Some People Aren't Going to Like Hearing This...

[RF2044]

He did. He liked Bullough's scheme and though we did a pretty good job there. It's not Bullough's fault Whigham couldn't keep up with ND. He said offensively it was really tough to tell because their front did a really good job disrupting our run game. Clearly ND did not respect our WR's as they played a ton of man press with a single high a ton. Hunt's deep throws were really, really, good. Except for the overthrow to Estime, our guys clearly had difficulty separating from their defenders. The pick he threw was kind of a bad throw, but he did point out that the safety held Estime coming out of his break and it wasn't called.

His specific comment to me was "it's really tough to tell when your guys can't beat the other guys. Sometimes it's as simple as there Joes are just better than your Joes." It's a pretty simple way to say that coaching can only do so much. We'd all like to think that if a the right staff came along we'd be top 25 overnight. We just don't have those guys yet.

In the last 10 years of our program, we have had 1 QB, 1 RB, and 2 WR's drafted. None higher than the 4th round. LSU had 1 QB, 2 RB's, and 3WR's DRAFTED LAST YEAR! That needs to change if we want to make the next leap.

Translation: many posters are criticizing / focusing on the wrong things.

That "top 25 overnight" observation is instructive.

 

[SmilinBob]

I just went back to check the classes for Notre Dame recruiting to 2010 and they have had a total of 9 five stars and 52 four stars since 2010.Nuff Said!!I really don't watch the star system but at least 90 % of these guy's had to be creditable.

All I want is 30 guys that can run a 4.4 40.

 

[CIL]

Translation: many posters are criticizing / focusing on the wrong things.

I think it's hard for us to accept to be honest. I think we'd all like to believe that with the right coaching staff this team could go back to knocking off teams like LSu, Ohio St, and Auburn. The reality is that we do not have much of a chance given the current roster, no matter who is coaching this team.

We have to get better players here. That too, is on the coaching staff. Sometimes coaching is just about schemes. It's just as much getting the right kids to campus as well.

 

[CousCuse]

Kind of my point. Do you think Welsh, Thompson, or Robinson would have made that play on the other end?

at
Yes , in a fair game. After that first fumble , the referees should have just made an announcement that there would be no way that Syracuse would be allowed to compete fairly to win the game. Anyone who has ever played any level of football knows what a huge momentum swing recovering a fumble is. The ref should have ran to the spot and signaled Orange ball immediately. Our offense should have been on the field while ND was still down and not quite ready. That's what normally happens. That's how you send a message. And you take TD's off the board as well , come on man , quit picking apart our team when they were up against such in your face cheating.

 

[CIL]

at
Yes , in a fair game. After that first fumble , the referees should have just made an announcement that there would be no way that Syracuse would be allowed to compete fairly to win the game. Anyone who has ever played any level of football knows what a huge momentum swing recovering a fumble is. The ref should have ran to the spot and signaled Orange ball immediately. Our offense should have been on the field while ND was still down and not quite ready. That's what normally happens. That's how you send a message. And you take TD's off the board as well , come on man , quit picking apart our team when they were up against such in your face cheating.

I do not understand your post. Listen, that was a crap call by the refs. But are you some how implying that Welsh and company could run down an opposing team's skill players if the referees weren't somehow cheating?

 

[RF2044]

I think it's hard for us to accept to be honest. I think we'd all like to believe that with the right coaching staff this team could go back to knocking off teams like LSu, Ohio St, and Auburn. The reality is that we do not have much of a chance given the current roster, no matter who is coaching this team.

We have to get better players here. That too, is on the coaching staff. Sometimes coaching is just about schemes. It's just as much getting the right kids to campus as well.

Agreed. And all things being equal, this current staff--while by no means perfect--is a better recruiting group than the previous staff. Last year's class was a step in the right direction. Even so, it was still ranked in the 40s. Its also a double edged sword. We need athletes and an infusion of speed / athleticism, but we're not getting blue chippers--so the athletes we're bringing in might need a year of two of seasoning to start really making an impact. Year-over-year improvement is going to require us to continue to upgrade the talent and infuse the roster with speed on both sides of the ball.

