Happy Signing Day!

Welcome to Notre Dame signing class of 2010!

Recruiting Eve

Even more so than any day in spring football, national signing day is the most exciting day on the offseason calendar. Good surprises can come few and far between, but landing a top recruit at the last minute (like Te'o last year) can have a large impact on a program. With that background, lets check out some of the storylines surrounding this Irish recruiting class:

RKGs:
Kelly emphasized the importance of recruiting the right kind of guys, stating in his first press conference that he will recruit players that "are mentally and physically tough, that will play for four quarters, and [that are] gentlemen off the field that we all can be proud of." In theory, these tough gentlemen sound pretty bad ass, but if there is one thing the last three coaches have taught me, it is to not get too wrapped up in words. Here are two examples:

"if you don't recruit every day, you've missed the boat" - Ty Willingham on the importance of recruiting

"You are going to have a hard-working, intelligent, nasty football team that goes on the field because the attitude of the head coach will be permeated through the players" - Charlie Weis on his motivational abilities

Up to this point, Kelly's staff has added six players to the current class, recently including four star athlete Danny Spond, but two seemingly superfluous quarterbacks and one 2 star TE have some fans wondering if an "RKG" is just an excuse to miss on blue chip players. Haters should give a little slack here; it is always difficult to put together a solid class on short notice. However, Kelly will need to showcase his ability to player develop if he doesn't want to run into problems three years down the road as Weis' last recruiting class wasn't that spectacular either.

Notre Dame vs. Stanford
An interesting subplot to the recruiting season has been between Kelly's Irish and Jim Harbaugh and the Stanford Cardinal. The two schools have been battling cross-country to nab recruits off one another; here is a quick rundown of the battle of drunken Tree against ND up to this point:

• June 28th: 3 star safety Chris Badger becomes the first Stanford commit to defect to the Irish
• October 18th: 4 star Tai-ler Jones decides he would rather have Dayne Crist tossing him the rock and decommits from Stanford
• January 16th: 3 star OL/TE Tate Nichols becomes the first Stanford recruit stolen by Kelly's staff
• January 25th: Notre Dame is dealt a tough blow when 4 star DE Blake Leuders follows his recruiting coach Brian Pollian to Stanford

This'll be easier if you just keep squatting, Jim

Hopefully no one on the current commit list feels like bolting for California tomorrow, but I don't feel comfortable calling this recruiting war over just yet.

Positions of Need:
As was previously alluded to above, there have been some concerns about which positions Notre Dame is offering and landing in the current class. With an injured Dayne Crist as the only scholarship gunslinger on the roster, QB was an obvious need this year, so I personally don't think bringing in 4 quarterbacks (1 of which will likely end up playing more of an H-Back) is a bad thing. Sure 1 (or maybe even 2) will end up transferring in a year as they fall down the depth chart, but with such a looming question mark behind Christ, it is probably better to have the numbers for now. Henderson is sitting high on most fans' wish lists
With a lot of inexperience on the two-deep, DE, DT, and OT are also positions that this class could use a little help at (think of 5 star OT Seantrel Henderson as being this year's version of a much larger Manti Te'o), but I personally think that the safety position has the biggest need of a recruit in this class. Beyond Harrison Smith (who is ideally more of a LB/S hybrid), Dan McCarthy and special teams ace Zeke Motta are the only 2 safeties on scholarship. Another safety recruit to compliment Chris Badger would significantly add to our safety depth.

Time to start crossing your fingers and making trips to the Grotto Irish fans. Signing day is tomorrow!

2 cents on the staff

The university officially announced the hiring of Mike Denbrock (Tight Ends), Mike Elston (Defensive Line), and Chuck Martin (Defensive Backs) as the newest additions to Kelly's still forming coaching staff.
While 43 years of combined coaching has only given one of these guys time to learn how to (kind of) smile in a mugshot, there are a few things to get excited about with these guys (and especially Chuck Martin).

