Kerry Cooks Archives - Her Loyal Sons https://www.herloyalsons.com/blog A Notre Dame Football Blog Fri, 03 Apr 2015 18:53:13 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.8.3 https://www.herloyalsons.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/HLS-Avatar-Option-2-150x150.png Kerry Cooks Archives - Her Loyal Sons https://www.herloyalsons.com/blog 32 32 Morning Roundup: Feb. 18, 2015 https://www.herloyalsons.com/blog/2015/02/18/morning-roundup-feb-18-2015/ Wed, 18 Feb 2015 13:00:32 +0000 http://www.herloyalsons.com/blog/?p=27995 Good morning! Here are your headlines: FROM OUR SITE Fat Tuesday, indeed…of ND coaching news COACHING Irish Illustrated: Gilmore: No comment on ND move ND Insider: Reports: Notre Dame to add Autry Denson, Keith Gilmore to football staff CBS Sports: Report: Notre Dame to hire Autry Denson (RB), Keith Gilmore (DL) One Foot Down: Notre...

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]]> Good morning! Here are your headlines:

FROM OUR SITE

COACHING

RECRUITING

CURRENT TEAM

IRISH IN THE NFL

MISC.

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]]> Morning Roundup: Feb. 15, 2015 https://www.herloyalsons.com/blog/2015/02/15/morning-roundup-feb-15-2015/ https://www.herloyalsons.com/blog/2015/02/15/morning-roundup-feb-15-2015/#comments Sun, 15 Feb 2015 13:00:18 +0000 http://www.herloyalsons.com/blog/?p=27933 Good morning! Here are your headlines: VIDEO Ian Wierzba: Notre Dame football pump up (2015-16) CURRENT TEAM UHND: Torii Hunter Jr to play baseball for Notre Dame Blue & Gold Illustrated: Hunter Jr. a dual-sport athlete Inside the Irish: Torii Hunter Jr. joins the Irish baseball team Inside the Irish: Mailbag, part 2: What to...

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]]> Good morning! Here are your headlines:

VIDEO

CURRENT TEAM

RECRUITING

COACHING

MISC.

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]]> https://www.herloyalsons.com/blog/2015/02/15/morning-roundup-feb-15-2015/feed/ 2 Morning Roundup: Feb. 13, 2015 https://www.herloyalsons.com/blog/2015/02/13/morning-roundup-feb-13-2015/ Fri, 13 Feb 2015 13:00:00 +0000 http://www.herloyalsons.com/blog/?p=27911 Good morning! Here are your headlines: FROM OUR SITE Friday roundup: The “safety transfer” edition PODCAST TNNDN: ND Fan Radio: Vol. 36 – Notre Dame coaching carousel – Part 1 (2:02:38) COACHING 247 Sports: Hawkins: Sanford would be ‘lights-out’ hire at Notre Dame Rant Sports: Mike Sanford makes Notre Dame a New Year’s Six bowl...

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]]> Good morning! Here are your headlines:

FROM OUR SITE

PODCAST

COACHING

RECRUITING

CURRENT TEAM

IRISH IN THE NFL

MISC.

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]]> Morning Roundup: Feb. 12, 2015 https://www.herloyalsons.com/blog/2015/02/12/morning-roundup-feb-12-2015/ Thu, 12 Feb 2015 13:00:14 +0000 http://www.herloyalsons.com/blog/?p=27902 Good morning! COACHING 247 Sports: Notre Dame to land top coaching target Mike Sanford Fox Sports: Irish expected to hire Boise State’s Sanford as new OC Irish Sports Daily: Report: Notre Dame set to hire Sanford CSN Chicago: Reports: Notre Dame to hire Mike Sanford as OC/QB coach Irish Illustrated: Irish getting ‘bulldog’ in Sanford...

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]]> Good morning!

COACHING

RECRUITING

CURRENT TEAM

IRISH IN THE NFL

MISC.

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]]> Morning Roundup: Feb. 11, 2015 https://www.herloyalsons.com/blog/2015/02/11/morning-roundup-feb-11-2015/ Wed, 11 Feb 2015 13:00:55 +0000 http://www.herloyalsons.com/blog/?p=27884 Good morning! I hope you’re enjoying this compendium of Notre Dame football stories delivered each day by 8 a.m. If you like it, help our site spread the word about this new feature. I’d sure appreciate it! Now here are your headlines: FROM OUR SITE When will ND unwrap its recruiting presents? COACHING CSN Chicago:...

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]]> Good morning! I hope you’re enjoying this compendium of Notre Dame football stories delivered each day by 8 a.m. If you like it, help our site spread the word about this new feature. I’d sure appreciate it!

