ND/USF: The Day After

It’s been hard to figure out exactly where to start with this game and just how in depth that I should go with this post.  Obviously the hot topic on Twitter was the QB choice for ND, but I want to be clear, I will not even touch on that topic in this post.  I need to re-watch the game (sober), and take another look at just how each QB did because stats alone will not to the comparison any kind of real justice.

I will check out the online replay tomorrow and enjoy other football games for today.  Expect to end your labor day weekend with that breakdown.  For now though, it’s time to discuss the more obvious aspects of how everything feel apart on us and give some props where they are due.

Defense

The best news to come out of yesterday’s game is that ND left the game with a top-25 defense as giving up only 254 yards places them 25th in the nation.  Considering that damn near every team above them played either an FCS or non-BCS team, you have to be damned happy with how the Irish defense held it together despite everything falling apart around them.

They didn’t make too many mistakes, and only gave up one TD drive to USF all game long.  While that drive was 80 yards, the longest play was 18 yards.  The drive was aided by two ND penalties by Gray more than anything else, with the first one being a personal foul near the start of the drive and the second being an pass interference call on a pass that could have very well ended the USF drive and force them to settle for yet another FG.  If you check out the play again, Gray had great position on the play and, had he turned around, would have easily made the play with no flag.

Make no mistake, our defense is a weapon and the hype on them is real.  I can’t wait to see them take on Michigan next week for some much needed redemption after falling apart at the end last year.

Offense

Despite how awful everything was for ND offensively, ND gained over 500 yards, making them 15th overall in the nation and having a passing attack that is ranked 5th in the nation.

As I said before, I’ll go in depth on QB performance tomorrow, but considering that we had three INTs in the game, we have a silver lining that we do, in fact, have a passing game and a damned good one at that.

The star of the day on offense though for me was Cierre Wood.  While Floyd was heavily targeted at the end of the game to catch up, Wood started the game on fire and USF simply could not stop him.  His 104 yard performance lands him 31th in the nation and he did this on only 21 carries, giving him 4.95 yards/carry.

Yes, we had a RB that damn near had 5 yards/carry.  Normally, this would have people doing cartwheels; however, Wood’s performance was beyond sullied by all the mistakes and turnovers that plagued yesterday’s game.

Granted, USF does have an inexperienced D-line (as I mentioned in the preview post), so it will be interesting to see if Wood can keep the momentum going.  Personally, I think he showed that he is ready and is the real deal this season.  He flat out ran people over all game long and it’s a shame we had to go into passing-panic mode towards the end.

Turnovers and Other Mistakes

The story yesterday is of course all of the turnovers.  The Irish coughed up the ball 5 times, starting with just a simply awful fumble by Jonas Gray on the first drive (bad day for Grays yesterday) that was immediately returned for a touchdown.  That’s a 14 point swing right off the bat.

Then Crist threw an INT that should’ve been a TD.  The resulting USF drive was a field goal attempt that missed.  Thankfully there were no points off of turnovers there, but the INT should’ve been a ND TD, making this mistake a 7 point swing.  Combined with the last turnover, you are looking at a 21 point swing in the game and we aren’t even out of the first quarter yet.

If you will remember that, before that INT, Wood had a TD run that was brought back because of a Floyd holding penalty, adding insult to injury for that whole drive.

Riddick, who had a simply awful day attempting to field punts, started his messy return day off by muffing a punt and swatting the ball behind him.  Thankfully, the defense held USF to only a FG on the resulting drive.  That’s 3 more points off turnovers, totaling 10 in the first half (and the point swing 24).  Riddick also had trouble with punts all day long and, in all honesty, didn’t really field one cleanly all day long.  With as much hype as we had for him coming into yesterday, this was very depressing to say the least.

The final two turnovers came by means of Rees interceptions: one off of T.J. Jones’ helmet and the second on an awful pass to start ND’s comeback after the second weather delay ended.  Obviously, the first INT is on Jones.  The pass was perfect and T.J. was just simply not looking.  The second INT appeared to be all on Rees (again, I’ll re-watch tomorrow).

While neither turnover resulted in USF points, the first one did cut what should’ve been an Irish scoring drive short.  That’s at least 3 or 7 points gone right there, making the point swing either 24-31 in USF’s favor.

Add on Ruffer missing a FG and takes another 3 points the Irish left on the table.  USF had another missed FG to match, so that doesn’t affect the point swing at all; however, the missed FG stings hard considering that the Irish only lost by 3.

To add insult to injury, the Irish were penalized 8 times for 73 yards.  And as stated before, one of those penalties kept a USF drive alive, allowing them to tack on a TD instead of a FG.  In my mind, that’s 4 more points given up by the Irish right there.

If we add that final number to the point swing range, we are looking at a 28-35 point swing in USF’s favor.  That’s 14 USF points off turnovers/Irish penalties and 14-21 points that ND failed to score for the same reason.

