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A review of the UHND Road Trip; An emotional football weekend that won’t be duplicated at home in 2008

At the end of our 2007 Boston College trip, Frank, Brian, Kyle and I concluded that next game we would all attend as part of our yearly “guys trip” was going to be Michigan in 2009. Little did we know the elements of nature and event planning would culminate in the perfect storm that descended on South Bend, Indiana, over the Michigan game weekend.

The excitement and emotion that swelled over the course of the Michigan weekend will not be matched at a Notre Dame home game the rest of this season. Sure the home schedule is weak the rest of the way, but consider all of the happenings which made the 2008 Michigan game arguably the best home game to have attended since the 2005 USC game.

• IRISH LEGENDS AUTOGRAPH SHOW

Legendary Irish players including such names as Lattner, Casper, Ferguson, Pinkett, Mayes, Rice, Bolcar, Pritchett, Stonebreaker, Ismail and about a dozen other starters from the 1988 National Championship team descended upon the College Football Hall of Fame for eight hours interacting with fans, signing autographs and reliving memories from glory’s past. Their arrival times were staggered throughout the day but almost every player stayed well beyond their commitment to see which familiar face would walk in next. Any die hard Notre Dame football fan would have been paralyzed in awe at seeing the boyish reactions of guys like Pritchett and Stams when they saw and then embraced as the third amigo walked into the room.

Then to sit back and watch members of Notre Dame’s then defensive backfield recalling big plays from the 1988 season. Corny Southall, and George Streeter listened intently as Pat Terrell thought back to the Miami game and the two huge plays he made against Steve Walsh. D’Juan Francisco made sure the guys knew he was the first Irish defender to pick off Walsh that day. And then Sean Penn look-a-like and certainly the most fit forty-something showed up and reminded the guys not to forget his pick-six in Los Angeles. Most everybody agreed Stan Smagala looked like he could still play today.

I had the chance to ask Scott Kowalkowski about the antics Todd Marinovich pulled against him in the 1989 Southern Cal game. His eyes lit up and seemed to thoroughly enjoy talking about the night the Irish beat the Trojans, Marinovich took a cheap shot and Kowalkowski ultimately had the last laugh putting him flat on his back. And then there’s the Rocket. We had the chance to interview the Rocket for the podcast a little over a week prior, but we spent about 20 minutes chatting with him and it is hard to find anybody more enthusiastic in discussing the Irish than the Rocket is. For a fan, it was a special way to spend the even of a rivalry game. But things were just getting started.

• PEP RALLY

I think it is safe to say, over the past 10-15 years, the Notre Dame home pep rally’s haven’t been anything to plan your Friday’s nights in South Bend around.  The initial downfall might have been the decision to move it from the Stepan Center to the JACC, but they may have not had a choice due to fan participation relative to capacity. In any event, more and more people have chosen to spend their vacation time in Chicago, then driving in early Saturday mornings for the game.  Some would rather hit up the local bars like The Linebacker or Corby’s, before ultimately heading to the new Friday night vogue; the Midnight Drummer’s Circle. In fact, I all but protested attending the pep rally with my group.  But I succumbed to peer pressure and I’m glad I did for this night only.  First, it was former Irish captain Ned Bolcar who fired up the crowd and then the team.  He got up and represented the 1988 National Championship team who sat aside the current Irish team.  Ned seemed to get lost in the moment and forgot entirely where he was which made it as surreal as possible.  He seemed to have forgotten there was a crowd there and turned to the team and challenged them to be as great as they could be.  He challenged each player to play for the guy sitting next to them, instead of for self. He was fantastic and you couldn’t help but feel he took personally, what had been a lack of emotion, by recent Irish football teams.   Then there was Lou Holtz.  I won’t try to sum up what Lou said.  You can watch it here:

• LOU’S STATUE

Speaking of Lou, he joined the fraternity of Irish great football coaches with busts on the ND campus when his statue was unveiled inside the stadium the morning of the game.  It is well deserved and just another not-so-common event that made gameday morning so special.

