Yesterday's game may have been the most predictable football story I can recall. As many expected, Stanford ran all over our guys and our passing game looked great against the Cardinal. Or yeah, and the Irish lost by a touchdown because we could not run the ball or stop the run at the end again. Looking back on the season I wonder if our best game was actually the opener. We played pretty good against what turned out to be a pretty good Nevada team. Since then we have seen a pretty steady decline over the course of the season. While we saw some exciting wins, we could have easily seen as many as 9 or 10 losses this year. It simply makes no sense.
So Charlie is history and now we wait to see if the ND leaders can get a coach who will get ND football back as a top program. Charlie did some important things to set up the next guy and I don't think he ever really lost the players. They played hard last night, they just faced a good team that was better coached once again. I hope he can depart with some dignity but he will certainly land on his feet quickly in the NFL. There is talent on this team and recruiting connections in far away states. I feel we could have a pretty good team next year even without Clausen and Tate, particularly if we hire a coach who knows what he is doing.
Last year at this time I analyzed why Charlie should go and was unfortunately prophetic when I wrote about the following 8 points: "Throw that all in the wash and one concludes we need a change. It won't happen this year, but I am of the opinion that we will fall short of expectations again next year and that may be it for Charlie." How depressing.
My eight point plan for a great ND coach again...I think Charlie only performed on #2 and #7 which clearly was no where near enough.
1. Win Games.
2. Secure Great Recruiting Classes.
3. Get the team motivated and ready to play every week.
4. Make a difference in close games.
5. Give the team a “schematic advantage”.
6. Develop talent, make the team better.
7. Run the program with Integrity and Class.
8. Represent the University well.
So another dismal season comes to a close, probably without a bowl appearance although that is not settled. It will be a great time to take over as ND head coach, because I think we can only go up from here.
Go Irish! Beat Somebody!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I'll go figure this out, but here's an intersting question: when in recent memory did we ever lose our last 4 regular season games? That just hit me looking at the score log on the blog front page. We went form 6-2 and in the Top 25 with BCS possibilities to a .500 team who might not go to a bowl game in 4 weeks. With two losses at home to unranked teams.
All I can say is WOW.
Post a Comment