Teddy Greenstein skewers Weis

Toledo, apparently.

 

It gives them no identity to sell recruits -- except something that's 50 or 60 years old.
It took ND basketball too long to recognize the world had changed.
It has changed in football, as well.

 

You mean recruits aren't wowed by the glorious history that involves Bob Davie and Ty Willingham?

 

That's only because UM used to open with ND and ND would open with a patsy and then cream UM

 

Bob Davie took the program off the rails and its never recovered.

I think South Bend is a lot harder sell nowadays.

Its been a bad year but if Rich Rod can right the ship and get his spread in it will change the look of midwestern football.

If you are a kid with Michael Crabtree type skills, are you going to take a ride in Charlies Oldsmobile or Mike Leach's Ferrari?

 

JR,

I wasn't so much arguing with you. Your point is valid. A specific instance where speed of a few players changed the game. I can understand that.

 

As someone who covers football in the Midwest, I can tell you that the problem with these arguments about nobody wanting to come to South Bend is that they are coming to South Bend - in droves.

Weis is a great recruiter, because he absolutely knows that you don't sell the Four Horsemen and Knute Rockne. Because kids don't care, nor should they. He sells his NFL connections. He sells NBC. He sells the education and the atmosphere and the graduation rates.

The problem is player development, mostly up front. The problem is toughness, also mostly up front.

I don't know, maybe Notre Dame is getting athletes with great size and speed who just aren't passionate enough about football to take their games to the next level.

But the issue isn't recruiting difficulty any more. That one has been debunked.

And I hope it doesn't sound like I'm being a big Notre Dame apologist here. I'm not. Quite the contrary. I think that all the tired old excuses - it's too cold, kids don't want to play there, it's too hard academically - let Weis and his coaches off the hook for underachieving.

 

Really? When did this happen.

Going back to 1978 in the ND/Michigan Series (I don't really think you could possibly be referring to the 1940s or pre-1909 in your post) Michigan has been the first game of the season for Notre Dame eight times. Of the other 17 games, Notre Dame played a game before Michigan had played a game three times - 1989, 1992 and 1999.

In 1989, Notre Dame faced Virginia in the kickoff classic. In 1999, Notre Dame played Kansas in the Eddie Robinson Classic. In 1992, Notre Dame played Northwestern.

In 1989, Notre Dame beat Michigan 24-19. In 1992, they tied. In 1999, Michigan won.

So in the entire modern series, Notre Dame has opened had one game under its belt before Michigan 12% of the time. Two of those times, it was due to playing in a special kick off game.

Sure seems like a lot of evidence for Notre Dame opening with patsies and then creaming Michigan. All three of the teams were from conferences now considered "BCS." Sure, Northwestern and Kansas sucked at the time, but they were no Appy State, Western Michigan, Central Michigan, Houston, Northern Illinois or Miami of Ohio.

 

Good research.

It's so hard to talk about Notre Dame sometimes, because all these myths just get perpetuated until they're taken as fact. And if you dispute them, you're automatically a Domer homer.

 

Did we have to bring Appalachian State up man? My dog died when I was five you want to talk about that too? ;D :'(

 

Charlies Offense looks plodding compared to some of the better offenses in today's college game.

You have a generation of kids growing up in the Spread and they want to stay with it.

 

You're right. But I don't think it's the athletes. I think it's his offense. They can't run the ball. At all. So teams are probably rushing like three or four players and dropping seven or eight into coverage. Notre Dame runs plenty of four-wide sets. They aren't running the "T" formation.