UND.com posted the full video of the “Irish Eyes” Drill (the drill in which a defender lines up in front of a blocker and needs to shed the block and tackle a running back).  Here are my observations on the drill with my full notes of each play I could make out on the video after the jump.

• Sam Young didn’t look good at all here.  Justin Brown, Morrice Richardson, and Pat Kuntz all got the better of Young in this drill and I didn’t see him win any battles.
• Chris Stewart on the other hand flat out dominated from what I could see.  He flattened Toryan Smith on one play prompting the entire defense to go nuts.
• Speaking of Toryan Smith, his window of opportunity seems to be closing - he didn’t look good in this drill and with all of the young talent at linebacker in the freshman class, he is going to have an up hill battle for playing time.
• Eric Olsen looked pretty good at times.  He and Stewart appear to be our best run blockers thus far.
• Brian Smith looks like he has the strength to play inside linebacker.  He didn’t win every battle, but won more than he lost.
• Hafis Williams looks like he could be a player down the line.  He will need a lot of work on his technique as evidenced by Braxston Cave pancaking him, but he also looked great the next time out against Cave and just swallowed up the running back.
• Ethan Johnson looked quick, but got over powered at times.
• Kerry Neal was another guy who looked really good at times in this drill.
• Paul Duncan, who is battling Michael Turkovich for the LT spot, had his moments.
• Pat Kuntz got stood up a couple of times by Stewart and Olsen.
• Steve Filer and Joseph Fauria had a couple battles with each winning one.

Continue reading for a complete play by play of this drill

Here’s some video Irish Illustrated posted to YouTube of the defense.  Notice Hafis Williams (#79) hustling in the beginning and getting some praise from Charlie Weis.  “Look at Hafis running.  That’s what we’re talking about right there buddy.  That’s what we’re talking about,” Weis said.

Here are the height and weights listed for all of this year’s freshmen with a few observations below.

• Good to see Floyd coming in at 6-3, 215 - that kind of size will allow him to play from day one.
• Brandon Newman has the size to play right away, even though NT is one of the toughest positions to play as a true frosh.  The difference in strength needed at NT in a 3-4 from high school to college is quite substantial.  Still, with his size he should at least see some spot duty this year.
• Seeing Ethan Johnson at 275 surprised me - I didn’t think he would come in that big.  Based on his size and Weis’s early praise, I think it’s safe to assume we’ll see him early on.
• Steve Filer is already one of the bigger linebackers coming in at 236.  Wouldn’t be surprised to see him get early playing time as well.
• Kyle Rudolph reported at roughly the same weight Mike Ragone is listed at as a sophomore - that’s a good sign for early playing time for hi
• Very surprised to see Goodman listed at 197 based on the Army All American game where he looked rail thin.
• Four freshmen reported over 300 pounds - Newman (310), Trevor Robinson (301), Braxston Cave (315), Hafis Wiliams (302).  Sounds like the freshman training program Mendoza put together worked well.
• Would be very surprised if Gray didn’t see the field this year.  He is listed at 230 pounds already and has great speed.  He is my dark horse candidate for kick returning duties this year.
• Dayne Crist is huge for a freshman QB at 6-4, 233.  By comparison, Clausen is still only listed at 217.

Sean Cwynar - DL

He’s really a versatile player who I see who can play as an inside player, and I also — because he’s big enough, an outside player, because he’s strong enough and athletic enough. He’s a guy, as we were showing a couple of clips on each person, he’s a guy who we’re very happy to have, is a very good candidate for a mid year admit because he’s a very, very good student, and I think he’s a welcome addition to our team. We’re kind of glad he’s in here, enrolled in school and getting indoctrinated into our way of doing things.

Ethan Johnson - DE

But as a junior you could see where this guy was heading. As a junior he had 83 tackles and he had 10 sacks and he’s been considered as one of the best defensive linemen in the country. Certainly he’s been touted by a lot of the recruiting gurus as the top player coming out of the Pacific Northwest.

Ethan came here and came and went to camp, and he fell in love with the place, and we fell in love with him. We really, really hit it off. He was our type of guy, and we’re really happy to have him on board.

