Notre Dame Football 2010 - 5 Sweet Surprises --- 5 Deep Disappointments

It is both hard and sad to believe that the regular season is over. So many expectations, such high hopes, many sweet dreams and some bitter agony.


FIVE SWEET SURPRISES

1.  David Ruffer 15 for 15 in converting field goals this year. 18-18 in his career. Light a candle at the Grotto that he will come back for a fifth year.

2.  Notre Dame 20 – U$C 16. Finally.

3.  Congratulations to Coach Kelly and his entire staff for keeping the Team focused and out of the TANK. Any one of these losses would undo a normal Team; Michigan, MSU, Navy and Tulsa. Then the terrible tragic accident with the student cameraman.

4.  18 year old Tommy Rees stepping up to the task and delivering albeit shaky, but delivering none the less.

5.  The complete turn-around of the defense. In a year full of high expectations for a high powered offense that really struggled at times and left the defense to salvage the day.

Honorable Mention: Manti Te’o 127 tackles. 65 OA – 62 A. 14th in FBS.


FIVE BITTER DISAPPOINTMENTS

1.  The season ending injuries to Dayne Crist, Armando Allen, Kyle Rudolph, Theo Riddick and Ian Williams. What could have been?

2.  At the end of the Tulsa game, continuing to drive for a touchdown (an interception) instead of working and positioning the ball for a field goal attempt to win the game.

3.  The utter entire dismantling of the Notre Dame Football Team by Navy and their coaching staff.  Navy 35 - Notre Dame 17)

4.  The total lack of a Special Teams Punt Return Play. 75 opportunities. 31 fair catches. 15 return attempts for a miserable 83 yards.

5.  The poor Special Teams play and coaching on the MSU fake field goal in overtime.

Also Ran: Lack of a Special Teams Kick-off return game. 48 attempts for 1004 yards. Less than 21 yards an attempt. It would have been better to take the touchbacks and save the wear and tear on Wood and Jackson.

Lou Holtz - 73 and Counting

I surely understand the wrinkles at 73.  I just don't understand the blonde hair.

Requiem for the Huddle

In Knute Rockne’s day and for many years thereafter, the center would position himself out of earshot from the enemy about ten yards behind the football. He would raise his arms and yell huddle up! A receiver or back would run into the huddle with the play from the coach and tell the quarterback. He would repeat the play, give a snap count and number to the center and that was it.

Well, gee not anymore. What has happened to the huddle?

Gone the way of the dinosaur, dodo bird, carrier pigeon and pay telephone?

Well not yet but getting closer.

In college football, more and more Teams are going with the no-huddle, hurry-up, two-minute drill type play-calling.

Why? To allow the QB more time to observe the defense, check-off to another play, not allow the defense to substitute in another defensive package or simply wear down the defensive players?

No.

The actual average college football game has gotten too long time wise. This is due to added commercials by the networks. NBC is one of the worst. Less and less plays are being called and thus less football being played and rooted for. Some shenanigan rules with the game clock are also to blame, but basically more plays needed to be called to liven up the game. The NFL solved this problem with receivers in the QB’s and the defensive team captains helmets. It will only be a matter of time until this happens in college ball as well. Until then we have signal calling from the sidelines utilizing a multitude of systems. One of the neatest is Notre Dame’s.

Brian Kelly employs three to four walk-on quarterbacks wearing distinctive red hats to signal in his plays. The skill players; QB, receivers, and backs digest the signal. The QB yells the play to the linemen or checks-off to something else depending on the defensive scheme. In that case he uses hand and arm signals to the receivers.

The injury to QB Dayne Crist and the untimely insertion of Tommy Rees required another aspect of signaling, a series of symbol signs held up behind the coach. Only ND and God knows what they stand for.

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Four Tongue-in-Cheek Photos from the ND vs. U$C Game 2010

What a Brick S***House with wheels looks like coming at you.

Lame Kitten wondering why he standing out in the rain.

Who said White guys can't jump?

About Time Eh?

What We Learned From Watching the ND – U$C Game - 2010

** ESPN3, Streaming, Windows7, and our Compaq computer do not get along. Every time we tried to mute the mind numbing Capital One Viking commercials, Windows7 would rear its ugly head and fight with everyone.  Invariably Windows would win.

** Who would of thought you could give up four horrific turnovers at your end of the field and lose the turnover ratio and WIN THE GAME?

** Tommy Rees has just got to stop throwing picks (85-135-8) with 10 TD's.

** The jury is still out on Kelly’s spread offense.

** 2010 Punt return statistic: 15 for 83 yards. 60 have been fair-caught. We stink.

** It does rain in California.

**  We had the ninth least penalties in the NCAA, and 22nd lowest in penalty yards per game. Last night, 1 penalty for 10 yards.

