Irish Start Flat Again
Why can’t a Weis coached team come out and play tough right from the opening kickoff? What goes on before games that consistently causes the Irish to come out flat?
Without access to it, it’s tough to know exactly what goes on in the Notre Dame locker room before games. We do know that Weis has said in the past that he doesn’t believe in “Win One for the Gipper” speeches. So maybe, then, he ought to start believing in them a little bit more, considering that his team forfeits so much emotional steam from the time it breaks from practice late in the week until it takes the field on Saturday afternoons.
Distractions, light practices, and no pre-games speeches. These not only help explain some of Notre Dame’s woes this year, but also can explain why Weis is yet to win a big game in his head coaching career.
Limit the distractions by losing the Friday night pep rally and the Saturday morning players mass.
Get the hitting in practice to intensify.
Bring in someone who can motivate the team.
Something has to change to get these players fired up out of the gate. Waiting until the second half to start playing football is a recipe for starting 0-8.
September 30th, 2007 at 6:28 pm
hey,
1. charlie weis and his staff and the nd players accomplished miracles with a very thing green line of talent( and no talent at some positions) and no depth in 2005 and 2006.
2. the talent and depth that charlie and his staff brought in in the 2006 and 2007 classes are just freshmen and sophomores, with a few good men left over from prior disasterous recruiting years and that one fine class of 2003, courtesy of lazy bob davie.
3. in case you have not noticed, the 19 verbal commits that charlie and his staff have secured so far for 2008 are ranked the no 1 class in the us by all of the recruiting services. charlie and his staff had no choice to be out pounding the pavement to recreate the nd recruiting network which lazy bob davie let die on the vine while davie sat in his office in south bend and admired how pretty he was, wrongfully terminated, joe moore, one of the best line coaches that nd ever had because moore was not pretty or young enough for davie.
4. nd had to pay off a large civil judgment to joe moore because of davie’s hubris and stupidity.
5. when whoever the powers that were at nd hired tyrone, they did not bother to tell him that the nd recruiting network was dead, courtesy of davie. nd had that great player driven 2002 season and enough echoes remained so that tyrone ended up with that great class of 2003, which held the fort in 2005 and 2006, having already been battle tested in the trenches and survived the 2003 and 2004 seasons of disaster.
6. by bashing charlie and his staff and the young guys in the 2006 and 2007 classes, you are playing right into the hands of the opposition which is doing its best to drive away nd players and 2008 verbals.
7. sure, extremely physical practices make a lot of sense if you have talent and depth at every position to absorb some injuries. however, charlie and his staff did not have that option in 2005 and 2006, nor will they really have that option until the 2008 class is in. nd has not had 3 great recruiting classes in a row for over 15 years, courtesy of lazy bob davie, not charlie weis.
8. therefore, this 2007 nd team had to get their real game experience on the field. courtesy of michigan state, they know that they can run the ball and have plenty of talent at rb. courtesy of purdue, they know that they also have the qbs and the receivers to pass and to win.
9. the winning will start with ucla and the blame for the recruiting and talent gaps rests with lazy bob davie, not with charlie and his staff and the young players charlie brought in in 2006 and 2007.
10. with all of the outside media and nd’s opponents screaming that nd football is dead and doing their darndest to get nd players and 2008 verbals to leave, why would you want to help them? nd players and recruits read nd fan websites also and the opposition takes this negative stuff and uses it to drive away nd players and 2008 verbals.
11. lazy bob davie nearly killed nd football. remember, lazy bob davie was also in charge of recruiting for the last few years of the holtz era, when lou’s wife was very ill.
12. now that charlie and his staff have brought the energy and hard work and are bringing nd football back to life and will keep it at the top, you want to stab them and the young nd players in the back. remember that they have been competing against teams on which most players have years of playing experience.
this disasterous start to the 2007 season is the last of the legacy of lazy bob davie, unless people like you want to stab charlie and his young players in the back and cooperate with the opposition in driving away nd players and 2008 commits.
you need to go to confession and start helping nd, not hurting her,
bob gilleran
September 30th, 2007 at 7:34 pm
Bob, being 0-5 can be explained, to an extent, by being inexperienced. But not being competitive in our last 7 games, all huge losses, is simply unacceptable. And there is nobody to blame except the coaching staff.
