Archive for the ‘Notre Dame Football’ Category

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.

Is this a joke, Bobby?

On Friday, February 8, Florida State released its 2008 football schedule. The mighty Noles will be opening their season with back-to-back home games versus–drum roll, please–Western Carolina and Tennessee-Chattanooga.

Both I-AA teams, the WCU Catamounts are 3-19 in the last two seasons while the UT-Chattanooga Moccasins have torn through the I-AA ranks with a two-year mark of 5-17.

Reeling from multiple suspensions related to academic fraud (now there’s a shocker) that will leave FSU without several starters for the first three games of 2008, FSU Coach Bobby Bowden shamelessly acknowledged:

“There’s no way we would be ready to play a ranked team at that time…the first three ballgames we’re going to have around, what, 12 scholarship guys out?”

For those not paying attention at home, Bowden just said, “Yep, I’m a pussy.” Even worse, he was almost glib about failing to keep his kids in good academic standing. Seeing as Bobby’s integrity is already a non-starter, I guess he might as well piss on basic accountability while he’s at it.

Thank God this scheduling isn’t endemic to the rest of Division I-A. At least we can count on, say, the defending national champion LSU Tigers to schedule aggressively. Les Miles is a man among boys! He’ll take on anyone…anytime…anywhere! Can I get an Amen from SEC country? I mean, it’s not like LSU’s 2008 schedule has eight home games, including a four-game non-conference gauntlet of Appalachian State, Troy, North Texas and Tulane.

Oh please, spare me the lame-ass one-liners about Notre Dame scheduling the Coast Guard and Merchant Marines. I’m not a big fan of scheduling the service academies, if only because it gives all the intellectually lazy ND haters of the world an excuse to spin total bullshit as fact. The real facts are these: the Naval Academy has one of the top Div I-A winning percentages since 2003, while the Air Force Academy has been been a legitimate mid-major bowl team for a quarter century. If you think scheduling the likes of Navy or Air Force is the same as scheduling not one, but two Div I-AA opponents in the same season, you’re incapable of having an honest discussion–about anything–so shut the hell up.

———————

 [Note: only days after this article was written, Florida State put all of its athletic programs on two-year probation. According to an AP report issued on February 14, 2008, 60 student-athletes spread out across all FSU sports programs have lost or will lose some eligibility. Bottom line: any parent who willingly watches his or her child sign a Letter of Intent for Florida State should be charged with negligence. That "school" is a joke. And beyond that scoreboard they don't care what happens to your kids. ]

I did some research and found some articles about other offensive minded head coaches who have given up play calling abilities to their offensive coordinators - Andy Reid of the Eagles and Mark Richt of Georgia.

Note: In the stats to the right I excluded the Eagles week 17 game against the Falcons because they had already won the NFC East and rested all starters.

On Andy Reid giving play calling duties to OC Marty Mornhinweg:

In a postgame news conference that defied the basic etiquette of coaching, Andy Reid sat in front of a microphone Sunday afternoon and took significant credit for the Philadelphia Eagles’ dismantling of the Washington Redskins. His team had made some great plays, sure. But all of them, Reid said, were predicated on his initial action.

He got out of his team’s way.

Convinced that his play-calling had been “stinking the place up,” during a three-game losing streak, Reid asked offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg to direct the offense Sunday. The result — a fast-paced, no-huddle approach with a lot of running plays — helped Philadelphia to a 27-3 win that pushed the Eagles (5-4) back above .500 and kept the team competitive in the NFC East.

Coming off a bye week, the Eagles entered Sunday’s game intent on evolving during the second half of the season. The defense vowed to become more aggressive; the offense aimed for consistency. Both took their cues to change from Reid.

“We were in a rut offensively, and I call the plays,” Reid said. “It starts with me. You take a hard look at yourself in that situation, and we weren’t moving the football. If I’m in a rut, I feel very comfortable turning to Marty. So that’s what we did.”

As an Eagles fan, I can attest to the success the Eagles offense saw last year once Marty started calling the plays. The Birds ran the ball more and the offense got back on track. Fast forward a year though and the Eagles were back to a pass happy offense even though Mornhinweg was still calling the plays.

On Mark Richt:

In his first full season since handing off play-calling duties, Mark Richt is coping with some new issues, like more free time and free emotions on the Georgia sideline.