Despite all this, the Irish still had a shot at the onside kick, and to be honest, they had it.  Floyd, however, sat back on the ball instead of attacking and fighting for it, allowing USF to scoop up the kick to put in the final dagger with the Irish’s last mistake of the game.

What to Take from This Game

Obviously, digging yourself that big of a hole on a point swing isn’t going to be giving any team many victories against anyone.  The fact that the Irish came so close to actually pulling a win our of their collective ass is pretty damned amazing.  The Irish didn’t roll over and quit, fighting all the way, even if they continued to shoot themselves in the foot during the entire journey.

Beyond that, you can also see that we have a damned good defense with the potential to be one of the best in the nation.  Keep in mind they had such an incredible performance while being placed back out onto the field in awful situations and short rest.  Imagine what they can do when their offensive counterparts actually start clicking.  Further imagine what they can do when they start causing some turnovers as well.

The defense is damned good and we should be very excited about it.

If the offense can iron out their mistakes, they will be a force to be reckoned with.  We aren’t just a passing team anymore and any defense that approaches us as such will see Cierre Wood making them look like fools.

I know yesterday sucked.  I’m still pissed off about it even today and I’m sure watching this cluster again tomorrow will make me rage again.  However, this game is not the end of the world.  This game was the definition of “beating yourself” and, if the Irish execute, they will put on quite a show.

I know that doesn’t make the loss any better and I hate silver linings myself.  But it’ll be ok…(please, please let it be ok…)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FXU3RuX8eo

ND/USF Preview

After what seems like forever, we are finally just a day away from Notre Dame football to take the field once again.  Thankfully, this will be the last post in which I do nothing but do complete projection and guesses about a game or the season.  After tomorrow, I will be in the much more comfortable area of results, stats, and analysis.

I can’t wait.

Especially more so because I hate opening games like this one.  USF is far from a pushover, and, although the Irish had a strong end to 2010, there are no guarantees for 2011.  Brain Kelly is only entering his second season and, based on his most recent presser, has just now become completely comfortable and has a feel for what the Irish are capable of on both sides of the ball.  This seems to make sense based on the end of last year with the emergence of both a running game and a solid defense.  Add on to that, you have Crist trying to come back after being involved in none of the fun and a Holtz walking into ND stadium ready to walk out as just more than “Lou’s son”.

In short, there are a lot of variables and wildcards in this game.  While ND is a solid favorite this game, things could unravel right before our eyes.  Of course the biggest of all these wildcards has to be…

B.J. Daniels

Daniels scrambles during the Meineke Car Care Bowl against Clemson (Ghetty Images)

B.J. Daniels is quite the curious case. He’s a sub 2,000 yard/year passer.  His stats from 2009 are far more impressive than his 2010 campaign that included a bowl win against Clemson that he took MVP honors in.  Despite that, his passing completion percentage actually got better and relied far less on his legs in 2010 (although his TD/INT ratio went the wrong direction going from 14/9 to 11/13).  He can be the reason USF can win or lose any game.

And if he happens to figure it all out this Saturday, ND could be in deep trouble.

Think Denard Robinson in 2010 against ND.  After that game, it looked like Robinson was on his way to a Heisman Trophy.  As time would later tell though, he played out of his mind against a ND defense that was still trying to find its identity.

Granted, ND’s defense is a whole hell of a lot better this time around; however, we have not yet faced an atheltic QB like Daniels since they put it all together (and Jacroy Harris doesn’t count).  Daniels is also heading into his third year of significant playing time as USF’s QB.  It shouldn’t take ND fans much to remember that some of our own QBs found serious traction in their third year after initial troubles and underwhelming performances (Quinn and Clausen).

USF Players to Watch

Daniels will also have weapons in WR A.J. Love and RB Darrell Scott whom could also burst on the scene tomorrow.

Love missed the 2010 season with an ACL tear in USF’s spring game, allowing him to achieve the rare 6th year senior status.  In 2009, he was USF’s second best receiver with 489 yards, and, while that’s hardly going to strike fear into an Irish fan, he ended his 2009 campaign with 2 TDs in USF’s 2009 bowl game which catapulted him to to a tie for the team lead.  He’s no Michael Floyd, but he’s no slouch either.

Scott on the other hand is a transfer RB from Colorado who sat out the required year during 2010. While his numbers from Colorado are rather non-existent, he did manage to rack up 564 kick return yards, showing that the athletic ability is definitely there.  He’s going to be looking to make a name for himself at USF and he has Brain Kelly’s attention, seeing as Kelly actually mentioned him by name in his presser.  He will be facing one of the stoutest front sevens that the Irish have fielded in years though.  This wildcard worry could definitely become a non-issue in a hurry.

USF Defense

While I think USF’s chances to upset the Irish rely on Daniels and the Bulls offense, it would be a crime to omit the USF defense from this discussion.  In 2010, USF was ranked 17th in total defense giving up only 317.92 yards/game.  Sure, feel free to point at an easy Big East schedule if you’d like, but this is a team that faced off against Florida and Miami out of conference last season.  Simply put, you can’t discount what they did on defense.