And to be honest, as to the ‘inexperience’ card many ND fans are playing, I call bullshit. Auburn starts 3 true freshman on the OLine. And have 2 freshman and 4 sophomores starting on DEF. And they just beat #4 FLA 20-17 in the Swamp
Maryland doesn’t start a single senior. They start 2 frosh & 3 sophs on OFF and 6 sophs on DEF. And they just beat #10 Rutgers
We start 1 FR and 3 sophs on OFF and 0 FR and 2 sophs on DEF. We just lost by 2 TDs to freakin’ Purdue and people are actually happy about it.
I could go on and on with other teams ‘inexperience’ – we don’t have a monopoly on that excuse. There are 117 teams who are better than us in total offense and scoring offense. That makes me sick. And its a fact that some of those 117 teams have less experience, lower recruiting rankings, less history, weaker facitilies and a smaller budget then we do. Those teams are finding ways to be competitive. Yet not only are we one of only 10 teams that haven’t won this year, we haven’t even been competitive.
And if our problem is that the upperclasses are too weak to help carry the young guys, then why the heck aren’t our young guys, those guys that were so highly ranked coming out of high school, playing ahead of the seniors.
I like Charlile Weis. He gets ND. He’s done a great job recruiting. But the results on the field have been completely unacceptable and lay squarely on the coaching staff’s shoulders. He is a first time head coach and should be given a little slack because of the points I mentioned. There are a lot of guys that can recruit and many of those guys can also win games. We need someone that can recruit AND win big games, and Weis has come up short. That needs to change.
And the pitiful weekly performance of our football team is hurting ND more than any ND blogs pointing these things out.
September 30th, 2007 at 11:43 pm
shake down the thunder,
1. obviously, i do not agree. the 2005 and 2006 seasons were played with no quality depth at all and no real talent at quite a few positions. just look at the sugar bowl. when landri went down at the half, the whole complexion of the game changed because there was no quality depth.
lsu had plenty of quality depth with experience to platoon nd’s very thin green line to exhaustion because that did not have a bob davie at the helm to kill off their recruiting networks.
2. check the rosters of nd’s opponents so far this year and the experience at the college level of their players. if this coach and nd player bashing by nd fans does not stop, the opposition will get exactly what they want- the defection of current nd players and 2008 commits.
3. the coaching staff has accomplished miracles in 2005 and 2006 and on the recruiting trail through 2008 providing only that the 2008 verbals stick. you can either help the coaching staff and the players or help the opposition.
4. the curse of this season is the fault of lazy bob davie, not of the current coaching staff or of those young talented student athletes and no coach in the universe could have avoided davie’s curse.
5. you have no idea of how close nd football was to being dead before charlie arrived and how dead it will be if nd’s own fans engage in coach and player bashing and help the opposition drive away young nd players and 2008 commits.
6.did you expect charlie to recruit before he arrived at nd? the talent gap is in the 2004 and 2005 classes?
7. unlike you, i see a lot of progress on the field as the season goes on and i am certain that you will be pleased. charlie and his staff do not lie to recruits. they are sticking with nd because they see the foundation and the opportunities that they cannot get anywhere else
8. however, there is no more powerful weapon to give the opposition than to engage in nd coach and young player bashing.
9. you show me anyone in the coaching universe who has stepped into a disaster anywhere close to the disaster that nd was at the end of the 2004 season and do what charlie has done with integrity and i will show you a thousand 4 leaf clovers and several pots of gold from the little people.
take into account the fraudulent media bashing by certain con artists posing as journalists painting nd as racist and charlie as a coach who lies to recruits in choosing some real names of some real coaches who do not cheat to win. there are not a lot of guys who could have done better or be doing better. there are none, unless you want a cheater.
in addition, take into account nd’s killer schedule this season, with which charlie had nothing to do, as opposed to the cupcakes faced by all of the other schools whose coaches may appear to be saviors to you now.
we will pray for your enlightenment and we wish you well,
bob gilleran
September 30th, 2007 at 11:58 pm
shake down the thunder,
1. in coming up with your actual names od such coaches, do not forget that we know that auburn and maryland and the bulk of the other schools nd plays have nowhere near the strict academic standards that nd does for all student athletes.