First, all three coaches have worked under coach Kelly (Dembrock and Marting at Grand Valley and Elston at Cinnci), so no matter what us crazy bloggers may say about them, Kelly at least knows what each should bring to the table first hand.

The press release focused on each coach's ability to recruit as well as their ability to player develop. Elston headed Cincinnati's Florida recruiting while Dembrock specialized in recruiting the West Coast while at Stanford and Washington. While neither the Bearcats or Huskies experienced much recent success on the recruiting front, Elston will have the opportunity to work with (and learn from) Alford, who is doing a great job in Florida. As for Dembrock, it has been reported that he will be visiting blue chip offensive tackle Seantrel Henderson in Minnesota today, so he will have a golden opportunity to impress the fans. Martin has been involved with recruiting almost exclusively out of the Chicago area for the last few decades, so he should be a good fit there.

Speaking of Martin, I'm pretty pumped to have him on board. After joining one of Kelly's first staffs as a defensive backs coach at Grand Valley, Martin went on to become the head coach and win 74 out of 81 games including two national championships. You have to love bringing a coach with that type of winning mindset onto the team, and if he can repeat his success from Grand Valley State at ND, I wouldn't hate it.

Best of luck to the new coaches - welcome to Notre Dame!

Initial Impressions

After surviving another round of finals and thankfully wrapping up my Christmas shopping, I finally found some time to spit out a few thoughts on the new Notre Dame coach.

What difference a (head) coach makes: While not many leads for Kelly's first staff have surfaced, fans will notice that Kelly is much more detailed and methodical than perhaps Weis was when assembling his first staff. Rather than reaching for the big names, Kelly is more focused on finding coaches that are on-board with his coaching philosophy. Having many years of experience as a head coach, the assembly of Kelly's staff will be fairly different from that of the Weis era. Expect him to bring in a lot of familiar faces from his previous experiences as well as a few carefully selected people to help him adjust specifically to the Notre Dame culture.

Living in the lime light: There has been fairly unanimous agreement that Kelly has handled himself well with the media up to this point. Keith Arnold from NBC Sports recently pointed out how BK's decision to hold 2 separate media sessions illustrates his understanding of the media and what it can influence. Unfortunately, Charlie's Nasties was not invited to the internet reporters presser. For now I'll blame it on the blog name, but if I keep getting rejected from these private parties, I could turn this site into slander city.... so watch yourself coach.

I'm really glad that Kelly has been able to hit it off so well with the media because, frankly, it is demanded. At a school like Notre Dame, winning records are expected to be accompanied by a good public image. I'm not sure if an iron-fisted lock-jawed coach like Belichick or Parcells could makes things work here. Don't get me wrong, any particular style of coaching could work here, but unless a coach is able to communicate positively with the media, alumni, and fans, it would probably not lead to a lasting marriage.

Tough Gentlemen: In his opening press conference, Kelly told his players to take some time off over the holidays. I would advise them to take advantage of this break because from what I've heard, they are going to have a fun spring in Kelly's conditioning program. BK has put a very strong emphasis on his ability to develop players, and while a certain component of that is coaching, an equally important factor lies in the strength and conditioning programs.

I have confidence that this no-nonsense approach to conditioning should have a positive impact on the team. Everyone always references USC's full contact practices as an ingredient to their success, and I think Kelly will be moving closer to that model than Weis did.

RKGs: Kelly made an interesting comment that (paraphrasing) schools like Notre Dame can sometimes get caught up too much in the public opinion of recruits. The idea is that there is so much football talent nation wide, that a good number of players inevitably slip through the cracks of recruiting sites or that some players are positioned to play better in college than their high school resume indicates. Coach Kelly's performance on the recruiting front will be well documented (and likely criticized) over the following weeks, and I'm very curious about how this comment will work its way into ND's recruiting plan.

To draw on an almost completely irrelevant analogy, some of my best players in EA Sports NCAA Football have been 2 star players that, while being terrible at almost everything else, happened to be 6'6" and run a 4.4 forty. I know its a stretch, but you get the picture. Look for Kelly to reach on a couple recruits in order to get some qualities guys and hard workers into the locker room as well as to push his players in practice.