The jury is still out on the coaching staff in terms of game day results--that's completely fair. But they're working with a limited hand. And many posters seem to underestimate the speed disparity we face, even against our peer programs. That's why it is simultaneously hilarious / maddening to hear people express that our WRs are "good enough," or that our secondary has the tools to shut down opposing studs. BS--we're not close on either positional unit. Yet.

 

[OrangeTown]

at
Yes , in a fair game. After that first fumble , the referees should have just made an announcement that there would be no way that Syracuse would be allowed to compete fairly to win the game. Anyone who has ever played any level of football knows what a huge momentum swing recovering a fumble is. The ref should have ran to the spot and signaled Orange ball immediately. Our offense should have been on the field while ND was still down and not quite ready. That's what normally happens. That's how you send a message. And you take TD's off the board as well , come on man , quit picking apart our team when they were up against such in your face cheating.

Holy apples and oranges...

Stick to the thread - this is a talent discussion and CIL gave some pretty good insight from a very knowledgeable person.

 

[SmilinBob]

You need speed and big guys that can play. Recruiting both is simply the key to success. It's a rather easy formula but the obvious problem is getting them to sign in February.

 

[Orangello]

Vicious circle that we can't seem to break. You can't recruit significantly better talent until you start winning consistently and you can't win consistently without better talent on both sides of the ball.

 

[RF2044]

Vicious circle that we can't seem to break. You can't recruit significantly better talent until you start winning consistently and you can't win consistently without better talent on both sides of the ball.

...which is precisely why incremental progress is not settling for mediocrity, it's about making short term strides on the recruiting trail. Nobody wants to be a perennial 7-8 win team. But that is the means to the end of landing the much needed infusion of athletic talent. We need to win and get to bowls to enable our coaching staff to have something positive to sell on the recruiting trail.

I don't think that the progress curve is necessarily linear, meaning that you are going to necessarily see consistent year-over-year improvement on the record. As in, we won 7 last year, therefore we will win 8-9 this year, or bust. I believe that progress / improvement actually comes in punctuated jumps up or down. And when we get better offensive talent, and those players are ready to contribute [as opposed to being thrown to the wolves as true frosh], you'll see the offense make a jump in terms of effectiveness. We're probably closer than people think in several important respects--but we still have a ways to go with the skilled talent and athleticism on both sides of the ball.

 

[Millhouse]

They're obviously better but when you have that kind of turnover advantage where the stars align, you gotta be in the game. You can't ignore those turnovers and say guys guys we are not top twenty. Yeah, we know

 

[RF2044]

They're obviously better but when you have that kind of turnover advantage where the stars align, you gotta be in the game. You can't ignore those turnovers and say guys guys we are not top twenty. Yeah, we know

The biggest sign early on that we just didn't have the horses yesterday was when w had those two early turnovers but got nothing to show for it. For us to win against a top 10 team in a de facto road game, we needed to have a few things break our way. We got those plays with the turnovers, but couldn't capitalize.

 

[Millhouse]

Gulley couldn't outrun a Notre Dame DL around the edge.

DL had a head start because they knew what was coming

 

[Orangello]

If we all (or many of us) agree that there remains a serious talent deficiency before we can be Top 25 again, can we get there with this staff and if yes, how do we get there ? I for one just don't see it. We are never going to get the 4 and 5 stars who are recruited by the two biggest competitors in our core recruiting areas, PedSt and ND (IMHO). That means this staff has to be consistently right on the under the radar guys we can get and then has to be able to coach those kids up to a 4 star + level. Incremental improvement over the next two recruiting cycles isn't going to get us there. That just means those classes remain in the 40-50 range. We have gone the JUCO route to an extent with limited success.

 

[Full_Rebar]

Here's something that worries me- what HS kids are watching this offense and thinking that's a place they want to play? Maybe the coaches are selling kids on immediate playing time, but to get the talent it might mean taking a lot more chances on borderline qualifiers or Juco kids.

Now on defense, while I don't agree with the scheme, you could see the appeal for front 7 kids who want to be turned loose on the QB. I wish we didn't put our secondary in 1 on 1 situations so often, but it was clear that the pressure caused issues for ND last night. It's too bad SU never took advantage of the turnovers other than the pick 6.

