For all the Taylor Bennett Doubters...

[ncjacket]

sorry oatmeal, but NDs classes outranked Tech's every year in question, so you guys can whine about talent all you want, it's simply an issue of not having players ready to go. And as far as your not being impressed with Taylor...imagine how much I don't care. Personally, there wasn't anything about the ND team that I was impressed with.

 

[ContactBuzz]

Also, there's no evidence to suggest that Weis is any more of an offensive genius than Tenuta is on the defensive side. Weis is pretty much owned by Tenuta.

 

[instant oatmeal]

first, to answer contact's question: i dont think TC couldve even run with ND's OL last game. it's hard to say... i'll have to see as time goes by. Travis Thomas played a terrible game, and i said from the beginning of spring camp that he shouldnt be starting -- he's losing his starting position to james aldridge as we speak.

What's that got to do with it?

everything.

He sure as hell did OK under Willingham statistically

before Weis: 54% completion percentage, 2500 yards, 17 TD, 10 INT
Weis year 1: 65%, 3920 yards, 32 TD, 7 INT
Weis year 2: 62%, 3500 yards, 37 TD, 7 INT

you'd be kidding yourself if you didnt see the dramatic change in numbers.

I don't see Jabba Weis do much with Jones: a 4 star QB.

wait... you expect miracles for a kid's first game against a top flight defense? BQ had some experience... he wasn't a clean slate. this was DJ's first ever game experience. his first game. what do you honestly expect? he's not going to light up the skies.

Let's blame Willingham for all things wrong with Notre Dame.

let's look at pure statistical facts: terrible recruiting classes, .500 teams 2 years in a row, losses to vastly inferior teams (ex: BYU)

What's going to happen this year when they look just as bad, if not worse, with Jabba's vaunted recruits and offense...

won't happen. i believe the offense will click once it gets a few games under its belt. time will tell. they are breaking in a whole new OL, new WR, new RB, and new QB... you think they are going to come out and put up gaudy numbers against one of the better defenses in the country? please.

How can you sit there and totally forget that the players that made that team half descent last year were all recruited by Willingham?

Ty had a great recruiting class his first year. wonderfull class... and i wont forget it. but, it's not hard to forget that he had two consecutive terrible seasons and then two even worse recruiting seasons. what, exactly, did Ty do with his players other than lose to inferior teams?

Such a short memory.

such an uniformed statement.

Now that those players are gone, Weis should have blue-chipper in their 3rd year of the program. If they are that much better, why aren't they making an impact.

it was their first ever collegiate game.... and this is only their second year -- not their third. the first class was a group of players that Ty recruited and charlie signed. you will see some great players in the next few years, but i will explain this to you as you seem unfamiliar with collegiate sports: a kid in his first ever collegiate game is not expected to make a gamebreaking debut -- things like this take some time.

It's an excuse to call this a rebuilding year. That's a fanbase's easiest excuse.

lol, what would you call it, then? you seem to be the knowledgable one here.... i'd like your opinion.

You have an experienced defensive line

you have just lost credibility. we have one returning starter ... trevor laws (who had an excelent game, btw). Pat Kuntz is an undersized NT playing for the first time in his career, Justin Brown starter for the first time in his career, and Dwight Stephenson Jr is a 5th year player who logged his first minutes EVER last week when Brown was ejected. Our backup NT is a TRUE FRESHMAN. Experienced defensive line? quite the opposite. Don't lie to try to prove points, it makes you look ignorant.

, linebacking corps.

one starter out of 4. Maurice Crum was our only returning starter out of the LB. Vernaglia started for the first time in his career, Joe Brockington Jr was a backup last year, Toryan Smith was a first time starter, and John Ryan is a converted DE that started his first time. experience linebackers? quite the opposite. again, you are very wrong.

All of whom where gutted by Tech.

true.

Sullivan, Zbikowski, Carlson (each good players recruited by you know who).

Sullivan is a great center. he was recruited by Ty. this is correct.

Zibby? You are going to play the Zibby card after everyone on this board... and everyone else in the nation... calls him one of the most overrated players in the game? He hasn't been good since 2005.

