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Notre Dame Football: Images of the Decade (2000-2009)

Nice work by JB5GoIrish on this video. It was a rough decade for the Notre Dame faithful but there were still a lot of good memories in there. I enjoyed this video to the point that I just watched it three consecutive times so I figured I would get the word out. It is definitely worth a quick look back at the last ten years as we prepare for the next chapter of Notre Dame Football. Here is to hoping the 2020 version of this video has less coaches and a crystal football or two!

Who was your favorite player of the decade? I think I have to go with Brady Quinn. The 05' and 06' seasons were my favorites of the decade and he was at the controls. If you feel so inclined leave your choice in the comments. Enjoy the video and thanks again to JB5GoIrish for putting it together. I hope you become a YouTube legend.

2010 Talent Analysis Part VII- Brian Kelly + Great Talent = ??

The 2010 National Talent analysis comes to an end in South Bend where I will take a little more in depth look at how all this talent business applies to Brian Kelly and the Fighting Irish. In the final installment of this series last year I rambled on way too long about the evolution of the Notre Dame roster over the last several years. If you want to read that full post for background you can find it HERE. If not here is the Cliffs Notes version. Weis started his tenure with a freshman and sophomore class that were short on both numbers and talent. There were a handful of great kids in there but as overall classes they were not at all on the level you would expect at Notre Dame or any other top program. Those two classes largely flew under the radar as Weis rode Brady Quinn and company to back to back BCS berths in 2005 and 2006, but in 2007 when they were juniors and seniors the wheels came off. 2008 was slightly better and 2009 was expected to be much better as those two classes had worked their way through the system giving way to some good young talent. Weis had proven to be a pretty solid recruiter and did a solid job of restocking the roster with numbers and talent behind those two classes. The storm had passed and things were looking up again for the Irish heading into 2009. Since we all know how that story ends I’ll jump right to the part where Brian Kelly walks in the door.

I said in an earlier installment of this series that the Weis number I am the most thankful for is 10.4. That is the average ND class ranking over the last 5 years and only the 8 Elite programs that I talked about in Part III have done better. I fully realize that the rivals class rankings that I used to make the SPREADSHEET aren’t a perfect way to come to this conclusion but I believe they get you very close. I have seen some more detailed analysis from the genius data cruncher known as FunkDoctorSpock on the ISD message board that literally averages out star rankings etc. but at the end of the day it all ends with the same basic conclusion. Notre Dame has a raw talent base that is up there amongst the best in the country. The next obvious question becomes what exactly is Brian Kelly going to do with it? I haven’t commented much on the Brian Kelly tenure to this point so I figured now would be as good of a time as any.

I’ll start by stating the obvious truth. We won’t really know how well the Kelly tenure is going to go until we see it on the field. We should have a pretty good idea a year from now and three years from now we’ll either be hoping he coaches at ND until he keels over or trying to run him out of town. In the mean time we just have to focus on what we do know and allow that to factor into our individual levels of optimism. So what do we know?

Kelly is a real leader. Leadership is something that is not necessarily easy to define but many have tried. There have been thousands upon thousands of books written on the subject. There are leadership seminars, leadership training, leadership this and leadership that. The list goes on and on and on and on. My personal philosophy on leadership is this. You know it when you see it. Some people are good at it and some people just aren't. I don’t believe people are exactly born leaders per say, but I do think everyone has a certain capacity for leadership. Whether or not they ever reach their individual capacity is based on a combination of their environment and a personal desire to get there. Kelly appears to have reached his capacity and to this point it sounds like the players are jumping on board.

We know Kelly has a proven track record of being a winner. Not only has he won but he has also maximized the talent he had on hand in order to pull it off. Cincinnati made an appearance in my overachievers category in Part VI and Brian Kelly owned the Big East for two years with that talent level. He had the least talented team in the conference and still won. While Kelly maximized his talent and overachieved at Cincy he likely wasn’t ever going to be a real title contender there. You can overachieve to a point but it is extremely difficult to beat the teams with Elite talent when your talent level isn’t even close. It is akin to taking a knife to a gunfight. You always have a chance but the odds are definitely against you. All that said he did about as well as he could with the players he had to work with. Now he has a significant upgrade at his disposal as the talent jump from Cincy to ND is significant. He got the most out of a Cessna can he do the same with a jet?

Kelly has talked a lot about developing his talent to get the most out of them and the best summary I have seen of his theory was put together by the wise one OC Domer at the end of January. In short his goal is to get his players to perform at a level that he calls “unconscious competence” where they don’t have to think about it anymore. They just get out there and play. I’ll talk more about this theory another day but in short I buy into it. You can train just about anybody to do anything with an initial focus on mastering the basics then systematically building on it.

So now that we have established that Kelly is a leader with a track record of maximizing his talent how do the X’s and O’s translate? Is this going to be as painful as watching Dick Rod trying to implement his system at Michigan? I don’t think so. Dayne Crist is more than capable of running Kelly’s offense and in my opinion he has the potential to be better than any QB Kelly had at Cincy even with a bad wheel. Crist will flourish in this offense and if he gets banged up Kelly will plug a youngster in there that he has coached up to at least be serviceable. He also has a track record for doing that. As for the playmakers Mardy Gilyard was a stud in Kelly’s offense at Cincy and in my opinion the Irish have a handful of kids on the roster that might be just as good if not better than Gilyard by the time its all said and done. I expect that the aggregate combination of Michael Floyd, Deion Walker, Shaq Evans, John Goodman, Armando Allen, Theo Riddick and a couple of the inbound freshmen will wreak some serious havoc in Kelly’s offense. The only wild card I see in the immediate future are the Offensive Tackles. If they are at least serviceable points shouldn’t be an issue.

On the defensive side of the ball there will be a few growing pains moving back to a 3-4 scheme but in reality the upper class kids on the defense were recruited to play in Corwin Brown’s 3-4 anyway. I had a long discussion with my Dad a couple of weeks ago about 4-3 vs. 3-4 and he told me he had recently had the same discussion with one of his former high school players that went on to play in the NFL. Their collective conclusion was that at the end of the day that how you line up matters much less than simply getting to the football and hitting people in the mouth. I tend to agree, and once that unconscious competence thing starts to kick in that’s exactly what should result.

So does Brian Kelly + Great Talent = multiple BCS Championships? Like I said in the beginning, it is impossible to know for sure but after mulling this over for the last few months my personal level of optimism is pretty high. He could still turn out to be the next bust that couldn’t make the jump to the big time, but I think that is highly unlikely. Being the Head Football Coach at Notre Dame is Kelly’s dream job and he’s been preparing himself for this opportunity his entire career. He should be able to win some games this fall and get that positive buzz cranked back up in earnest. To a degree he already has, they even talk about him favorably on ESPN. Once that positive buzz gets cranked up the recruiting will fall in right on cue and Kelly will have the program back on track with some momentum behind it. While the roster has a couple of question marks at specific positions there are no major gaps in numbers or talent like the one that Weis had to work through. That should give Kelly what he needs to avoid any major catastrophes like 2007 as he gets rolling into his tenure. I think Brian Kelly succeeding at Notre Dame is not only doable but dare I say likely.