• TAILGATING

It had poured nonstop from last Friday night throughout the morning until about 10am.  And then the clouds broke, the temperatures rose to a comfortable 78 degrees and the tailgating began. It couldn’t have been a better start to pregame, allowing fans to cook and enjoy cocktails prior to kickoff and stroll through campus to watch the band march their way from under the Dome to the stadium.

• WEATHER & GAME

Under a blue-gray, dry September sky, the Irish jumped out to a 21-0 lead within ten minutes to start the game. It was an incredible start an already incredible weekend and you just knew nothing was going to ruin this day…even the weather. With just under five minutes to go in the 2nd quarter, the sprinkles started to fall. And shortly thereafter, those sprinkles turned into a steady and eventually heavy rain that appropriately ended right around the same time as the game.

The pouring showers combined with the warm temperatures, created an incredible atmosphere of fun and spirit that put a charge into the already raucous crowd and a fire into a team that was destined to completely dominate an afternoon that was a crescendo of perfection for Notre Dame legends and fans who descended on Notre Dame Stadium that day.  Fred Leahy, son of Frank, told me at dinner he has been to scores of Notre Dame home games.  Included among those were such recent, epic battles against Miami ’88, Florida State ’93, and USC ’05.  And he said Michigan ’08 was the fourth loudest he has ever heard Notre Dame Stadium.

With an uneventful slate of Irish opponents, the chill of fall and early winter an no collection of former Irish greats like the ones we saw the second week of September, fans will be hard pressed to have the type of enthusiasm and like it or not, the Fighting Irish football team will have a hard time matching the emotion they had on September 13, 2008.

The Philadelphia Eagles selected former Notre Dame defensive end/tackle Trevor Laws with the 47th pick of Saturday’s NFL draft. Laws was the 4th DT drafted after LSU’s GLen Dorsey, USC’s Sedrick Ellis, and North Carolina’s Kentwan Balmer.

If you read this blog on a regular basis, you know how big of a Philadelphia sports fan I am, so needless to say, I was very pleased with this pick. In Philly, Laws will be pared up with his former defensive line mate at Notre Dame - Victor Abiamiri who the Eagles drafted in the 2nd round of last year’s draft.

The Eagles have a number of defensive tackles on the roster, but it’s likely Laws will step right in as the #3 or 4 DT behind starters Mike Patterson and Broderick Bunkley. Patterson, however, was arrested this off-season for a marijuana charge and could be facing a suspension from the league if he is found guilty of the chargers.

We were lucky enough to have Trevor answer some questions for us back in March and we’ll try and get in touch with him again now that he’s been drafted.

On a side note - the Eagles also added DeSean Jackson two picks later, the Flyers beat the Canadians 4-2, and the Phillies collected their 6th win in their last 7 games with an 8-4 win over the Pirates tonight as well making for a preeeeeety, preeeeeeety good night of sports for yours truly.

So I woke up yesterday morning expecting to thoroughly enjoy National Signing Day. Most recruiting analysts projected Notre Dame as having one of the top classes in the country, its best in well over a decade, with an outside shot at ending the day with the #1 ranked class.

For the most part, that’s what happened. The ND faithful were a little disappointed when Milton Knox deferred to Hometown U and picked UCLA, but other than that it was a great day. A surprise commit from Kapron Lewis-Moore briefly vaulted ND to #1 in several recruiting rankings, but the Irish eventually got in line behind Alabama to be ranked a near-consensus #2 by the likes of Rivals.com, Scout.com, and Tom Lemming.

Note that I said near-consensus.

I had some time to spare, so I made the mistake of watching some of ESPNU’s coverage of National Signing Day.  I didn’t expect a whole lot from this crew. While the other aforementioned recruiting analysts use fairly complex methodology in ranking teams, ESPN pretty much collectively pulls info out of its ass. Their defining criteria in ranking recruits boils down to 1) Did you play in the Under Armour High School All-Star game that we televised? 2) Do you live in the state of Florida?