Now here are your headlines:

FROM OUR SITE

COACHING

RECRUITING

IRISH IN THE NFL

MISC.

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]]> Morning Rondup: Feb. 10, 2015 https://www.herloyalsons.com/blog/2015/02/10/morning-rondup-feb-10-2015/ Tue, 10 Feb 2015 13:00:19 +0000 http://www.herloyalsons.com/blog/?p=27863 Good morning! Here are your headlines: FROM OUR SITE Your ND football all-time all-name team Recording: Friday Roundup recruiting special! (58:00 including commercials) PODCASTS Irish Sports Daily: Power Hour  2-9-15 (1:03:00) Blue & Gold Illustrated: The Irish Huddle (29:30) Irish Sports Talk: #ShamrockSoldiers15 on defense with Ryan Thiel & coaching changes Feb. 9 IST150 (1:33:27)...

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]]> Good morning! Here are your headlines:

FROM OUR SITE

PODCASTS

COACHING

COACHING – TONY ALFORD

COACHING – KERRY COOKS

RECRUITING

IRISH IN THE NFL

MISC.

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]]> Morning Roundup: Feb. 6, 2015 https://www.herloyalsons.com/blog/2015/02/06/morning-roundup-feb-6-2015/ https://www.herloyalsons.com/blog/2015/02/06/morning-roundup-feb-6-2015/#comments Fri, 06 Feb 2015 13:00:40 +0000 http://www.herloyalsons.com/blog/?p=27788 Good morning! I had this vivid dream about the nation’s top water polo recruit announcing his decision by throwing three balls – each with the logo of a prospective school – at a goal. Two hit the post and fall away. The one that goes in the goal is the team he’s committing to. I...

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]]> Good morning! I had this vivid dream about the nation’s top water polo recruit announcing his decision by throwing three balls – each with the logo of a prospective school – at a goal. Two hit the post and fall away. The one that goes in the goal is the team he’s committing to. I told my wife about this dream. Her reply: “But what if the wrong ball goes into the goal?”

Here are your headlines:

RECRUITING

PODCASTS

VIDEO

COACHING

CURRENT TEAM

HISTORY

MISC.

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]]> https://www.herloyalsons.com/blog/2015/02/06/morning-roundup-feb-6-2015/feed/ 1 Morning Roundup: Feb. 5, 2015 https://www.herloyalsons.com/blog/2015/02/05/morning-roundup-feb-5-2015/ Thu, 05 Feb 2015 13:00:17 +0000 http://www.herloyalsons.com/blog/?p=27778 Good morning! National Signing Day is now over, but not without a little midday excitement. Here are your headlines: FROM OUR SITE National Signing Day so far: The Irish at 24 SIGNING DAY/RECRUITING NEWS NY Times: National Signing Day, when college football makes a spectacle of itself UND.com: Fighting Irish add 24 names to 2015...

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]]> Good morning! National Signing Day is now over, but not without a little midday excitement. Here are your headlines:

FROM OUR SITE

SIGNING DAY/RECRUITING NEWS

VIDEOS

PODCASTS

RB JOSH ADAMS

LB JOSH BARAJAS

LB ASMAR BILAL

TE MILES BOYKIN

DB SHAUN CRAWFORD

CB NICK COLEMAN

OL/DL LINCOLN FEIST

S NICCO FERTITTA

WR JALEN GUYTON

LB BRANDON HUTSON

TE ALIZE JONES

QB ROBBY REGAN

G TREVOR RUHLAND

WR CJ SANDERS

LB/WR DEVYN SPRUELL

WR EQUANIMEOUS ST. BROWN

DT ELIJAH TAYLOR

DT BRANDON TIASSUM

DE BO WALLACE

CB ASHTON WHITE

RB DEXTER WILLIAMS

S MYKELTI WILLIAMS

QB BRANDON WIMBUSH

K JUSTIN YOON

OTHERS

COACHING

CURRENT TEAM

HISTORY

MISC.

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]]> Friday Roundup: The “Notre Dame Fall Camp 2014 Catch-Up” Edition https://www.herloyalsons.com/blog/2014/08/15/notre-dame-fall-camp-2014-catch-up/ https://www.herloyalsons.com/blog/2014/08/15/notre-dame-fall-camp-2014-catch-up/#comments Fri, 15 Aug 2014 10:00:25 +0000 http://www.herloyalsons.com/blog/?p=25622 Once WatchND started pumping out Notre Dame football fall camp practice videos, I was all in for breaking each one down. It worked great for the first two practices, but then practice #3 happened and saw the video breakdown was a position profile for the CBs. Don’t get me wrong, the feature was great, but...