USF lost five defensive starters, but they return six, including three from the secondary.  This includes senior safety Jerrell Young would led USF in picks with three.  However, some of the biggest losses come from their defensive line that only returns one starter, redshirt junior DT Cory Grissom.

The question here will be if the losses on the line will prove to be too much for USF to overcome or if the experienced secondary will be able to help hold everything together.

ND Keys to Victory

Ok, sure, Dayne Crist needs to have a solid game.  Michael Floyd is the playmaker to watch.  Manti Te’o and Harrison Smith are expected to lead the Irish defense as well.  But let’s be honest, USF has spent an entire offseason knowing this and working a game plan around the big Irish stars.  We need to dig a bit deeper for the players that need to step up for the Irish to have success.

For this game, I honestly believe that the Irish defense will be a strength against USF, so I’m looking for big performance from two players on the offense: Theo Riddick and Cierre Wood.

Riddick during the Stanford game in 2010 (Ghetty Images)

Riddick has been projected by many (including a few members of the IBG) to have a breakout year this season.  I for one am hoping tomorrow is a big start in that direction.

For the Irish to have a truly fearsome offensive attack, they will need to have more weapons spread out wide than just Floyd.  I’m not talking about just having a solid game here or there either.  The Irish need someone that the defense has to truly worry about and scheme around.  Otherwise, opposing defenses will leave double coverage on Floyd all day long, begging for the other receivers to make them pay.

Considering that USF does return an experienced secondary, Riddick needs to make a splash early and force the Bulls secondary to focus on the whole field.  This will allow Floyd to get the space he needs and give the Irish a formidable 1-2 punch that the Bulls must respect on every passing play.

Cierre Wood breaks a run for a TD against Miami in the Sun Bowl (Ghetty Images)

As I mentioned in my offering to the IBG, I’m looking for Cierre Wood to also have a breakout year.  Our success at the end of last year can be greatly attributed to our running game finally seeing some success.  With Armando Allen and Robert Hughes now gone, the load now falls squarely on the shoulders of Cierre Wood and Jonas Gray.  Wood, however, needs to be the stud, the playmaker, the one that makes you hold your breath in anticipation every time he touches the ball (and not because you are worried about a fumble either…).

With Crist back under center (or back in the shotgun), the Irish should be reverting back to several more QB read option plays.  By now, Crist should have a much better feel for when to keep and when to hand the ball off, leading to some nice holes that Wood needs to attack and take major advantage of.

Of course, beyond that, the focus right now for defenses in general will be the passing game of the Irish.  Much like Riddick, Wood needs to force defenses to respect the running game to open up the field.  This is an even more important task against USF as the Irish need to attack the inexperienced defensive line of USF.  If the running game falters and the Bulls line gains some major confidence from holding the Irish at bay, expect some major offensive issues the rest of the way.

Prediction

Expect this game to initially scare the ever living hell of out every Irish fan.  It may last a quarter, it may last a half, but USF will come out on fire and the Irish offense will take a little time to hit their stride.  The Irish defense will ensure that the game won’t get out of hand and should force B.J. Daniels into a mistake or two before all is said and done (crazy prediction here: the first Irish TD is scored by the defense).

Once the Irish knock of the offseason rust, the offense will click and happy days will be here again.  Initial worries will turn to joy as the Irish will eventually put this game out of reach and win quite comfortably.

ND 31 – USF 13

GO IRISH! BEAT BULLS!

Football News Roundup: ND Gets a Monster, Aggies Jump Ship, Bruce Frees Himself

Every football season, there is always far too much news for just me to keep up with on this site and write about on a post-by-post basis.  When the news piles up like this, I’ll try to throw out a roundup post like this one to do a quick summary.  Most of the stories will relate to either Notre Dame or our opponents, but if something rather big happens, I’ll toss it in here as well.

With college football being just hours away from kicking off, there has been a flurry such news, so let’s just hop into it.

Jarron Jones is Irish

On Monday, the Irish picked up the commit of a 6’7″ 300+lbs beast in 5-star DT Jarron Jones after he recently decommitted from Penn State.  I definitely suggest taking a look at his highlight film in this post by Irish Illustrated.  The kid is a man among boys and I cannot wait to see him in ND colors next fall.

Some folks have suggested that Jones might even be a candidate to be an offensive tackle as well, but regardless of where he ends up, the Irish have once again provided additional depth and size to the trenches, a trend that has been severely lacking in recent recruiting years.

Personally, I hope he stays on the defensive side of the ball as we could have an absolutely sick NT rotation with Nix, another 300 pound beast.  Imagine a front 3 of Tuitt/Nix/Lynch and Tuitt/Jones/Lynch. Fun times are ahead for sure as opposing offenses will have fun with our new defensive wall.

Grantland Confirms They Can’t Write About College Football

You may have heard earlier this morning that Bill Simmon’s little website, Grantland, has an article that talks about Notre Dame football.  I won’t link it here and I will save you some time in reading it as well.  Seriously, it isn’t worth your click.