Knowing this, I was still shocked at ESPN’s final rankings. Alabama and Notre Dame, the near-consensus 1-2 recruiting classes in the country? Try #3 and #9. Even better, at the beginning of the day ESPN had Notre Dame ranked #7 and Alabama #9. How does Bama go from #9 to #3 in the span of about 12 hours while ND gains an elite player and drops two spots? I won’t speculate on ESPN’s venomous hatred of all things Notre Dame, but I will speculate on Alabama. I figure an industrious ESPN intern was surfing the other recruiting websites and said to himself, “Wow, we are staggeringly stupid.”

Tom Luginbill is the National Recruiting Director for ESPN’s Scouts Inc. (not to be confused with Scout.com, the older and more credible recruiting service). It is reasonable to say no one does less homework on the recruiting trail than Luginbill and his lackeys. They indiscriminately start, flame and retract unsubstantiated rumors. They sport wood for any kid in the Sunshine State who runs a 4.4. And they are unabashed Urban Meyer jock sniffers.

Case in point, ESPN singularly projected the Florida Gators as having the #1 recruiting class for 2008 heading into National Signing Day. And by “singularly” I mean every other recruiting service looked at them and said, “Pass me what you’re smoking.” Looking at UF’s depth chart, any armchair recruitnik could identify a stud running back and some elite offensive lineman as absolute musts, plus maybe a few receivers coupled with a Tebow understudy. And yet, when the dust had settled on NSD, Florida had suffered two elite Signing Day decommits, they whiffed on quarterback, they whiffed on running back, other than one touted juco they whiffed on wide receiver, they didn’t get a tight end, and they managed only one good and one mediocre offensive lineman.

What did this unbalanced class yield Florida? As the ESPNU NSD coverage wrapped up Wednesday evening, the Gators were still at #1. To their credit, by Thursday morning morning ESPN had dropped Florida all the way down to #4, sighting the said decommits of elite linebacker and o-line prospects Ramon Buchanan and Ricky Barnum. Curiously however, the ESPNU talking heads neglected to mention these defections during their Wednesday broadcast, even going so far to interview Urban Meyer a full three hours after the decommits were public knowledge and have a circle jerk about his “#1 class” and how it “met all their needs.” (Speaking of the Florida head coach, did he even wait until the ink dried on Omar Hunter’s LOI before reneging on his promise that defensive coordinator Greg Mattison wasn’t going to the NFL? There’s slimey, and then there’s Urban.)

Meanwhile, Notre Dame fans watched as for most of the day ESPN had Kapron Lewis-Moore—a Texas A&M decommit for the better part of a week who faxed his Letter of Intent to Charlie Weis around 9:30 AM EST—as an Aggie commit. And then, to add insult to injury, ESPN dropped Notre Dame from #7 to #9, apparently because they failed to land Milton Knox, who was already committed to UCLA anyway. It wasn’t quite the snub ND and other schools endured a couple months ago when ESPN blatantly downgraded any players who opted for Tom Lemming’s Army All-Star Game over their Under Armour game, but a snub nonetheless.

Look, I realize oftentimes these recruiting rankings are a crapshoot. But when the “leader in sports entertainment” gets into the business of high-stakes college football recruiting, I would expect at least a modicum of intelligence and professionalism. ESPN’s research is shoddy. Their recruiting analysts wear their agendas on their sleeves. They’ve turned their recruiting coverage into a shameless vehicle for the Under Armour All-Star Game. All in all, their product is a steaming pile of tabloid-quality wildebeest dung. Luginbill & Co. have the biggest microphone and the biggest stage, and they are little more than PR guys for high school football south of the Mason-Dixon Line. ESPN’s viewers deserve better. College football coaches, players, and fans deserve better.

The following are some of the better discussions from Sunday’s press conference with Charlie Weis. The entire transcript can be read at UND.com.

