Let's Go IrishTHE Notre Dame Football Blog

Stanford Week: End of the road for a winding regular season. A season that saw the emergence of Jonas Gray only to see him fall in the second-to-last game of the year. It is also the story of Dayne Crist’s return from knee surgery only to be shown the bench after a half of play.
The road has been windy but the Irish, at least record-wise, have had a much better season than last. Especially if you start counting after the Michigan game. Fans are still not 100% happy with this team’s progress but there are few points in history when Notre Dame fans have been completely happy so that shouldn’t surprise anyone either. As per surprises, I couldn’t have imagined that I would get more than one lamp during our Irish Blog Gathering gift exchange, but enough about me, on the the questions, shall we? LEGHOOOOOOOOOO!!

1. Obviously, Saturday night’s game is massive. Win, and the Irish get to nine wins after starting 0-2, and you can make a really persuasive argument that they’re deserving of a BCS berth. Lose, and ND only makes incremental progress over last year’s 8-5 record. Three potential outcomes: Win, close loss, ten-point loss. How does your takeaway for the season change?

Win-
I may not be in the majority here but I view this season as a wasted opportunity and that will be even more true if we win this game. I don’t think that the Irish are the best team in college football, nobody touches LSU right now. But if you look back at Notre Dame’s three losses, you can pick one play, had it gone differently, from each game that would have resulted in an Irish victory. Yeah, and my uncle could be my aunt, right?

Back to the spirit of the question, if Notre Dame wins this game then I think it helps with the narrative that Notre Dame can win big games with Tommy Rees at quarterback. The loss of Jonas Gray is going to be a big obstacle to overcome. Cierre Wood is a very good running back but he won’t be as fresh for this game as games where he was splitting the carries with Jonas. I don’t think any of the backups are anywhere near ready for big time college reps, with the exception of Theo Riddick who would have to transition back to the position in near world record time.

I think a win on Saturday would be a great win for Brian Kelly to help advance the case for what he is trying to build. I think at this point, fans want this season to be remembered as a step forward instead of a tragic step backwards.

close loss-
If it is a close loss then I don’t really think it tells us much. It really depends on how we lose. If Tommy plays well, then many will point to Jonas’s absence. If Tommy doesn’t play well, then we will get to hear the quarterback back chatter rage on until the bowl game.

ten-point (+) loss-
A big loss would be worse for internal moral than external perceptions of the program. I don’t think that there are very many college football fans that think that Notre Dame has much of a chance to win this game, despite the 6.5 point spread. If Notre Dame wins this game, then fans will point to Stanford’s Oregon loss as a sign that this team wasn’t as good as advertised with only one real high quality win (USC).

Internally it will fire a lot of Notre Dame fans up, you know the ones seem happiest when they are miserable. A perfect season is is when your team goes 13-0 and fires the coach, sadly, there is a lot of truth to that phrase

2. Right now the Irish have 15 prospects committed to the 2012 recruiting class. Let’s assume every starter with a year left is coming back (Cave, KLM, Cwynar and Slaughter) and the Irish end up signing 20 recruits. That’ll make 93 players technically available for the 85-man roster (With Mike Ragone potentially being No. 94). Assuming Te’o and Eifert are back next season, what reserves do you invite back for a fifth year? Why?

Well according to your numbers I can invite two of the guys below back. Let’s take a look:

• Fifth-year candidates:
• Crist – Dayne isn’t coming back even if you invited him at this point. Good luck Dayne, you were a great ambassador for the program.
• Goodman – This is a tough one because we will need some WRs to step up next year.
• Walker – Another great representative of the university that just couldn’t find the field. Not sure why he couldn’t be called in for at least a go route.
• Golic – Golic is my #2 choice. You can’t ever have too many offensive lineman
• Clelland – The injuries were too much for Clelland.
• Hafis Williams – Too many guys that are much younger ahead of him on the depth chart.
• Brandon Newman – Ditto
• McDonald – The injury bug was too much for Anthony. Kendall Moore is also at his position.
• Posluszny – Good special teams player not good enough to turn away an incoming freshman
• McCarthy – Never quite the same after his senior year of high school injury.
• Ragone* (Sixth Year) – I would bring back Ragone for a sixth. He plays the way you want your younger guys to play and he would come back as a leader and an excellent example of how the game should be played.

3. If you ran the website NDNation, what would you do with it? It’s the most prominent Notre Dame hub on all of the internet, but it’s got a very vocal faction of readers/fans that seem to control the agenda — most often with a significantly negative point-of-view. What would you do if that was your website?

If it was my website, I would keep it just the way it is. If it isn’t broken don’t fix it. Do they eat their young over there? Yep. Show me an active message board on the internet where they don’t. As per their calls for Kelly’s head, I don’t get it but it is a good place to see the internal rumblings per the current state of the Notre Dame football program.

4. You’re Brian Kelly. You spent last recruiting class successfully upgrading the front seven of the defense. Over the next two recruiting classes, what position groups do you absolutely need to upgrade to get the Irish over the BCS hump?

I think he has done an excellent job on the front seven. They seem to have a couple of great corners penciled in for the defensive backfield which is the most pressing need. Recruit is a constant job and a coach college can never relax and rest on the recruits in the barn – not sure why they keep them there. A couple of big time playmakers and offensive line recruits in this year’s class would definitely help. The Irish should also sign an every down quarterback in this class if a good opportunity exists e.g. Gunner Kiel..

5. I’ve seen dozens of analogies used to describe the current state of the quarterbacking position at Notre Dame. What’s your favorite, or the one you think is the most appropriate?

An analogy? Remember the Wally Pipp and Lou Gehrig story? Well the Irish could sure use a Lou Gehrig, or maybe they could just put Wally back in.

6. Get out the crystal ball. Even after an unimpressive weekend, the Irish are right around a seven-point underdog to Stanford. Do the Irish leave Palo Alto victorious?

l thought you would never ask. Let me dust out that crystal ball. It is around here somewhere. I usually keep it right by my Pot O’ Gold. Ah, here it is.

I think the Irish have about a 40% chance leaving Stanford with a victory. I would have given the Irish and even shot if Jonas Gray was healthy. Let me tell you why, the Irish under Kelly are what they weren’t under Weis, which is a second-half of the season team. They definitely get stronger as the season continues. I think that Robby Toma play gives Tommy Rees a desperately needed third threat in the passing game which seems to be a big factor in screwing defensive coverage. I think the Irish have a really good shot in this game. Stanford will be a very good team but Notre Dame also beat a very good Michigan State team earlier this year.

Alright now it is your turn. Sound off in the comments section

Go Irish!