2. these are state schools and private schools like usc that have film watching and crayon drawing courses for their football players, in addition to real courses for their real students who want them.
3. the football players practice and play football full time with no real academic obligations and, in the case of usc, get out of jail for free cards courtesy of steve cooley, the la county da, a usc grad, who declines to take legal action against any usc football player, even if they engage in drug trafficking or nearly beat fellow students to death.
4. we should be proud of charlie and his staff and his young nd players, not bashing them.
again, our best to you and we hope that you see the light,
bob gilleran
October 1st, 2007 at 4:27 am
Bob,
No one here is “bashing charlie and his staff and the young guys in the 2006 and 2007 classes” As Thunder says, we are merely pointing some things out.
When Willingham wasn’t performing up to snuff, no one had a problem pointing out his deficiencies. Let’s face it, Weis has some deficiencies too. All coaches do.
Weis got a five week pass on this site, but is you haven’t noticed, those five weeks have been pathetic resulting in an 0-5 start. ND has played well on offense for 2 quarters and one drive. Clearly, we can run the ball and throw the ball, but not consistently.
Do you want to blame Davie for 11 penalties, and 5 points left on the table at the special teams table? You have got to be kidding me, Dude. This is Charlie Weis’ team. it is all on him.
In regards to academics, earlier-coached at ND were able to win consistently.
I believe in Weis. He just has some work to do in motivating and managing at the collegiate level. Do I see improvement, yes. Is the future bright, yes. But nothing excuses how this season has started. Especially Bob Davie.
-JVH
October 1st, 2007 at 6:29 am
Bob,
1. Please show me exactly where I was bashing in my post. I did not bash players and coaches. I was stating that we have not been competitive, and its the coaches job for ND to be competitive. As a supporter of the university, that is certainly not asking for a lot.
2. We have always had strict academic standards, as we should. And we have won consistently with those strict standards over the years. That is not an excuse, and coaches that have used it as an excuse were ushered out.
3. I would not call two 8th ranked recruiting classes “miracles” by any stretch. Solid recruiting, yes. But I would hope we would not think of a top 10 recruiting class at ND as a miracle. It always has been the norm and where we should be every year.
4. ND is one of 10 winless teams. Are you telling me that there are 109 other D1 teams with more experience and talent than ND? I already mentioned Auburn and Maryland with less experience than ND, and there are certainly others. Yet they are competitive. And as for less talent, I find that hard to believe, considering our ‘terrible’ recruiting classes of 2004 and 2005 were ranked 32nd & 40th (per Rivals), not 110th and 115th. We have less talent and experience than an ND team should have, and that explains a bad season, but that does not excuse 7 straight losses by 2 TDs or more.
5. ND is 118th in total offense and scoring offense. Are you telling me that there are 117 other D1 teams with more experience and talent on offense than ND? See point #4.
6. We have always played a tough schedule. And we have won consistently against a tough schedule over the years. That is not an excuse, and coaches that have used it as an excuse were ushered out.
7. I still stand by the statement that poor performance on the field and its effect on recruiting FAR OUTWEIGHS anything a recruit may read on a message board. And I can’t really see Pete Carroll printing out an IRT article and showing it to Dayne Crist to convince him to decommit. We want winners at ND, so I would expect them to raise the same concerns I have brought up here anyway.
Bob, just curious, what year did you graduate from ND? It might help me better understand where you are coming from.
-Jeff Wigfield
October 1st, 2007 at 11:20 pm
jeff wigfield aka thunder,
1. when i was 3 years old, my father took me to a notre dame football game. i am an irish catholic and, therefore, am an honorary nd alum just like all of the other nd fans around the world who provide that fan base and financial support that makes notre dame possible.
2. for your information, i was educated by dominican nuns at our holy redeemer school, by jesuits at brooklyn preparatory school, and by jesuits at fordham university in new york, from which i grauduated summa cum laude and phi beta kappa. i was offered a full academic scholarship by notre dame, but fordham and the fordham club and other scholarships tied to fordham simply outbid notre dame for my services and permitted me to send money to my parents every year since they needed the money.
because of family problems, it was also important that i go to a school close to where my family lived in new york.
