OHHAI FIVE STAR
The Wall Street Journal has ranked the FBS teams based on talent among starting lineups across the country, and Notre Dame ranks #3 with an average of 4.09 stars (Rivals). Only Southern Cal and Florida rank better. In fact, ND's average is more than a half-star better than the average of the entire SEC (the top ranked conference in the WSJ's findings).
Certainly, there are depth concerns in places on the Irish roster, and the value of these star-ratings can and have been debated. But more than a few journalists and bloggers have studied these ratings and concluded that, yes, overall, particularly among the elite athletes, these rankings do merit some correlation with on-field collegiate success (warning: charts, math, and facts).
If nothing else, this serves as yet another talking point when an Irish fan finds himself enveloped in the dark, seemingly endless pool of zombie-like imbeciles who seek to quote the think tank of ESPN (hello, Corso & Herbstreit!) while arguing that the Irish don't have the talent to win, and they can't have the talent to win because it's Notre Dame. Notre Dame does, in fact, have the talent to win - a lot more than practically every other program in the country - and it can continue to have the talent to win because it's Notre Dame. And as Charlie Weis showed, even while winning just 16 games in the last 3 years, if you work at it, you can still use Notre Dame as an advantage in the recruiting wars.
By Brad August 25, 2010 - 10:58 am
I actually do like Herbstreit. I think he is probably the most fair and intelligent commentator out there in college football for the most part.
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By tjak August 25, 2010 - 11:12 am
Brad, I think you are right. I think Herbstreit has been pretty fair to the Irish over the years. I think he got as frustrated with our not living up to our potential as we did. Corso on the other hand is another issue.
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By domer_mq August 25, 2010 - 12:47 pm
Yeah. Herbstreit is relative “fair,” but he’s also often fairly uninformed on the Irish.
The problem with the brain-trust of Corso and Herbstreit is that they’re quoted by morons.
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By Pat August 25, 2010 - 1:21 pm
Eh, there are 120 or so teams — how fully informed about a mediocre (for the last three years) Irish team do you really expect him to be? I like Herbie. I think he gave the Irish a longer leash than most for a while but then became increasingly disenchanted by Weis, much like many of us.
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By domer_mq August 25, 2010 - 1:29 pm
I really only expect his level of informed-ness(?) to match his level of analysis. He doesn’t shy away from making big statements about ND. It’s just massively uninformed statements. If he just treated ND like a middling team, I wouldn’t blame him.
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By The Biscuit August 25, 2010 - 3:29 pm
plus, if you’re getting paid millions, you should do some basic freaking research. 120 teams yes. millions of dollars? yes. so do some basic reading before you say stuff. I like the guy too, but DMQ is spot on here.
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By Pat August 25, 2010 - 4:59 pm
Sounds maybe like you guys are thinking of a few specific instances where he’s put his foot in his mouth. Maybe so.
Overall though, and it seems like you’d probably agree, he seems like a pretty genuine guy. Certainly not one of the haters.
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By Pat August 25, 2010 - 1:24 pm
Good post, by the way. I think it provides evidence for what many of us have suspected: we don’t have a talent problem so much as we have a coaching problem.
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By SDI August 25, 2010 - 1:24 pm
I used to have a higher opinion of Herbstreit before he joined the Jimmy Clausen haters club.
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By OderName August 25, 2010 - 11:45 am
Corso is there for entertainment purposes only. If you actually take any of his analysis seriously, then, well, you get what you deserve. While I frequently have issues with what I think is biased coverage of ND, I tend not to have too much of an issue with their overall product. You can’t argue with the fact that, minus ESPN, we’re stuck with what little college football we’d get with CBS and ABC (yes, I know ABC and ESPN are the same, just sayin’).
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By Steve in Iowa August 25, 2010 - 12:06 pm
It is this “undeniable talent” combined with Kelly’s proven track record at maximizing the talent he has that has on hand that has me so ridiculously jacked up about this season.
I think that it was One Foot Down had a post a while back something along the lines of “Why can’t Notre Dame win ten games?”
Why can’t they? I suppose the main reasons would be the transition to a new staff and new system on both sides of the ball along with a new starting QB. Those are huge factors, no question.
But Kelly has addressed a lot of the other factors that we all agreed were problems under the previous staff: conditioning (Longo!), leadership, morale, communication, staff on the same page (Tenuta/Brown experiment was disaster). I also think that the element of surprise is on ND’s side since in general expectations are so low.
Herbstreit is decent. I have no opinion. Corso is a clown.
THanks for the link to the article.
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By E-Man August 25, 2010 - 1:47 pm
Um, what about “Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics”? I can draft the best available fantasy players according to someone else’s ranking, giving me one of the most highly ranked teams, and still finish in the bottom half. I think that this article shows how much the current Irish team has under-performed comparied to accolades given to date.
Gawd… I haven’t watched “Gameday” in 10 years, and they still have Corso on there? Can’t someone dig up that picture of him crying on the sidelines at Indiana so I can at least get a laugh?
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By domer_mq August 25, 2010 - 1:59 pm
Oh sure, stats can be mangled any which way, but the simple fact is that ND is, far and away, the most underachieving team in terms of talent-to-win ratio the last few years. (By the way, using same ratio, Cincy was best over the same period.)
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By Brad August 25, 2010 - 2:20 pm
I agree with DMQ. Statistics can always lie. If I told you the 15th ranked recruiting class was more talented than the 25th….I mean WHAT does that really mean?
But the point here remains that you simply cannot blame ND for ‘not having the horses’ as the conversation went 4-5 years ago.
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By Irish Bob August 26, 2010 - 10:01 am
The article has few facts and is based on star rankings.
Garbage in, garbage out.
Wins and losses are still a better measure of talent. Having more guys with star rankings is cheap solace for losers.
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By domer.mq August 26, 2010 - 11:32 am
Um. Ok. So you buy into the notion ND has no talent because they don’t have a lot of wins?
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