The Official Notre Dame Football Thread

[Irish]

Yeah I really like Crist, and think he is the best NFL quarterback on our roster, who has all the skill sets to be great, I just don't know where he will fit in.

Obviously Rees has to be considered to start based on his performance lately.

Hendrix and Massa I will assume to be the back ups for next season. I feel like Kelly doesnt want to rush them into anything. Probably wont see action until Junior/Senior year.

Golson probably wont redshirt, as I expect some packages for him to run the option read with next year.

Mauk looks like a lock for a while now but we will cross that bridge when we come to it.

I expect a depth chart to look like this in the spring,

1. Rees Soph
2. Golson Fresh
3. Hendrix R Fresh
4. Massa R Fresh

With Crist still rehabbing. I expect him to try to win the job back or he transfers. He won't get it handed back after his injury.

[FirstTimer]

Crist is staying for a lot of reasons. I even have proof

Such as?

[FirstTimer]

1. He was NDs biggest cheerleader during the recruiting process and still is.
2. I think that he is the best option at quarterback. Rees has won but our offense is poor at best. Not that it was amazing with him at the helm.
3. Everybody on campus loves him. Talked to a bunch of students and athletes and they have nothing but great things to say about him. "Wayyyy better than Clausen" is a big thing to them.
4. Relationships. Like I said above, he had a way better relationship with his receivers than Clausen did. The guys hated him with the exception of Rudy who gets along with everybody. Notice he never celebrated with the receivers after touchdowns.
5. On Twitter, he has said things to Gary Gray among others about "We're going to be so good next year. I can't wait to take it to the NC."

I can see why people think/want him to transfer, however, he is 100% Irish IMO, starter or not.

That's good.

Glad to hear that. I didn't mention Crist transferring because I think he wants to or would get bitter at Notre Dame. I was just coming at it from a purely strategic stand poitn of him wanting to play.

I wouldn't call our offense "poor". To be fair to Rees and evaluating the offense under him he stepped into the job missing Allen, Rudolph, Reddick, Jones, and Floyd being a bit gimpy as well. ress definetly had a better grasp of the offense than Crist did. I'd love to see Crist come back strong but it's going to be REALLY difficult for him to do. I know the team loves Crist but it really seems that Rees has made believers of a lot of guys to. Especially Floyd.

I've heard the same thing as far as people liking Crist better than Clausen. Clausen stepped on campus with one eye towards the NFL. I think Crist boguht into Notre Dame more as a whole.

The celebrating with the WR's thing I noticed as well. In fact I mentioned it here around draft time when discussing Clausen's "punk assness". I still remember hearing things last year about how the team looked to Crist as more of a leader than they did Clausen.

I hope Crist stays whether or not he gets the job back or not. Everything points to him being an amazing leader and person.

Either way it's nice for Notre Dame to potentially be so deep at QB.

[Irish]

I feel like this happens mostly every year, but I AM SO GOD DAMN EXCITED FOR NEXT YEAR!

Imagine if Floyd and Rudolph stay....

Also what is the news on Armando? Can he come back or is he off to the NFL? I think he is a Senior but I can't remember if he got redshirted at all.

Either way I love Cierre Wood.

[FirstTimer]

I agree 1000000%

You damn well better!

All Rees has done is won, but I feel like Crist will be the opening day starter next year.

I'd feel the same about Crist if he wasn't going to miss spring ball. IMO it's going to be next to impossible for him to miss reps in the spring to Rees, Hendrix, and Golson and win the job back in August. This is assuming of course that he will miss spring ball while rehabbing which was the initial prognosis.

I also think Golson won't redshirt and will be used on different "Leprecat" formations and such.

I'd love t see that.Really I don't care who starts, I just want the guy who gives is the best chance to win out there. It will be nice to mix Golson in next season if he doesn't win the job. Which he very well could. I would imagine potentially having guys like Wood, Floyd, Rudolph, Jones, Reddick on the field would open up some really nice running lanes for Golson to add another dynamic to this offense.

BK has loved Hendrix, as do I, so I don't know. I think Massa will transfer, but that's just me speculating. Good news is that if everyone stays, we'll have plenty of quarterbacks to signal in playcalls.

I agree about the Massa transfer. He's the guy no one really talks about in this cluster and could be the 2010 version of Zach Frazier.

Like I mentioned before Notre Dame could become very deep very quickly here over the next year and a half with the Golson commitment followed by a committment from Mauk next season.


Also, Irish, Allen is gone.

[FirstTimer]

Tremendous article on Robert Hughes.

Robert Hughes isn't feeling sorry for himself. The senior running back from Chicago has endured a star-crossed career at Notre Dame. When he was a freshman, the Irish were 1-7 when Hughes learned that his older brother and mentor, Earl "Tony" Hughes, had been shot to death near their West Side home in north Austin.