Carlson was recruited by Ty, but Ty's offense didn't use TE's very well. Anthony Fasano is a great TE that is playing for the Cowboys now but was largely unused by Ty... his breakout year was 2005 when Weis arrived. Weis's offense is very TE friendly, and Carlson was unused under Ty.

If the talent behind these guys is so great, why aren't they out there now making a difference?

behind which guys? i dont understand the question.

I didn't see Aldridge moving too many chains.

did you watch the game? do you understand the importance of an OL in the running game? Aldridge looked good for his opportunities and broke several tackles. go back and watch the tape, he was solid even though his holes weren't there.

But, forget this crap.

exactly what your points thus far have been: crap.

This is a GT board and we're talking about our QB.

who wasn't as awesome as advertised... that is my opinion. and i made it clear that i thought he will improve as he too is a new starter.

Take the excuses for the unfair firing of Willingham somewhere else.

if you dont perform at your job, you too will be fired. willingham didnt perform. do you think ND is racist for firing Willingham? The racist card baffles me... how can a university be racist when it hires a black HC in the first place? I know that's off-topic, but i'm just throwing it out there. why are my valid points labeled as excuses... because you don't agree with them? put yourself in ND's shoes... you hire a coach after Gailey that takes an up and down team, has a great year and recruiting class but then takes a nosedive and stops recruiting... how do you feel? Also, the whole "Willingham had a great first year" can be taken down the same path as those who argue against Weis: willingham won with Davie's players. Davie left the Irish with multiple NFL draft picks that are now starting across the league. Nobody ever mentions this when talking about Ty. You have to look at all facts.

If you want to continue it with me, one on one, PM.

just now read this... but i'm still posting this so others can see your outright lies and inconsistencies.

As far as Taylor goes, this WHOLE thread makes no sense. I saw a kid out there that didn't LOSE the game for us like Ball did.

Bennett did his job... he managed the game without creating fatal errors. That was the gameplan, and he executed it well. But, i read threads on here about people complaining about his name being left out of the AJC's list for award watch lists and such... fact of the matter is: as of right now, he's not nearly good enough to even be considered for any award anyway. he performed OKAY... i think you could've put in other mediocre QBs that would've been just as successful given the strong running game that GT established. Again, before i get attacked... TB showed promise, but he's not there yet. Time will tell if he is able to be great.

That's SUCH an upgrade, that I don't know why we are even having this discussion.

Reggie Ball also won some games for you guys in the past as well. I'll reserve my judgement until more competitive games come.

If a couple of drops weren't dropped, his statline wouldn be bad at all.

same could be said if he didnt overthrow some passes. heck, evan sharpley could've been great if our OL wasn't a broken dam. But, that's the game. BQ was bashed b/c of his 50% completion percentage against USC last year, but nobody failed to mention the 7, YES SEVEN, dropped balls by open WR's. Too bad... that's how the ball rolls.

So, no, he didn't have a great game. But he had a good one.

agreed.

When you can put up 33 points against ND in South Bend, you're doing something right and/or you're not doing something really wrong.

if you are talking about 2005 and 2006 version of ND, then yes, you are right... but this is a new team. analysts have said it... i tried to deny it (as did other fans), but this team is a shell of what it was the past two years. the way that ND looks right now... a win over them isn't as prestigious as it sounds.

I sure as hell am not excusing him because we got the W. That was the reason we were STUCK with Ball. But it's clear that we lost games we should not have lost because of Ball taking stupid sacks, throwing picks, etc...

agreed.

We've upgraded significantly.

i think so, but i'm still not convinced.

 

[GTKyle]

His gator bowl stats were inflated because a lot of his balls were just chucks into the endzone that CJ jumped up and grabbed. It won't be quite so easy this year.

I don't really like his poise in the pocket, but hopefully he'll improve over the next couple of games...

 

[instant oatmeal]

sorry oatmeal, but NDs classes outranked Tech's every year in question, so you guys can whine about talent all you want, it's simply an issue of not having players ready to go.

i somewhat disagree. I do blame Weis for the loss... i thought he did a bad job at preparing the team, so in this respect, i agree.

however, you had a team of inexperienced rookies going against a seasoned, veteran team that is widely recognized as your HC's best team in years. your players were excellently prepared, GT outcoached ND, and ND's team showed their inexperience and youth. you cant peg the loss solely on the coaches... the players failed to execute as well.

