilt of games, one has to think that the Michigan game should be one of the one most sought after tickets not just this year, but ever. None of next year’s home games look to come against teams that will definitely be ranked at the time outside of the Wolverines. Pitt could come into town ranked on November 1, but you never know what you are going to get from a Wannstedt coached team.

A year after winning just 1 game in Notre Dame Stadium, it looks like the Irish should be able to go 5-1 at home if they can return to 2005-06 form.

Sports Illustrated’s Stewart Mandel wrote an article today about 10 new assistant coaches around the country who will make instant impacts at their new schools and new assistant head coach/linebackers coach Jon Tenuta was second on his list.

One of the biggest surprises of the off-season was that Tenuta — one of the nation’s most respected defensive coordinators at Georgia Tech, who was, at one point, rumored to be following Les Miles to Michigan — wound up taking a non-coordinator job.

However, while Corwin Brown remains Notre Dame’s coordinator, it’s clear Charlie Weis went out of his way find a spot for Tenuta (secondary coach Bill Lewis was moved to an administrative post), whose blitz-heavy defenses he’s faced first-hand past two seasons. And Tenuta will almost certainly play a significant role. There’s no question the Irish’s long-struggling defense could use his type of spark.

I missed out on the Tenuta news breaking two weeks ago when I was on vacation so I haven’t really weighed in much on this so far, but let me say now that I don’t think the impact Tenuta is going to make on this staff can be overstated. There are some concerns with his recruiting abilities compared to those Bill Lewis brought to the table, but the fact that Weis got one of the hottest commodities among defense coordinators to come to Notre Dame as the linebackers/assistant head coach might be one of the more impressive things he’s accomplished at Notre Dame.

Corwin Brown stands to gain the most from this move based on everything he can learn from Tenuta whose blitz schemes have received high praise over the years. Brown will also be coaching the secondary, a more familiar position for him.

Tenuta was also able to get a lot out of his players at Georgia Tech even though they were not highly ranked. He very good at putting his players in a position to make plays even though they might not have been the fastest or the biggest. Considering our inside linebackers for 2008 might not be ideal for a 3-4 defense, that skill should come in handy for Tenuta.

According to the Hartford Courant, Notre Dame is close to signing a deal with UConn for a 10 game series starting in 2009. The series would include 5 games at Notre Dame Stadium and then 5 split up between Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey and Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. None of the games will be played at UConn’s home field, Rentschler Field, which can only hold 40,000 people.

So far, it seems some UConn folk are not too thrilled about the prospect of not having a single game on their home field.

The thought of playing Notre Dame is exciting, but the eventual announcement of this series figures to get a mixed reaction in Connecticut. And we may get a taste of that as early as Wednesday when Notre Dame plays UConn in basketball. That’s why the risk must pay off for the UConn athletic department. This better work, because Hathaway has bent over so far for Notre Dame he can see Jimmy Hoffa’s body buried in the Meadowlands end zone.

UConn Division 1A Season Records
Year	Records
2002	6-6
2003	9-3
2004	8-4
2005	5-6
2006	4-8
2007	9-4

The way it was explained to me, Gillette Stadium (tentatively 2013, 2017, 2020) or the new Giants Stadium (tentatively 2015, 2019) will be rented by UConn and used as an ordinary home game. There will be a limited visitors allotment of tickets going to Notre Dame. UConn’s season ticket holders would get the game as part of their package and attempts would be made to satisfy UConn fans first. There better not be shenanigans. There better not be some sudden price surge the way Lew Perkins tried with the UMass-UConn basketball debacle. There better not be a hundred hidden details. If ever we need to keep a close eye on the details, it’s this deal.

And let’s be honest, how many fans will be pulling for UConn at the Meadowlands? Even Gillette would be split, right? They figure to be neutral-site games at best. Notre Dame will satisfy its East Coast fans, get exposure in two huge media markets, zero in on a big recruiting target and have zero pressure to join the Big East. Notre Dame figures to be delighted.

The upside for UConn is national TV exposure with potential recruiting gains. For a young program, the argument is that it will be worth it. Considering half the state can get to Giants Stadium and the other half can get to Foxborough fairly easily, the inconvenience may not be so bad. We’ll see.

It’s quite understandable for UConn fans to be upset about not having a single one of these games as a true home game. Both Giants Stadium and Gillette Stadium will most likely be filled with more Notre Dame fans than UConn fans. Along the same lines, Notre Dame has never played Navy at their home field in Annapolis either.

From ND’s perspective, this is a pretty good deal. It puts the Irish in two NFL Stadiums five times in 10 years in two pretty big markets against an up and coming team. Some people will no doubt bitch and moan about it because complaining about the schedule has been a hot topic across all of the ND boards over the last few weeks, but if UConn continues to improve as they’ve been, this could be a pretty nice little series.

The Huskies were 9-4 this year with a loss in the Meineke Car Care Bowl to Wake Forest. They were also taken to the woodshed by West Virginia in 66-21 loss in Morgantown. They were 8-0 at home, however, which could explain why the author of the previously quoted article was so upset about not having a single game against the Irish as a true home game.

Last summer’s transfer of Zach Frazer to UConn will undoubtedly add a little flair to this series in 2009 and 2010 if it does indeed go down as is being reported.