On Duval Kamara’s physical advantage

The one thing that he does do which I’m very encouraged about, besides making some big plays, he plays to his body size. There are some guys that are his height that don’t and play small. He’s learning to use his body and that’s a big advantage going forward.

The biggest lack of improvement from the 2007 Irish

I think we’ve been fairly inconsistent catching the football. I think any layman could see the last couple of weeks that we’ve dropped a whole bunch of balls and we’ve dropped — I put down four yesterday, and I might be generous. Last week we dropped at least a half dozen, and they are spread out; it isn’t just like one person dropped every ball. And I think that’s cost us — it cost us some consistency in the passing game.

Tom Zbikowski playing quarterback

Let me tell you something, he was begging me to throw. And I said look, when we go out there, we’re running the football doesn’t make any difference what we do so don’t you even think about throwing it. He will actually tell you he’s got the best arm on the team. Just ask him. I’m sure he’ll tell you that.

Mistakes he’s made this year and how he intends to address them

Well, I think that I’ve probably made several mistakes this year and in my system. You know, the ones who know my system the best are New England, and I think that those guys would have no problem telling me what things I did right and what things I did wrong.

The future of the ND rushing attack

Going into the off season, the combination of James and Robert and Armando, you know, will give you a lot of reasons for — a huge reason to be optimistic in the running game.

Offseason plans for Clausen

I think the off season strength and conditioning program, and especially size and strength and bulk, are going to be as critical a factor as he could possibly have. This is probably going to be his biggest concern in the off season is going from, you know, 195 to 210. I think that that’s the direction we want to head. He says he wants to get to 215. I said that would take too many In N Out Burgers when he’s back in California.

The mood after a senior day win

I think it was pretty emotional for a lot of these guys, because you sit there and tell them about playing their last game at home, and it isn’t until they walk off the field that they actually realize that just happened.

Who is the starting quarterback against Stanford

It’s still Jimmy by a nose over Zibby.

His plans for Thanksgiving

Eat like a pig and lay on the couch and watch football, like the rest of America.

Clausen’s mental toughness

Here is the first thing that I was looking for yesterday. It was a little chilly yesterday, right, 45 degrees, a little drizzle, snow flurries and here is a kid from California, and you say, okay, is he going to shrivel up; is he going to be looking for a parka every time he turned around. I mean, there was absolutely no evidence.

Leadership comes from the field

It was 1991 and it was right after the Giants had won the Super Bowl my rookie year there where I was fairly insignificant as a coach but I was on the staff. And there was a little quarterback controversy and Jeff Hostetler ended up being the starter and the team started floundering during the year. And I went to Phil Simms and said, “Phil, why aren’t you taking more of a leadership responsibility?”

And he said, “Charlie, let me teach you something. You can’t lead when you’re not playing.” That was the first time I ever heard anyone who I had great admiration for kind of teach me, like you kind of have to be out there doing something.

Now, Sam (Young) has been a starter now for two years in a row. He’s been out there for two years, so he is one guy that can say he’s been out there for almost every play, and you can see where he could feel that obligation to help take over some of that reign and hopefully that manifests itself.

Whoever is in charge of the Greatest College Coach of all Time must be an Alabama alum, because in Knute Rockne’s credentials for the ESPN poll, they list Knute with 6 national titles.

Anyway, Knute is currently getting destroyed in the poll with Bear Bryant and Tom Osborne running away with it. I realize Alabama and Nebraska fans might have less to do during the day which makes voting easier for them, but come on ND fans - get over and support Knute.

Notre Dame commit Dan McCarthy suffered a neck injury last week and while be sidelined for about 6 months.

Dan McCarthy, a Mr. Football front-runner and two-way starter for the Cardinals, is out for the season. The senior quarterback and safety was injured in the opening quarter of Mooney’s 28-7 victory last week over Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary.

‘‘It was head-to-head contact,’’ McCarthy said. ‘‘The (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) showed a disk in my neck, underneath the vertebra, was herniated and tore open.’’