One quick admin note for the regulars. The tiny sliver of the internet known as "One Foot Down" will be relocating very soon. I don't anticipate any interruption in service you will just stop by one day and the site will look a little different. After an extended contract negotiation with Sailor Ripley I have agreed to join Barking Carnival, The Tortilla Retort and several other great blogs on the rapidly expanding FanTake network. So for all of you regulars nothing will change content wise there will likely just be more people joining our discussions. I still plan to keep my usual 60/40 ish split with the 60 on Notre Dame football and the 40 on everyone else. Or as Subway Domer once described it "a college football blog with a nice Notre Dame lean." On that note thanks again for stopping by. Your continued support of OFD over the last year has been instrumental in this opportunity and that is much appreciated.

2010 Talent Analysis Part VI- The Overachievers

Below is a list of teams with pretty unimpressive class rankings. They rarely sniff a 4 star player and in some cases they have rosters made up almost entirely of kids that some of the recruiting services haven’t even heard of. I like to think of these programs as overachievers. In many ways they represent the little guy. They might not be a powerhouse but they can generally hold their own and occasionally they show up and take out Goliath. These teams are fun to discuss and many fans often do. The topic of “how the hell does Team X win 10 games with a bunch of 2 stars and Weis can’t win 8 with top 10 classes” has come up more than a few times in the last few years on the ND message boards, and I’m sure there are plenty of other fan bases asking the same question. It isn’t always 100% clear what exactly it is that makes them successful. Is it superior coaching and player development? Is it the offensive system? Do they just simply play a horrendously weak schedule? For all of these teams the answer is probably some combination thereof. Regardless there are many arguments and talking points that you can take back to the water cooler or the bar. The list really speaks for itself but I’ll make a couple of comments on each team anyway. If you want to peruse the full list that I’ve been using for this series of posts you can find it HERE or just scroll down and review the entire thing. I also just mentioned the teams here that really jump out at me personally. If there is someone else that you think deserves mention don’t hesitate to bring it up in the comments.

Texas Tech 39.0
Mike Leach really did wonders with the Red Raider program. I still think his firing and all the drama surrounding it was suspect as all hell but it is what it is. Craig James elevates his chooch status by more than a few notches, the Pirate heads to Key West and Tommy Tuberville of all people takes over. My takeaway here is that Leach made Tech relevant for the first time in their history with a program that routinely gets out recruited by Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma and Even LSU in its home state. The Leach offense was a great equalizer and if Tubs can keep that going and shore up the defense a bit Tech fans might be back to slinging tortillas in short order.

Georgia Tech 42.6
Florida State, Miami, Clemson, North Carolina and Virginia Tech were all covered in earlier installments of this series of posts. They all have more talented rosters than Georgia Tech but the Jackets are the reigning ACC Champs. The Paul Johnson offense is no joke and the Jackets will remain a factor as long as he’s there.

Iowa 44.8
I couldn’t decide whether to list Iowa or not. How good they are is pretty debatable but since they made a decent run in the Big Ten this year despite having significantly less talent on hand than Ohio State, Michigan & Penn State I thought it was worth a mention. Ferentz is pretty solid.

Oregon State 49.6
Look at Mike Riley. He played for the Pac 10 title with this team last year and he might do it again this season. Riley seems to get overshadowed by Jeff Tedford sometimes in the Pac 10 coaching discussion but I would take Riley in two seconds over Tedford. While Tedford tends to underachieve Riley overachieves.

Utah 52.4
The Utes have received a lot of attention in the last few years and it is well deserved. They play good football out there and it hasn’t dropped off much since Urban Meyer left town.

BYU 59.6
Here is another Utah school that tends to show up every year despite having relatively mediocre talent. The Cougars do tend to have older players that have already completed their Mormon missions so there are generally zero discipline issues with these guys. They are well coached and bring it every week.

TCU 65.8
Check it out three Mountain West schools in a row. Coincidence? Gary Patterson does a great job at TCU and it will be interesting to see where they land when the Superconference realignment starts to take shape in the next few years. I still think they will end up in a watered down Big 12 but we’ll see. As for right now the Frogs looked like it was their 1st time at the dance in the 2009 Fiesta Bowl but now that they have been to the show they might be primed to win a BCS game.

Cincy 74.6
Brian Kelly owned the Big East with the least talented team in the conference. Now he’s at ND with one of the most talented rosters in the country. The next and last post in this series will be a much longer version of those first two sentences. Can Cincy keep rolling now that Kelly is in South Bend?

Boise State 76.0
The Broncos are knocking on the door of being perennially serious. I suppose you could argue that they already are. Chris Peterson and his staff take undersized kids that can run and flat get after your ass. The Broncos are well coached but it doesn’t hurt that they generally only have 1-2 games per season that are really challenging. It will be very interesting to see if they get any real looks from the big conferences when the realignment goes down. I’m thinking they’ll still get left out because outside of football they don’t bring much to the table. Then again they do rock the Smurf turf. It turns my TV on.

Houston 77.2
The Cougs are kind of flying just off the radar under Kevin Sumlin. They still have a little way to go but CUSA will bust the BCS at some point and with Skip Holtz leaving ECU the door is open for Houston to capitalize.

Air Force 109.8
These last two programs are the ultimate over achievers. Discipline check. Guts check. Competitiveness, like you can’t even comprehend. The Falcons are well coached but they can’t win the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy because of the guys bringing up the rear.

Navy 117.6
Look at Navy coming in at a ranking of 117.6 and nobody wants a piece of these guys. They have been dominant against the other academies winning the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy seven straight years. They have upset my Fighting Irish twice in the last three years, most recently sealing the fate of Charlie Weis. They have gone bowling and won against much more talented teams from BCS Conferences. They also have one of the best fan bases I have ever been around. The Mids are the ultimate overachievers and their offense is no joke. They probably are not going to knock off any of the teams with “Elite” talent but everyone else needs to be very careful with these guys. They are the college football equivalent of Prince playing basketball against Charlie Murphy’s crew minus the post game pancakes. “You just might get embarrassed.”

I will wrap this series up in the next few days by talking at length about how I think all of this plays into the beginning of the Brian Kelly tenure in South Bend.