Kapron Lewis-Moore - DE

We’ve been on Kapron for a long time. He’s one of those guys who some people see as an outside linebacker. I don’t know how big he’s going to end up because you look at him and he’s 6′4″, 230, now, and who knows how big he’s going to end up at the end of the day.

He played predominantly a defensive end position, which is where I see him coming in here. He’s one of the top players in the state of Texas. You watch this guy, he’s a versatile guy. He can play with his hand down, he can play with his hand up. You know, he’s playing hoops right now. He’s a good basketball player. He’s on the track team. He does a lot of things right there.

Brandon Newman - DT 

You watch him — in his career he’s got 126 tackles, and 31 and a half of them are tackles for a loss. This is a big, powerful inside player, and as most of you know who do research on our program, you know that it was important for us to get a couple of wide bodies in there as well as the athletic guys who can play on the edge.

Hafis Williams - DT

Here’s another 295 type body, another wide body that’s explosive, an explosive inside player. They played him both on the defensive line and the offensive line. He’s going to be an interior defensive lineman for us, and I think of that chemistry of the different types of players we recruited, this one was a very, very important get for us.

Anthony McDonald - MLB

It’s interesting, I wouldn’t want to be him on game day when we play against one of our rivals, USC. Obviously he went to Notre Dame High School there in Sherman Oaks, Kevin Rooney. Coach Rooney we got to know here in the last several years. We’ve been spending a lot of due diligence out there at Notre Dame High School, and their program seems to be a great system for us, and their mentality and their methodology at the school is very similar, and we really needed to get that big, physical inside linebacker. And Anthony certainly fit the bill as far as that went.

Steve Filer - LB

With Steven, he’s got size and athleticism to play inside or outside. He was the Gatorade Player of the Year in Illinois. You saw him down in the All American game. He was a Parade Prep All American. He was a finalist for Mr. Football that Cwynar won, so he was mad at that.

He had 107 tackles and had an interception for a touchdown this year. He’s an excellent hoop player, as well. He’s been down at our camp. He went to Mount Carmel High School, and Frank Lenti, who I both like and respect, we’ve been telling Frank since the day I got the job, we’d like to get some guys out of Chicago. This was one of the guys we earmarked back when he was a sophomore, and we’ve been working on this for quite some time, and we’re happy to have him.

Darius Fleming - LB

And his partner in crime now is Darius Fleming. He went to St. Rita, Coach Kuska. It’ll be interesting. He’s another athletic guy. He’s an outside pass rusher. I mean, he’s going to bring a lot of edge pressure for us. He also played in the All American game. He led his team to a state title as a junior, and as a senior they went to the Prep Bowl City Championship there in Chicago. Obviously he was a First Team All State by the Tribune.

David Posluszny - WILB

We see him as a weak side inside linebacker. A lot of people want to stereotype him as Paul’s little brother, you know, but recently I was in the home and visiting and Paul had come down for the visit, and I’m sitting there and I’m looking at the two of them, and David has gotten himself up to over 220 pounds, and he’s just one rocked up unit with good football instincts, and you just see there’s something about the kid that when you’re around the kid.

Robert Blanton - CB

Here’s an athletic and physical defensive back that can play corner or safety. That is a rare combination now because especially with the big wide receivers that you have out there today, if you don’t have guys that have hitting ability like safeties they’re often stereotyped as, you can’t match up, and this is what Robert likes to do.

Dan McCarthy - S

He’s a versatile athlete and a physical player with a nose for the ball. He obviously played safety and quarterback for them. We’re going to play him at safety. He has great leadership skills, and they also use him as a returner, both punt return and kickoff return. He told me although he’s a quarterback, the ball was not in his hands throwing it very often because we had a lot of fun with that. Just visited him Saturday this past week. I was in his home.

Jamoris Slaughter - CB

Jamoris is another guy just like Robert where you watch these guys play and say they give you some versatility because you can play them at safety, you can play them at corner, you’ve got corner cover skills with safety ability, but then you can put them at safety and not limit yourself to just having limited range and just bringing everyone in here that played strong safety. And going into this recruiting class we wanted to make sure we brought some versatility on that side of the ball.