According to the Irish recruit, the injury will not require surgery.

‘‘The doctors said it should heal itself in about six months,’’ he said.

McCarthy said doctors were optimistic he would be ready to go by the time Notre Dame began its summer practices.

Hopefully McCarthy can be ready for contact drills when he reports to ND in the summer because this kid is a player and could see the field as a freshman at least on special teams. Best wishes to Dan for a speedy recovery.

Lou gave his pep talk to the Irish on Thursday.

• First thing that jumps out is Walls has taken over the starting left corner spot from Wooden.  It’s really only been a matter of time before Walls was a starter.
• No clues at the QB position as Weis has them listed in order of class.
• 13 freshman are on the depth chart already – Jimmy Clausen, Robert Hughes, Armando Allen, Duval Kamara, Golden Tate, Mike Ragone, Matt Romine, Taylor Dever, Ian Williams, Kerry Neal, Brian Smith, Harrison Smith, and Brandon Walker.
• In fact, only five freshman are NOT on the depth chart – Gary Gray, Andrew Nuss, Emeka Nwankwo, Steve Paskorz, and Aaron Nagel.  Note: Gray would very likely be on the depth chart if it wasn’t for his hand injury.
• 22 sophomores are listed giving Notre Dame 35 underclassmen on the depth chart.
• On the flip side, just seven true seniors are on the depth chart – Junior Jabbie, Justin Brown, Maurice Crum, Anthony Vernaglia, Leo Ferrine, Terrail Lambert, and  J.J. Jansen.
• Armando Allen, James Aldridge, and Junior Jabbie are all listed as “Or” as the backup tailback which suggests all will get carries.
• Notre Dame can actually fill out a 2 deep along the offensive line with capable players – it’s been a while since that’s happened.  It’s also been a while since there hasn’t been players listed at multiple spots.
• Of the six offensive linemen from last year’s class, only Chris Stewart and Bartley Webb are not on the depth chart.
• Thomas Bemendefer, who just received his scholarship last week, is listed as the backup center.
• Weis has 7 wide receivers listed which suggests he is comfortable playing all 7.  That should be a very comforting thought to anyone who remembers the five “wide receiver” sets last year which had Carlson and Darius Walker as wide outs.
• Will Yeatman is listed as the #2 tight not – not Konrad Reualnd like most speculated.
• Kerry Neal and Brian Smith are both listed as the #2 OLB behind Anthony Vernaglia – I will be surprised if one of them isn’t starting by season’s end.
• At the ILB spot next to Crum, Brockington and Toryan Smith are listed as co-starters.
• Notre Dame is four deep at both safety positions – when was the last time that was the case?
• The two man race for place kicker and kick-off duties has Ryan Burkhart as the odd man out right now.  Nate Whitaker and Brandon Walker are listed as co-starters at both positions.
• Armando Allen and Golden Tate listed as the top two kick returners – that should lead to a lot of excitement for Notre Dame fans.

• The Irish wrapped up two a days today with a couple practices in the Loftus Center due to overnight rains and then more rain throughout the day.
• The 2007 season will be the last year Weis can hand out multiple scholarships to walk-ons.  This year’s walk-ons who were given a scholarship for the year are JJ Jansen, Thomas Bemenderfer, and William David Williams.
• Weis also named John Sullivan as a the fifth captain for this season.
• The order of wide receivers through the drills is still Grimes, West, Parris, Gallup, Hord, Jackson, Kamara, Tate.
• He hasn’t been talked about that much this summer, but Barry Gallup is a guy who I think could find his way on the field more than people think this year.  He’s looked very quick and has been the forgotten man at the position this summer.
• Robert Hughes has had some trouble running through the gauntlet drills at times this spring because he hasn’t been bending his knees when running through.
• Armando Allen just looks a little more comfortable running through drills every day.
• Jashaad Gaines could be a very physically imposing safety with a little bit more weight.  It looks like he has the frame to accommodate it as well.
• Put a #83 jersey on Robby Parris and it would be like watching Jeff Samardzija all over again.