2010 Talent Analysis Part V- Programs With Good Talent

I’m back to the talent discussion. I would give you some diatribe about all the reasons I have been too damn busy to post much lately but that would be contrary to the entire reason this blog exists. So on with what you stopped by for. In the first few installments of this series I explained the numbers, the conferences the 8 teams with Elite talent and the 9 teams with Great talent. You can also find those posts by simply scrolling down. In this post I will discuss the teams that round out the top 28 in terms of raw aggregate talent. I refer to those teams as having "good" talent and more specifically they have an average rivals class ranking over the last 5 years between 20 and 30. In this group you will notice that there are a few “blue collar” type teams that play solid defense and as a result have a solid football team year in and year out. There are also a few programs trending back towards the top of the heap and another couple that just can’t seem to decide what the hell they are. Here again is the full spreadsheet. On with it.

Ole Miss 20.8
If nothing else Orgeron and Nutt have collectively assembled a pretty decent collection of kids. Granted they collapsed under some hefty preseason expectations in 09, but the Rebels still fall into the category of teams that you generally don’t want to see on your schedule because if they show up you might be in for a long day. I think they will continue to be good for 8-9 wins a season for the foreseeable future.

Penn State 21.8
Check out Joe Pa hanging around the low 20’s. This puts the Lions about 10 spots behind both Ohio State and Michigan and 10 spots ahead of Michigan State and Illinois who both have rankings in the low 30s. Short version for Penn State is that until Dick Rod gets Michigan unscrewed the Lions should be able to hang in there as the 2nd best team in the Big Ten.

Nebraska 22.0
The Huskers come in at a distant #3 in the Big 12 behind Texas and Oklahoma who are both in the Elite group. As a result the Huskers rank out at the top of the Big 12 North at a solid 10 spots ahead of Mizzu. Going forward I expect the Huskers to keep playing great defense under the Pelini brothers and if the offense can turn the corner a bit they could be a real factor again. I like their chances.

North Carolina 24.2
Butch Davis is also putting together a solid team that follows that same basic formula. Good athletes + solid defense = Ws. It isn’t real exciting but it works.

Texas A&M 24.4
The Aggies are a mess. Despite having a talent advantage over 8 other Big 12 teams they have been coming up short on W’s. Big Sherm is gearing up for his 3rd season and it will be interesting to see if he can get the Ags back on track.

Cal 24.8
The Bears fall into that category of teams that can’t decide what the hell they are going to do. Year to year you don’t know what you are going to get out of Tedford on the field or on the recruiting trail. Perhaps that is nothing more than a side effect from being in Berkley.

Virginia Tech 25.0
I consider the Hokies to be the poster program for this group of teams. Beamer and his staff keep a roster chock full of 3 star type kids then coach them up to play defense and special teams. As a general rule they will throw in a good ground game and ride that formula to 9-10 wins. If it isn’t broken…..

Oregon 25.6
The Ducks have been up and down in the recruiting rankings but if they can maintain this level of overall talent they will remain a factor in the Pac 10 going forward.

Oklahoma State 27.6
Boone keeps writing checks and Gundy keeps working it. I don’t see the Cowboys doing anything crazy like winning the Big 12 South but they remain a pretty solid football team. They might be able to get over the hump if they can land Barry Sanders Jr. in the next couple of years.

Pitt 29.4
Wannastache is working the same formula that his buddy Butch Davis is at UNC. The only difference is that the Stache has been more fortunate with running backs thus far. Watching them play each other this bowl season was interesting as they both looked like the same team. As a side note I was actually a Pitt season ticket holder this year because it was the cheapest way to get tickets to catch ND at Heinz Field. I gave the rest away to a Pittsburgh charity so everybody wins. Regardless I got a pretty cool 8 X 10 glossy of the Stache asking me to renew for next year. I sent him a note back declining his offer and asking how big of a party he threw when Brian Kelly went to ND.

Arkansas 30.0
I still think Petrino could potentially make the Hogs a factor but they signed a pretty bad class this year that ranked out at #48. It isn’t the end of the world as a good season on the field next year with Mallett throwing it 50 times a game could generate enough momentum to get them back on track next season.

In the next few days I’ll wrap this up by talking about the programs that I consider to be over achievers and wrap it all up with a more detailed look at Notre Dame.

The week in news- Super Conference, Trojan Trials and Coach Kelly

I have neglected to talk about the various news items that have come up in the last couple of weeks so I will take a minute to catch back up. I have all the standard reasons for slacking off but I'll spare you the details and get right right into throwing my two cents in there on the most interesting items that I have come across in the last couple of weeks.

There has been a lot of talk about conference realignment of late and before it is all said and done I think it will definitely happen. At this point it is just a matter of which big fish go where and what the ripple effect amounts to when the dust settles. This could go many different ways. Of the roughly one million articles and blog posts I have seen on this subject in the last couple of weeks there are actually two blog posts on the fantake network that I found the most interesting. With Texas assuming the belle of the ball role in all of the speculation going around horninexile over at Barking Carnival wrote a very interesting post on the Texas perspective. As college football fans we tend to automatically gravitate towards what seems to make sense for good football but his post talks about all the other little things we tend to forget about like academics and money. There is a reason that Boise State isn't already in the Pac 10 and the same can be said for TCU and the Big 12. On the money note there is also an interesting post at Spence Park Soap Box with some pretty straightforward observations on the money aspect of the issue specifically endowments. Both posts are good reminders to the layman that there is a lot in play here. For the record regular OFD commenter Longhorn Mike predicted this whole Super Conference thing on the roof of a beach house in Pensacola, Florida in the summer of 1999. I was there and I am publicly vouching for him. More on that at a later date but in the midst of a heated college football argument that followed many beers he made some very astute observations. It is starting to look like he was right.

Speaking of Texas the NCAA came up with a new rule that limits the contact that "coaches-in-waiting" can have with recruits. This specifically torpedoes the Horns cult hero DC and coach-in-waiting Will Muschamp. Total BS and there isn't much else to say. Both Texas and Maryland are requesting and exemption since the rule came into effect after they had each already named their heir apparent. I expect the coach-in-waiting practice will now cease to be public knowledge.

In other NCAA rules news writing on eye black is no longer allowed. That will teach Reggie Bush to start a trend. The NCAA is also taking more steps against taunting. If a player gets called for unsportsmanlike conduct prior to crossing the goal line the penalty will be assessed from the spot of the foul. Hence, the points are coming back off the board. Better wait to cross the goal line before you get your dance on. The Wiz has the details.

Joe Theismann hates Tim Tebow and Urban Meyer. He went off on Tebow's NFL prospects and Meyer's ability to prepare a QB for the next level. I can't even do it justice, check it out for yourself. Joe went off.

Some 13 year old QB committed to USC. That makes sense for both parties. I could go on for a long time about all the things that are wrong with this but I'll leave it alone. Bottom line, go be a kid for a few more years and enjoy it. Does this kid have parents or what? Last time I checked things didn't turn out so good for Todd Marinovich.