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]]> Friday RoundupOnce WatchND started pumping out Notre Dame football fall camp practice videos, I was all in for breaking each one down. It worked great for the first two practices, but then practice #3 happened and saw the video breakdown was a position profile for the CBs.

Don’t get me wrong, the feature was great, but a basically started at my title of “Fall Camp Practice Report #3: CB Report” for about an hour and realized there was no way that I could even drag 100 words out of the topic.

So I passed on the post. Ten more practices are in the books (ND completed practices #12 and #13 yesterday) across the past eight days and quite a bit has happened. It’s time to play some catch-up.

So today, it’s time to enjoy a very Irish-centric special edition of the Roundup. Think of this as the quick way to catch up the past week of fall camp.

The Roundup

I will never cease to be amazed at the freaks of nature we have at TE. Koyack should not be able to move as fast for how big he is. Tyler Luata is also an absolute freak of nature. Just check out the pancake he delivers at 3:20 in the clip. Yeah, that’s a freshman.

The first day of practice in full pads is probably the real first glimpse of what we can expect this season. I think this goes double for defense. For most of the videos to this point, we’ve seen the secondary just abuse receivers with incredibly physical play. Throughout this clip though, they seem to have backed off behavior that would draw out more defensive PI flags than Sparty trying to stop Tommy Rees. Other highlights that I liked: Sheldon Day looking like a beast and Ishaq Williams putting some good rushes together:

The August 9 practice gave us a peak the Irish in the red zone. Spoiler alert: THEY RAN THE DAMN BALL! In all seriousness, the last bit of the video has Greg Bryant flat out GOING OFF on two great runs. Once the Irish got inside the 10, we saw Bryant get a blow and Cam tried to punch it in. The next play featured Bryant in a personnel package that included freshman beast Tyler Luata that got the TD. As for the rest of the practice? Probably the most physical highlights we’ve seen thus far:

The RB profile gave us no clues on the depth chart battle. The combination of Cam McDaniel, Tarean Folston, and Greg Bryant make this position one of the most exciting on the team. With their talent though, it’s hard to project who is going to come out of the gate as the starter or how all three will rotate. If I could read any of the tea leaves that Tony Alford was throwing out there, it appears that Bryant might have the most work to do out of the trio.

The profile on the safeties led me to an interesting conclusion. Kerry Cooks said a few different things that jumped out at me. Firstly, Austin Collinsworth has clearly jumped out as the QB of the defense. The mention that he can play both positions jumped out at me as well. Cooks also mentioned that Max Redfield was making noticeable improvement. Mathias Farley was listed in the video as a S/CB. Finally, Cooks touted Shumate as the most talented of the group. All of this together leads me to believe that nickel and dime packages might feature some hybrid roles that we haven’t seen before. Either that or we are going to see a crazy, constant rotation:

Here’s a shocker, Everett Golson is your starting QB for Rice. Yes, “for Rice”, much like the same language Kelly used in 2012. That’s fine, I’m good with it and I’m sure Malik Zaire is going to see the field a fair amount this season (hopefully not due to injury). Want to know what really stood out to me though? The managers got to play the pitch man for the QBs during an option drill and I’m forever sad that I didn’t get to do that:

Yesterday’s practice video focused on the defensive line. Honestly, I thought this was one of the more enlightening position profile videos to date. The D-line has to be the lead as far as question marks go considering all the talent that was lost. Listening Mike Elston break down everyone’s performance and what they expect of everyone was great. I know Andrew Trumbetti made a lot of waves this week (more on that later), but it’s good to hear that another freshman, Johnny Williams is standing out a bit as well, even if it appears he is behind a touch on the learning curve:

And here’s your main event: Brian Kelly’s August 13th presser. Loads of information in this one, including our first peak into portions of the depth chart. I had a few things that stood out to me:

  • Kelly talked a lot about rotations on defense, especially in the front seven.
  • Mentioned that VanGorder’s defense allows the young guys to just go and play on instinct.
  • In fact, for all that’s been made about how complicated the schemes on defense are, I have a feeling VanGorder is scheming to his talent.
  • Kelly seemed frustrated with questions about if ND had their base defense installed. I read that as “we won’t have a traditional base”.
  • Everett can check out of plays, but he probably won’t need to due to the way the offense is designed.
  • No major injuries on the O-line, but with various guys being out for a day, the starting five is still up in the air.
  • Kelly is taking a look at individual competitive drills before he decides who is on the special teams units.