Basically, it’s a piss poor attempt to take a shot at ND for “not punishing” our superstars and saying that we have sold our souls to be good at football again.  Yes, it is that same tired argument that is completely off base, but this time around such accusations were done without any arguments at all or really anything resembling coherent thought.

It would be like me coming on this blog and saying that Craig James killed 5 hookers while at SMU and then moving on to something else. #RIP5Hookers

I’ve seen better arguments made on NDN’s boards, try again Grantland…actually, you know what, don’t.

It’s Definitely Better Than Freekbass

My IBG brethren over at Her Loyal Sons has passed along a new ND song along a for your enjoyment.  This time around, we have a video created by HLS, a song written and preformed by ND fans, and absolutely zero Freekbass.  The song, “We Are Her Loyal Sons”, is also available on Amazon and iTunes, with a portion of the proceeds going to the ND general scholarship fund and Kelly Cares.

Michigan Is Ready for a Return to Glory…

…by scheduling Appalachian State again.

So while we are playing Texas to open up our 2014 season, the Skunkbears will attempt to exact revenge for the most embarrassing loss in college football history.  Or you know, they will fall on their face again to everyone’s amusement.

Why Michigan is trying to put themselves back into this no-win situation is beyond me.

USC Has Lost a Coach

No, it isn’t Kiffykins, but Southern Cal’s secondary coach, Willie Mack Garza has resigned for personal reasons.  Now I’m an avid Trojan hater, but I won’t take any shots here.  Hopefully nothing too bad has happened to Garza or his family.  Best wishes to him.

Edit: SportsByBrooks is claiming there is a link to Willie Lyles. If true, I will be taking quite a few shots in the future.

Aggies Have Finally SECeded

The most awkward and drawn-out breakup in college football is finally over and the Aggies have notified the Big XII X IX that they will be leaving pending acceptance to “an unnamed conference” the SEC in late June.

As an Aggie fan, I’m thrilled with this move.  The Big XII is a dying conference that basically bends over backwards to Texas and that won’t be changing anytime soon.  The move to the SEC will give the Aggies a far better TV and money distribution deal.  Hopefully this also means that the Aggies will actually have some games on TV this time around as well and I can actually see more than a couple of their games in the future.

Plus, some awesome road trips to College Station will need to happen for me.

It should also be mentioned that the Aggies made a great move by making this move a “pending move” and also naming a date of June.  According to Big XII bylaws, this means A&M’s exit fee has already dropped a bit by giving this advanced notice and will likely continue to fall before it’s all said and done (see: Colorado & Nebraska).  Plus, should the SEC not find a 14th team and everything falls through, the Aggies can fall back into the safety of the Big XII.  I highly doubt it would happen, but it’s a good cover-your-ass move in case everything goes to hell.

Bruce Frees Himself

Bruce Feldman has left ESPN after 17 years of phenomenal work and has joined the CBSSports.com team since ESPN continues to inexplicably let Craig James run their network.

For those unaware, Bruce was suspended by ESPN for helping Leach with his book, Swing Your Sword, of which he had ESPN’s blessing to work on.  ESPN then claimed Bruce wasn’t suspended, claiming:

There was never any suspension or any other form of disciplinary action. We took the time to review his upcoming work assignments in light of the book to which he contributed and will manage any conflicts or other issues as needed.   Bruce has resumed his assignments.

Since that time, Feldman released very little published work and didn’t tweet at all despite being active daily on the social networking site.

That was until today, when he tweeted that he had left ESPN for good.  He then went on the Dan Patrick show and didn’t hold anything back on the world wide leader.  I must say it was awesome to finally get to hear his side of the story for once, even though ESPN is still denying they were in the wrong.

Bruce also released his first post for CBSSports.com and it’s great to have one of the best college football minds writing and tweeting again just in time for the season.

Experiment for the Season: The NDtex25

For this season, I thought it would be a little fun to do a bit of an experiment with college football rankings.  I make absolutely zero promises on this working out to make any sense at all, but I figure it’s worth a shot anyways.  Yes, I know, it’s another crazy formula in a sport that has too many already, but I’m a sports nerd, deal with it.

My goal here was to make the formula as simple as possible, but also try to find good metrics to separate teams.  I want to keep conference biases out of the equation and I don’t want preseason rankings to matter either.  Also, despite them being removed from BCS rankings, I firmly believe that margin of victory matters.  Finally I want to make sure wins are valued dynamically, that is, if you beat presesaon #1 in OU and OU finishes in the middle of the pack, that victory isn’t nearly as impressive.

So here’s what I’ve come up with.