Richt turned over play-calling duties to offensive coordinator Mike Bobo late last season. He says that’s freed him up to be a little more emotional on the sidelines. He said at first he wasn’t sure what to do with the new role and that he’s still figuring it out.

Emotions, both Richt’s and his players’, were the lead topics Tuesday as the coach discussed last week’s 42-30 win over Florida and Saturday’s game against Troy. Thanks to the win over Florida, Number-10 Georgia leads the SEC’s Eastern Division. The Bulldogs have a 6-2 record and are 4-2 in the SEC.

The injury status of Dan MCarthy has been speculated about for the past few months, but the most recent reported had suggested that McCarthy would be ready for contact by June.  A report published Sunday by the South Bend Tribune, however, is stating that McCarthy is likely to sit out the year as a medical redshirt.

Originally expecting to be ready to play football by June, Notre Dame’s safety recruit Dan McCarthy instead recently underwent corrective surgery on his neck and will likely use this season as a medical redshirt year.

McCarthy was injured in a high school playoff game for Youngstown, Ohio’s Cardinal Mooney High, where he played both quarterback and safety.

McCarthy played the rest of the game the night he was injured, and actually found out about the severity of the injury the next day.

This is indeed disappointing news because if healthy, McCarthy would have likely been at least a special teams contributor as a freshman.  He is one of the most talent recruits we had sign on the dotted line this year on the defensive side of the ball and has a very bright future ahead of him once he gets passed this injury. Hopefully this medical redshirt year will allow Dan to fully recover and return to the field without missing a beat.

Here’s wishing Dan a full recovery.

Charlie Weis announced on Friday that he was giving up play calling duties to offensive coordinator Mike Haywood - something he said when he was hired he would eventually do, but something no one really thought would happen this soon.

Well, I’m going to try to cut the proverbial — the figurative — umbilical cord and try to move myself a little bit away from being the sole primary guy on the offensive staff. So in the springtime we’ll start off with the offensive staff running the offense. That means (offensive coordinator) Mike (Haywood) will write the scripts and set it up on offense, and that means that all the offensive coaches now won’t have to worry about the ever presence of the head coach breathing down their neck all the time.

I’m trying to do this. This is a tough one for me to do, but I’m trying to give them an opportunity to run the offense with me interjecting rather than me demanding and telling them everything that we’re going to do. So that’s how we’re going to run this in the spring.

Everyone is coaching the same positions, nothing is changing. They’re all doing what they do, it’s just that we’re going to try to do it with the head coach less involved. My wife knows I’m going through withdrawal on this one right there. This is really not the easiest thing.

But I’m going to give them an opportunity to see if we can’t be more expansive on our ideas, and I think that sometimes when you have a number of good coaches, sometimes they get stymied or stifled a little bit when you have a very domineering presence when the head coach is also involved in the offense. They know that I reserve the right to change some things, they know that I can interject things, but at the same time I want to give them an opportunity to do it, so that’s what I’m going to do.

He will still be working with the QBs, but possibly not as extensively as he did in the past:

I’ll stay involved with coaching the quarterback, but I’m not going to — I always feel that my greatest strength as a football coach is developing quarterbacks, so I think that for Jimmy (Clausen) and Evan (Sharpley) and now the new guy (Dayne Crist), for all those guys, I think that that’s part of what I do.

And I think that — (quarterbacks coach) Ron (Powlus) and I have already discussed this, that I’ll always be part of the development of that position, and I’ll always be part of the development of the offense. But I think that — I don’t want to pigeonhole the offensive staff, and I think that some of the creativity that comes in offense sometimes gets stymied when you have a domineering head coach that happens to be an offensive guy.

I’m trying to cut this cord. Really, it’s not the easiest thing to do. I’m trying to do that.

And why is he doing this?

I think that play calling is my greatest strength, okay, but I’m the head coach, and I think that when you’re play calling on offense, you might not necessarily be the best head coach. So what I’m trying to do is I’m trying to be a better head coach. That’s what I’m trying to do.

When you ask that question, it’s very valid, and that’s getting back to this — but at the same time, I think this might give me the best chance of being the best head coach.

And what will he be doing with his extra time now?