While I'm on the subject of my favorite team to root against I will go ahead and hit all the other business going on that is related to them. Reggie Bush was accused of failing to actually pay for two $10,000 scholarships that he previously promised to two kids from his high school in San Diego. Apparently he coughed up $2,500 to each kid for their freshmen year then stopped paying. Doesn't he have plenty of Lloyd Lake cash still laying around? Does anyone else think Bush is a complete idiot for not just paying Lake and Michael Michaels back their 300k after he signed with New Orleans? If he had the Trojans may not have started hearings with the NCAA today to determine their fate. The LA Times seems to think the Trojans might actually get worked over. I could go on for a while about how the NCAA will lose all credibility if they don't put the smack down on USC but there isn't much point in it. Like Chupacabra I'll believe it when I see it.

Jon Tenuta surfaced this week as the Linebackers coach at NC State. It is still hard to believe that Tah Noo Tah went from being a hot commodity DC to an LB coach at a tread water ACC program in only two years. I still think Tenuta might make some noise before all is said and done adding to the discussions that I will be having 10 years from now that go something like "can you believe ND had that staff and those players and went 6-6 in 2009?"

In other Notre Dame news the fan base has plenty to discuss as we continue to move towards spring football. Many feel the next recruiting class will be the first one to really judge Coach Kelly and his staff by and I agree with that. There were a couple of great articles on ISD this week about the regional breakdown of the staff assignments and the recruiting outlook for 2011. In addition to those und.com released a 2 minute video that I won't even bother to link, showing clips of the players doing off season workouts to what sounded like a Kix guitar solo. Said video has started a handful of threads on the ND message boards which I suppose is to be expected.

There has also a significant amount of discussion on Coach Kelly's overall approach and as far as I'm concerned the best article and or post I have read yet was written by the wise one OC Domer. OC pretty much turned over all the rocks there. It is a good read. I will spare you the tangent that my brain is telling me to down about leadership. I could go on for a long time on that one but I will save it for another day. The bottom line is this. If Brian Kelly wins a bunch of games and competes for BCS Championships at Notre Dame he will be revered as a great coach and a great leader. If he doesn't we will be back to talking about whether or not the next guy can pull it off. I really like Coach Kelly and I am feeling good about his chances but until the W's start piling up I won't let myself get too fired up. I am simultaneously battling optomism and realism. More thoughts on Coach Kelly soon.

2010 Talent Analysis Part IV- Programs With Great Talent

In the last installment I discussed the 8 teams that have an average rivals class ranking over the last five years that is below 10. That group was chock full of 5 star talent and recent BCS Championship success. In this post I will talk about the 9 teams that have an average ranking over the last five years between 10 and 20. Of these teams there are 3 from the SEC, 2 from the Big Ten, 2 from the ACC, 1 from the Pac 10 and 1 Independent in Notre Dame. With 4 teams in the “elite” category the SEC has 7 of the top 17 rankings which is sick. While the correlation between talent and on field success was readily apparent in the elite group with their domination of the BCS Championship game over the last several years this group is made up of programs that are fighting to get back on top and into that elite realm. That is most evident in the fact that of these 9 teams only Ohio State and South Carolina will enter the 2010 season with a head coach that has been in place more than 4 years. The other 7 teams in this group are all in various stages of the “rebuilding” process. The full spreadsheet is HERE if you don't want to scroll down to the previous installments to find it. Let’s take a look at these 9 programs.

Notre Dame 10.4
No rebuilding process has been more scrutinized than the one that has been taking place in South Bend over the last few years. While Charlie Weis will most likely be remembered for his last three records of 3-9, 7-6 and 6-6 another number that I find significant is 10.4 which is the average class ranking he left his successor. Last Year I summed up this series of posts with a detailed look at the evolution of the Notre Dame roster during the Weis tenure but the bottom line is that the Irish have steadily climbed back to this level of talent and depth over the last few years. Over the last four years this number has improved from 20 to 17.8 to 15.4 and now rests at 10.4 heading into 2010. I consider that to be significant progress. Another less obvious measure of talent and depth in South Bend is apparent in the Notre Dame roster now having 83 scholarship players. This is the closest that ND has been to the 85 scholarship limit in years. As recently as 2007 the Irish had only 71 players on scholarship and when Weis first took over in 2005 that number was in the 60s. That is essentially a full class short which is almost unheard of.

As I have previously discussed the results of 2007 and 2008 were to a degree inevitable due to those challenges. The dip was arguably lower than it “should” have been but regardless there were some serious personnel issues that had to be worked through. The 2009 season should have been the turning point and when it didn’t materialize Weis was already out of leash. Enter Brian Kelly. I will sum up this series of posts in the next few days with the long version of how I feel about the state of the Notre Dame program under Brian Kelly but the very abbreviated version is this. Coach Kelly went 12-0 last season with a team that ranked out at a smooth 81.6 (last in the Big East) over the last 5 seasons. We know he can fly a turboprop and we are about to find out what he can do with a jet.

Ohio State 12.0
The Bucks are the only team in this category to have appeared in the BCS Championship game in the last seven years losing both in 2006 and 2007. At 12.0 the Bucks are tops in the Big Ten and it has materialized on the field under Jim Tressel since he took the reigns in 2001. I talked about some of the challenges the Big Ten faces in Part II but all things considered the Buckeyes do pretty well for themselves.

Michigan 12.2
In my opinion the man that has benefited the most from all of the attention on Charlie Weis over the last couple of seasons is Rich Rodriguez. Now that Weis has moved on the national media will be looking to exploit the next great perceived underachiever and Rich Rod should be high on the list of those likely to find himself in the cross hairs. The Wolverines have far too much talent to be knocking around at the bottom of the Big Ten and without a significant step forward in 2010 Rich Rod may be on his way to Franchione town. They are already growing tired of hearing about the difficulties of installing a new system in Ann Arbor. Brian Kelly could throw a lot of fuel on the fire when the Irish host Michigan this fall.

Auburn 14.4
The Gene Chzik era at Auburn will be interesting. If the Tiger fans are patient he may get them back into the mix of the elite but he has a couple of challenges. Heading into 2010 Chzik has a bit of a bubble in is Sophomore #18 and Junior #33 classes that could really manifest themselves in 2011 but with a strong 2010 he should survive that and potentially have the Tigers back in the mix from 2012 and beyond. Signing the #4 rated class this year certainly helps the outlook.

Miami 14.6
The Canes are second only to Florida State in terms of talent in the ACC. While also a bit of a sleeping giant the Canes are still relatively young and also appear to have a few of what Crash Davis might call “million dollar arm and 5 cent head” type guys in key positions. This is particularly true under center where hey also have no depth due to transfer mania last fall. It will be interesting to see how long “The U” lets Randy Shannon keep tinkering.