Wins/Loses

Simply put, wins and losses matter; however, not every win or loss is created equal.  We often here analysts talk about “style points” regarding the margin of victory, even though they have long since been removed from BCS equations.  Of course, running up the score is something no ranking should encourage, but I think I’ve found a happy middle ground here.  In my mind, there are really three types of victories in a football game: a close win, a comfortable win, and a complete blowout.  My ranking will put all wins and losses into these three categories, defining each as follows:

  • Close Win: Single possession victory (1-8 points)
  • Comfortable Win: Two possession victory (9-16 points)
  • Blowout Win: Three possession victory and above (17+ points)

The above will define some separation for the teams as far as “style points” are concerned, plus there will be little bonus for running up the score.  In my mind, once you are up by three possessions, everything else is just stat padding at that point.

The other major metric to add is the rank of the team you beat or lost to.  Victories against top ranked opponents should be rewarded as opposed to destroying a bottom feeder.  On the loss side, losing to an opponent that is clearly better than you shouldn’t drop you as much as losing to a team that is one of the worst in college football.

With all this in mind, I’ve come up with the following over-simplified formula:

  • W/L [1/-1] * Margin [1/2/3] * Opponent Rank [1-120] = Total W/L Points

The opponent rank multiplier will be initially based on their ranking for that current week and will change dynamically for the remainder of the season.  For wins, beating #1 means a 120 multiplier, but losing to #1 will result in a 1 multiplier.

Oh, and if a team schedules a FCS team, I will not be rewarding it, period.  I’m going to treat FCS games like a BYE.  Bowl games don’t count FCS wins, so I surely won’t.  I’ve thought about being extremely vindictive and penalizing heavily for pulling a Michigan and losing to a FCS team, but for simplicity of programming I won’t this year.

Other Metrics

While measuring wins and losses will be the bulk of my rankings, I wanted to add in something to provide a bit of extra separation between the teams (also, I need to have a way to initially rank teams for week 1).  I wanted to find some kind of stat to measure a teams overall effectiveness on both sides of the ball and try to find a way to incorporate special teams as well.  For this area, I will be adding in Average Total Net Yardage along with Average Turnover Margin.  The forumlas for each are as follows:

  • Average Total Net Yardage = [(Offensive Yards Gained + Punt Return Yards + Kick Return Yards) – (Yards Allowed + Punt Return Yards Allowed + Kick Return Yards Allowed + Penalty Yardage)]/Games Played
  • Average Turnover Margin = (Turnovers Forced-Turnovers Allowed)/Games Played

The Average Total Net Yardage (good God, I need to come up with a different name for now, I’ll use ATNY for this), will measure the performance of a team in every area of the game, including shooting yourself in the foot with penalties.  Turnover Margin is rather self-explanatory: good teams hold onto the ball, bad teams cough it up.

Now, you will notice that I’m taking the averages for both.  This should help give a better ranking as the season progresses so the rare explosions or complete brain-farts will even out by season’s end.

I won’t be throwing out the high & lows for either stat this season; however, much like the wins category, if there is a game against a FCS team, I won’t be counting the stats regardless of the outcome.  There should be zero reward at all for scheduling the cupcakes and that goes for the stats as well.

Putting It All Together

Ok, so with all these crazy numbers, each team will be ranked for each category 1-120 separately, with 120 points going to the top rank, descending appropriately.  Keeping in mind that wins and losses should be the big player here, I have come up with the following:

  • (W/L Points Rank + (ANTY Rank + TO Margin Rank)/2)/2 = Final Score

All teams will then be ranked based on their final score.  As I said before, week 1 will be a little bit goofy as I will have to do an “initial ranking” based on ANTY and TO Margin before the week 1 wins and losses can come into play.

Overall, I expect some seriously crazy and hilarious rankings early on in the season.  Once the season rolls on, and the losses start piling up, I am hoping that the ranking seems at least halfway feasible.

This should be a good bit of fun and hopefully this formula can be a good starting point for some slight tweaks in future seasons.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some programming to do.

Edit: Since this has been posted, I have added a tie breaker to my final rankings. The order of which is:

  • W/L Points Rank
  • ANTY Rank
  • TO Margin Rank
  • Alphabetical Order (because I’m lazy like that)

Paying the Players: My Proposed Solution

I’ve spent the better part of this series poking holes into some of the more popular arguments in regards to paying the players.  To recap, the series started with a look at what scholarships actually cover, directly answering the argument of players needing extra cash to live.  Then the revenue argument was discussed, examining just how much programs actually make from their athletic endeavors.  Finally, the previous installment of this series covered the Olympic model and pointed out, that while a good idea in theory, it fails to address the issue of keeping the student athletes in the classroom.

So what’s my big idea to solve this mess?

To start, we need to stop trying to think of quick “duct tape” methods to fix the problem.  The NCAA has quite the large issue on their hands and they have to take a look at how these issues keep on happening.  It’s becoming abundantly clear that the NCAA rulebook as it stands needs a complete overhaul.  It’s overcomplicated, full of loopholes, and poorly enforced.