3. for law and grauduate school, i had my pick of any school in the nation, all with full scholarships, and i chose no 1, yale law school, where i was an editor of the yale law journal and a director of the yale moot court of appeals.
4. one of my roommates at yale law school was tom brislin, who graduated maxima cum laude from notre dame in 1968. my distant cousin, ruth riley, graduated from notre dame in 2001. she led the nd womens’ basketball team to its 1st national championship and was selected the female athlete of the year and the female student athlete of the year. she has gone on to win an olympic gold medal and 2 wnba championships.
5. i have a 13 year old son, damien, who is currently spending his high school years with the jesuits, but who wants to break the family jesuit tradition and go to college at notre dame. he has both the academic qualifications and the athletic abilities to do so.
naturally, we do not want our son at a school whose alums engage in coach and player bashing.
6. now, getting back to your nd coach bashing, you stated that there were plenty of coaches out there who could have done better than charlie in the same circumstances and with integrity.
7. we are waiting for the list of coaches you promised us.
8. by the way, taking nd coach and player bashing from nd fan websites is exactly what pete carroll and the opposition are doing right now, have been doing for years, and will continue to do if people like you provide them with the ammunition.
i live out in los angeles and am intimately familiar with pete carroll and his crooked football program, at which the only connection the football players have with usc the school is that they wear the school colors at football games.
9. after all, any recruit with the talent to play at nd has to take on real academic and moral obligations. it is tough for the elite athletes to pass up the no real academic obligations and the get out of jail for free card that pete carroll and usc and most other schools offer them.
10. when we kicked the brits out of ireland. the worst enemies were always the traitors in our midst, not the brits.
11. if you did grauduate from notre dame and really love notre dame, we are certain that you will think more carefully about the things that you post on nd fan websites in the future.
12. and yes, we do blame lazy bob davie for the penalties and the bad start in 2007. after all, all of the things that have gone wrong this season are the result of bob davie’s sitting in his office and admiring himself in the mirror while the nd recruiting network was dying on the vine. with the 2004 and 2005 recruiting classes almost empty, lack of experience is the only thing standing between the talented 2006 and 2007 seasons and national championships.
13. we also blame bob davie for the the fraudulent nd bashing at espn.com and at other media outlets. stories about nd’s bad start in 2007 are fair game for the press. the stories that falsely paint nd as racist and charlie as a coach who lies to his players are not and they have and do drive recruits away from nd. we have been following the activities of bob davie and his fronts and printing out every fraudulent story about nd since 2002 and we will make them pay in the courts by stripping them of their material possesions and donating the proceeds to notre dame and other worthy causes.
14. we anxiously await your list of coaches who could have done so much better than charlie at nd with integrity and we will pray that our lady will enlighten your mind and spirit so that you can recognize who nd’s friends are and who her enemies are and shake down your thunder on nd’s enemies, not on her friends.
have a great day,
bob gilleran
October 2nd, 2007 at 7:33 am
Hey Bob.
If we want to bash Charlie and his staff and his players. We can. It’s a free fucking country, Dude. We do what we want when we want and we don’t need you coming over here with your crazy rants referring to things we haven’t even written.
At no point in this post or in any of the comments has anyone bashed Weis or the team.
But if they wanted to bash an 0-5 underachieving team with a coach that has never won a big game, then good for them.
And what the fuck does Bob Davie have to do with anything? Have you ever stopped to think that people like you who blame everyone else are the problem. Notre Dame is a laughing stock right now because of fans like you using Ty and Bob as an excuse. No more excuses. No more talk. Let’s get it done on the field this weekend.
October 2nd, 2007 at 7:40 am
Yeah. What JVH said.
October 3rd, 2007 at 8:59 pm
Bob,
No one really wants to hear about your credentials. And by the way, you would have no shot in hell getting into YLS today. Keep riding a forty year old accomplishment. Way to go. And by the way, cheering for the Irish is one thing, deluding yourself into believing that this horrible season is anyone but Charlie’s fault is just plain ridiculous. Stop making excuses.
September 8th, 2008 at 8:20 am
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