NCAA infractions!  Here they come!

It’s worse than when Reggie Bush took $300 Grand from shady ‘marketing professionals’.

It’s more insipid than when Urban Meyer got a player’s girlfriend a gymnastics scholarship.

It’s much more damaging than Michigan’s systematically pushing players into ‘classes’ where they do nothing, learn nothing, and most of the time don’t even have to show up.

That’s right, ND’s players break the rules too! 

They play basketball with girls.

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Charlie Weis has hired Kinnon Tatum as an intern on the coaching staff this year! Here’s a link to the press Charlie’s Spring Kickoff Presser.

Welcome back, Kinnon!

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I think we may have one very good clue about what the ND Spring Practice experience will be like based on what’s missing from the Georgia Tech Spring Practice experience this year…

You don’t have to watch Georgia Tech’s football team practice to know things have changed. All you have to do is listen.

In the past, one growl could be heard from one end of the practice field to another. It belonged to Jon Tenuta, and it could either make you cringe or blush or laugh, or sometimes do all three at once.

Tenuta, the defensive coordinator and secondary coach, could be heard riding defensive backs and linebackers who lined up in the wrong spot or blew an assignment. Sometimes he’d even throw a compliment toward an offensive player.

Other coaches worked much more quietly. Tenuta was like a de facto voice of the staff. One exception: receivers coach Buddy Geis was noisy, too, but almost always in an encouraging way.

Monday was different. Tenuta has moved on to Notre Dame. Now, if you listen, you can hear a lot of voices, all as fired up as Tenuta was, but generally cleaner.

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And babies are crying because I forgot that the good ole’ NCAA has limited spring contact quite a bit in recent years. So so much for one of the things I’m looking for this Spring.

Still, Happy First Spring Practice, all.

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Why else would people keep leaving the Micigan (sucks!) program?

I’m enjoying the tears with an Allagash White. Join us, wont you?

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• Fraud-riguez.

There better not be any of this happening this Spring. We’d never understand what Michigan was doing at ND practices anyway.

I think of Spring Football as a tiny island in the middle of an ocean of off-season. It wont sustain us for long, but there’s fruit to be had, and maybe, just maybe after it all, we can have some idea of where we’re headed from here until the season starts.

So here are the rumors and bits of news that I’ll be particularly keen to hear about in the next few weeks:

• Injuries: We all fear them, and many of us tend to sit around in the office, hitting refresh on our web browsers on the various ND Football news sites and forums, hoping to get word of any truly devastating injuries as soon as possible. I don’t know why. Maybe we’ll think it will hurt less if we just get it over with, like a rabies shot, or a break up, or an episode of The View. But as ND fans we shouldn’t fear all injuries this spring. It was evident in 2007 that the off-season wasn’t nearly physical enough. And looking back, the relative lack of practice-related injuries should have clued us into that fact. Hopefully there’ll be a fairly regular stream of nicks, bumps, bruises, and maybe even a few strains or sprains this spring. Nothing that ends a season or even a spring for any player, but at least some solid indication that the guys are really hammering eachother out there.
• A Focus on Special Teams: Nothing in football helps a lousy team become a respectable team faster than great special teams play. In 2007, ND was a lousy football team with lousy special teams play. Coach Weis promised to do all he could to clean that problem up, including visiting Frank Beamer at Virginia Tech. Here’s hoping Coach Beamer has a bit more affinity for Notre Dame than Rich Rodriguez apparently did.
• Weight Gain: We’ve already heard plenty about Sam Young bulking up to 330 pounds. And we applaud that. He and other offensive linemen seemed to be getting nicked up pretty regularly by October. They need some extra armor to protect them against the rigors of a full season. And a guy with Young’s frame, in particular, was probably a bit too easy to get leverage against and push around at or just below 300 lbs. But what I really hope to start hearing about is the bulking up of some of the defensive linemen. Given our serious depth problems there, the guys who are on the roster will need to be able to take punishment and keep on coming. A little added weight will help. A little added weight on Mr. Clausen wouldn’t hurt either, but we’ve heard lots of reports that indicate he’ll be looking to roll up the ole’ jersey sleeves with a little more pride this fall.
• Very Unhappy Happy Linebackers: They got themselves a new coach in Tenuta. I hope to read pieces about how thrilled the linebackers are to be practicing all sorts of exotic blitz schemes while I hear about how a certain linebacker was too sore to move a day after having to run the shed and tackled drill 50 times in a row so that Coach Tenuta could, “ensure that he understood the technique.”
• Little Change(s): Hopefully we’ll hear and read quotes from the QBs, receivers, and other members of the offense that “little has changed” in terms of actual scheme with the transition of play-calling duties from Weis to Haywood. I’ve never thought the scheme, the “Weis Scheme” if you will, was bad. I just felt like there were too many pages in the playbook for this young squad, and I felt Weis made a few (!) head-scratching calls this year trying to “out-call” the opposition rather than letting the team out-play them. If Haywood sticks with the original play-book, and then abbreviates it, his own limitations as a novice play-caller may serve to benefit the team. He’ll be more apt to call things he knows his team can run because, frankly, he doesn’t “know” he can out-call anybody. Neither do we.

That’ll suffice for now. Though as the Spring moves along, and we get wind of various tidbits, our interests are likely to change with the lake-effect winds.

What are you looking for this Spring?

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With just a few more days to go until the start of Spring Practice…

Wait. Give me a second…

Sorry about that. Ok. So with just a few more days to go until the start of Spring Practice, we find that there really isn’t much news about Notre Dame football to fill out the roundup, so here’s a roundup full of various and sundry items.

The Roundup:

• We all watch when Tiger is playing, especially if he’s winning. He’s like Jordan, but more so.
• We haven’t even started playing games, and already, Richie Rich can’t beat Sweatervest McCheatypants
• This is why I attended ND’s business school.
• Penn State students can now take “Comm 497G: Joe Paterno, Communications & the Media & How To Mumbler Your Way Out Of Any Situation“
• TREVOR LAWS MUST PROTECT THIS HOOOOUUSSSE!
• The NFL draft may well make a lot of ND fans look back on the 2007 season and think, “WTF?”
• I knew ND would have no problems against George Mason. Then again, I also “knew” that Duke would make a run to the finals. Gah!
• If Urban Meyer lies to a low-life, is it just as bad as all of his other lies?
• A writer finds depth in Bobby Bowden’s words. All the depth of a kiddie pool.

It’s 1pm Eastern, or nearly so, on Good Friday, during the second day of the NCAA’s, so… this seems like a good stopping point.

Happy Easter, Everyone!

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Does something feel a little funny today? Do you feel out of sorts? It’s probably your Bracketitis!

It’s not too late to sign up for this year’s bout of HLS Bracketitis. Just click the link below and use the ever-clever password we’ve supplied to join!

http://herloyalsons.mayhem.sportsline.com/e

Password: louholtz

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