And as far as your not being impressed with Taylor...imagine how much I don't care.

trust me, when i wrote that post, i wasn't thinking about you at all. imagine how much i didn't care about imagining how much you didn't care. honestly, ncjacket, you rip me continually without really giving me a chance. you have a predispositioned bias against ND fans that you seem to take out on me and all of my ideas are therefore ridiculous to you. you need to learn to give people a chance.

Personally, there wasn't anything about the ND team that I was impressed with.

you and me both. they had a terrible showing.


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Also, there's no evidence to suggest that Weis is any more of an offensive genius than Tenuta is on the defensive side. Weis is pretty much owned by Tenuta.

agreed. Tenuta is better than Weis. Weis is intimidated by Tenuta. Tenuta is one of the best defensive minds in college football, and when Weis fired Minter, a LOT of ND fans were hoping we could pursue Tenuta... that shows how much respect the fans have for him. He's a great coach, no doubt about it.

 

[beej67]

wait... you expect miracles for a kid's first game against a top flight defense?

Oatmeal's got a point, there. Remember we made Jason Campbell look like an idiot first time he saw Tenuta's D too.

i dont think TC couldve even run with ND's OL last game. it's hard to say...

I'd totally agree with that, too. ND's problems were clearly, definitely, positively and without a doubt, line play.

if you dont perform at your job, you too will be fired. willingham didnt perform.

I'll buy that too, but I'll tell you now like I told you two weeks ago, Oatmeal, that Weis will NEVER live out his 10 year contract at ND. He WILL be fired. Maybe not this year, but it's entirely possible he'll be fired next year, and you'll have to list the same bunch of excuses on someone else's board in 2 years from now. Maybe three.

Matter of fact, you better save this post, so you can save yourself some time typing.

 

[mm42]

[Taylor Bennett] wasn't as awesome as advertised...

WHAT?!?? Who on earth ever advertised that Taylor Bennett is "awesome"? Where did this come from? We've all been hoping against hope he will be "decent", with a few dreamers like myself imagining "reasonably good". I'd like to see the posting where somebody on here called Taylor Bennett "awesome". Just point me to it.

 

[instant oatmeal]

I'll buy that too, but I'll tell you now like I told you two weeks ago, Oatmeal, that Weis will NEVER live out his 10 year contract at ND. He WILL be fired. Maybe not this year, but it's entirely possible he'll be fired next year, and you'll have to list the same bunch of excuses on someone else's board in 2 years from now. Maybe three.

after hearing some of the insane fans calling for his head after Saturday, your prediction seems much more possible. i'll change my stance from "it'll never happen" to "i hope it doesnt happen." i'll eat my words and say that my opinion obviously doesnt reflect the opinion of other irish fans. consequently, they all must be wrong =P

Matter of fact, you better save this post, so you can save yourself some time typing.

you made me LOL at work. my boss is going to make me his willingham =(

WHAT?!?? Who on earth ever advertised that Taylor Bennett is "awesome"? Where did this come from? We've all been hoping against hope he will be "decent", with a few dreamers like myself imagining "reasonably good". I'd like to see the posting where somebody on here called Taylor Bennett "awesome". Just point me to it.

for an example, i referenced the complaint that TB's name wasn't mention as an award finalist for the QB award by the AJC. i'll admit there were quite a few rational posters on here who were a bit worried about Bennett, but there were several others... including media outlets... who painted him as a total upgrade to Ball. I still need to see evidence, but i'll be more than happy to take the flak if i'm wrong (as i did about my ND prediction!)

 

[mm42]

for an example, i referenced the complaint that TB's name wasn't mention as an award finalist for the QB award by the AJC.

I made that complaint - what does that have to do with thinking he is "awesome"? I complained because Taylor Bennett (rightly or wrongly) was ON THE WATCH LIST for the award and our local paper selectively reported that UGAg's QB was on the list, with no mention of Taylor Bennett. How you read that as "TAYLOR BENNETT IS AWESOME!" I don't know.