With all that in mind, here’s the depth chart. Or rather, what Kelly confirmed explicitly thus far:

[table “” not found /]

And now you’re moment of Nix…

The Booze

Summer is nearly done and I haven’t yet had one of my favorite summer whiskey cocktails, the Lynchburg Lemonade:

1 part Jack
1 part Triple Sec
1 part Sour Mix
4 parts lemon-lime soda

You can sub in Jack with a bourbon as well (obviously it kills the Lunchburg namesake, but whatever).

Cheers.

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]]> https://www.herloyalsons.com/blog/2014/08/15/notre-dame-fall-camp-2014-catch-up/feed/ 3 Out Like a Lamb? March Ends Mixed for The Irish https://www.herloyalsons.com/blog/2014/03/31/like-lamb-march-ends-mixed-irish/ https://www.herloyalsons.com/blog/2014/03/31/like-lamb-march-ends-mixed-irish/#comments Mon, 31 Mar 2014 07:00:35 +0000 http://www.herloyalsons.com/blog/?p=24306 Saturday saw The Fighting Irish put practice number eight in the books and a new name, Jarrett Grace, on the operating table. With the Blue-Gold Spring Game on April 12 and at the half-way point of the Spring season, I’m excited to see what develops over the next seven practices. I’m also pleased to see...

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]]> via South Bend Tribune

via South Bend Tribune

Saturday saw The Fighting Irish put practice number eight in the books and a new name, Jarrett Grace, on the operating table. With the Blue-Gold Spring Game on April 12 and at the half-way point of the Spring season, I’m excited to see what develops over the next seven practices. I’m also pleased to see that Kelly’s staff picked up two solid commitments over the weekend, both out of talent-rich Texas. So let’s get to it.

But first, I had the pleasure of meeting Tex, our fearless co-leader and Editor-in-Chief, last weekend at the (absolutely beautiful) wedding of a (-n absolutely beautiful) mutual friend of ours here in New Orleans. My two Hot Tex Takes: 1.) the man is marrying way above the rim (I also met his fiancée) ; and 2.) his eyebrows do, in fact, look like that in person.

Back to the football, though. With eight practices under their belts, all of which have been indoors, The Irish seem to be adjusting nicely to having Everett Golson back at the reins and under center. His likely backup, Malik Zaire, though, is, by all accounts, making terrific progress of his own and looks ready to provide Notre Dame another offensive weapon instead of a serviceable play-caller to get them off the field and into the locker-room. As one example, pay attention to the zip on the ball and in the step of Number Eight at 2:07 in the video from Saturday’s session:

In fact, if you listen to Malik, he’s not backing anyone up. And, if you read the previous link all the way through, Coach Kelly isn’t exactly pooh-poohing the idea of a two quarterback system come August.

In personnel news, the most significant is Jarrett Grace’s surgery on the right leg he has been recouping since breaking it in four places last season. Over the weekend, he underwent a successful rod placement to further encourage the fusing of the JESUS CHRIST IT JUST SOUNDS PAINFUL. According to Coach and Dr. Ratigan, the orthopedic surgeon who performed the operation, Jarrett should be back to compete for his starting position at “Nerf” (middle) linebacker. In the mix for his spot are (former) walk-on Joe Schmidt and two others, one of whom is a true walk-on.

Staying with the D, Coach VanGorder gave a thirty minute press conference last Wednesday. For all the hype about The Irish turning away from Diaco’s 3-4 system, it seems that VanGorder’s philosophy is to move in-and-out of fronts depending on the package, play, and position. His watch-word is “multiple” and he’s been pinging Jaylon Smith inside and outside. KeiVarae Russell is apparently turning out one heck of a solid Spring and Ishaq Williams has done a “good job so far.” Though “struggling” in coverage, converted wide receiver James Onwalu is “a good learner.”

In recruiting news, it was two steps forwards and one step back this weekend. The gets were Prentice McKinney (DB) out of Dallas, and Jaylen Guyton (WR) from Allen, also a city in Texas, evidently. Both a solid three-stars at their positions and both represent a widening of the pipeline between The Lone Star State and South Bend. The loss was four-star LB Josh Barajas to Penn State, who verbally committed to Happy Valley on Sunday. Whatever. They’re just verbals. They’ll all wind up playing for Tulane, or something.

Here’s how Coach Kelly felt after Saturday’s session. Monday will be outside and it sounds like they’re leaving the Jugs inside. Should be fun:

To get a flavor for where Brian’s Boys are in their development, you can watch NDFIDM’s terrific video-shorts in sequence here.

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