UCLA 18.4
Slick Rick heads into his 3rd season working through a situation that is somewhat similar to the one Charlie Weis faced at Notre Dame. He has a bubble in his senior class #40 but his recruiting classes the last three years have been trending positively with a capstone of a #8 ranking this year. Neuheisel has won at his last two stops in Coloardo and Washington and I expect he will eventually do the same at UCLA. The Bruins could be a real factor by 2011.

Clemson 19.2
I think of Clemson as a slightly watered down version of Georgia. They aren’t quite as talented, or quite as good on the field but they seem to have a pretty similar ceiling. They might continue to be in the mix for an ACC Championship but odds are they probably won’t actually win one any time soon. I kind of see them as a perennial 8-9 win team that has the ability to give just about anybody a game come bowl season.

South Carolina 19.2
Williams Bryce Stadium is cursed. If Holtz and Spurrier can’t quite get you there it probably just isn’t going to happen. These guys are very similar to their Palmetto State neighbor Clemson.

Tennessee 19.6
Mira the Vols grade out at 19.6. Unfortunately for Rocky Top the future is a relatively big question mark as they enter 2010 with their 3rd coach in as many seasons. The Lane Kiffin show left town but it did at least leave some pretty talented players in its wake. It will be interesting to see What Derek Dooley does with them.

In the next installment I will take a look at the 11 teams with "Good" talent with average class rankings between 20-30. There are some very successful programs in that group.

2010 Talent Analysis Part III- Programs With Elite Talent

It is time to start talking about some individual programs. If you have not read Parts I and II you might want to scroll down a couple of posts and start there to find out what this is all about. In short after compiling the rivals class rankings over the last five years HERE only 8 programs have an average ranking below 10.0. I refer to those eight programs as having “elite” talent. For the most part these 8 programs are the ones you would expect to see stocked with this level of talent but there are also a couple of arguable underachievers in this group. These 8 programs account for the last seven BCS Championships and 12 of the last 14 BCS Championship game appearances. Ohio State owns the other two appearances, which were both losses, and they are not far behind this group with an average ranking of 12.0. More on the Bucks in the next installment. Of these 8 programs 4 are from the SEC, 2 are from the Big 12 and the Pac-10 and ACC each have 1. Now on to the programs themselves.

Florida 3.6
Urban Meyer has really turned the Gators into a juggernaut. With their haul this year the Gators supplant USC at the top of this list and unless Meyer literally keels over I don’t think things in Gainesville are going to slow down anytime soon. An average ranking of 3.6 over a 5 year period is sick. Meyer is fun for opposing fans to root against for a litany of reasons but at the end of the day the guy has a serious football team.

USC 3.8
It looks like Lane Kiffin and his cronies are going to keep the party going in L.A. at least on the recruiting front. I still see the Trojans as a bit of a ticking time bomb with the NCAA looming and Kiffin at the controls but they do have quite the stockpile of athletes. One could actually argue that the Trojans have been underachieving since their 2005 ESPN dubbed “greatest team of all time” was beaten by Vince Young and Texas in the title game. The last four seasons Carroll’s crew always seemed to drop at least 1-2 games that they shouldn’t have which relegated them to run ruling Big Ten teams in the Rose Bowl. So despite this talent stockpile the combination of the NCAA and Kiffin leaves the Trojan future a bit of a wildcard. I’m anticipating an NCAA wrist slap this spring followed by a couple of years of full on ridiculousness that rivals “The U” heyday before a full on crash and burn.

Alabama 5.6
Nick Saban is a hired gun that delivers. He has now done the same thing at both LSU and Bama. In both cases he actually inherited a pretty talented roster, then recruited even more talent, put together an elite defense then went to work on offense with a focus on the running game and a serviceable QB. The fact that he just won a title in his 3rd season at Bama definitely verifies his formula. Like Florida I don’t expect the Tide to drop off at all as long as Saban is around.

LSU 6.2
Les Miles does a great job of stockpiling his roster with top talent but I remain unconvinced that it will ever really materialize on the field the way that it probably should. Despite being very good I don’t see the Tigers dethroning Bama or Florida in the immediate future. Miles is just too much of a wildcard.

Texas 6.4
Mack Brown has done a tremendous job of locking down the state of Texas. He loses a few kids here and there but generally speaking Brown seems to select the 20 or so kids he wants each year and generally has most of them locked up after junior days a year in advance. It is a well oiled machine at this point and I doubt it will drop off much if any when Brown eventually gives way to Will Muschamp.

Georgia 9.0
The Mark Richt tenure is very interesting. At a glance you think the Dawgs are underachieving with all this talent but in this case it depends on the perspective. Georgia is one of two teams in this group that hasn’t appeared in the BCS Championship game in the last 7 years and the only one that hasn’t ever appeared in it period. In the Richt tenure the Dawgs have won the SEC twice and Richt has racked up a .767 winning percentage since taking over in 2001. Perhaps his ceiling is two losses and a bowl win.

Florida State 9.6
There really isn’t any way to defend Bobby Bowden on this one. I really didn’t like the way they ran him off but at the same time the numbers are what they are and I don’t see any way to argue that the coaching at FSU has been anything better than below average for quite some time. It will be very interesting to see if Jimbo Fisher and Mark Stoops can awaken this sleeping giant.

Oklahoma 9.8
Bob Stoops is the one guy out there that has been successful going head to head with Mack Brown for the upper crust of Texas talent. He gets his fair share of kids from the Lone Star State and has done very well with them. The Sooners have lost their last 3 BCS Championship Game appearances but remain a national factor.

In the next installment I will discuss the 9 teams with “great” talent as defined by an average class ranking for the last 5 years between 10-20.

2010 Talent Analysis Part II- Conference Overview

Sorry for the delay in posting the last few days. I was a little tied up shoveling snow and camping out with the team in front of the fireplace. In a weird way it has been a pretty good time. I also want to submit a patent for a new exercise machine that simulates shoveling snow. I thought I was in pretty good shape before all the snow started pounding the D.C. area this year. Brutal. Now back to the 2010 talent analysis. As I said in Part I these charts bring up several discussion points for me and I will make an honest effort to hit all of it. As a disclaimer this is a subject that I rather enjoy talking about and I could go on for quite some time so I will try and stay on point and not skip around too much. I am going to go through this series of posts in a slightly different manner than I did last year. In this installment I’ll talk about the overall talent level in the conferences, a little bit about what these numbers mean and also touch on what I like to call the “Three Part Equation.” Last year that was three different posts. I don’t want to be too repetitive so if you want the longer version on what I think the numbers mean and the three part equation follow THIS LINK and scroll down to parts II-IV. Last year I followed those posts up with separate posts looking at all of the teams in each conference. That was a bit cumbersome so I am going to change that up this year by just talking about the 28 teams with Elite talent, Great Talent, Good Talent as defined in Part I. I will also have another installment on the over achievers and programs with big trends either up or down before finishing up with a dedicated post on Notre Dame. Now that you know where I’m going with this here it goes.