** Victory after 8 losses in a row to U$C is Sweet.

** A number of U$C linebackers and safeties are wondering this morning who was number 33 and why was he running as if possessed?

** How could the Notre Dame defense perform so crappy against Navy and so strong against U$C? Gave up 35 points to Navy and 34 since.

** Tommy Rees has just got to stop throwing those horrific picks.

** Apparently the ABC/ESPN producer does not (as the NBC producer does) like to show Brian Kelly yelling, ranting and raving at some poor Notre Dame player.

** Apparently the ABC/ESPN producer does like to show Lane Kiffin (who has been given the ‘handle” Lame Kitten over at NDNation) with the deer in the head light look.

** If you thought U$C was not tanked going into the game, they definitely are now.

** Robert Hughes is a Brick S*** House with wheels.

** Will somebody please tell Tommy Rees to quit throwing picks?

** You got wonder what kind of a career U$C QB Mitch Mustain would have had if he had stayed at Arkansas or gone to a school that was hurting for a QB.

** Notre Dame deferred from the coin toss. Sent out the defense. Maybe Kelly learned something from watching Lou.

** Next week U$C vs. UCLA. If we were a betting staff, we would NOT take U$C regardless of the point spread.

Women of Troy

Everybody has their rivalry whether it’s Army-Navy, Michigan-Ohio State, Alabama-Auburn or the best of all Notre Dame – Southern Cal.


The staff has done extensive research and once again have come up with the best looking cheerleaders.

This is a hands down, easy victory for the women of Troy.

The question remain. Are they on scholarship?

The Beach Boys sang it right: “Wish they all could be California Girls.”

Sunday Musings on the Notre Dame – Army Game

** Navy is going to hand Army their heads.

** Army looked flat, lacked rhythm and did not have the same level of skills in the Triple Option (TO) as Navy.

** Hellooooo Notre Dame Defense. Where you been darling?

** Michael Floyd looks about 75-80% and lacks his normal speed and fast juking ability.

** Would Cierre Wood please just hit the hole and run like crazy.

** Just because Notre Dame stopped Army and the TO, doesn’t mean that the Navy coaching staff won’t once again out-coach the Notre Dame coaching staff next year.

** We can beat U$C. Even with all our wounded. It appears U$C is tanked.

** Michael Floyd and Kyle Rudolph need to complete their educations next year at Notre Dame. They still have much to prove the NFL about their abilities and injury proneness.

** Do we have a quarterback controversy? Coach Kelly would be wise to open up the quarterback position to open competition especially if Crist is not ready for Spring Practice. But please don’t do it like the moronic way Charlie Weis did.

** Green jerseys for the tradition, the playing an old rival in Yankee Stadium, adding something special to the game? Fine, then outfit them with jerseys and pants from the 1930’s.

** Notre Dame has the worst punt return game in the history of football.

** Robby Toma an after-thought in recruiting Manti T’eo? Don’t you believe it.

** The chick that does the side line commentary (Alex Flanigan) did some of her best work last night.

Ah the pageantry, the rivalry, the nostalgia, the focus of college football and the sporting nation on the Army – Notre Dame Football game. The 1920’s 30’s, and even the early 40’s games that were played long before any of us were born, those were the days. The Blue-Gray Sky article, the win one for Reagan speech and the forward pass. Wooden H goal posts. 75,000+ fans cheering in Yankee Stadium, the house that Ruth built. Leather helmets to keep the opponent from chewing your ear off as you lay flattened at the bottom of a mass of bodies. Simple, dull uniforms made by Spaulding in America. Male cheerleaders running around carrying megaphones and hidden hip flasks. Diagonal hash lines in the end zone. Referees dressed in white shirts, goofy hats and knickers carrying flags to indicate out of bounds and stop the clock. Students played to have fun, obtain an education and get chicks.


Sadly today’s average college football player could care less and scoffs at the old grainy pictures and black-white too fast-moving film clips. It appears all so foreign.

Today it’s a jumbotron, cheerleaders with short dresses and great legs, in the house that Steinbrenner built. Football players today are sporting crazy looking tattoos on their necks and arms and long hair that begs a comb and scissor work. The worry today is making a bowl game or the future size of the paycheck. Now it is state of the art wearing apparel called a uniform with brash colors, stripes and team logos. (Some are down right frightening).  Helmets that you pump up with air. Names on the back so you don’t have to pay $10 for a program. Students today get recruited to play, receive a lot of money in the way of “scholarships,” seriously look forward to the next level at the NFL and to get chicks.

Well at least at the Notre Dame Stadium the end zone hash marks are still the same.