I’m actually going to spend more time doing two things; A, spending more time with the players, which I feel that’s one thing I haven’t done since I’ve been here. Since I’ve been here I think I’ve been spending so much time with the offense, I haven’t spent much time with the offensive players to tell you the truth, more with the offensive coaches, and have spent very little time with the defensive players. And come 6:00 Monday morning I’m going to start changing that because although I give the staff off next week, when they go work out at 6:00 on Monday morning I’m going to be in there with them and see if I can’t start being more — I won’t say more open, but more approachable with the players because I think that especially the young guys get so intimidated, they don’t know that you can come in and talk about everything.

I think if we’re going to play a bunch of young guys, which we did last year, I think the one thing I have to do is make sure I’m much more approachable and make sure I start working on that — now that recruiting is over, start working on that on Monday.

As far as special teams go, I screwed that up last year. Brian Polian is going to be the special teams coach. He’s not coaching defense. He’s just coaching special teams, and I’m his assistant. So the only two people who will be coaching special teams this year will be Brian as the special teams coach, and that’s his, and I’m going to be his aide because since I’ve been here I’ve been talking about how special teams, special teams, special teams.

So I woke up yesterday morning expecting to thoroughly enjoy National Signing Day. Most recruiting analysts projected Notre Dame as having one of the top classes in the country, its best in well over a decade, with an outside shot at ending the day with the #1 ranked class.

For the most part, that’s what happened. The ND faithful were a little disappointed when Milton Knox deferred to Hometown U and picked UCLA, but other than that it was a great day. A surprise commit from Kapron Lewis-Moore briefly vaulted ND to #1 in several recruiting rankings, but the Irish eventually got in line behind Alabama to be ranked a near-consensus #2 by the likes of Rivals.com, Scout.com, and Tom Lemming.

Note that I said near-consensus.

I had some time to spare, so I made the mistake of watching some of ESPNU’s coverage of National Signing Day.  I didn’t expect a whole lot from this crew. While the other aforementioned recruiting analysts use fairly complex methodology in ranking teams, ESPN pretty much collectively pulls info out of its ass. Their defining criteria in ranking recruits boils down to 1) Did you play in the Under Armour High School All-Star game that we televised? 2) Do you live in the state of Florida?

Knowing this, I was still shocked at ESPN’s final rankings. Alabama and Notre Dame, the near-consensus 1-2 recruiting classes in the country? Try #3 and #9. Even better, at the beginning of the day ESPN had Notre Dame ranked #7 and Alabama #9. How does Bama go from #9 to #3 in the span of about 12 hours while ND gains an elite player and drops two spots? I won’t speculate on ESPN’s venomous hatred of all things Notre Dame, but I will speculate on Alabama. I figure an industrious ESPN intern was surfing the other recruiting websites and said to himself, “Wow, we are staggeringly stupid.”

Tom Luginbill is the National Recruiting Director for ESPN’s Scouts Inc. (not to be confused with Scout.com, the older and more credible recruiting service). It is reasonable to say no one does less homework on the recruiting trail than Luginbill and his lackeys. They indiscriminately start, flame and retract unsubstantiated rumors. They sport wood for any kid in the Sunshine State who runs a 4.4. And they are unabashed Urban Meyer jock sniffers.

Case in point, ESPN singularly projected the Florida Gators as having the #1 recruiting class for 2008 heading into National Signing Day. And by “singularly” I mean every other recruiting service looked at them and said, “Pass me what you’re smoking.” Looking at UF’s depth chart, any armchair recruitnik could identify a stud running back and some elite offensive lineman as absolute musts, plus maybe a few receivers coupled with a Tebow understudy. And yet, when the dust had settled on NSD, Florida had suffered two elite Signing Day decommits, they whiffed on quarterback, they whiffed on running back, other than one touted juco they whiffed on wide receiver, they didn’t get a tight end, and they managed only one good and one mediocre offensive lineman.

What did this unbalanced class yield Florida? As the ESPNU NSD coverage wrapped up Wednesday evening, the Gators were still at #1. To their credit, by Thursday morning morning ESPN had dropped Florida all the way down to #4, sighting the said decommits of elite linebacker and o-line prospects Ramon Buchanan and Ricky Barnum. Curiously however, the ESPNU talking heads neglected to mention these defections during their Wednesday broadcast, even going so far to interview Urban Meyer a full three hours after the decommits were public knowledge and have a circle jerk about his “#1 class” and how it “met all their needs.” (Speaking of the Florida head coach, did he even wait until the ink dried on Omar Hunter’s LOI before reneging on his promise that defensive coordinator Greg Mattison wasn’t going to the NFL? There’s slimey, and then there’s Urban.)