I broke the class rankings down in two separate spreadsheets in Part I but going forward I will only refer to the spreadsheet that is NOT weighted. The reason being, there is not much of a difference between the two and for the purposes of this discussion I am just talking about gross talent anyway. The links to both versions of the spreadsheet are in Part I so scroll down if you want to look at those. The one I am using for reference today and going forward is also HERE. Now onto the conferences themselves. This is how the last five recruiting class rankings average out for each conference.

SEC 23.68
Pac 10 33.94
Big XII 34.85
ACC 36.12
Big Ten 46.16
Big East 53.68
CUSA 80.5
Mountain West 81.11
Sun Belt 88.38
WAC 90.02
MAC 92.2

Let's look at this from the bottom up. The MAC, WAC and Sun Belt are all bringing up the rear. There is no way to sugarcoat it those conferences have what they have but I will discuss a few of those teams when I get to the over achievers. They obviously have a few of those primarily Boise State. There is a slight step up to the Mountain West and CUSA but it is not huge and those two conferences still come out almost 30 places behind the Big East which is the bottom feeder of the BCS conferences in terms of raw talent. The Big East does have a couple of teams that recruit pretty decent in Pittsburgh and West Virginia. Despite this the Big East has been dominated by Cincinnati the last couple of years and the Bearcats boast the LEAST talent of any team in the Big East! More on the Bearcats in a later installment but in short Brian Kelly obviously has a track record of doing more with less which is good news for ND fans. The Big Ten jumps up another few places with a less than impressive 46.16. More on that in a minute. The Pac 10, Big XII and ACC are all pretty much even. They all have 1-2 elite teams and a grand total of 4-5 in the Top 28 that I mentioned in Part I. At the top of the heap is the SEC. An average class ranking for the conference over 5 years of 23.68 is pretty phenomenal considering that you are talking about 12 teams. How is that possible? I’m getting there, hang with me for a minute.

So what does it all mean? Recruiting rankings are tricky, and we can all sit around and argue all day about what the real difference is between a 3 star and a 5 star player and why one class is rated higher than another. In short it is probability. The higher a recruit is ranked the greater the probability he pans out. The higher the class ranking the greater the probability that group makes a solid contribution to a program. The higher the overall level of talent in a given program the greater the probability that they will win football games. Is it a coincidence that the SEC Champion has won the last four BCS Championship Games? Is it a coincidence that Ohio State is the only program that has played in the last seven BCS Championship Games that does NOT have “elite” talent on the 2010 spreadsheet? By the way the Bucks grade out as having “great” talent and sit at #10 overall. It isn’t a coincidence. I’m a big believer in what I call the three part equation of talent, coaching and program health but talent is paramount. The better your talent level the greater the odds that you will win a lot of football games and ultimately a BCS Championship.

But seriously what’s up with the SEC? How do they recruit so well? Is it legit? I think it is, but I also think it is slightly inflated. If you go back and read the long version on the numbers from last year that I linked above I talk about oversigning which is an art mastered by the SEC schools. They use green shirts, gray shirts and red shirts like nobody else. They also have a tendency to straight drop kids along the way for a litany of reasons which frees up more roster spots for the next signing class. Despite the slight inflation that results from those practices I still believe they still legitimately pull down the most talent overall. Why is that? I actually went back and forth with regular commenter Longhorn Mike about this topic a few days ago. It started with him asking me if kids from the North are fleeing to Southern schools? His point was the SEC, Texas, Oklahoma and the California Schools had big recruiting hauls again this year. The short version of my answer is as follows.

The biggest factor in individual star ratings is speed. Of all the “measurables” it carries the most weight. If a kid runs a 4.4 he runs a 4.4 and chances are he probably is not going to get slower. Size and strength require some prognostication. That’s why you hear the “experts” on the recruiting sites say things like “his frame can carry another 40 pounds.” It is a bit of a guess as to where each prospect is in terms of physical maturity. Remember the guy in your Little League that had a mustache and hit 20 dingers? Chances are by the time you were in high school he couldn’t make the team because he was still the same size he was when he was 12 and everyone else caught up and passed him. The same thing happens with some of these football prospects. Some 2-3 stars get to college and grow into beasts while some 5 stars show up already having physically peaked. But speed is speed and kids that can run are more prevalent in warm weather climates. Why? Because they literally run more. There are no snow days in Florida, those kids are outside running around 12 months a year their entire lives and as a result develop their speed. To a degree it is inadvertent and simply just a product of their environment. So those schools in the SEC, Texas and Southern California are sitting on a larger pool of speed and as a result there is a larger pool of highly rated recruits in their back yards.

The game has also evolved in the last decade in a way that has made that speed more important. With the prevalence of the spread speed has become increasingly important on both sides of the ball so the southern schools have seen an increase in on field success. That coupled with the nicer climates, and the coeds that come with it has made it easier for those schools to not only pull the top talent in their region but also pluck some of the better athletes out of the Midwest and other cold weather climates. So the Big Ten and Big East end up on the outside looking in. They have less total speed in their local talent pools and they are working like hell to hang on to the speed they do have in the area. The monster has begun feeding itself and that trend is very difficult to reverse. Without some unforeseen seismic shift I don't think that the stranglehold the southern schools seem to have on top recruiting classes will end any time soon. Programs like Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State have the ability to hold their own when they are winning games but I would argue they have to work a little bit harder at it. Notre Dame also has the ability to bring in top flight recruiting classes due to a true national recruiting base. But in the simplest of terms I think the modern day recruiting monster lives off of the speed in warm weather climates. In the next installment I will start digging into the Top 28 individual programs.

2010 Talent Analysis Part I- The Numbers

Now that signing day 2010 is in the books chances are you are sitting there asking yourself what if anything you might possibly interest yourself in until the arrival of spring football. I’m in the same boat. But I have a little something for you that can easily kill what might otherwise have been a productive afternoon at the office. Welcome to the 2010 National Talent Analysis! Here is the deal with this. It is nerdery of the highest order but it brings forth a lot of discussion points. I have compiled two spreadsheets that average out the last five class rankings for every team in Division I a.k.a. FBS college football. The spreadsheet is designed to average out class rankings for each team, each year, and each conference. In doing it that way you can extrapolate a lot of different information and identify trends. That said like any pile of data it is not perfect as I simply compiled it from the free portion of the rivals site not taking into account attrition etc. Regardless I feel like all of the averages paint a pretty good picture of what each program and conference have in terms of raw talent heading into 2010. As I digest this over the next few days I will do a series of posts somewhat similar to the ones I did last year which can be found HERE for those that might be interested.