That's it for now. Eventually I might put up a poll for a new blog name or something like that, so start brainstorming now. Go Irish!

More Coaching Search News

Whether you believe anything less than Meyer or Stoops will be considered a failure or that Jim Tressel would look better in a Blue and Gold sweater vest, if you believe anything ESPN's Joe Schad says, this week is probably going to be interesting. In the above interview, Schad says that he would be shocked if Notre Dame's coaching search wasn't over by the end of the week.

Blue-Gray Sky took attention to Brian Kelly's recent Twitter update, and with a reported interview also scheduled with Stanford's Jim Harbaugh this week, I might finally be able to start thinking of a new name for this blog.

Swarbrick on Weis / Coaching Search

If the Notre Dame message boards aren't enough, espnChicago has plenty of interviews and rumors about our coaching search. Because I've been walking past George Smith on my way to classes since Monday, I thought I'd post his interview with Jack Swarbrick:

Wojo Rising

Gene Wojciechowski and the ESPN crew are at it again. I know that these people are just trying to bring hits to their website and money to the bank, but some of the fantastic journalism surrounding the Notre Dame coaching situation is bordering on the inaccurate. Here's some commentary on the worldwide's most recent attempt to exploit a program that is no longer nationally relevant (by the way, how much press has the impeding coaching change at Michigan been getting lately?).

For starters, the obligatory jab at Weis while comparing him to Ty:

"Unlike Tyrone Willingham before him, Weis got a full five years to build his program with his own recruits, his own system and his own assistant coaches."

What disappoints me about this comment is that any Notre Dame fan can refute this claim with a stock rebuttal so commonly used that I'm not even going to waste space writing it. ESPN needs to recognize that the factors that kept Weis around for five years are so different than Ty (and really even Davie) that they don't merit being discussed.

Now another personal jab that merits a longer response:

"As an NFL coordinator, your constituency is your owner, your head coach and your players. At Notre Dame, that constituency stretches like a pair of Sansabelts, from school president, to athletic director, to administrators, to players, alumni, NBC, media and subway alums. I'm not sure Weis totally embraced that role. One of his final acts at Notre Dame -- cancel all media access to his players this past week -- was more fitting of Belichick than of a college coach. And then to slink out a back door …"

While Weis may have entered Notre Dame with these personality issues, most ND fans will probably disagree with the statement. The national media has chosen to keep the easy caricature of Charlie as the arrogant coach, but the truth is that by his third season, Weis began to make considerable efforts to become accessible to his fan base. From augmenting his busy travel schedule to include visits to many alumni associations, to holding autograph sessions for the student body, to creating a Twitter account, to changing his tone with the media, I feel that Weis has made a considerable effort to appease all of his constituencies. And as for sneaking away at the end of the Stanford game, can anyone really blame him? Hasn't this guy been dragged through the ugliest of media mud the last few weeks that he should be allowed to exit holding onto some dignity?

And to end the article:

"Swarbrick told me months ago he'll use a two-page checklist to assess the state of a Notre Dame program, but Weis knows better. His dismissal comes down to two letters, not two pages: W and L."

It's a nice conclusion; in fact, its a way better conclusion than the abrupt "Go Irish" that I usually end posts with. However, this is another gross over-exaggeration that underscores what Weis has done for the program. Dear ESPN, its pretty easy to write why Weis should (and probably will) be fired this week, but for feature article after the Stanford game, I find it irresponsible to only include Weis' shortcomings. Yes, Weis didn't win enough football games over the last three years, but throw the guy a bone for the talent he has been able to bring to South Bend, the improvements he's made to the offense, and the countless hours that he has given to the program.

Tough Stanford Loss

Tough Stanford loss tonight. I thought everyone played hard except for a few boneheads out there. If this is the last Charlie Weis and Clausen game, it was an exciting one, and exemplary of their time together: Great offensively, but could not put a full game together. The only thing now is whether Tate joins them in the NFL or not... I think he'd be as good a playmaker as Percy Harvin, DeSean Jackson, or Steve Smith.

