Pitt Week

Monday, ND received good news for 2017 recruiting, they landed 4 Star DE Robert Beal from Georgia. This is a very good pickup as most big time programs were after him. He has ties to South Bend in that his mother was raised there while his grandmother worked on campus.

It is going to be an early game Saturday at 12 Noon on ABC.

One of the big detriments to constantly playing close games is the lack of opportunity in getting the reserves any playing time.

This really hurts player development especially on the OL and DL’s. There are a bunch of these guys just waiting and waiting to play. In the meantime they have to just about kill themselves in practice hoping just to get noticed – how demoralizing week after week.

Right now a new starter is needed at RG – at least to see if there is any improvement. And it is obvious ILB Schmidt is just not cutting it. Start Grace there vs. Pitt.

He’s the biggest LB at 250 and the next 4 games our opponents have big OL’s. Schmidt just can’t get off blocks. Remember Grace directed the defense before his injury.

Perhaps the biggest loss is no playing time for QB Wimbush. He was promised playing time by Kelly. Now if Kizer continues to improve there is very little reason for him to hang around – back to Penn State is my guess.

For these final 4 games ND has to vastly improve and really must have some style points in the next 3 and just hope Stanford is still standing for that showdown. Unexpectedly, ND is 5th in the Playoff picture – so a perfect setup IF ND seizes this opportunity.