College Football '10 - Conference switching chaos!!

[DanS]

Spencer: ND has had a lot of success recruiting nationally, even lately, as the performance of the team has declined. This despite all of the weather, conference, and academic issues. The academic issues can be turned on their head to attract recruits to ND. That has worked better at some positions than others -- e.g., it's tougher on the D line. Also, there is still a lot of good football played up North. Of all of the issues with ND, I don't think that structural recruiting issues have that much impact.

Weis has proven that good recruiting cannot paper over bad coaching. This year's team has the talent to be 12-0, but is 6-6.

[Drake Tungsten]

Drake: Typical Northwestern grad anti-ND FUD.

His reasoning makes far more sense than anything you've laid out in this thread.

From the perspective of a Nebraska fan, it seems that ND has all of the geographical limitations and recruiting difficulties we have, plus the added burdens of not playing in a conference and stricter academic standards. Given that I'm worried that Nebraska will never again be a consistent competitor for national championships (after only 8 years out of the hunt), I simply can't understand why you aren't even a little worried that Notre Dame may have permanently sunk to the second tier of college programs after 16 years of irrelevance and with much bigger hurdles to overcome on the path back to national prominence than Nebraska has.

Weis has proven that good recruiting cannot paper over bad coaching.

I also don't understand why you're so high on Weis' recruiting abilities. The best teams he had were made up of Willingham's recruits. Notre Dame's talent level on defense the past couple years has been abysmal.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Seriously, the reality distortion field around ND fans is ridiculous

[DanS]

I also don't understand why you're so high on Weis' recruiting abilities. The best teams he had were made up of Willingham's recruits. Notre Dame's talent level on defense the past couple years has been abysmal.

Most of Weis's recruiting classes were very highly ranked and he refilled the cupboard at all positions. Notre Dame's talent level on defense the past couple of years -- and especially this year -- has been at worst average for D1. Weis is leaving the position much better than he found it as far as talent goes.

[Drake Tungsten]

Most of Weis's recruiting classes were very highly ranked and he refilled the cupboard at all positions.

I've heard this kind of denial before. You sound like a Nebraska fan circa 2006 defending Bill Callahan.

Notre Dame's talent level on defense the past couple of years -- and especially this year -- has been at worst average for D1.

The results on the field indicate otherwise.

[Drake Tungsten]

Notre Dame was 47th out of 69 teams (BCS + independents) in scoring defense this season and 60th out of 69 in total defense.

[Lord Avalon]

Seriously, the reality distortion field around ND fans is ridiculous

Touchdown Jesus blesses their koolaid?

[DanS]

Notre Dame was 47th out of 69 teams (BCS + independents) in scoring defense this season and 60th out of 69 in total defense.

Absolutely correct. But defenders who performed well in years past performed very poorly this year. Rock solid players like Darrin Walls played very poorly. If it were just one player, we could mark it up to the individual, but pretty much everyone in the secondary played poorly, for instance. That indicates to me that the defensive coaching was much worse than average.

[DanS]

I've heard this kind of denial before. You sound like a Nebraska fan circa 2006 defending Bill Callahan.

Don't misunderstand. Weis was a good recruiter. But this just means that he was that much worse of a head coach. ND squandered a ton of talent this year.

[SlowwHand]

The problem with kids is, one problem, is that if something hasn't happened in 20 years (their life), then it hasn't happened.
Notre Dame's history means zilch to them. It's fable. Myth.

[Drake Tungsten]

Sloww is wrong, as usual. That being said, I don't think history alone is enough to bring in recruits. I'm not sure what Notre Dame (or Nebraska, for that matter) can offer recruits that can compete with Florida, Texas, USC, etc. other than their tradition.

[SlowwHand]

My opinion may differ from yours, but that doesn't make it wrong. Your very next statement illustrates my point to perfection.

[Drake Tungsten]

No, it doesn't. Reading is fundamental, Sloww.

[SlowwHand]

It certainly is, you arrogant *****.

[Drake Tungsten]

Again with the name-calling...