The Vols love to go all-out. All-out in wasting great talent, all out in hiring horrible coaches, and all out in hating them when they leave after a single season.

And, they go all out on their turf fields. They want them to be as much like the real thing as possible.

So real, in fact, that they put in holes and divots, to re-create the natural grass experience, to a “T”.

So very authentic of them (nevermind that it completely defeats the purpose of turf in the first place) and very effective, as Eric Berry injured his foot in one of those holes while training for the draft.

Seriously, holes in the turf? Get on it, UT, it’s not that turf ya’ll.

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With Tim Tebow’s acceptance of an invite to attend the draft, one has to step back and wonder: Why The Face?

Cuz, seriously, why would Tebow be invited to attend the draft? And why the hell would he accept? The answer: HYPE.

At first glance, this makes no sense whatsoever. Typically, the NFL invites the top few guys from any given draft to hang around in a suit looking uncomfortable, blackberry/text a bunch, and then walk up on-stage and accept a jersey when they’re picked in the top 10 (or top 25 in Quinn’s case). Then they do an interview, and get wasted and have random sex.

Fine, that’s cool, whatever. It’s a hype machine for the best players, those that will be the faces of the NFL going forward, because they’re GOOD and NFL teams want them.

But Tebow? He’s ALREADY a face. He’s a super over-hyped player of mediocre talent that will be lucky to be a 2nd round guy. But, he’s a face. He’s a guy that people love to talk about, love to love, and love to hate. So that means ratings.

So we’ve gotten to a point, now, where it’s actually less about how GOOD you are, and just more about how much people will point and click and twitter and tweet and all that shit. Great. I bet all 72 of the guys drafted before Tebow will just love this invite.

So, what do we do next, invite Paris Hilton? Kim Kardashian? Lane Kiffin?

Nah, cuz that’d be TACKY.

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I actually believe that. I think he’ll do well in Denver, and that that franchise will be on its way back to winning in the not too distant future.

Quinn is off to a new start, out from the career-ending-sink-hole that is Cleveland, and he spoke about it at length.

Classy as always in the interview.

Quinn has to be relieved to be out of there. It’s pretty obvious that Cleveland is a broken franchise, and a place where careers go to die. (See: Edwards, Braylon and his turnaround the SECOND he left the Land of Cleve.) And granted, Quinn didn’t do anything amazing while there, but man it’s tough to be successful in an organization that’s so poorly run, so poorly managed.

Now let’s just hope that the rumors of Clausen to Cleveland are wrong – I’d hate to see another quality ND QB get ruined.

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Unlike Meyer, there are consequences at Oregon.

His star QB is busted for burglary, dude is gone for the entire season.

Had Kelly given him a scolding and suspended him for the Spring Game, he would’ve been called Urban’s Apprentice. Looks like there can only be one Urban. (okay, maybe 2 now that Kiffin’s at USC).

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LETS GO IRISH!!!!

Love the way the boys are playing lately. Here’s to another upset tonight, which will lead to an inevitable BE championship (and the inevitable ‘cool, we’re a basketball school’ comments) if it happens.

Happy Hour in LA for the 9pm EST tipoff. Nice.

Let’s do it boys!

#1 Dude Off the Bench Ever

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Why The Face? This is just dumb.

“If you are wondering how sports headlines come about, understand that sometimes it’s almost by accident….Irish athletics director Jack Swarbrick just happened to stop by the session to listen – and he, too, was hit with the question about conferences.”

C’mon now, do they really think we’re stupid?

First of all, the AD doesn’t just HAPPEN to be walking by a coffee shop in NYC where his Head Football Coach is having coffee with the media, and pop in ‘just to listen’. This isn’t freaking the Central Perk in Friends.

Neither dude lives anywhere near NY, and there’s a 0% chance that Swarbrick didn’t know exactly what was happening at the time.

So, #1, it was no accident.