Meanwhile, Notre Dame fans watched as for most of the day ESPN had Kapron Lewis-Moore—a Texas A&M decommit for the better part of a week who faxed his Letter of Intent to Charlie Weis around 9:30 AM EST—as an Aggie commit. And then, to add insult to injury, ESPN dropped Notre Dame from #7 to #9, apparently because they failed to land Milton Knox, who was already committed to UCLA anyway. It wasn’t quite the snub ND and other schools endured a couple months ago when ESPN blatantly downgraded any players who opted for Tom Lemming’s Army All-Star Game over their Under Armour game, but a snub nonetheless.

Look, I realize oftentimes these recruiting rankings are a crapshoot. But when the “leader in sports entertainment” gets into the business of high-stakes college football recruiting, I would expect at least a modicum of intelligence and professionalism. ESPN’s research is shoddy. Their recruiting analysts wear their agendas on their sleeves. They’ve turned their recruiting coverage into a shameless vehicle for the Under Armour All-Star Game. All in all, their product is a steaming pile of tabloid-quality wildebeest dung. Luginbill & Co. have the biggest microphone and the biggest stage, and they are little more than PR guys for high school football south of the Mason-Dixon Line. ESPN’s viewers deserve better. College football coaches, players, and fans deserve better.

Notre Dame’s defensive tackle depth may be about to take another blow with the news that Derrell Hand’s career might be over because of a hereditary disease in his spinal cord. Hand, who missed the first three games of the 2007 due to suspension, was expected to be a solid contributor in the defensive tackle rotation this year.

According to Blue and Gold Illustrated:

“He’s not the type of player to complain about injuries and he really never said that his back was hurting him, at least when he played for me,” said Fulk, who coached Hand at West Catholic High School in Philadelphia. “It kind of came out of nowhere for me.”

Hand is expected to get a second opinion but if the initial diagnosis is correct, Fulk said that playing football could severely aggravate the injury and potentially cause long-term problems.

“He’s going to get a second opinion about it,” Fulk said. “But at this point, it doesn’t look real good for him to play football ever again.”

Earlier this month, it was announced that Pat Kuntz was not enrolled at Notre Dame this semester and his availability for the 2008 season is very much in question as well.

With the apparent loss of Hand and the potential loss of Pat Kuntz, depth along the defensive line will be a serious concern for the Irish in 2008. At least one of the incoming freshmen defensive linemen will likely end up seeing some pretty extensive minutes.

In other news, cornerback Leo Ferrine, who was not invited back for a fifth year, has decided to transfer to DIAA Delaware next year to use up his final year of eligibility.

Ferrine is graduating from Notre Dame this spring and will likely pursue a master’s degree at Delaware, his father, also named Leo, said. Among the schools Ferrine had also considered was Hofstra.

The 6-foot, 190-pound Ferrine, 21, is from Springfield, N.J., and graduated from St. Peter’s Prep in Jersey City. He was a third-team all-state safety and also excelled as a receiver.

At Notre Dame, Ferrine played 12 games as a red-shirt freshman in 2005 (starting against Purdue), 10 in 2006 (starting against Southern California) and six in 2007. He had 34 career tackles, with 26 solos.

As our talent in the defensive backfield began to improve under Weis’s recruiting, Ferrine’s playing time decreased. In 2005, as a true sophomore, Ferrine was the nickel back for the Notre Dame secondary, but over the last two seasons his playing time plummeted with the emergence of Terrail Lambert (2006), Darrin Walls (2007), and Raeshon McNeil (towards the end of 2007).

Good luck to Leo playing for the Fighting Blue Hens of Delaware.

According to an AP report, Pat Kuntz is not enrolled at Notre Dame for the spring semester.

Kuntz said he plans to return to Notre Dame, possibly as early as this summer, and hopes to play for the Irish this fall.

“No matter what I’m going to be back there. I’m going to have one more year to play and I’m going to graduate from Notre Dame,” said Kuntz, who is majoring in sociology. “The time is the only thing that’s not 100 percent.”

Kuntz hopes to know in the next month whether he will be back in school in time to play next fall.

It was widely speculated that Ian Williams would take over as the starting nose tackle this year, but Kuntz was expected to fill the starting role of departed defensive end Trevor Laws. This loss of Kuntz this fall would be devastating for a defensive line which will already be stretched thin with experience talent.