Steinbrenner Stadium

Notre Dame-Army football tickets available Tuesday

Press Release:  The University of Notre Dame will release a very limited quantity of reserved standing-room tickets for Saturday's Notre Dame-Army football game to be played at Yankee Stadium.
The sale will begin at 8:30 a.m. EST, on Tuesday.

Tickets are $175 each and may only be purchased by calling 574-631-7356.

Tickets are available on a first-come, first-served basis while supplies last.

**********************

Let’s get this straight. Since this is technically a “home game”, Notre Dame is running the show.

$175 bucks to stand and watch the game?

$175 buckaroos to stand on the hard concrete for four hours while NBC runs $50,000,000 worth of TV time-out commercials?

$175 American hard earned dollars to stand, then lose your place when you have to go tinkle?

$175 artificially under valued American $ by the Chinese to stand next to some drunk jerk?

$175 + $25 for parking, + $18 for three watery beers, + $11 for tacos and a limp hotdog, $5 to the kid to hold your spot while you tickle away the cheap beer, $25 for the ND hat, and $22 for the T-shirt commemorating your standing for four hours in the cold and possible rain.

OR

$175 which you could spend on premium beer, a ton of high-end snacks, delivered pizza’s, and still have enough left over to put in the Sunday collection plate and make the priest smile.

Plus, watching replays, tinkling during the NBC commercials, and taking a power nap before the game in the comfort of your own couch.

You decide.

How Notre Dame can defeat Army and the Triple Option

Coach Brian Kelly when asked Sunday November 14th:  On whether there are any tweaks to prep for the triple option: "Absolutely. No, I'm not sharing. We have to do a better job than we did against Navy and we are working hard at that right now."

We sincerely hope so Coach.  The SAS staff sat down and came up with the following Triple Option Defense.  It cost me a case of beer and three large everything on them pizzas.

THE DREADED TRIPLE OPTION

On the chalkboard

On the Field

It wasn’t that Notre Dame could not stop Navy’s triple option (TO) offense; it was that Notre Dame could not even stop the first leg of the option – the fullback off tackle. For gosh sakes Alexander Teich amassed 210 yards rushing that horrible day. (Navy 35 - Notre Dame 17 least we forget)

Here is a must see video, it speaks for itself. A methodical gutting of the Notre Dame defense by Navy during the Charlie Weis era. It does a better job of showing and explaining the TO than the Navy – ND game this year because Navy had to be more diverse in its option attack. Watch it twice. Once for observing all three running options, fullback (FB), quarterback (QB), halfback (HB) or slot back SB). Then watch the line of scrimmage, the response by the ND defensive line and the cut blocks.

SAS requested game film from West Point but were denied. So we are forced to assume that Army will initially show the basic/generic TO (see above pictures). It is interesting to note that Army finally decided to change offensive schemes after being pounded year after year by a TO Navy. Navy (Coach Paul Johnson) embraced the TO because it fits the caliber of athlete attending the Naval Academy. Army belatedly has finally figured that out.

The TO relies on the QB read and Team timing.   Like any other offense, disrupt the timing, confuse the QB, and force missed blocks and you got a chance.  TO plays off the supposed strength of the defense; size, bulk, domination of the line of scrimmage from end to end.

How Notre Dame can defeat Army and the TO.  Listen up Mike Diaco. You too Brian Kelly.

** The SAS defensive alignment is a basic 5-3-2-2 set to stop the run.

** Understand that the line of scrimmage really extends from side-line to side-line with the TO.

** In the typical 3-4-2-2 defensive scheme replace the 300+ lb nose guard (NG) and two 290+ lb tackles are replaced with mobile 260- lb linemen.

** Add two athletic/mobile defensive ends (DE).

** Teach the now five defensive linemen not to get into the three point stance. The stance should be similar to that of a linebacker.

** Teach the five linemen how to use their hands and feet to avoid the cut block. Lateral movement is key.  Push-off, grab and push, avoid getting rolled on, watch the QB.

** The two cornerbacks (CB) must bump and push the WRs at or near the line of scrimmage to disrupt the timing and pattern. A lot of man coverage is employed. You got to force the QB to pass.

** The two safeties (S) must first defend the deep pass from the TE, HB, and even the WR, then defend the run. They cannot bite on play fakes or commit to stopping the run too soon.

**  The DE away from the action, away from the run must relentless pursue the QB nonetheless.  He is in charge of stopping ends around, reverses, broken plays, trick plays, passes and the like.  The spy. 

** Deception:

**  The QB will hand off to the FB, if not he will run down the line reading the DE. If can see the DE number clearly, the QB knows the DE is coming at him and will run wide and/or pitch to the trailing HB. Therefore, at least four DEs must rotate through the two positions. Part of the rotation can be the switching the outside linebackers (OLB) with the DE. Both are basically the same physically. The QB will have to be a math major to remember all the numbers.

