Coaching:  C -

Haven’t really seen a ton out of Brian Kelly in terms of GameDay coaching.  Not being prepared in full for the fake field goal against Michigan State resulted in a Loss.  His constant yelling at players is fine with tgiab.com.  If the players screw up, they should be held accountable.  Take, for example, what Brian Kelly had to say about Cierre Wood:

“Here’s why I like Cierre Wood. It seems to be a big topic of conversation, my sideline demeanor. When I went to talk to him about that play, talk to him about the play, he said, “Coach, it’s inexcusable what I did. I can’t tell you why it happened. That’s ridiculous.   He immediately took accountability for his actions. I didn’t say another word to him. I’m a Cierre Wood fan. We’re going to keep developing that young man and he’s going to be a good football player. He just needs to continue to develop, gain more confidence. He needs recognition awareness. When he sees things, he’s got to go, and he’s still thinking too much. When we can get that out of him, when he can just react, man, he’s going to be fun to play.”

Would like to see a little more effective game management play calling.  In the 2nd Quarter vs. Pitt, you could see his offense go to work.  If that is an indication of things to come, the Coaching grade could go up quite a bit.

Quarterback: B-

Good God was Jimmy accurate.  What I wouldn’t give to see him in Kelly’s offense.  Despite his lack of footspeed, the passing game would have been incredible to Jimmy.

Dayne has been okay.  He probably deserves a B.  The backups deserve a F, which averages to a B-.  Dayne needs to work on his accuracy a ton.  Tired of seeing balls skip into players feet.  Or just be off the mark.  For example, on Floyd’s nearly incredible catch against Pitt, Crist probably had a 12 foot diameter of a circle where the ball could have been thrown.  And it was missed.  Inexcusable.

However, Dayne’s ability to run the ball, and take on hits, forces the Defense to respect the Dual threat.  I think he could be a lot better in time, and could have a great 4th and 5th year with the Irish.

Running Backs: B+

Love Armando Allen.  He runs with a purpose.  He seems to have bulked up, and has gone from a skat-type back, to a more head down, take on a hit, and pick up a yard or two after the hit type running back.  Cierre Wood has shown potential.  A little more shifty, but could potentially be great out of the back field.  Reminds me of a skinnier Darius Walker.  Robert Hughes has seen the bench.  Love when he gets in, but there must be some type of issues with him and the coaching staff.  He is the Pete Best of this team.  The forgotten Beatle.

Wide Receivers: B

This grade is probably lower than it should be because I honestly thought Michael Floyd would have 54 catches for 725 yards and 9 TD at this point in the season.  He doesn’t.  Although he has been coming on rather strong the last couple games.

Theo Riddick is just fun to watch.  He made a couple Poor Man Reggie Bush cuts last week that I haven’t seen out of a Notre Dame player in a long time.  It was fun to watch.  And I loved when Riddick scored against BC and had  Jerome Bettis-esque TouchDown high knees celebration.  Tai-ler Jones has been my biggest surprise.  He can get it done.  Seems like a really solid receiver.

Kyle Rudolph has been ok.  He is slow.  Many people say he has a nagging hamstring injury, and if that is the case, he has performed admirably.  He is sure-handed, and in the first couple games, showed a little speed (mainly on his Michigan TD).  I hope they sit him down for a week or two and get him healthy for Utah, Navy, Army, and USC.

O-Line: B

Don’t have a lot to offer here.  Love the way Stewart plays.  Just goes hard.  Not even sure if he is blocking the right guy half the time, but the fact that it looks like he is trying to catch someone who stole his wallet on every play is fun.  Haven’t noticed great O-Line play, but also have not noticed any disasters.

Defense: B+

Teo is the next Notre Dame All-American.  A guy that every team wishes they had.  Not just a guy that does well at Notre Dame.  A guy that Alabama looks at and says, “Damn, he would look good in the middle of our defense.”

Ian Williams is solid.  Kapron Lewis-Moore is playing with intensity.  He was fired up against Pitt.  Love to see that.  Brian Smith is still enrolled at the University of Notre Dame.

Secondary is the question mark.  Despite his play last week, Harrison Smith as been a liability.  But damn, he has huge arms.  Gary Gray has stepped up (huge play on 4th down against Pitt).  Walls has been a Meh.  Blanton has been a Meh.  Slaughter gets too excited to make the big play.  Would love to get a great coverage free safety and a hard hitting strong safety.  Coupled with a some serviceable cornerbacks, and the Defense Grade could be an A.

Special Teams: B

Field Goal kicking is an A+.  Great find with Ruffer.  A 50 yarder made by ND?  Since when?  Nice to have a little confidence in the kicking game.  The Fake Field Goal against Michigan State brings this to a B.  That play is far below an F that it is indescribable.  The punting game has been Meh.  The return game has been Meh.  Field Goal kicking is what boosts this grade from a D to a B.

NICKEL, KELLY, NICKEL!

Overall: B-

This team is a fake-field-goal-mental-lapse and a mysterious 1.5 Quarter injury to Crist away from being 5-1.  For the first time in 4 years, I can honestly say that I like the direction the team is going.

Each Monday, we will post something, with a “Dare You Not To” theme.

The 1st Dare You Not To… is:

Dare You Not To… Enjoy the Shit Out of this Song/Video:

Now, is the best thing about this picture the ball going straight at the camera? Or is it what I circled in red (after the jump).

Personally, I think the highlight of this picture is the totally rad mustache afficionado.

I mean I still toe-boom a ball if I am trying to kick it hard.  And all of us played on an interhall team that scored zero goals throughout the season (although I do think we had 4 Headers-In-A-Row once.  And yes, that is an official stat.  Headers-In-A-Row, HIAR).  But I can still appreciate the shit out of this video.