The report listed “personal reasons” as the cause for Kuntz’s absence. Kuntz was likely to be limited this spring while recovering from knee and back injuries so if he can take care of the situation before the summer term rolls around, he will not miss much football that he was probably already going to miss.

Hopefully he can take care of whatever it is he needs to before the summer because he was going to be counted on heavily in 2008 and built a reputation as one of the toughest and hardest playing defenders on the team in 2007. Under-sized for the nose tackle position, Kuntz played with a lot of heart and surprised a lot of people with how well he was able to hold up against double teams in Corwin Brown’s 3-4 defense.

If he is unable to play this year, the candidates to fill the role currently on the roster, sophomore Emeka Nwankwo, a converted offensive lineman, juniors Paddy Mullen and Kallen Wade, and senior Derrell Hand. The door would also be wide open for the incoming freshman to step in and play from day one. Sean Cwynar enrolled at Notre Dame this week and would have the inside track among the freshman to fill in. Ethan Johnson, who missed his senior season due to injury, would also likely get a chance to start at end. Should the Irish be able to land Mike Martin in this recruiting class, he too could potentially challenge for the position. Hafis Williams and Brandon Newman would also likely be in the mix for playing time, but it’s likely Williams will need time to develop further and Newman will need time to improve his conditioning making starting more unlikely for these two compared to their fellow freshmen.

Hopefully all of this discussion on who would replace Kuntz becomes moot and he returns to school and competes this fall. You have to love his quotes that no matter what happens, he will be back and will graduate from Notre Dame. Good luck Pat, we will all be pulling for you.

Bruce Feldman from ESPN has been doing some college football “year in review” type articles over at ESPN.com the past week or so and today came out with one featuring the “biggest disappointments and most dubious moments of 2007“. As you can probably have guessed, our beloved Irish earned a place on his list (rightfully so).

3. The Notre Dame offense: Starting with the failed spread experiment against Georgia Tech, the Irish O was shockingly inept. Despite having an All-American-caliber tight end (John Carlson) and a couple of returning starters on the O-line — including a three-year starter at center (John Sullivan) — to go with a host of hyped young skill talent, ND ranked dead last in Division I-A in total offense, 116th in scoring offense, 115th in rushing offense and 110th in passing. The 3-9 Irish also lost to Navy for the first time in 44 games.

Also on the list was Dennis Dixon’s knee injury, the FSU academic scandal, Dennis Franchione’s newsletter, and USC’s historic upset loss to Stanford. You know what wasn’t on the list though? Michigan’s embarrassing loss to Division 1AA Appalachain State. If USC’s loss to Stanford made the list, how in the hell did Michigan’s not find a home amongst the 10 biggest disappointments and dubious moments of 2008? At least USC loss to a division 1a school (barely). Michigan lost at home, on opening weekend to a team that should have been able to beat with their second string.

Back to Feldman’s comments on Notre Dame though. Did he actually make it sound like we were overflowing with experience on the offensive side of the ball? What he failed to mention was that despite having an All-American caliber tight end in Carlson, we had to start 3 OL who never saw any meaningful minutes prior to 2007, 2 new wide receivers, a new running back, and a new quarterback. Not exactly a recipe for success. To be fair however, there was more than enough talent to be ranked much higher than 116th in scoring offense and dead last in total offense.

I’ll give Feldman credit for having Notre Dame on his list of 10 teams that will make the biggest jumps in 2008.

On the bright side, the Irish did play a bunch of true freshmen, 11 in all. Linebackers Kerry Neal and Brian Smith were solid, as was NT Ian Williams and WR Duval Kamara. WR-KR Golden Tate flashed some much-needed big-play potential and QB Jimmy Clausen got a ton of experience. The Irish do lose a handful of key seniors, most notably DE Trevor Laws, their best player, and TE John Carlson. Still, Clausen should be better as Charlie Weis talked about him bulking up. His outside receivers will benefit from the added experience. And if Clausen doesn’t get better fast, then incoming freshman Dayne Crist may overtake him. Even though the Irish O-line loses three-year starting center John Sullivan, it should be improved from the dismal showing in 2007, when they looked bewildered every time they faced a blitz. Another big plus: The schedule is lighter. The Irish trade Georgia Tech for San Diego State; UCLA for Washington; Air Force for Syracuse and Penn State for Pitt, meaning they lose four bowl teams and get back none.