IGB: Goin back back to Cali Cali

Just when the Domer Law Blog thought to have claimed the latest entry for this week's IBG, The Nasties crew published Sarah's questions from Bad Trade 15 minutes to kickoff. Here we go:

1. Take a second and go look back at your post from the first game, with all of its promise and optimism (or not). What is the single biggest difference between the team you thought we had at the beginning of the season, and the team that we've seen on the field that now sits at 6-5?

One of the questions in the first week of this season's IBG asked us to find an image to describe the season, and in hindsight, I still think my pic was appropriate, albeit maybe for the wrong reasons:

The picture inadvertently previewed the edge-of-your seat action that was this season. A bounce of the ball here, a better play in the redzone there, and Notre Dame could very well be undefeated (or perhaps just as easily be 2-9).

To answer the question though, the single biggest difference has to be the secondary. I understand that it is tough to cover receivers when the quarterback has all day to throw, but I did not foresee the tackling issues that our veteran secondary would have.

2. Clearly, even from Coach Weis' own comments, it appears that the conversation has shifted from "Will Coach Weis be fired?" to "Who will be his replacement?" With that in mind, I'd like you to answer the following three questions:
a. If we lived in a perfect world, and could lure any coach to Notre Dame, who would be your choice? (Please limit yourself to coaches actually alive and able to coach right now - yes, we'd all love to have Knute Rockne back on the sidelines.)

In my mind, there isn't one clear favorite, and I think that there are 2-3 coaching hires that could improve this football team. If I'm forced to pick, though, I'll land on Brian Kelly. I'm impressed with his ability to turn around programs like Central Michigan and Cincinnati (and I particularly like his ability to take the Bearcats to the BCS), but I'm actually most impressed with Kelly's ability to coach Grand Valley State to a 118-35-2 record during his 13 years as head coach. Especially with how the success of programs tends to ebb and flow (even for the powerhouses - remember USC in the 90s?), this consistent trend of domination is very appealing.

b. If you were the AD for the University, who do you think is the best hire you could actually pull off, and how would you do it?

I suppose the most prestigious get would be Urban, and I think their are two points to sell it. Firstly, lets congratulate how Urban has been able to turn around program after program and win multiple titles with the Gators. So early in his career, Meyer seems to have already accomplished everything a coach dreams for. There is another unmet challenge in South Bend. Coach Meyer, take on the challenge of resurrecting a once national powerhouse, that the entire nation now thinks has a competitive disadvantage, and returning them to glory. The second point would probably be about moving Meyer's family to the Bend as a way to stay close to them.

c. Prediction time - taking everything you know about the program, the AD, and the current coaching situations around the country - who will be the head coach for the University of Notre Dame next year?

Every day actually leads me closer to thinking that Weis may actually return. ND won't be able to get there hands on a Kelly, Johnson, or Meyer until after they coach their current teams through the BCS, and like Brady Quinn said, there are a lot of factors that contribute to having a bad season, and not all of them fall on the coach. I feel like if Jenkins and Swarbrick don't find someone they really like, then I think that they might not pull the trigger. I'm still going to throw my hat in the ring for Kelly, but if Weis ends up back at Notre Dame for one more chance, I won't be as surprised as most.

3. As the title of this IBG post says, there is still one more game to be played. And, in fact, it's a red-hot Stanford team that scores points in bunches and beat SC in the Coliseum 55-21. To say that our program is in turmoil at this point would be a drastic understatement. So, what do you think is going to happen this weekend? Do the players rally and play up to potential for their embattled coach, or come out and go through the motions trying to get this season behind them?

I will say that at +10, Notre Dame is a pretty good Vegas bet. Unless we're playing teams with a vast disparity in talent (one of whom #6 ranked Boise State took down 44-33 last night), the Irish like to keep things close. Look for our offense to spurt out some impressive drives among some head scratching stalls while our defense makes some big stops and gives up some big gains. In the end, though, I am unfortunately expecting Stanford to win.