 

[ContactBuzz]

Oatmeal's got a point, there. Remember we made Jason Campbell look like an idiot first time he saw Tenuta's D too.

Auburn's OLine was flat out pathetic in that game. Quite possibly the worst effort I have ever seen by an OLine with as much talent as that one had.

I expected NDs Oline to have some trouble (not as much as what actually happened) but I never foresaw the domination our Dline put on AUs Oline. Campbell (Caddy and Brown, for that matter) were all merely tackling dummies on that day.

 

[gt69er]

No time outs wasted or delay of game penalties caused by smack talking with the opponent's players after the end of a play like the last four years. This will win us one or two games this year that are tight & close that we lost the last four years.

 

[Boilerbuzz]

I had a LONG reply for all of your rebuttal. Then I remembered, I don't care and deleted it all. I just needed to let you know a couple of things:

1. I know enough about football to know how the game works. Let me just say that: a) I played DI and b) It's my job to know football and quite a few people respect that knowlege, thank you. If you think I give a rat's a$$ about having credibility with you, then I can't help you.

2. I expressed my views and opinion of the Willingham era. You opinion differs. I think you and majority of your community are scapegoating. Yes, Weis is a better fit, but Willingham isn't to blame for all the bad around ND.

3. Read my words and don't extrapolate. I didn't saying ANYTHING about "returning starters" I said you had experience. That's it. And that's enough.

4. My point still holds, Ty left better talent for Weis to survive on than Davie left him. Yet, Ty is the troll. He didn't get what Davie or Faust got: the chance to finish his contract. The chance to win with HIS kids and his kids alone. As far as talent is concerned, every one of Ty's and Jabba's classes have been rated much higher than Tech's. So don't use Ty's recruiting as an excuse.

5. You say BQ's early woes were due to Willingham. Yet, the early woes of the current team is inexperience? WTF? Make up your mind.

6. Finally, I never once brought up race. You did that. But if you can't see how it has to come into question, then you have issues. And callling it the "race card" belittles it that's just as bad as being racist. To dismiss valid fears of a big part of our society is wrong. Why don't we have a "rape card" so we can begin to dismiss a woman's fear well. Anyway, that's not a discussion I care to get into.

There you go. I give you the last word. I come here to talk about GT. Not ND. Outside of having to play ND, I could care less what happens to your boys the rest of the year. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone wants to know how good or bad ND is going to be or has been.

Again: if you need to educate me, you can PM me. The ND and Ty Willingham part of this discussion between you and me, is offline as far as I'm concerned.

Now: back to the important discussion:

Ball won games for us. This is true. Some were games that shouldn't have been close. A couple were games that we should have lost. But I look at the games we should have won that he lost... Uh... I'm glad he's gone. End of story. We've upgraded. Pure and simple. Does that mean Bennett will be good. No. It just means he's not as bad as Ball. I'll take that for now.

 

[Boilerbuzz]

Oatmeal's got a point, there. Remember we made Jason Campbell look like an idiot first time he saw Tenuta's D too.

Yeah, too bad for oatmeal that I never said anything about Jones having to be great in his first game. But it's clear that Weis, ND and it's fans did. That's why he was yanked I assume. Our defense is pretty nice huh?

 

[ncjacket]

"trust me, when i wrote that post, i wasn't thinking about you at all. imagine how much i didn't care about imagining how much you didn't care. honestly, ncjacket, you rip me continually without really giving me a chance. you have a predispositioned bias against ND fans that you seem to take out on me and all of my ideas are therefore ridiculous to you. you need to learn to give people a chance."

I don't have a particular bias against ND fans as I work pretty closely with 2 who I've had a great time with the last few weeks. I probably do have a bias towards you after reading your posts. I simply don't think you look at things realistically. The FACT is that ND's recruiting classes ALL were ranked higher than Tech's. So if you're inexperienced, it's on the coaches. If you don't have guys ready to play, it's on the coaches. And if we have a deep, experienced team, it's on our coaches for preparing their players.