Not only that, the NCAA needs to be honest with itself, most of the problems happen in FBS football, a system that they have let run completely out of control.  The BCS runs college football, the NCAA just attempts to enforce its rules on top of it.  Even if the NCAA swings the sanction hammer, the BCS could very well decide to leave their crowned champion alone for instance.  While we talk about out of control boosters giving kids free meals, gifts, and other illegal benefits, all the bowl games turn around and do the exact same thing.  That side of the equation just doesn’t quite balance.

Furthermore, unlike other sports, football has no minor league system.  Kids from other sports can go pro right out of high school save for football and basketball.  For football, the main issue is physical development as 18-19 year old kids simply aren’t physically ready for the demands of the NFL game (and for basketball, a laughable “one and done” rule is now in place, which I would argue is a complete joke and begging for issues–just take a look at O.J. Mayo).  Agents and boosters see this “minor league” gap and take advantage of it and the NFL won’t be making a minor league any time soon.

And why would they?  They know college football is there for free.

The fact is that the majority of athletes, football players included, know that a free college education is a great deal.  There are a select few that want theirs a bit early and are more than happy to cash in from boosters that have them convinced they deserve the world.  And of course, there are quite a lot of players that are falling into violation traps that range from “what, that’s actually a violation?” to “seriously, this is absurd”.

To start to truly solve this problem, the NCAA needs to light the current rule book on fire and start over.  There is very little doubt about this and you will be hard pressed to find anybody that will disagree.

Before any knew rules are made, the NCAA needs to fix it’s own organization.  They have no teeth.  If it weren’t for FBI investigations, jilted players, or angry boosters that end up blowing the whistle, the big scandals in college football would not have been uncovered.  The compliance offices that are supposed to enforce the NCAA’s rules are a joke in theory and the main reason is because the school’s themselves hire and set them up.  The NCAA needs to put their own people in these office and not only that, extend their function to include preemptive investigation.  Hire investigative reporters, hell make Chris Robinson your go-to guy if something smells funny if you have to.  There is no way the NCAA will ever get out in front of this situations unless they give themselves the power to do so.  It is far from a crazy idea, hell a rogue agent actually agrees with me.

Once you have an organization in place that can actually do something, now the NCAA can move on to fix, and more importantly, simplify their rules.

Firstly, the scholarship situation needs to change.  There are still some things that scholarships do not completely cover like “recommended books” for courses, which is really the academic equivalent to a football coach opening the weight room for an “optional workout”.  There are also inevitably materials that are needed for classes as well: notebooks, lab books, pens, etc.  There is no reason that these shouldn’t be covered as well in a scholarship as well.  Doing this shouldn’t make athletes any more special than a student on a academic scholarship as well–those students should, in all honesty be extended similar benefits.  A school wouldn’t put an athlete on the field without proper equipment, why poorly equip them in the classroom?

The scholarship should also do a better job of ensuring basic living needs are covered and if the NCAA were able to set up their own compliance personnel, housing and food would be very easily managed.  All housing arrangements would go directly go through NCAA compliance, allowing them to see exactly how much each athlete’s living costs are, and most importantly, be able to do things like budget out living costs for gas & utilities to a similar level of an on campus student.  Furthermore, you can have NCAA compliance actually help the kids budget costs if they live off campus and there should even be some room for exceptions on an occasional basis (seriously, if teams can do an occasional meal, how about an occasional extra tank of gas?).  This should completely negate the “starving athlete” argument for good.

Next, its time to redefine what amateur status is.  To me, an amateur status means that you do not get paid professionally for the sport you play.  So if a kid has a game worn jersey and he wants to sell it, let him.  If someone really wants to pay for a kid’s signature, go for it.  Somehow, selling a jersey to go get an iPod is illegal, but a bowl game giving a player an iPod directly isn’t.  A booster can’t buy a burger for an athlete and a restaurant owner can’t give discounts to players as well, yet the Cotton Bowl hosts an all-you-can-eat prime rib competition at a steak house here in Dallas (tradition!).  The NCAA is splitting hairs and wanting to enforce rules that quite frankly, they can’t.

Now, I’m not saying that it should be ok for cash to be handed out to athletes at will.  There should always be a trade of goods or work involved in any cash transaction.  This should also include any endorsement deal as well.  I doubt you will see too many companies dishing out serious money for a kid (risky investment, in my opinion), but if they choose to, a kid should be allowed to capitalize on his market value.  Note though, that is a clear distinction of being paid to play as the athlete is being paid for endorsing a project, not actually playing his sport.  Yes, they’d be famous because of the sport; however, hairs are again needlessly being split there.

To keep a student athlete in the classroom, all such transactions or endorsements should only be made when they are academically eligible to play.  Furthermore, money in these deals should be going to both the school as well as the athlete.  The athlete benefits from the school he is affiliated with just as the school benefits by said athlete so money should be going to both entities.  Should a player be ineligible, they shouldn’t also be able to benefit off their school as well.

