Stanford Prediction & Random Thoughts
by Randy W. Hall
I’ve always wondered why Stanford calls themselves the Cardinal as opposed to the Cardinals. Did the pretentious folks in Palo Alto not want to be associated with the louts down in Louisville (considering the classless John L. Smith once coached there I guess I could understand)? Did the St. Louis baseball team piss in their cornflakes? So what gives? Why the singular Cardinal instead of the plural Cardinals. It doesn’t make any sense considering there are many people associated with the college and its football team, thus necessitating a plural. Forgive me this rant but I remember thinking this as a younger man and not being able to make sense of it. It’s not like they’re a nationality and it wouldn’t make any phonetic sense to pluralize it (like, oh, I don’t know, Irish!). Anyway I digress.
I suppose the man reason I opened with that ramble was because the football team that represents the Cardinal (it just feels so strange saying “cardinal” instead of “cardinals”) on Saturday may be the worst one Notre Dame faces all year long. There’s really not much to talk about in relation to the opponent and the kind of challenge they pose. Could Notre Dame stumble out of the tunnel on Saturday hammered drunk and coming down from a crack-addled high and still win this game? Possibly, but the fact is the team will come out stone-cold sober and be ready to play the team from California. Even if they come out disinterested (which could happen I suppose) they’ll only win by 24 or so instead of 40 or more. This could be a beat-down like the 2003 Irish gave Stanford when they manhandled them something like 58-7 (karma, incidentally, got Tyrone Willingham the very next week for running it up against his old team in the form of an average Syracuse whipping ND the very next week). It seems in the Weis era that Notre Dame typically doesn’t run up the score on the opposing team when it probably could. Part of that is the players I think too. They seem to let up on the gas when they get up big and tend to coast (being a Detroit Piston fan for many years I’ve seen the mentality). This can be somewhat frustrating, but really when it’s all said and done all most people recall is whether you won or lost the game.
Stanford is simply too beat up and injury-riddled to pose much of a threat. They do have senior QB Trent Edwards but he has no one to throw to (he should go talk to Irish frosh QB Zach Frazer about that, he went through it last year as a senior in high school)(As a brief aside I remember Stanford playing better when T.C. Ostrander was in the game last year when Edwards got hurt so I don’t know how great he is anyway). His best receivers are all hurt and he’s throwing to walk-ons (literally). That’s never a good sign. He does have some good tight ends to work with (including former ND target Erik Lorig for you recruitniks out there), but I don’t think running a three-tight set all day would work. Their running backs are pedestrian and their offensive line is beat up. You don’t get to be a winless team by accident midway through the season. You must really stink. Just consider this: they just got blanked by a UCLA! Yes, that UCLA, whom last time I checked just got run the week before by Tyrone and his Dawgs over at Washington. The same UCLA that gives up points with the same frequency Dr. Phil dispenses worthless advice. Good Lord this could get ugly!
On defense the troops are game but no match for the Irish. They simply have an impossible task. They’ll be hung out to dry all day long by their punchless offense. I expect them to compete but the combination of a strong Notre Dame offense coupled with the fact they’ll be out there all day because their offense is anemic will have them quitting midway through the second quarter or so.
Even though Stanford gave Notre Dame a run for its money last year they were still out-gained by three hundred yards and benefited from several Irish miscues (two missed field goals and a missed extra point), turnovers and a special teams touchdown. The only way this is a game is if the entire Irish first team gets a strange, debilitating flu all at the same time. Even then I’d take Notre Dame. Seriously though, the only thing that could make this a game is if there’s an avalanche of turnovers and penalties. It would rival Chaminade over top-ranked Virginia in NCAA hoops in terms of shock value. I think Army will have a better team and shot to topple Notre Dame and I think they have a .000000000000000000001 chance of winning later this year. If you have to miss any Irish game this year, this should be the one. Only masochists will enjoy this one:
Notre Dame 48 (and only because they’ll try to stop scoring in the third quarter)
Stanford 13 (and only because they’ll take some pity on them)
Random Thoughts on Recruiting
Is it possible we all take this recruiting thing a little too seriously? I know I can be guilty of it myself, but from what I’ve seen it’s crazy how much this aspect of college football has taken on a life of its own. Part of it’s because of Lebron James. Ever since his high school games were on TV it’s bled into everything. Of course with the internet this was bound to happen as well. People who know people who know people all think they have access or a special edge into these kids lives or what they think. Heck MTV is even getting knee-deep into it with this show “Two-A-Days”. These immature kids are made in superstars before they ever prove a thing on the field. The situation is ripe for unseemly side effects. But let’s have a little perspective.