So why two separate spreadsheets? When I did this last year I originally just used straight numbers and did not weight the classes. Then a few months later I got curious about how the numbers would change if I did weight the classes. So I went back and did that just to see what would happen. For that purpose I used the following percentages for freshmen through 5th year players 10/18/27/27/18. Those percentages are probably debatable but the bottom line is that the junior and senior classes will have the biggest impact followed by 5th years, sophomores and freshmen. In reality the averages don't change much when weighted but I still think it is interesting and if nothing else addresses whether or not weighting it really matters. So below there will be links to two spreadsheets one that is not weighted and one that is not. I use the last 5 classes in both charts because pretty much every program these days utilizes 5th year players. For both charts I use the color coding below to identify programs that have what I consider to be Elite, Great or Good talent. There are a total of 28 teams that average out to having Elite, Great or Good talent. The same 28 are on top in both versions of the spreadsheet with the only difference being that teams that are borderline Elite/Great or Great/Good might be slightly on opposite sides of the cutoff between the categories in the two different spreadsheets. The key is below as are links to the spreadsheets themselves.

Elite- 5 year class ranking average of 10 or less. Highlighted in green.
Great- 5 year class ranking between 10 and 20. Highlighted in yellow.
Good- 5 year class ranking between 20 and 30. Highlighted in blue.
Everyone Else- 5 year class rankings over 30. Not highlighted at all.

Spreadsheet- Talent Analysis 2010

Elite- 8 Teams
Great- 9 Teams
Good- 11 Teams

Spreadsheet- Talent Analysis 2010 (Weighted)

Elite- 7 Teams
Great- 8 Teams
Good- 13 Teams

After perusing the spreadsheets chances are you will come to several conclusions of your own. Some things really jump out at you and others take a little longer to surface. I suppose that is mostly due to who your team is and what in particular you are interested in. Regardless of what you might think about recruiting rankings, is it just coincidence that the last five BCS Champs all have Elite talent? Why is it that the SEC is pretty far ahead of the Big 12, ACC and Pac-10 who are all pretty even? Being a Notre Dame fan something that jumps out at me is that Brian Kelly dominated the Big East for the last two years with a team that was the least talented of any program in that conference. So what will he do with a Notre Dame Roster that has a raw talent base that is Top 10 nationally in both spreadsheets? I will talk about all of those things and a whole lot more over the next several days as I pick through these. Enjoy and as always feel free to leave a comment with your two cents as we go.

The week in news- Key Limes, Turf Wars and Irish Stars

I generally do this post at the end of the week but I got busy with things like shoveling snow so I let it ride until today. I halfway considered just blowing it off entirely but I did see a few things in the last week I wanted to comment on before the madness that is signing day is upon us Wednesday. With that here's a rapid fire version.

Apparently Craig James actually insinuated that he would sue Texas Tech back on December 20th if they didn't investigate then Head Coach Mike Leach. As far as I'm concerned James is now officially the most out of control helicopter dad of all time. One more shining bullet on his resume'. As for Leach he has decided to hang out in Key West for the year while he waits for the verdict of his ongoing lawsuit against his former employer. Someone needs to mic Leach up and follow him around for Fantasy Fest. There has to be a few hours of solid entertainment in that idea. I still think Leach ultimately got hosed by a spoiled kid and his helicopter dad but it is what it is. He'll turn back up in a year or two hanging serious points on people in the Sun Belt or some other such non-BCS conference. In the mean time Lubbockites can remember both Leach and his attorney fondly as they grace the front and back cover of the new Lubbock phone book. I wonder if Tuberville ripped the covers off of his?

It looks like Eastern Washington is going to try and one up the Smurf Turf at Boise State by laying down a red version. Dr. Saturday has the details. If nothing else they have succeeded at one thing. People outside the state of Washington now know that they have a football team. It does make me wonder if this will spark a turf war? Will Oregon counter with an alternating Green and Yellow pattern? Will Syracuse say hell with it and throw down Orange turf in the Carrier Dome? How long until the NCAA makes some rule about acceptable colors? Probably not very long just in case.

Phil Steele has already compiled a projected list of returning starters for the 2010 season. Good stuff for anyone that is ready to start pondering the 2010 outlook for their respective team.

My hero Lane Kiffin apparently took his shadiness to a new level when he bolted out of Knoxville. Shocking I know. Included in the list of people that got zero heads up was Kiffin's brother-in-law David Reaves who also happened to be the Vols QB coach. That won't make for any awkward family moments.

They don't waste any time in Tuscaloosa. The Nick Saban statue is expected to be on display outside Bryant-Denny Stadium for the spring game. I wonder if Saban will dedicate it to Colt McCoy's shoulder?

The BCS is back in discussions on Capitol Hill. I fully realize that it a plus one or some other form of a playoff is likely inevitable but I have to say that it really drives me nuts every time I see this come up inside the Beltway. When all the troops come home, the economy is strong and we all get nice and bored then by all means tackle the BCS. Until then can't we just focus on the gators closest to the boat?

Starting in 2010 the Paul Hornung Award will go to the most versatile player in the nation. Cool.

It looks like Notre Dame will play Maryland at FedEx Field in 2011. I like that as an off site game. It is much better than the previously reported 2011 contest against Army in Orlando. Of course it couldn't happen this year when I'm actually living in the D.C. area. Figures.

Former Notre Dame assistants Bernie Parmalee and Corwin Brown have found new employment in the NFL. Parmalee will be joining Charlie Weis in Kansas City where he will coach Tight Ends and Corwin Brown will be taking over coaching the secondary in New England. ISD has the details. Of all the Weis assistants I actually feel the worst for Corwin Brown. He was a hell of a recruiter and I will probably always wonder what might have been if Tenuta had never been hired and Corwin had the chance to run the defense his way those three years. Hard to say, but in hindsight I would definitely have liked to see him get the chance. I have to say I was nervous he might end up at Florida or Stanford where he would recruit against ND but I won't be at all surprised if he turns back up in the college ranks down the road. I'll keep an eye on him

Outside of that the only other real "news" is the standard last minute hand wringing that goes on just prior to signing day. It has been especially grueling as an ND fan the last few weeks. After picking up a couple of project type commitments that are short on recruiting service stars many on the ND message boards are expressing some concern. There are still a handful of quality players that might choose the Irish on Wednesday and before the faxes are in a few more surprises may be in store. I'll wait until the dust settles before getting too worked up about it either way. The horrible truth is we don't really know exactly what Coach Kelly is thinking at this point and it might be a while before we do. We know he has some numbers to juggle (one post below) and a new offensive and defensive system to install. His signing day presser on Wednesday afternoon could give us the first chunk of insight that we are looking for, and the depth chart could look a lot different than we expect it to by the end of the spring. Regardless if the Irish win next season most everything else, to include recruiting, should fall into place. I feel a little better about the coaching change every day and if nothing else I'm just glad that the program has a chance for a fresh start. Worrying about whether or not the current coach is going to keep his job wore me out, and for now I'm happy that is over.