Caps should also be placed on how much a player can make while they are in school.  However, an athlete should be able to also make what the market thinks he is worth as well.  To split the difference here, the NCAA should institute a cap on endorsements, sales, etc. and anything that is in excess of that cap goes into a trust for the player.  Once he goes pro or graduates, he can withdraw that money, but if he is caught getting additional benefits, he forfeits that money to the school.  This again, is why it would be so important to have a strong NCAA presence at every school to help enforce such a cap and to ensure funds are going to the proper parties at the proper time.

Everyone benefits from this.  The athlete gets a chance to make legitimate money (and has reason to not screw himself out of additional money by breaking rules), the schools can even get yet another piece of the pie as well, and the NCAA can actually focus on larger issues and violations.  This also can protect an athlete that say, misses out on a chance to go pro due to injury and thus misses out on cashing in on what value he had.

The other missing piece is that the NFL, NBA, etc need to step in and control their agents.  Any agent caught signing a player early or giving benefits to convince a player to sign for them should be fined and suspended with repeat offenders barred from representing any player as an agent.  It makes no sense for the schools and athletes that had nothing to do with agent violations suffer.  The offenders themselves should be punished and there is no reason that professional agents can’t be held accountable.

Furthermore, NFL has set up some precedence with their recent suspension of Pryor to actually punish a player for violations in college.  The NFL should not be a safe-haven for NCAA violators to jump ship (coaches included) when they know things are about to hit the fan.  The NFL could always fall back on their “actions unbecoming to the league” punishment that they love to toss around recently.  While some people have an issue with this, I don’t.  It doesn’t matter to me that the violations and rule breaking happened outside the NFL umbrella, by running off before they were caught, they have given the NFL and the franchise they play for a bad name when they are.

Yes, I realize this part is a tad more of a pipe-dream and a possible CBA nightmare; however, as stated before the NFL is benefiting from college football as their free minor league system and they should work hand in hand with the NCAA to help discourage violations from athletes and agents alike.  The fact remains that while small steps can be made to make things better, the NFL and other professional league cooperating with the NCAA is still a major step in making sure that the NCAA rules are given more than lip service.

In the end though, there is no ironclad solution to stop cheating completely.  While I and other people can figure out a multitude of ways of trying to eliminate cheating from NCAA athletics, nothing will stop pure greed and devil-may-care attitudes from corrupting the game.  Nevin Shapiro was not the first nor will he be the last rogue booster that will decide he can do whatever the hell he wants.  Certain athletes will always feel entitled to a bigger piece of the pie no matter how many concessions the NCAA gives them as well.  The best outcome that we can hope for is that the NCAA tries to make serious changes in their organization and in their rules.  As of now, the NCAA is consistently focusing on the speck of sawdust in everyone else’s eyes while the gigantic log that is their own incompetence and hypocrisy in theirs.  The times have changed and the NCAA must change with them; otherwise, the boosters, agents and athletes will continue to run college sports.

Irish Blogger Gathering: It’s Go Time

Finally, the wait is almost over.  My Saturdays will soon be filled with college football, loads of junk food, and far too much alcohol.

My liver is already cringing–all is right in the world.

Of course, now that we are in a game week, it’s IBG time.  This time around, our host is Frank from UHND.com and here are his questions for this week’s gathering with my responses:

1. The big news of last week was Dayne Crist winning the starting QB spot.  Are you happy with the outcome and how comfortable are you with Crist as the starting quarterback for the 2011 season?

I’m quite happy with the predictable outcome.  As far as QB goes, I want experience whenever possible with the only exception being if there is a younger kid with a clear amount of greater talent.  I don’t believe that was the case here as all the other QBs seemed to be on pretty equal footing to a point, so going with Crist seems beyond obvious to me.

The main concern, of course, is injury, especially since Dayne has run out of healthy knees to blow up.  I’m hoping that he has learned how to better avoid injury when he’s out in the open field, but time will only tell with that.  My gut says that he’ll stay healthy for most of the season, but hey, if all else fails, Rees is a solid backup.

In the end though, you can’t worry about injury every snap.  Dayne was a solid weapon on the field and you have to believe that the red zone issues that plagued his game last season would be a thing of the past.  You also have to remember that Crist is a dual-threat at QB as well which fits in very nicely with Kelly’s offense.

Overall, he has the tools to succeed and he is proven (sorry Rees, a handful of wins does not a starting resume make).  There is no sense in benching the senior for another young gun this time around.

2. A lot of people say you see the biggest improvement between year 1 and 2 after a coaching change.  What area do you hope to see the biggest improvement in 2011?

I’m hoping to see dramatic improvement to the running game.  It seemed that the ground attack finally got a little bit of tracking later in the season and I think that starts to carry over in a big way this season.  With a year’s worth of experience under Kelly and several returning starters, we should see much more success this time around.

Plus, if Dayne stays healthy, you have to think that aids the running game as well. Crist should have a much better feel for the option plays this go-around and that will create several holes in opposing defenses.

3. I think we’ve all covered this year’s highly touted freshman class quite a bit this off-season already so instead, who do you see as this year’s Corey Mays?  Mays played primarly special teams for 3 seasons before a breakout season as a 5th year senior in 2005.  Who on the Irish roster can pull off a similar performance this season?

