Send In The Legs!

I’ll admit that when Weis womped the Wanstash to begin his college football coaching career I was gung ho about the often risky and always entertaining high octane offense that Brady and the boys carried to a 9-3 record. After being forced to watch last year’s young squad get absolutely hazed in the same system, however, I was fairly relieved to hear about our next two verbal commits.

While kicker Nick Tausch wasn't Notre Dame’s first choice, his verbal should still be getting Irish fans excited. With ND unable to notch a touchback at all last season and with Weis refusing to attempt a field goal any longer than an extra point, it should greatly benefit Notre Dame to have a strong-legged kicker on the roster if for no other reason than to make Whittaker realize that he has to make kicks to keep his starting job. I can’t say that I know much about this guy; high school kicking guru Chris Sailer has him ranked as the second best kicking prospect in the country, but I can’t even find a picture of him in pads. In fact, has anyone seen a pic of this guy other than this one?

With the future of blossoming baseball player Eric Maust in question, punter Ben Turk will be a welcomed addition to the 2009 squad, and while the punting has been fairly consistent over the last two years (see Geoff Price for Heisman facebook groups), picking up Turk ensures that the Irish will not be stranded without a scholarship kicker when Maust stops playing.

At the very least, these two players should be able to provide some much needed consistency on special teams, and if the saying ‘like father, like son’ is true, they should be able to help out even more. Both players dad’s played in the NFL.

On the red carpet, Notre Dame has extended its contract with NBC to 2015. This was somewhat expected as the team neared the 2010 expiration year of the old deal, but the more surprising aspect of the renewal is that the contract now provides for NBC to broadcast 7 home games and 1 game at a neutral sight every season. This is of course a side-effect of Kevin White’s 7-4-1 theory, but it is interesting that the contract still provides for this type of scheduling even though the doctor has left the building. Perhaps White’s vision of hammering slightly more than mediocre opponents in NFL stadiums across the country was not just his own. Only time will tell.

Blue Gray Sky conveniently put up a post from the SI Vault about ND’s history with the television networks (and particularly the venom the University has received as a result of it), and that is where this week’s quote comes from (the comments section). Don't worry about the quotes relevance to the post; just enjoy it.

“To all the ND haters out there: sorry for partying”