Second, if Swarbrick was ‘popping by’ just to listen, then why was he quoted like crazy? Why did he talk for so long and at such length about how likely it is for ND to join a conference? If asked the question, he could’ve just said “This is Coach Kelly’s meeting, I’m just here to listen, so I’ll hold off til the next time I discuss it formally.” Clearly, Swarbrick is smart enough to know that this is an option.

This was as planned as anything I’ve seen at worst, or, at “best”, it’s a message that Jack’s been itching to put out there, and he found a way to make it happen.

ND isn’t helping itself with a foolish statement like this. Of all the Friend’s cast, this sounds a lot like Joey.

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I was starting to formulate a big, long rant on this. Instead, I’m making a few quick points, linking to an old post, and moving on. Because everything I’ll say has been said, and I’d just be SAYING IT IN ALL CAPS BECAUSE I LIKE TO “INTERNET-YELL”!!!!

Anyway, Jack is being an idiot. For a few reasons.

First, there’s no reason to make these statements in public, unless you’re just testing the waters to see what kind of alumni/fan/stakeholder response you’ll get. And if that’s your goal, Jack, well here’s your response:

CONFERENCE AFFILIATION NO MATTER WHAT THE SHIFTS ARE IS IDIOTIC AND DESTROYS CORE PARTS OF WHAT MAKES ND ND. SO STFU ABOUT IT ALREADY PLEASE.

Clear enough?

If he’s not doing that, there’s literally no reason to keep saying these things. If ’seismic shifts’ happen, we may have to change? Well heck, if the world changes seismically tomorrow, the USA may have to annex Canada (or Mexico – I’d go with Mexico – warmer). I mean, yeah, if the world ends, things change. Do we really have to say it?

And even if it does change so dramatically, nothing forces our hand. ND decides what ND does. The BCS won’t shut us out – heck, we have a seat at the table OURSELVES. A SINGLE SCHOOL has a seat at the table with a bunch of conferences. They’re not shutting us out – we’re worth too much. There’s literally nothing that can ‘force our hand’. We are a powerful, powerful force in college football and in education – Jack seems to think we have no chips, when we have a lot. But he’d rather chop than play poker. Lawyer.

And that’s related to the core problem: We, as alums/students/fans, know how much ND is worth, and the conferences know. It just appears that Jack and John don’t know. HOW CAN YOU NOT KNOW THIS JACK?????

And the crazy thing is this: if we join a conference, that value is forever tarnished, forever diminished. ND would be come a midwestern school with a midwestern focus. Gone would be ND as a national institution. It wouldn’t happen overnight, but trust me, we’d become Northwestern, and…ouch, it hurt just to type that.

I ripped a columnist a new one a while back about this, and that pretty much sums up my thoughts on it a lot. The crux of my argument is: National is better than Regional, and core to ND’s identity. ND is nothing like the other Big Televen schools, and our mission would be made more difficult if not impossible by membership, and BEING INDEPENDENT IS RIGHT SO DO THE RIGHT THING JACK FOR GOD’S SAKE SHUT UP ABOUT IT AND JUST CLOSE THE F-ING DOOR ALREADY. Making sure we make as much money as the next guy is not a compelling reason for joining a conference. We already make a ton of money that supports football and other sports and acadmemic scholarships, etc. Selling ND’s soul is the grossest thing I can imagine, and it sounds like Jack is considering just that.

Only way a conference makes sense is if there’s a super-conference across the country of the Top 16 or 20 schools, and ND gets concessions that allow the school to operate as needed.

And that ain’t happening. So, enough already, Jack.

Shut it.

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From the great Smart Football, here are the 4 rules for drafting a QB if your name is Bill Parcells.

Parcells Rule
He must be a senior, because you need time and maturity to develop into a good professional quarterback.	Nope
He must be a graduate, because you want someone who takes his responsibilities seriously.	Not sure, actually. Anybody?
He must be a three-year starter, because you need to make sure his success wasn’t ephemeral and that he has lived as “the guy” for some period of time.	Check.
He must have at least 23 wins, because the big passing numbers must come in the context of winning games.	Nope.