4. Finally, with all of the disappointment and frustration and a lame duck coach, what are your plans this weekend for the game?

Plain and simple. Cheer, cheer for old Notre Dame.

Catchin up

Sorry for the brief hiatus. I just couldn't bring myself to do write ups following losses to Pitt and UConn. While reflecting on why I didn't want to write the Duds and Studs issue for the Pitt game, I stumbled across this bit from Blue Gray Sky:

There isn't much to rehash in ND's ugly 27-22 loss to Pitt this past Saturday. It featured many of the same issues that have become all too familiar lately: a running game that disappeared, curious play calling, lackluster defense, questionable interpretations of "indisputable" by the replay officials, some amazing plays from Golden Tate, and ultimately a game that came down to the final drive, this time with ND coming out on the losing side of the ledger. And as the game wound down to the unsatisfying conclusion, Brent Musburger accurately noted that with the loss "the long knives are now out for Charlie Weis".

This quote seems to ring true after the UConn game as well. Whether it was because of untimely penalties, missed assignments, or questionable play calling, our star studded offense found itself stalling during critical times (which in the UConn game consisted of the entire second half). Tate has been getting praise all year, but at this juncture in the year, a team needs some other people to come up big when the team is struggling. Not to be all negative, I'll throw some props to kicker David Ruffer, who stepped in for an injured Nick Tausch and delivered in both games while getting Notre Dame its first touchbacks in years, and Ben Turk has found his groove as a punter, registering 47 yards per punt against UConn.

Now for my two cents about everything that has been going on the last two weeks:

On Clausen: I don't know about Tate, but Clausen is gone next year. He posed for pictures with his family after the game, he didn't return his jersey with the team laundry, and his parents have put their house on Angela on the market. Am I glad that he is going? Jimmy is an incredible football player, and his absence will be felt next season as Dayne will struggle getting acquainted as the starter with a green offensive line. However, it will (unfortunately) be refreshing not to have him around. The program needs his athletic ability, but all of the noise surrounding him is getting old.

On Weis: Thanks for those of you who inquired about the future name of this blog - it gives me some confidence that Charlie's Nasties won't die with the coach. That being said, I have no idea what will happen at the end of the season. On one end, our team has played down to all but two opponents this year, and losing three weeks in a row is inexcusable to the point that I think we should let him go now and spare his family the grief of another week of criticism and jabs from the media. On the other hand, this guy loves Notre Dame, works his freakin tail off, and scores well in all of Swarbrick's performance metrics except winning games.

I was able to find odds on who will replace Weis next season, but I wasn't able to find odds on whether or not Weis will be fired. I speculate that whatever this mythical number is, that it is probably overvalued because I do see a situation where Weis comes back. If Swarbrick doesn't think he can land a better coach, then as a business man I can't see him taking the risk while eating the rest of Charlie's contract. I could also see Jack using his performance metrics to justify keeping Weis based on his elite graduation rates and recruiting abilities.

You can't question this guy's effort. Remember how arrogant Weis appeared when we hired him? Well Weis cared so much about this that he consulted a professor at the University about how to better his image to the public. Have you seen the other coaches from the Belichick tree? How many of them would have created a Twitter page in an effort to be more open with their fan base?

That being said, this is an unlikely scenario. Notre Dame has blocked the tracking of its private jet used for coaching searches, Swarbrick has cancelled Weis' west coast recruiting trip, and even Charlie is acknowledging that his record will probably not be enough to justify keeping him as a head coach. If tomorrow's game against Stanford ends up being Weis' last , then I would like to say thanks for the long hours and hard work. Thanks for putting up with the media. Thanks for reminding us that Notre Dame can recruit the best of the best while maintaining our academic integrity. The last three years have not met my expectations from a win - loss perspective, but I thank you for your hard work and wish you the best of luck in the future.

Go Irish.