 

[CIL]

DL had a head start because they knew what was coming

Oversimplification much? Regardless, even, even if the DE supposedly knew what was coming, the DE and Gulley had the same distance to the corner. Sometimes you just have to make a play, especially at this level. Gulley didn't.

Do you know how many different plays ND ran yesterday? My guess is some variation of 8 plays. 8. Do you think that we didn't know the bubble, sweep, or read weren't coming? We did. We had difficulty stopping them because their players were more athletic and better than ours. We don't have one single player that could run like 7 did on his TD. We don't have a player that can go up and get a fade (yet) like Robinson Jr did.

 

[alphaorange]

He did. He liked Bullough's scheme and though we did a pretty good job there. It's not Bullough's fault Whigham couldn't keep up with ND. He said offensively it was really tough to tell because their front did a really good job disrupting our run game. Clearly ND did not respect our WR's as they played a ton of man press with a single high a ton. Hunt's deep throws were really, really, good. Except for the overthrow to Estime, our guys clearly had difficulty separating from their defenders. The pick he threw was kind of a bad throw, but he did point out that the safety held Estime coming out of his break and it wasn't called.

His specific comment to me was "it's really tough to tell when your guys can't beat the other guys. Sometimes it's as simple as there Joes are just better than your Joes." It's a pretty simple way to say that coaching can only do so much. We'd all like to think that if a the right staff came along we'd be top 25 overnight. We just don't have those guys yet.

In the last 10 years of our program, we have had 1 QB, 1 RB, and 2 WR's drafted. None higher than the 4th round. LSU had 1 QB, 2 RB's, and 3WR's DRAFTED LAST YEAR! That needs to change if we want to make the next leap.

All this and yet, if the refs don't blow the fumble return for a TD call before the half, we kick both extra points,and Estime doesn't get overthrown, we are right there. I agree with the whole talent thing 100%, but if we execute one pass, one extra point kick, we can kick the other instead of going for 2. Refs miss calls, but that was a big one that hurt. Very much out played but could have been right there....stars were not aligned.

 

[OrangeXtreme]

Oversimplification much? Regardless, even, even if the DE supposedly knew what was coming, the DE and Gulley had the same distance to the corner. Sometimes you just have to make a play, especially at this level. Gulley didn't.

Do you know how many different plays ND ran yesterday? My guess is some variation of 8 plays. 8. Do you think that we didn't know the bubble, sweep, or read weren't coming? We did. We had difficulty stopping them because their players were more athletic and better than ours. We don't have one single player that could run like 7 did on his TD. We don't have a player that can go up and get a fade (yet) like Robinson Jr did.

We were sunk by the Junior Admiral.

 

[Orangeman]

Then we should stop coaching the offense as though we do have NFL talent.

Huddle up, get on the same page so we don't have 6 ridic false starts, stop running straight-ahead guys wide etc

 

[RF2044]

All this and yet, if the refs don't blow the fumble return for a TD call before the half, we kick both extra points,and Estime doesn't get overthrown, we are right there. I agree with the whole talent thing 100%, but if we execute one pass, one extra point kick, we can kick the other instead of going for 2. Refs miss calls, but that was a big one that hurt. Very much out played but could have been right there...stars were not aligned.

Ifs and buts, but you are right--we were a handful of plays / some poor execution away from making this a close game. And that's with ND having such a strong offensive performance.

Last year, we played two top 10 teams and got the doors blown off both times. Last night, we played a top 10 team, and at least looked like we could make a game of it.

 

[Cuseregular]

The overall talent level is on an upwards trend. The defense is making plays despite their deficienies. The offense, while not scoring, seems to be connecting on more big plays despite the lack of playmakers. And it seems to me as though the staff on both sides of the ball is doing a better job than they were at this point last season. This is all I really need to see, both coaching and talent wise we aren't ready to have our "Nebraska Game" just yet -- but if you smooth out the ups and downs and look at the general direction of the program -- the trend is definitely upwards.

I thought that the defense played very well today given the ineptness of our offense early on -- leaving the defense constantly on the field. Eventually ND was going to get plays out of their playmakers. Take away the one busted coverage by our safety going underneath and our defense, while giving up a lot of yards/completions, was fantastic.

