Notre Dame Football 2011: The Brian Kelly Era...Ascends?

• killer_ewok

  

  karen lotz;750742 wrote:Saw this on IE...might be a little on the aggressive side...

  Most definitely. Preseason top 15-25.....I think that's about right. Any higher than that.......eh.....Top 10 is too high and Top 5 is crazy IMO. Could they end up that high when it's all said and done.....possibly. But starting out that high is just not warranted.
• athlete37

  

  would be stoked if we finished 10-2 or 11-1. I'm going in with 9-3 expectations. I feel like we could just as easily lose to South Florida as start out 3-0.
• Tobias Fünke

  

  South Florida apparently looked like garbage in their spring game. Not that I have ever taken much out of spring games. Skip Holtz is a keeper but they have to fill a ton of positions from last year.
  
  Anything can happen in college football in terms of injuries. But as it stands I think Notre Dame would go out and beat 10 of its 12 opponents 7/10 times. USC and Stanford are the real killers here. With manageable injuries, a quarterback who doesn't give games away and Floyd back in the lineup 11-1 is doable. I'm not sure I see a team that starts out 11-0 losing to Stanford though.
  
  This OL is too good to not open up holes, and the defense is too good to put them in many bad situations. Is Kelly's offense ready? That is the main question this year.
• Tobias Fünke

  

  Notre Dame is expected to add a four-star wide receiver to the 2012 class tomorrow.
• karen lotz

  

  Tobias Fünke;756244 wrote:Notre Dame is expected to add a four-star wide receiver to the 2012 class tomorrow.

  
  Which one? Ferguson?
• Tobias Fünke

  

  Yeah. Hopefully one of many Notre Dame vs. Florida---errrr, Kelly vs. Weis recruiting battles that Notre Dame wins going into the future.
  
  Also, I think we may want to consider offering sleeper another bet. Of course, not to be agreed upon until late August because anything can happen, depending on Floyd's return.
  
  However, I like the 5-7 or worse and he can post on Notre Dame threads again. I feel pretty confident in saying Notre Dame will beat South Florida, Purdue, Navy, Wake Forest, Maryland and Boston College. That'd be six wins and we'd be in the clear.
  
  Sleeper mentioned that if Notre Dame won a BCS bowl he'd accept a IP address ban. That sounds sooo delicious. haha
  
  Let it fester in your noggins for a few weeks.
• karen lotz

  

  http://irish.nbcsports.com/2011/05/02/report-wr-justin-ferguson-commits-to-irish/
• Hamp89

  Good news. It looks like he's flying a bit under the radar as he has only played in Florida for one year, although he does have offers from the Florida big 3. He's projected to be on the ESPN 150 list once it comes out.
• rock_knutne

  Floyd entered a not guilty plea in court to his DUI charge:
  
  http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=6464623
  
  His attorney say it's the first step to copping a plea and doesn't see this thing going to trial. Hope it works out for him.
• bababooey

  

  Ferguson also plans to enroll in January.
• killer_ewok

  

  karen lotz;756726 wrote:http://irish.nbcsports.com/2011/05/02/report-wr-justin-ferguson-commits-to-irish/

  
  Good deal.
• killer_ewok

  

  Notre Dame roundtable discussion on College Football Live tomorrow at 3:30 on ESPN.
• rock_knutne

  killer_ewok;759805 wrote:Notre Dame roundtable discussion on College Football Live tomorrow at 3:30 on ESPN.

  In case you missed it:
  
  http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=6487856
• Tobias Fünke

  

  I just watched it, some thoughts:
  
  1) Jesse Palmer is a douche and needs to go away. I hate everything about him. He never coached, he has no unique insight, and even the way he held the pen while I talked to make him look like he knew what the fuck he was talking about made me angry.
  
  2) Kirk Herbstreit is guilty of the common sports logic flaw: "They haven't been good in a while, so they can't be good for a while." I mean all of his points were a) they haven't been consistently good since Holtz, and b) the team has lacked speed. I came away from that shaking my head at him. Don't get me wrong, he possessed valid concerns, but you could see Urban Meyer calmly give the "are you fucking kidding me?" look when he said (to paraphrase) "can Notre Dame ever be good again?" I mean that is so 2004, when the national media said "can they recruit guys into Notre Dame?" The obvious answer since then has been that they can and have.
  
  He ignored the speed recruited on defense, one of the best DL classes ever, and that they have recruited speed players from the south and west under Kelly (and Weis). I mean they have a commitment from THE FASTEST KID IN THE COUNTRY for this class. What more can you ask? Within the first few seconds he said "...and maybe Brian Kelly will eventually be able to recruit," ...ummm, what the fuck are you talking about?
  
  3) This was less about 2011 and more about 1997-2009, the Davie/Willingham/Weis era.
  
  4) They all seem to like Kelly. Good. If they denied his success elsewhere I'd have lost it.
  
  5) Urban Meyer showed that he is 100000x smarter than those three are every time he opened his mouth. He's just on another level. Never mind the fact that he's the only one of them to a) actually visit Notre Dame recently, b) watch their practices and analyze the players....he actually coached there before the fall from grace to appropriately juxtapose today's situation.
• bababooey

  

  Florida Outside linebacker Noor Davis has cut his list to five and will announce Friday at noon. The top 5 are UF, ND, bama, Stanford and USC.
  Most expect it's between UF and ND.
  
  http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/recruiting/player-Noor-Davis-122958
• The Equalizer

  

  He lives in the Villages? I thought that was a retirement home.
• karen lotz

  

  Pretty funny to read about Davis, posters on Notre Dame boards say he's gonna commit to Florida, Florida fans say he'll be Irish.
• karen lotz

  

  http://ny.milesplit.com/videos/16012
  
  Not too bad.
• karen lotz

  

  Up to 5 Notre Dame games will be prime time kickoffs with Purdue being announced today. Still the possibility of the Pitt game being prime time and outside (and not too likely) chance of the Wake Forrest game.
• Tobias Fünke

  

  http://www.offtackleempire.com/2011/5/11/2163556/2011-bowl-projections-post-spring
  
  Fiesta bowl, vs. Texas, prediction.
• karen lotz

  

  bababooey;764960 wrote:Florida Outside linebacker Noor Davis has cut his list to five and will announce Friday at noon. The top 5 are UF, ND, bama, Stanford and USC.
  Most expect it's between UF and ND.
  
  http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/recruiting/player-Noor-Davis-122958

  Davis just committed to Stanford...
• killer_ewok

  

  That sucks. Good luck to him....except for one game every year.....
• karen lotz

  

  Yep exactly. I suppose its not possible that his recruitment is done. He will take his first trip to Stanford this summer and visit USC. Hopefully he uses all 5 of his visits and one of them is Notre Dame for a game.
• Tobias Fünke

  

  Fuck Stanford. Schools like Duke, Stanford, Vanderbilt, Northwestern all have the ability to snag those recruits who put emphasis on elite education and D-I football. It behooves Notre Dame for those schools to stay bad.
• Tobias Fünke

  

  Based on what we heard and saw at Stanford Sunday, it probably is just a matter of time before four-star wide receiver Deontay Greenberry (Fresno, Calif./Washington Union) commits to Notre Dame, joining fellow Fresno-area star and friend Tee Shepard (Fresno, Calif./Central East) on the Fighting Irish commit list.

  From 24/7. Very nice.