I’m going to go with Jonas Gray (yes, I know, I’m all about the running game this post).  He played some special teams, but has mostly been an afterthought in a crowded Irish backfield totaling only 75 carries and 5 receptions in his career.  Now the backfield will be lead by Cierre Wood, with Jonas seeing significant playing time and touches according to Kelly.  He ripped off a 36 yard run against Utah, so he’s definitely got some potential for some big plays.  I see him as a solid piece in this year’s backfield and considering that he will actually have the ball in his hands this season, I can definitely see some solid numbers from him.

4. Theo Riddick is a player I’ve been touting all off-season and think the is ready to become a big name in college football.  What player on Notre Dame’s roster who hasn’t yet broken out are you expecting to put up big numbers in 2011?

I should’ve just entitled this post “I think our running game won’t suck this season” because my money is on Cierre Wood.  The kid has loads of talent, but is probably better remembered for his fumbles and awful kickoff return decisions last season more than anything else.  However, he managed to put together an impressive rushing average of 5.1 yards on 119 carries (603 yards total) and also had 20 receptions for 170 yards as well.  Toss in his 300 kickoff return yards and you are looking at a total of 1,073 all-purpose yards.  Not too bad for a guy that started the season as a backup and coughed up the ball more than he should have.

Now, Cierre will be the featured back and should have his mistakes down to a minimum this time around.  With the majority of the opposing defensive focus on Floyd and the passing attack, this should open up some major opportunities for Wood to pad the stat sheet.

5. Notre Dame plays a legit opponent in South Florida unlike a lot of teams around the country.  How do you see this game playing out and does it help or hurt Notre Dame that they play a BCS conference opponent this weekend while Michigan plays Western Michigan?

Opening games in college football always scare the crap out of me.  Teams can spend all offseason to plan and figure out how to attack one team.  To add on to that, South Florida is coached by a Holtz who I’m sure would love to create a little bit of his own legend at ND, even if on the opposing side.  I’ll have more on my thoughts for this game in a later post, but the bottom line is that I believe ND is just simply far more talented than USF and we will win; however, I would not be surprised at all to have periods of the game that are just too close for comfort.

As far as playing a BCS conference opponent, I think it’s the best way to go.  Just ask Michigan how that whole Appalachian State thing worked out for them.  While it may seem logical to schedule a cupcake game, and while you might come out on top 99 times out of 100, I’m leery of playing the team that has absolutely nothing to lose and has an entire offseason to prepare for it.  Plus, why delay the season intensity?  If you want to be BCS/NC bound, you have to be ready to play every single game to perfection and not take an opponent for granted.  Starting off your season with a “we’ll destroy that cupcake” mentality doesn’t seem like the best way to start off the season.

And hey, if you happen to lose to a tougher opponent early, you can find so many ways to rationalize it and bounce back the next week.  If you lose to a team you are supposed to wipe the floor with though, kiss your confidence goodbye.

I just don’t see much of a benefit of “starting off easy”.  Give me the team that started their season off in hell any day.

6. Stealing this one from my IBG pre-season questions from last year – who is the Notre Dame player the Irish can least afford to lose this season?  For the sake of getting some different response, you can’t use Michael Floyd or Manti Te’o here.

David Ruffer.

Ok, sorry,  I couldn’t resist another DMQ shot.

In all seriousness, ND, for once, has some quality depth on most of their roster expect for one area in my mind: the secondary.  More specifically, color me terrified if we lose Harrison Smith this season.  Smith had a breakout end to the 2010 campaign and is now a force to be reckoned with on defense.  Dig past him on the depth chart though and you don’t have anything close to that.  Dan McCarthy is the projected backup and he’s seen very little playing time period.  You might be able to slide Zeke Motta over, but again, that’s quite the downgrade.

On a side note, if you had asked me last year at this time if I thought Harrison Smith was this vital of a player on the Irish squad, I would’ve laughed at you.  Crazy how things things in a season.

7. Obligatory pre-season prediction question:

  • Notre Dame’s final record (noting the losses): 12-1, lose to Stanford (I cannot believe I am predicting a record like this), and yes, I think we win the bowl game
  • Notre Dame’s bowl game and opponent: Fiesta Bowl against Big XII Champ Texas A&M (let me dream, this will be hilarious), ND wins the bowl game and we can claim we beat an SEC team
  • Final ranking for Notre Dame: 4
  • Best opposing offensive and defensive player ND will face in ’11: Offense – Andrew Luck, QB, Stanford, Defense – Jerel Worthy, DT, MSU
  • Best opposing coach ND will face: Skip Holtz
  • Notre Dame game you won’t miss for anything: ND vs USC (helps that I will be there)
  • Notre Dame game you could watch on DVR: ND vs Purdue (thanks to the fact that someone decided to HAVE A FALL WEDDING)
  • National Champion: Alabama (/vomit)
  • Heisman Trophy Winner: Andrew Luck, QB, Stanford