So what? 04.29.2010

A return of college football to Notre Dame

2010 may be shaping up to be a new beginning for the Notre Dame football program. Positive signs are outweighing the negative from what we’ve seen so far. But with the Spring Game, there appeared to be an advent of a return to college football.

In the Spring Game, ND looked like a college football team for the first time in a long while. Much of this stemmed from the running game, which displayed misdirection and “up the gut” action – successfully I might add – for the first time in a while. Cierre Wood was impressive. He had the agility of Autry Denson or Darius Walker, but the breakaway speed to elude his defenders as well! ND needs this type of player, and so do the fans.

Along with that, the passing game seemed pretty effective as well. There was touchdown passes (a beautiful one to freshman Tai-ler Jones was the highlight!) to complement the running TD’s. It was great to see!

Critical to the offense identity and the ND Nation of fans is the tight end position. The Spring Game did not disappoint here either. Both Kyle Rudolf and Mike Ragone played a vital role in the offense. This is absolutely something to look forward to this fall! AND STAY HEALTHY!

Defensively, there were a lot of bright spots as well. Manti T’eo just stood out in a defense that was very plain vanilla according to what we heard leading up to the game! He looked like he had the offenses playbook. There wasn’t any pass rush, however T’eo and few others really made a game of it! The defensive line looked better with the little they could show. But all the linebackers stood out as the impact defensive players. Steven Filer also made the impression people expected when he came to ND two years ago.

Attitude is another sign of growth on this team. While Dayne Crist managed to describe it as “business as usual” in the South Bend Tribune… not a comment you want off the prior the regime… his interviews are upbeat. He has a genuine smile. He doesn’t seem to state from memorized scripts about techniques and fundamentals.

Coach Brian Kelly is winning people over quite easily as well. He’s upbeat, optimistic, without blowing a lot of hot air. He’s also emphasizing how much work is ahead and how much they need to improve over the summer.

Some other good signs was the down field blocking; there is a lot of position shuffling on the offensive line and no shortage of talent there either; Nate Montana looked like his dad in the 49ers era with the red jersey & #16.. he too played well.

Meantime the recruiting train is picking up passengers all over the country! There is excitement in the eyes of these young kids. I’m sure some of positive signs from prior years are in their heads through their own eyes. No one needs to sell them on the greatness of twenty-odd year ago.. but, these kids have seen what Kelly can do as well. Put a high profile, strong academic institution, with great history behind that combination and this situation should be just fine.

It’s all good, right? This is where the “not so fast” section comes in. Yet, even that is only because of the building process being put in place.

Still, the defensive secondary didn’t look good. Maybe that is the vanilla defense, but you were left with the impression that unless some disruption occurs up front, a lot of damage may happen at the back.

Two missed extra-points… I’m at a lost for words on this…

Michael Floyd lining up in the interior is something I don’t understand. I could see Kelly doing this to keep defenses guessing if he’ll cut to the sideline or stay on a post route. Perhaps he’ll cross patterns with the outside receiver as well. It did work on his end-around run for a first down on the very first play! I liked that. But he is so good on the sideline routes; I can’t see him playing elsewhere.

But, the positives far outweigh the negatives thus far. In Kelly’s short tenure, this is impressive!

So what should we make of all this? Nothing. That’s right, it too early to predict or assume anything. I think ND fans understand this exact point. It was a spring game scrimmage! That’s it! Against a plain, off-the-shelf defense, to boot.

So, we’ll be cautiously optimistic. We’ve been excited before only to be left disappointed and tired. But the view is nonetheless positive, upbeat, and something to look forward to. We’ll let Kelly do his job. He probably doesn’t need us at this point other than to pay attention and cheer when needed.

There’s too much building to be done. I never saw anyone build a house by starting with the roof. But, a foundation of college football appears to have been dug and set. So for right now, we’ll enjoy it a building block at a time. It looks like we have a good crew working at it as well.