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We are playing MARYLAND…

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

That’s right! That’s right!!!!! Suck it world, we rule!!!!!!!

What a great day to be IRISSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IN. YOUR. FACE!!!!!!

ND vs Maryland, 2011 BE THERE OR BE SOME OTHER PLACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

…

or, nobody cares. whatever.

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Looks like BK is already shaking up the lineup, mentioning today that Theo Riddick is headed to the Slot. Riddick joins a pretty talented WR corps led by the Floydinator, but a group that’s not necessarily deep with experience.

He’ll have the opportunity to fight for a starting spot in the Slot, although his shoulder surgery recovery in the Spring will slow things down.

I’m intrigued by the move, and a bit conflicted. On one hand, I’m a little bummed, because Riddick, to me, was the future at RB. He looked dynamic last year, moved well, and looked to be the only back that had the chance to really break a big run for us at any given time. Ever.

But then again, we have a stable of RBs – Allen, Wood, Hughes, Gray (who may be on defense before we know it), and incoming frosh to boot. So per BK in the article, he needed to find a way to get talented guys the ball. And Riddick does fit the mold of a Slot WR much better than Allen or Wood (and clearly Hughes). Riddick has more athleticism, and seems to be quicker.

Also, BK seems to prefer bigger, power RBs. The big skill guys. He raved about Roberson and how he will fit perfectly into the BK offense. Kid’s not tiny. Wood is a bigger power guy too, and BK kept him at RB. Kelly made a lot of use of bigger backs at Cincy as well. So it could be that this profile for his RBs played into the decision as well.

It will be interesting to see how the battle for starting spots at the 3-5 WR positions work out. You have to assume that Floyd will lead all WRs on the field, and Rudolph will get lined up to catch passes often as well. Kamara should be a regular on the outside, as should Shaq. Shaq could be a Slot guy competing with Riddick, or he could be a smaller outside guy ala Tate. Should make for an interesting Spring.

Go get ‘em Theo.

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In a recent interview about his appointment to the Recruiting Coordinator position, Chuck Martin outlined the 6 filters that players must make it through to be recruited by Notre Dame. These 6 filters create a funnel that narrows down the pol of talent considerably for ND. Lots of kids qualify for the first level of the funnel – athletic profile – any 3, 4 or 5-star kid fits it for his respective position probably. It means he’s a known quantity, he’s rated, etc. Here’s the rest of BK’s RKG Funnel:

For many programs, the funnel pretty much ends after Athletic Profile. Besides a minimum test score, most don’t care about academics. Besides blatant arrests on the record, most don’t care about background, family life, social life, character. Heck, some (see: Florida) prefer it.

The funnel ND uses is something that BK has worked with for a while – pre-ND – and it fits ND to a tee.

I like it.

But it got me wondering what kind of funnels other coaches use. So I did some snooping, snuck into a few offices, and found the secret funnels for UF, USC and Michigan (which sucks).

Florida Coaching Staff’s Funnel

This is pretty obvious once you see it, but it’s worth posting anyway. You know that Urban has a poster up on his wall and he just stares at it….AK-47? Check.

USC (Poodle AND Kiffin era) Coaching Staff’s Funnel

For the USC Staff, it’s much more about the Benjamins and the glitz and glamor of LA, and a lot less about blatant lying to recruits. But the funnel still works.

Michigan Coaching Staff’s Funnel

RR HAS to have one of these as well. Because, I mean, you have to make sure the kid’s okay with working out from 7am to 4am, right?

*Michigan’s horrible African-American grad rate is well-documented. Here, and everywhere.

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Ryan O’Leary over at B&G posted a new piece about Strength and Conditioning called “The Mendoza Line”, using the recent combine results of 4 players to defend CoachMendoza’s performance as S&C Coach over the past few years.