**  The three linebackers, one middle linebacker (MLB) and two OLB line up single file behind the 260 lb NG. After the QB makes his read and points to the MLB, [which should all be confusing to the QB] the LBs, break into their designated position at the last second. These final positions are dictated by the down and distance and called from the sideline.

** Killer plays:

The reverse, the flea flicker, a delayed pass play of any sorts. Ouch. Navy has them and uses them from time-to-time. Since Army wouldn’t send film we have to guess they will do so as well.

Simplistic? Naïve? Yes, but consider the source.



Why Army Will Beat Notre Dame

Army 35 Duke 21
Duke 34 Navy 31

Navy 35 Notre Dame 17

Therefore: Army 34 Notre Dame 33

SAS is taking this logic to Vegas.

Yoots -- Ooooover – Rrrrrrated !!

Except for the typical Brian Kelly (gutsy/bonehead/moronic/questionable) play call during the first offensive series of going with a run play, 4th and 4 inside the ND side of the field, everything else came up roses for Notre Dame.

Getting back to the Utes/Yoots, the schedule these past two weeks finally caught up to them.

The Irish defense was just too much.

Play of the game: Senior walk-on, red hat, side-line signal caller Brian Castello calling time out when there were none to call. I’m impressed that Kelly let him play during his last home game as a senior. What a great thing to do for the guy.  Castello has something to tell his kids about.

Go Irish.  Beat Army.

Utes or Yoots?

Come on! Grab my hand and arm. I’ll pull you up! Ooph. There you go. Say, between you and me you could stand to shed a few pounds. Well anyway, welcome back on board. Yeah, yeah, I don’t care if you jumped off or fell off, you’re back on the Notre Dame Bandwagon and ready to cheer for the IRISH. The bye week refreshed us all.  We got three games to go. They should be good ones.

Darned if Utah didn’t get the snot beat out of them last week by TCU. It would have been sweet for Notre Dame and the seniors at the last home game to thump the Utes. Oh well.

BTW, is a Ute an animal, vegetable, or mineral?  Maybe Joe Pesci in “My Cousin Vinny” can explain it better than I…

CRISIS

These are the times that try an Irish fans soul. The one time fall cheerer and the lazy blue gray sky supporter during this 4-5 crisis, shrink from the loyalty of their beloved Team: but those that stand by it now, deserves the love and thanks of all Domer’s and Subway Alumni alike. Poor playing, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the game, the more glorious the win.

NBC, Saturday November 13th, 2:30 EST. Be there.

With humble apologies to Thomas Paine:

THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.



Some More Sobering Questions That Need To Be Answered

Some More Sobering Questions That Need To Be Answered

Is the Notre Dame coaching staff on the road during bye week recruiting or staying back and trying to staunch the hemorrhaging?

Have anymore recruits jumped ship or is the number still 17 (loss of 3 so far)?

Are there any potential high school recruits out there that still want to come to Notre Dame?

Is there a coach’s summer camp out there somewhere that teaches the defensive nuances of the triple option?

Can the Subway Alumni Station staff send Notre Dame Coach Bob Diaco to the camp? We’d send Coach Brian Kelly as well except that it would cause us to dip heavily into our beer fund.

Would the game film last week of the Duke victory over Navy be of value to the Notre Dame Coaching staff?

Has Navy Coach Ken Niumatalalo written a book on the triple option?

Can we get a copy and it send to the entire Notre Dame coaching staff?

Has anyone sat down and worked the odds concerning risk, outcome, logic, potential success, potential failure, rewards and punishment of the following scenario? Trailing 28-27 with 45 seconds left on the clock. You are sitting at the opponents 19 yard line with the football spotted between the hash marks. Third down, one time out left, with a Groza semifinalist sitting the bench, 18 for 18 in field goals. You order up a pass into the end zone to the constantly double-teamed All-American candidate Michael Floyd.

Has the first year institution of the evening meal training table been a contributing factor in the five losses?

Should have Manti Te’o gone on his Mormon Mission instead of playing football this year for Notre Dame? (We can answer that – My gosh NO).

Who would have picked up the slack in the tackle department on defense?

Does anyone other than Brian Kelly’s mother believe Notre Dame can beat Utah?

Who in practice or during the opening minutes of the Utah game will get injured?

Michael Floyd

Manti Te’o

Cierre Wood

Tommy Rees

When was the last time you watched a Notre Dame football game and the offensive line dominated both the line of scrimmage and the opponent the entire game?

Other than Tulsa Irish and Grim Jack, is anyone out there in ND Nation reading this sorry blog?