Malik Zaire

Coach Speak: Post-Practice Pressers from Kelly and Miles

December 16, 2014 by Bayou Irish

Monday marked the end of Notre Dame's third, and LSU's first, post-season practice in anticipation of their upcoming clash in the Music City Bowl on December 30th. Louisiana State University's Head Coach Les Miles and Notre Dame's Head Coach Brian Kelly each addressed the media to give the lay of the land. Coincidentally, both coaches gave over the first half of their pressers to off-topic issues. In this post, I'll give you both the highlights and the links to each. BRIAN KELLY: The biggest ...

Credit: Matt Cashore-USA TODAY Sports

Finding the Bottom

November 16, 2014 by Ryan Ritter

I'm not even sure where exactly to start with the mess that was Notre Dame's loss to Northwestern. Typing "Notre Dame's loss to Northwestern" doesn't even make sense to me. The Irish lost and gave up 43 points to a team that hasn't even cracked 30 all season. Iowa blew these guys out. But here we are in what I consider the worst loss since I walked on to campus in 2003. Oh sure, we've lost to worse teams, but those ND teams were objectively terrible. While this team isn't ...

Friday Roundup: The “Notre Dame Fall Camp 2014 Catch-Up” Edition

August 15, 2014 by Ryan Ritter

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 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 ...

via South Bend Tribune

Notre Dame Fall Camp Practice #2 Report (August 5, 2014)

August 6, 2014 by Ryan Ritter

Another day, another practice for Notre Dame football. With the media now locked out of practice, all we have are our small morsels of Jack Nolan and the Fighting Irish Digital Media crew giving us a peak into practice. And, yes, we will happily devour it and attempt to over-analyze it because we have signs of football and we are starving for it, dammit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBUQkvpI008 And now to wring some analysis out of sub-five minute clip: Jack Nolan opened with a ...

It’s All a Matter of Perspective

April 17, 2014 by Ryan Ritter

Attempting to analyze Notre Dame's spring game every year is an interesting exercise. While there is certainly a good amount of information that can be mined from the Blue/Gold game, conclusions tend to lie in the perspective that you start with. One person can rave about great QB play and another can be worried about a terrible secondary. One person's great pass rush could be another person's astute observation of terrible offensive line play. Or, as a wise philosopher once said, these ...

A Welcome QB Competition

April 16, 2014 by Steve in Iowa

The return of Everett Golson and the emergence of Malik Zaire doesn't constitute a QB controversy. Quite the opposite. It brings greater confidence in the quarterback position. Last weekend’s annual Blue-Gold Game showcased the considerable talents of Notre Dame’s top two quarterbacks, Everett Golson and Malik Zaire. Instead of crabbing about a supposed quarterback controversy the Irish faithful should be extremely pleased. For the first time in his tenure, Brian Kelly has a QB “controversy” ...

Notre Dame Football: Blue and Gold Game Thoughts and Reactions

April 12, 2014 by WhiskyPoet

Saturday was the 85th Notre Dame spring game and as we all freaked out from the big news of field turf installation, a minor football scrimmage broke out behind the angelic view of Jack Swarbrick. Here are many of my thoughts and reactions to what I saw and heard during the annual retail football event: Tradition Is Dead Alex Flannigan was able to make the biggest announcement regarding Notre Dame football since Jimmy Clausen visited the College Football Hall of Fame: Notre Dame Stadium ...

Jack Nolan Talks Notre Dame Football at ND Dallas Kickoff

August 12, 2013 by Ryan Ritter

Every year, the Notre Dame Club of Dallas gets ready for the upcoming Notre Dame football season with our annual kickoff party. The event allows our membership to enjoy to some food and drinks while we raise money via live auction for our scholarship fund, given annually to local Dallas students that attend ND (as a reference, last year, ND Dallas gave $70,000 out to 22 deserving students). One of the highlights of this event though, is the special guest that comes to talk to the club and ...

Ranking the Irish Roster: Tex’s Top 25

July 22, 2013 by Ryan Ritter

Every year, Keith Arnold over at Inside the Irish does an annual ranking of the top 25 players on the Notre Dame roster. This year marks the second year that I have been able to contribute and, this time around, I wanted to give a break down of my rankings. Thankfully, I don't have to justify ranking a kicker #1 (NEVER FORGET) or leaving our starting QB off the top 25 list (NEVER FORGET THIS AS WELL). So without further ado, let's get to the rankings. ...

Irish Blogger Gathering: Spring Fling with NDNation

April 24, 2013 by Ryan Ritter

Yes, you read the title correctly: The Subway Domer has pulled a recruiting coup for the IBG and NDNation has joined the fold. For the post Blue/Gold Game edition, we got the first crack at asking questions of Mike Coffey, aka El Kabong, of NDNation. He, in turn, has asked his questions three of Kieth Arnold of Inside the Irish who will eventually have Subway's answers up. And you can find my answers over at The Subway Domer this week. Eventually, we will have the Strong and True blog back in ...