While it’s a good read, and there are some valid points, I don’t buy it.

I have 2 main issues with the crux of his argument.

First, he uses the performance of a few players at the combine, in particular categories, to evaluate an entire program.

Yes, ND guys put up some good numbers at the combine. In some places, our guys finished in the top 5 or top 10 at their position. But in other exercises, which Ryan conveniently leaves out, our guys didn’t finish in the top 5 or 10. So I could’ve just used those stats, and written an article on how BAD Mendoza was. So he’s really only telling part of the story. I mean, if I just use Olsen’s bench numbers (#5 of all those in the combine) to make the argument, that’d pretty much be the same thing. Because he picked the measures where our guys did best and said “Hey, hey, look how great they’re doing! Mendoza was really good”. But what about all the places where they didn’t do great? Those numbers are just as valid.

Speaking of numbers, ND has 5 guys at the Combine. 1 of them, Clausen, isn’t even working out. So we’re looking at 4 guys on a roster that’s HUGE. So now these 4 guys represent the entire report card on Mendoza? Last I looked we had 11 guys playing offense, 11 D, plus ST’s, on the field. And we’re going to use our 4 best/most athletic guys as the barometer for how well Mendoza did? Seems a bit skewed.

My 2nd beef with the argument is that he puts a bunch of emphasis on a few meat-market-ish tests designed for NFL Scouts to pick and prod top athletes for the pros. This isn’t necessarily what translates into a program-wide result of fitness. For example, ND’s issues in the latter half of the season in ‘09 and ‘08 were clearly endurance-related. The ability to keep going, for a full-game, non-stop and 100%. ND dropped long, hard-fought games to teams like Pitt and UCONN, and they faded late in the year 2 years in a row. There’s no 2-mile run at the combine, so there’s no metric for how well Mendoza taught and enforced a discipline that would lead to stamina and endurance in the face of adversity.

Going along with that, it seemed that the Irish didn’t quite have the fight left in them in the 2nd half of the season. And while that could largely be put on Weis’ shoulders, or the captains or other coaches, you have to wonder how much the S&C program’s personality, attitude, approach might have fed into it. Did Mendoza preach commitment? How much did he push his guys to go longer/harder?

To be honest, I have no clue about Mendoza or his program. When I was there, Mickey was the S&C guy, and I know his program well. But I can’t really speak to Mendoza’s process, attitude, philosophy or ethic.

I just know that ND faded in the 2nd half of the season 2 years in a row, the guys seemed skunked at the end of games, and we couldn’t ever just seem to put a team away. So I don’t know if Ryan O’Leary is right or wrong. I just don’t buy the argument as presented.

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Although there were a number of announcements today, the ones I find most interesting/important (cuz, well, they are) are the Recruiting Coordinator and ST positions.

For me, BK got one right, one wrong.

Which news first? Good or bad? Always good.

He hit Recruiting Coordinator right on the head. Chuck Martin is a great guy for this job. Having been a HC for so long, he knows how to run recruiting. Let’s face it, at DII, the Heach Coach IS the Recruiter, the Recruiting Coordinator, and the Coach. So Chuck has experience.

Also, from what we can all tell from the interviews, the video and the quotes, Chuck is a dynamic guy. I’m sure he kills in the living room. So he’s most likely a pretty darn good recruiter too.

And having been an HC, he has to have organization down. Running a program, any program, takes great organizational skills. As does being Recruiting Coordinator.

So I like this call.

On to Special Teams, and…FAIL. Now, Elston might work out just fine. I hope he does and that our Special Teams are great.

But I dont think there’s another coach with a bigger burden already – Defensive Line – than Elston. And I would have greatly preferred to see him solely dedicated to making that line better.

We have some talent there, but thus far it’s been under-developed and under-productive. We’re still relatively young, so maybe that’s it. But no matter what, the DL needs extra attention, which means it doesnt need the coach running off to work on punt coverage.