After back-to-back 100-yard games in victories over Duke (17 for 110) and Stanford (18 for 136) that salvaged a 3-9 season, Hughes looked like the next great Notre Dame running back. But he was a part-time player in his sophomore and junior seasons.

And when Brian Kelly replaced Charlie Weis as head coach after last year, the 5-11, 245-pound Hughes was the odd man out in Kelly's spread offense. He had just 15 touches through the first nine games, most of them in mop-up situations. And his team was 4-5.

He had a lot to mope about. Instead, he always seems like the happiest guy leaving the practice field. Why?

"I think it all depends on who you are and what your goals and aspirations are in life," said Hughes, who rushed for 1,780 yards and 22 touchdowns as a senior at Hubbard High School in 2006. "My goals go way beyond the football field. You have to be a man about the situation. And being 4-5 doesn't mean it's the worst thing. There are a lot of things that can go bad. You continue to right."

Hughes' goals beyond football?

"Just to be a great father one day ... be a great man in general," he said.

As an unintentional reward for that kind of maturity, Hughes has played a key role in Notre Dame's uplifting three-game winning streak. His 1-yard touchdown run broke a 3-3 tie in the Irish's 27-3 victory over Army at Yankee Stadium. And he had 11 carries for 69 yards against USC, including a 5-yard touchdown run with 2:23 to play that gave Notre Dame a 20-16 victory.

The performance against USC gave him the only solace Hughes needs -- that when given the opportunity at Notre Dame, he almost always came through.

In 10 games in which Hughes has had 10 carries or more, he has averaged 4.2 yards or more per carry in nine of them and 5.1 yards per carry overall (164 carries, 840 yards) with nine touchdowns. Notre Dame is 23-28 overall in his four seasons, but 9-1 in those 10 games.

"Like I've been saying my whole career here, when I got my opportunity, I made the most of it," Hughes said after the USC game.

"It's a difficult situation to adjust to. But at the end of the day, you're still a football player. You still have fun seeing your buddies on the team. You're still there between the lines battling with them."

Hughes hasn't always been favored by the coaches he's played for, but he has been a favorite of fans and teammates.

"I love Robert," linebacker Brian Smith said. "That's been a guy who's been with me the whole way. I'm so happy for him. I'm just so proud of him. That's my brother. And I'm just so happy he did his thing."

Hughes still hopes to play in the NFL, but with 41 carries this season, he's a long shot just to get invited to the draft combine.

But the NFL hasn't forgotten him.

"He has a lot of the qualities the NFL people are looking for in a back. He's certainly on the radar of most NFL teams," one NFL scout said. "Their staff has done a good job throughout the fall of keeping us notified of him and his situation."

Regardless of how that turns out, Hughes said he has no regrets about his time at Notre Dame.

"It changes you as a man," he said. "You learn different things. You get a top-notch education. You meet friends you'll have for the rest of your life."

Even if he was in this situation two years ago, he said he would not have transferred.

Why not?

"Because I love Notre Dame," he said.

[Irish]

Luke Massa committed a lot because of Kelly moving from Cincinnati to ND and Matt James, his teammate in high school, committed to ND.

I feel like he isn't getting any love because we initially got him to get some bodies at QB. At that time Clausen left, Crist was injured, and Rees was the only Qb on the roster.

[FirstTimer]

Golson's commitment could roll in a bunch of others. Namely Huggins :D

[FirstTimer]

Louis-Jean also decommitted from Miami

IMO he's heading to Boston College.

[LiquidLarry2GhostWF]

IMO he's heading to Boston College.

If he doesn't recommit to Miami when we hire a new coach (something a lot of the local recruiting gurus seem to think will happen), I'd predict Penn State.

[Irish]

I don't know who I would want more Huggins or Ishaq.

Maybe we could grab French too to really kill the recruiting class.

[FirstTimer]

I don't know who I would want more Huggins or Ishaq.

Maybe we could grab French too to really kill the recruiting class.

Huggins would be nice.

We are deeper on DL/OLB right now coming back next year than we are at running back.

Fuck it.

Let's get both.

;)

[FirstTimer]

Looks like the Sun Bowl versus Miami is pretty much a lock.

11am CST Dec 31st on CBS.

[padman59]

Looks like the Sun Bowl versus Miami is pretty much a lock.

11am CST Dec 31st on CBS.

I hope so. I've been to a few Sun Bowls with my family while we're in town for the holidays. The '05 matchup between UCLA and Northwestern was pretty good, but the last one we went to was the '08 snoozefest between Pitt and Oregon State that ended with a 3-0 score.

[FirstTimer]

Might be heading down South for the bowl game whether its at the Champs or Sun Bowl. I've gone to the Fiesta, Sugar, Insight, and Hawai'i Bowls with the team :D (the last four)

How'd you swing that?