Not every five-star kid is going to make it big. And it’s not the end of the world when a recruit doesn’t choose your program. Two things made me want to write this. First the reaction of South Carolina Gamecock fans when cornerback prospect Gary Gray committed to Notre Dame. Somehow he became Public Enemy #1 in some locals’ eyes because he de-committed from their state school and decided to come to South Bend. The second was all the doom-and-gloom panic and kvetching of Irish fans when WR Arrelious Benn, whose been regarded as an Irish lock for months, started to waver in his interest to Notre Dame. Benn may or may not ever strap it on for the Irish but does that make him a bad guy? Hardly. While I’d love to see him in the Blue-and-Gold for years to come it’s hardly as if the world is going to end. I guess I just get fed-up with people overreacting when something goes your way in recruiting and conversely when it doesn’t. All I know is that Charlie Weis, Rob Ainello and the entire Irish staff work their ass off and deserve the benefit of the doubt.
Besides, just because an athlete is a five-star coming out of high school doesn’t necessarily mean he’s going to blow up in college. USC got a commitment from a five-star running back in 2003 and a four-star one. Their names were Reggie Bush and Chauncey Washington. Washington was the more “prestigious” of the two while Bush was looked at as more of a “sure-thing”. Well Bush won a Heisman (however controversial) and should’ve been the #1 overall pick in the 2006 NFL draft. Meanwhile Washington has battled grade difficulties and is probably never going to be a star in Troy. Also ask two-star-coming-out-of-high-school Michael Vick how he feels about recruiting rankings. He did alright.
I’m not saying Benn is or isn’t a star-in-the-making but for all we know Richard Jackson or Duval Kamara is a superstar. Who knows? It’s a fun pastime and hobby but I really think we need to trust our talent evaluators and not get an ulcer from this stuff. On the other hand, I really hope we’re doing something about this defensive tackle position…:).
by Randy W. Hall
I’ve always wondered why Stanford calls themselves the Cardinal as opposed to the Cardinals. Did the pretentious folks in Palo Alto not want to be associated with the louts down in Louisville (considering the classless John L. Smith once coached there I guess I could understand)? Did the St. Louis baseball team piss in their cornflakes? So what gives? Why the singular Cardinal instead of the plural Cardinals. It doesn’t make any sense considering there are many people associated with the college and its football team, thus necessitating a plural. Forgive me this rant but I remember thinking this as a younger man and not being able to make sense of it. It’s not like they’re a nationality and it wouldn’t make any phonetic sense to pluralize it (like, oh, I don’t know, Irish!). Anyway I digress.
I suppose the man reason I opened with that ramble was because the football team that represents the Cardinal (it just feels so strange saying “cardinal” instead of “cardinals”) on Saturday may be the worst one Notre Dame faces all year long. There’s really not much to talk about in relation to the opponent and the kind of challenge they pose. Could Notre Dame stumble out of the tunnel on Saturday hammered drunk and coming down from a crack-addled high and still win this game? Possibly, but the fact is the team will come out stone-cold sober and be ready to play the team from California. Even if they come out disinterested (which could happen I suppose) they’ll only win by 24 or so instead of 40 or more. This could be a beat-down like the 2003 Irish gave Stanford when they manhandled them something like 58-7 (karma, incidentally, got Tyrone Willingham the very next week for running it up against his old team in the form of an average Syracuse whipping ND the very next week). It seems in the Weis era that Notre Dame typically doesn’t run up the score on the opposing team when it probably could. Part of that is the players I think too. They seem to let up on the gas when they get up big and tend to coast (being a Detroit Piston fan for many years I’ve seen the mentality). This can be somewhat frustrating, but really when it’s all said and done all most people recall is whether you won or lost the game.