I know it’s possible to do both, and to do both well. It’s just a big position of need, and I’d have preferred to see another coach with less of an uphill battle take over ST. We’ll see how it all falls out.

In other news, we have GAs and Interns. Hooray!

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USC’s woes have been well-documented. And they hired a guy that has never heard of the words honor, honest or rules. Now, Michigan’s (sucks) problems are on the radar, and by all accounts they’ve come from a toxic coach that has run the program into the ground. I don’t remember any of this under LLLLLLoyd. So what’s going on?

According to recent reports, there are 5 MAJOR NCAA infractions on the board for the skunkbears. We’ll get results around August on these, but it’s pretty clear that this is a big deal. Much bigger than some skunkbear fans would like to have you think.

But what did they do? Just a few extra hours of practice here and there? No no, that’s just the tip of the iceberg that led to the rest of the program’s troubles.

In addition to all the extra practice time (which some claim is just a few minutes here and there due to accounting, which I don’t buy in the least), there were more deliberate and, dare I say, sinister, things going on.

Michigan was cheating….

*By using Five (5!) extra coaches on staff. They used slots reserved for ‘quality control’ people and essentially used them as extra coaches. All that extra coaching didn’t seem to help much last year.

*By having extra workout hours, extra practices, and ‘voluntary’ workouts supervised by coaches. That’s a no-no. And, sadly for Michigan, didn’t help all that much.

*By having one of their GA’s lie to the NCAA during the investigation. That makes you look real innocent. Real, real innocent.

*By not monitoring anything pretty much. No logs on practice hours, shoddy records-keeping, and all that. They lay this right at RichRod’s feet, saying he failed to promote an atmosphere of compliance. RR has been toxic since the day he rolled into town, how can anyone be surprised by this claim?

*And finally, that the Athletic Dept failed to monitor the program. So, now we’re getting to the AD level. No wonder there was a change in leadership there recently.

So that ugly sub-.500 result you saw last year? Yep, that’s the result of TOO MANY hours of practice, and TOO MANY coaches, and NO TIME spent keeping records of anything.

Imagine how bad the RR-led Skunkbears would be if they hadn’t cheated. Wow.

(And we lost to them. C’MON.)

I don’t expect USC-level sanctions, but there will be serious hits to Michigan sucks football which will make them suck even more.

It’s seriously likely that ND’s two biggest rivals/enemies will be NCAA-hamstrung in the near future.

Jack Swarbrick’s scheduling job just got much, much more difficult.

Oh, and Rich Rodriguez is a horrible, horrible coach, in case you didn’t know.

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Brian Kelly’s recent speech on how to win, from the baseball ‘opening night’ (which can be found in video on ISD here), is a great example of how he’s different from Weis. And I think this difference is the missing link for ND football.

I won’t go into the quotes and all that – but essentially, Kelly starts from the ground up with kids. He expects that they don’t know how to do things, that they need guidance. If you can’t do X in your sleep, then you’ll never do Y, because you’re just getting in your own way. And forget about Z if you can’t do Y.

Weis, somewhat famously, operated like an NFL coach: he assumed that you had the basics together, and built from there. The lack of development of some players/positions is well-documented with this approach. HS kids are, not-shockingly, very different from NFL players. While I think Weis was adjusting over time, he never quite got fully there on this.

Kelly is the exact opposite. He knows that players dont know what they dont know, and he needs to take steps to get them there. Step 1: Learn how to Organize Your Locker. Literally, that was one of the first things that Kelly emphasized to his players. Because if you have a sloppy locker, you dont know where things are, which slows you down, and may make it more difficult to do Step #2.

It’s extremely basic, and Step 1 should be done in a matter of minutes. But it allows Step 2 to be achieved, then that allows Step 3, etc. In time these basics become automatic, and provide a foundation for further growth and education.

ND has talent. They have the resources. The players need development, and it seems pretty clear that Kelly has a clear, strict method to get there.

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