The fake punt was brilliant. Everyone knew it was coming on 4th and 2 -- but then after the penalty I turned to my girlfriend and said "well they can't fake it anymore." I'm sure ND thought the same and that's exactly why it worked. The play by Eskridge was 100% set up by Shafer/Bullough, great anticipation of Kelly's adjustments. On offense we finally threw some deep balls and even a fake bubble where West ended up with no defender within 10 yards. These are guys in their 2nd year on the job and they have been badly outcoached in the past at times but just like at the very end of last season we are startng to see flashes that the lightbulb is going on for them.

Anyone who feels pessimstic after this game, please give it time. We were a couple of plays/calls away from beating the 8th ranked team in the country on a neutral field. How you can come away angry about that I will never understand.

good post. It's not just coming away from this one game, but from the entirety of the trend thus far. Increasingly tough to keep optimistic with our program to reach the Nebraska game.

That said to the converse it's good to see Nova rolling, MD winning and things along those lines. Add the IPF and some young talent and hopefully you're right. Thanks for your post, this board is therapy some times. Somehow someway gotta try to keep hanging in there.

 

[alphaorange]

Ifs and buts, but you are right--we were a handful of plays / some poor execution away from really making this a close game. And that's with ND having such a strong offensive performance.

Last year, we played two top 10 teams and got the doors blown off both times. Last night, we played a top 10 team, and at least looked like we could make a game of it.

I can't figure out what that means, though. Good coaching? Guys making plays at the right time? We were seemingly as close to a dogfight as we were to being blown way out.....

 

[SmilinBob]

The overall talent level is on an upwards trend. The defense is making plays despite their deficienies. The offense, while not scoring, seems to be connecting on more big plays despite the lack of playmakers. And it seems to me as though the staff on both sides of the ball is doing a better job than they were at this point last season. This is all I really need to see, both coaching and talent wise we aren't ready to have our "Nebraska Game" just yet -- but if you smooth out the ups and downs and look at the general direction of the program -- the trend is definitely upwards.

I thought that the defense played very well today given the ineptness of our offense early on -- leaving the defense constantly on the field. Eventually ND was going to get plays out of their playmakers. Take away the one busted coverage by our safety going underneath and our defense, while giving up a lot of yards/completions, was fantastic.

The fake punt was brilliant. Everyone knew it was coming on 4th and 2 -- but then after the penalty I turned to my girlfriend and said "well they can't fake it anymore." I'm sure ND thought the same and that's exactly why it worked. The play by Eskridge was 100% set up by Shafer/Bullough, great anticipation of Kelly's adjustments. On offense we finally threw some deep balls and even a fake bubble where West ended up with no defender within 10 yards. These are guys in their 2nd year on the job and they have been badly outcoached in the past at times but just like at the very end of last season we are starting to see flashes that the lightbulb is going on for them.

Anyone who feels pessimstic after this game, please give it time. We were a couple of plays/calls away from beating the 8th ranked team in the country on a neutral field. How you can come away angry about that I will never understand.

I told my wife that it was going to be a fake punt because SU let the play clock expire without any urgency and it wasn't to set up a kick to the 5 yard line. Yep...that was my one right call and I'm going to let everyone know it!

SU left many plays on the field last night and while it seems to be a common theme they are getting in position to score...need to move the ball inside that 30 with a quicker urgency and be a helluva lot more efficient by not shooting themselves in the proverbial foot so ofter with foolish penalties. Loved the Reddish dive pick and Esk's pick 6. The D hawked for the ball very well but still there are many works to be done. Tackled pretty well too.

 

[Shrmdougluvr]

I don't disagree with the talent points at all. I think it is obvious that stacking 5 years of top 20 classes is going to yield a superior group of players on the field.

I think LI brings up some good points about the blow outs though. There is enough talent to play good teams tough, like NC State did yesterday or BC earlier this season. But the truth is, in 17 games under Shafer and co., the team hasn't played a single game against a decent team where things clicked in all facets of the game. It's probably too simple to say the "Team" hasnt played a good game yet under Shafer, but it certainly hasnt played a great game yet.

It would be less demoralizing (to me anyway) if the team actually played well in a loss. It would confirm this is purely a talent issue.

 

[Millhouse]

Oversimplification much? Regardless, even, even if the DE supposedly knew what was coming, the DE and Gulley had the same distance to the corner

No they didnt





Brilliant coaches