Stanford is simply too beat up and injury-riddled to pose much of a threat. They do have senior QB Trent Edwards but he has no one to throw to (he should go talk to Irish frosh QB Zach Frazer about that, he went through it last year as a senior in high school)(As a brief aside I remember Stanford playing better when T.C. Ostrander was in the game last year when Edwards got hurt so I don’t know how great he is anyway). His best receivers are all hurt and he’s throwing to walk-ons (literally). That’s never a good sign. He does have some good tight ends to work with (including former ND target Erik Lorig for you recruitniks out there), but I don’t think running a three-tight set all day would work. Their running backs are pedestrian and their offensive line is beat up. You don’t get to be a winless team by accident midway through the season. You must really stink. Just consider this: they just got blanked by a UCLA! Yes, that UCLA, whom last time I checked just got run the week before by Tyrone and his Dawgs over at Washington. The same UCLA that gives up points with the same frequency Dr. Phil dispenses worthless advice. Good Lord this could get ugly!
On defense the troops are game but no match for the Irish. They simply have an impossible task. They’ll be hung out to dry all day long by their punchless offense. I expect them to compete but the combination of a strong Notre Dame offense coupled with the fact they’ll be out there all day because their offense is anemic will have them quitting midway through the second quarter or so.
Even though Stanford gave Notre Dame a run for its money last year they were still out-gained by three hundred yards and benefited from several Irish miscues (two missed field goals and a missed extra point), turnovers and a special teams touchdown. The only way this is a game is if the entire Irish first team gets a strange, debilitating flu all at the same time. Even then I’d take Notre Dame. Seriously though, the only thing that could make this a game is if there’s an avalanche of turnovers and penalties. It would rival Chaminade over top-ranked Virginia in NCAA hoops in terms of shock value. I think Army will have a better team and shot to topple Notre Dame and I think they have a .000000000000000000001 chance of winning later this year. If you have to miss any Irish game this year, this should be the one. Only masochists will enjoy this one:
Notre Dame 48 (and only because they’ll try to stop scoring in the third quarter)
Stanford 13 (and only because they’ll take some pity on them)
Random Thoughts on Recruiting
Is it possible we all take this recruiting thing a little too seriously? I know I can be guilty of it myself, but from what I’ve seen it’s crazy how much this aspect of college football has taken on a life of its own. Part of it’s because of Lebron James. Ever since his high school games were on TV it’s bled into everything. Of course with the internet this was bound to happen as well. People who know people who know people all think they have access or a special edge into these kids lives or what they think. Heck MTV is even getting knee-deep into it with this show “Two-A-Days”. These immature kids are made in superstars before they ever prove a thing on the field. The situation is ripe for unseemly side effects. But let’s have a little perspective.
Not every five-star kid is going to make it big. And it’s not the end of the world when a recruit doesn’t choose your program. Two things made me want to write this. First the reaction of South Carolina Gamecock fans when cornerback prospect Gary Gray committed to Notre Dame. Somehow he became Public Enemy #1 in some locals’ eyes because he de-committed from their state school and decided to come to South Bend. The second was all the doom-and-gloom panic and kvetching of Irish fans when WR Arrelious Benn, whose been regarded as an Irish lock for months, started to waver in his interest to Notre Dame. Benn may or may not ever strap it on for the Irish but does that make him a bad guy? Hardly. While I’d love to see him in the Blue-and-Gold for years to come it’s hardly as if the world is going to end. I guess I just get fed-up with people overreacting when something goes your way in recruiting and conversely when it doesn’t. All I know is that Charlie Weis, Rob Ainello and the entire Irish staff work their ass off and deserve the benefit of the doubt.
Besides, just because an athlete is a five-star coming out of high school doesn’t necessarily mean he’s going to blow up in college. USC got a commitment from a five-star running back in 2003 and a four-star one. Their names were Reggie Bush and Chauncey Washington. Washington was the more “prestigious” of the two while Bush was looked at as more of a “sure-thing”. Well Bush won a Heisman (however controversial) and should’ve been the #1 overall pick in the 2006 NFL draft. Meanwhile Washington has battled grade difficulties and is probably never going to be a star in Troy. Also ask two-star-coming-out-of-high-school Michael Vick how he feels about recruiting rankings. He did alright.
I’m not saying Benn is or isn’t a star-in-the-making but for all we know Richard Jackson or Duval Kamara is a superstar. Who knows? It’s a fun pastime and hobby but I really think we need to trust our talent evaluators and not get an ulcer from this stuff. On the other hand, I really hope we’re doing something about this defensive tackle position…:).
posted by Randy W. Hall at 12:22 PM
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