USC Aftermath
Whatever you do, don’t watch a replay of this game. It’s really worse than it seemed as seen live.
The defense was almost comical or reminiscent of a really bad High School team. No one knew what to do or even where to line up.
USC QB Cody Kessler quipped ND was never ready at the snap and it was obvious they weren’t lining up right and basically we could do whatever we wanted to do.
If USC wanted to, I believe they could have dropped 75 points on ND and ND was damn lucky Sarkisian was coaching as opposed to former great coach John McKay who would have gone for 100.
After 5 years and excellent recruiting how is it possible that ND has no depth at all on defense. There should have been alarm earlier when freshmen were beating out upper class-men. I really like DE Trumbetti, but how can he be stronger than 5th yr. Anthony Rabassa? This kid was a coveted Florida recruit.
I give you the unprecedented number of injuries, but how do you explain that only 2 guys Schmidt and Collingsworth know the defensive calls? Apparently Martini does, but he was knocked out of the game early.
How is it that no one can tackle? Why play Collingsworth who was operating on one leg with a shoulder harness? How did he pass medical ready to play?
We seem to have a slew of Sophs, Junior and Senior OL who don’t play weighing in over 300 lbs. Put them in at DL, not an undersized physical wreck Hounshell who hasn’t played for 4 years (Holtz did this). Where was Ben Councell? 5th yr 6’5″ 260lbs–he could have played DE or ILB.
Seems to me this team imploded after FSU and the coaches started losing their players. Kelly is mercurial and in my opinion vindictive especially in the case of Redfield and Shumate and it is obvious Golson just ignores him.
Golson hurt his shoulder in the Louisville game and he lost confidence in his OL. He’s tired of getting pummeled.
Hegarty dribbles the ball and he gets crushed falling on it. His passes had no velocity – in short he couldn’t throw.
Where the hell is the QB coach? QB’s should go to him not Kelly who just screws them up more. You saw a defeated player in Golson.
I think there is a divide on this team and a touch of favoritism. How else do you account for Lombard Hegarty and Martin and Stanley never getting pulled? They look weak.
You have sophs and other OL who were all highly recruited just sitting around and disinterested. They know who should be playing, why bust yourself at practice when it doesn’t count anyway.
Kelly gets the veto, so if Hiestand wants to pull a guy – say Martin, Kelly vetoes it. RT McGlinchy finally got to play when Lombard was pulled – this kid was injured all year.
I really think Kelly has been trolling for an NFL job and while this season is bad, don’t forget Kelly is the ultimate politician just like former coach Joe Kuharich who was a disaster at ND, fired and landed a 10 year deal with the Eagles.
On recruiting – ND doesn’t need 5 star prima-donnas, there are plenty of 2-3 star kids that would kill to play for ND like Schmidt. There just has to be some tough 300 lb guys that could at least jam up the middle.
On that note let me introduce you to the Pac 12 Defensive Player of the Year. Arizona’s Soph ILB Scooby Wright III. He was a 2 Star and told to go to a Div 2 school, his only scholarship to Div 1 was Arizona. He eventually started as a freshman. He has about 37 tackles for loss and 16 sacks this year. His number is 33 so check him out against Oregon. Here is a good highlight video of Scooby:
While we’ve got it bad how do you think Michigan feels? Rich Rod in year 3 is 10-2 and playing for Pac 12 title and named Pac 12 Coach of the Year. Brady Hoke was just fired.