Joe-Pa said it best, “I was listening on the radio.  I couldn’t get espn3 to work on my computer, but I just watched the replay.  It’s so great to be an American.”

Wish granted…

Doesn’t look good, does it?  Well, let’s flash forward to today… 

“The guy felt worse than anybody in this room. I’m just not going to get into it. I’m not going to do it. Do I feel bad? Did he miss the call? Yes. But this is a very forgiving country.”   –Jim Leyland, manager of perfect game pitcher calling upon the forgiving attitude of this wonderful country. 

“I feel terrible. I don’t know why life works this way, but sometimes life just isn’t fair for people. He’s a good umpire.” – Armando Galarraga, perfect game pitcher, kind of forgiving the umpire. 

“It was not surprising to me, but on the other hand, it was very surprising,” Joyce said. “They were both as sportsmanlike, as gentlemanly, as professional as anybody I’ve ever dealt with in this game. [Tigers bullpen coach] Jeff Jones was a teammate of mine at Bowling Green [State University]. He came in and he was of great support also. The respect and the sportsmanship that they showed me was unbelievable.” – Jim Joyce, mustache.

How convenient for everyone involved in MLB that this controversial call is now their biggest selling point.  I think its just a little too convenient.  Especially during the NHL playoffs that are being aired on Versus. 

I understand the academic restrictions that ND faces, and the fact that it is harder to recruit to ND because the facilities aren’t great (the arena is much better looking now but they still need a practice facility and updated locker and player lounge to compete on some of the WOW factor with recruits).  Still, there is a higher amount of players than Kayo acknowledges who are willing to come to an ND like program.  My guess, without seeing the numbers, is that while some of the guys who go to the Big Ten and Pac-10 programs would not qualify for ND, there are others who would.  I have a feeling that at least some of the guys at Purdue or Wisconsin, at least, would qualify.  My guess is that some of the guys at Illinois and OSU would, as well.  Part of that is that many of those guys aren’t the inner city Derrick Rose type players.  Many of them are guys who will be 4 year players, quite a few of whom know that they may not make it to the NBA.  I’m guessing there are some programs in the Pac-10 that are at least somewhat similar.  I stress those two conferences because overall, the schools in those conferences are considered to be better academic institutions than some of the other conferences.  We can also look at other big time private schools.  This means you have to look at Duke, Stanford, Wake Forest, Vandy, Northwestern and Baylor, at the very least, to see how they have done.  While some of those programs stink (NW and Baylor are usually bad), others have thrived in comparison to ND.  Part of that is the fact that they recruit at least fairly well.  While we can take Duke out of that discussion, I think that ND should take an honest look and see that Stanford and Wake have both had much more basketball success than ND, and that Stanford probably has the same or more restrictions than ND likely does.  I think that shows that ND has either not always targeted the right guys, or has failed to get those recruits to take a serious look at ND.  Further, ND has lost several key recruits to other major schools in the Big Ten, ACC and Big East.  Clearly, there are several good players out there who can qualify.  ND has missed on them.  While a coach can discuss facilities in that regard, there are enough big time recruits out there who would fit into ND that the school can only make so many excuses for not landing them – one reason is that the coach hasn’t been able to translate the successes he has had into anything more.  That will always be on the coach (and it is probably part of the reason that the facilities upgrades are taking time – lack of excitement over a program that seems stuck in 1st gear).

Besides the recruiting pool, the article failed to discuss Brey’s comments about bench depth. He just does not develop it.  If the coach says that his teams are good when there is interior defense, then he needs to get guys on the court and make them play defense, or at least rest some of the starters so that those starters are actually rested.  Again, that is on Brey.  There’s no reason that Cooley, Broghammer, etc., should not have played more meaningful minutes in the nonconference schedule, to get experience and push some defensive intensity, so that they could play meaningful Big East minutes.  If Brey is concerned about some of them offensively, he should at least make sure that they can fight on the defensive end and rebound.  If the players are only working on those things in practice, they really won’t be ready for the Big East until they are juniors.  I just think that Kayo gives Brey too much leeway there.  I blame Brey for not even attempting to develop his bench.

Anyways, the program will remain stuck in neutral with Brey.  the team will make a few NCAA tournaments, and will then miss a few and go to the NIT.  The teams will play great on the offensive side (they really are usually some of the most efficient offensive teams otu there), will stink defensively, and will more often than not lose on the boards.  I just don’t think that is the type of coach that ND needs to get to the next level of being a consistent NCAA team that also can make runs in the tournament.  And that is the point of having a basketball program.

As Payne mentioned to the rest of TGIAB a few days ago, there are also coaches out there who get more done with less talent.  For example, the Washington State team that beat ND in the tournament after the 2007-08 season.  WSU should never have good players (although they did beat out ND for Mychal Thompson’s kid, who’s pretty good), but they had a coach that could win by installing a system to make it work.  While Tony Bennett’s teams style is not always fun to watch, it works so I would gladly take those wins.  Brey doesn’t have a system.  As Armijo has said, a system almost always involves defense and rebounding.  If a system is based solely on offensive efficiency, it is bound to only take a coach so far.  Even Roy Williams, who isn’t known for defensive teams, stresses getting out and running off of turnovers and rebounds.  That’s something that Brey just doesn’t do.

I know we’ve covered it many times here, but when I read that article by Kayo at the beginning of the week, I really have been thinking this stuff over.  I just came to the same conclusion I had made before the Kayo article, and I wanted to get those thoughts out.