• On his dealings with Romeo Crennel with regards to the quarterback race in Cleveland: “I don’t want to be involved in anything that’s going on with the quarterback situation. The timing isn’t right.” “Even though we’re very close friends, that conversation could go somewhere I don’t want it to go so I’ll just try to stay out of that one.”
• On Brady Quinn’s performance Saturday night: “If you look at every pre-season game, there’s always a few guys that are just better than everyone else out there when they’re playing and he was one of them.”
• On the quarterback race: “We have three guys and that will be the case until Georgia Tech.”
• On where they stand with dividing up the reps in practice at quarterback: “We’re right on track.”
• Weis had the players practice outside in the rain yesterday to get them used to playing in bad weather since they have been indoors whenever its rain this summer.
• The first half of every practice this week will still be focused on individual drills and first team offense vs. first team defense, but the other half will be show teams.
• On the development of Will Yeatmen and Konrad Reland : “I feel a lot more confident at this time about our backup tight end situation than I felt last year at this time because you had two young pups at the time last year. Now they’re a lot more seasoned. They know what to do. They both have different strengths and weaknesses, but they both have shown they can play on the field.”
• On the differences between Will Yeatmen and Konrad Reland:“Will’s a lot bigger. He’s a big muchacho.” “They’re different in their body types and they’re different in how they play, but they both are capable of playing any of the tight end spots that we’ve put out there. They’re smart, and that’s the one thing they have going for them.”
• On settling in on a wide receiver rotation: “I think that there’s a lot of guys in the mix. The good thing about the skill positions, just like the tight ends, is that at wide receiver, running back, and tight end – all of them – we have more players than we’ve had before. You have to keep them involved in the game plan because if you don’t have them involved in the game plan, not that you lose their interest, but their psyche drops some because they don’t think they’re involved in the mix.”
• On the competition at place kicker: “We are coming closer and the thing is, it looks to me like there’s a possibly that you might have a different place kicker then you might have a field goal kicker. Just like at every other position, if they’re too close to call you try to give them one job instead of two. That’s a possibility that might play out like that as well.”
• On the development of Justin Brown: “He’s probably, of the entire team, the most pleasant surprise on the entire team during this training camp. It isn’t just his strength gains, it’s been his motor. That’s what’ really impressed me the most. He’s always shown flashes, you know, he’s always shown flashes since I’ve been here, but I’ve never seen him play with the motor he’s playing with now. It’s been very encouraging.”
• On the development of David Bruton: “We put him with the first group, but you still don’t know what’s going to happen once he gets out there and he looks like a man amongst boys out there. It’s nice to see that tall rangy kid who’s now close to 210 that can run like a deer and hitting people and covering ground.”
• On the development of Luke Schmidt: “He gives us some versatility because not only can he play fullback from the backfield, but he can play fullback from close to the line of scrimmage as well.”
• On the development of John Carlson as a leader this year: “Not only is he a leader by example because on offense it was clear in the winter and in the spring that the two guys, well you could include Sully in there as well, so the three guys that really stood out during everything we did were Travis, John, and Sully. “ “In John’s probably the most pleasant surprise is how he’s become so much more vocal.
• On how he has changed his coaching style with a very inexperienced team this year: “I’ve had to show easily the most patience that I’ve had to show since I’ve been here because you’re playing with some many guys that are stepping on the field for the first time in a true meaningful role. There’s some things that you want to say and you find yourself biting your lip. You pick and choose when to ride them and it’s not as often as you normally do.”
• Weis addressed the status of Derrell Hand who has been suspended indefinitely all training camp: “He’s going through some things here soon in the next couple of days that will help clarify his status. Once that happens, I’ll have a better idea of where we’re going. I said at the time there were two things he had to do. He took care of one part of it and now he’s dealing with the other part of it and once that’s cleared up, then I can act accordingly.”