Coach Kelly Plays the Numbers 60+25=85

With signing day looming next week and several quality recruits heading to South Bend this weekend Brian Kelly and the rest of the new staff are facing an interesting situation. For the first time in what seems like forever the NCAA limit of 85 scholarships is a limiting factor for the Irish. For starters I need to say that I consider Subway Domer to have the unofficial blogger copyright on the ND eligibility charts so I don't ever publish the one I keep. For this one post I’m going to make an exception only because that’s what I was looking at when I did the below math. So if you want to see where I got these numbers you can find it HERE. I keep the players in their columns by class and just note a 5th year of eligibility with a # symbol after the name. It helps me to keep the classes straight as they progress and also prevents me confusing the actual classifications of individual players. So here are the numbers heading into 2010.

18- Sophomores
22- Juniors
15- Seniors
5- 5th Year
60- TOTAL
25- Scholarships Available

The 25 available scholarships for this class also happens to be the NCAA limit for a single season so the Irish will hit 25 and 85 at the same time. For more info on the NCAA numbers game I have an archived post HERE. With 17 current verbal commits Coach Kelly only needs 8 more to reach 25. If he does so Coach Kelly will start his first season with something his predecessor never quite managed to attain, which is a full roster of 85 scholarship players. It also creates a very unusual situation for the 2011 recruiting cycle. Of the 2010 seniors 7 are eligible for a 5th year and I would imagine most of them will be approved for it. For this example let’s say all of them do. If that happens a year from now the numbers will look like this heading into 2011.

25- Sophomores (assuming a full class is signed next week)
18- Juniors
22- Seniors
7- 5th Year
72- TOTAL
13- Scholarships Available

Thirteen scholarships available next year! Man that would be a small class. One would think that a little bit of normal attrition due to injury or other unforeseen issues might free up another couple of slots but the possibility of only having 13 available scholarships in 2011 makes me a bit nervous. That isn’t to say that I think Coach Kelly should turn away good players this weekend but it does make the flurry of names that have popped up in the last few days a bit more intriguing. Is Coach Kelly really going to take 3 more quarterbacks with 2 already committed? I realize that Massa, Roback and Spond could all possibly end up playing other positions but it definitely stokes the fires of the debate. Do you sign potential project type players or keep those scholarships available to concentrate on positions of need in 2011? It looks like Coach Kelly is going with the former. It might work out in the long run but in the immediate future it is a bit of a gamble.

That said I am a big fan of Notre Dame utilizing 5th year players. I think it is great for program health and will ultimately improve the overall quality of the team. But this numbers issue is going to remain complex for the foreseeable future. As of today 13 Juniors and 10 Sophomores will also be eligible for a 5th year. Where Coach Weis spent five years struggling to get to 85 scholarship players Coach Kelly will be spending his recruiting cycles struggling to stay below 85. It will be very interesting to see how he manages it. One more thing to consider this weekend as Coach Kelly and the rest of the staff host a group of prospects that is multiplying at the rapid rate. I'm not sure there is a "right" answer but I'll be looking forward to seeing what everyone else thinks in the comments.

The week in news- Signing Day, Eats and the Coaching Ripple

This dead period between the end of the season and signing day is seriously lame but I try and make it a bit of a break. There are the final coaching moves to track but other than that there isn't much of anything else to follow on the college football landscape other than the pending decisions of high school seniors. The last few weeks of the recruiting cycle can really make you mental if you let it. I keep an eye on it but I always fight the urge to get too riled up about any individual player until they sign. Until then there isn't really any telling what might happen. So instead of constantly hawking the message boards for the latest commits I will continue to try and maintain my postseason/ post holiday routine of increased workouts and enjoying the finer things in life like watching my 2 year old son suck down a fistful of oranges Kobayashi style. That little dude might have a future. He's serious. With that here is what I found interesting this week on the college football landscape.

Notre Dame is conducting a trial run on a football training table. For the non-ND fans that stop by here you probably think that's a misprint but it isn't. Needless to say it is about time. The average ND defender lost 13lbs over the course of the 2009 season. Not good.

In another positive development of a completely different fashion BC linebacker Mark Herzlich returned to action this week. I was happy to see that, he's a tough kid and a class act.

ESPN's Pat Forde proclaimed the 2004 USC Trojans as the best team of the decade this week. Apparently he forgot that his employer collectively dubbed the 2005 Trojans the best team of all time just prior to them getting knocked off by Texas in the 2005 Rose Bowl. Wouldn't that make the 2005 Longhorns the team of the decade? Nah the WWL had to get Sneaky Pete back in there somehow. Chooches.

I do a pretty decent job of following all the news around college football and modern technology helps me out with that quite a bit. With my iPhone and Twitter I'm able to keep track of pretty much everything throughout the course of the day. I also read everything that the ND bloggers in my right side bar write and try to read most of what the other bloggers in my right side bar write as well. What the hell does that have to do with anything? This. One of the most interesting things I read this week was a back and forth between the Big Red Network and the Tortilla Retort comparing the past decade of football at Nebraska and Texas Tech. I found it interesting as I keep a pretty close eye on the Big 12. At the end of the day Texas Tech's best decade came out just about even with one of Nebraska's worst. So what does that say? For the handful of Nebraska and Texas Tech fans that stop by here I would be interested to hear what you think in the comments section.

Speaking of Texas Tech remember Graham Harrell? The dude that threw the miracle TD pass to Michael Crabtree to beat Texas in 2008 and followed it up in the post game interview with "weeee caaaaalllll thaaaat pllaaaaayyyy ssseeeeeexxxxx" is apparently back from Canada or wherever he disappeared to for the last year after being cut by the Cleveland Browns. Now he's on the Okie State Coaching staff. Good for him.

Now for the big coaching carousel. Hang with me here....

So Lane Kiffin bolted Tennessee for USC and has since been bashed on by everybody in the free world, myself included. People in Knoxville are so pissed that all kinds of hate is being thrown his way this week. Reports surfaced that he crashed his complimentary Lexus last summer, The Wiz compiled a nice collection of anti-Kiffin photos and to top it off a Knoxville Lawyer is know trying to name their Sewage Treatment plant the "Lane Kiffin Sewage Center." That's quite a week.

Replacing Lane wasn't easy for the Vols but they settled on Louisiana Tech Coach Derek Dooley. He's the son of Georgia legend Vince Dooley but still not quite at a point in his career that you would think he'd get a head job in Tennessee. According to Sports by Brooks a large part of the reason for the hire is the fact that he agreed to keep the remainder of Kiffin's pricey assistants on the payroll through the remainder of their contracts. The move saves Tennessee a cool $2.8 million. Interesting.

To replace Dooley Louisiana Tech hired Arizona OC Sonny Dykes who is a guy that I thought had a decent shot at the Texas Tech job. Mike Stoops has now lost both his OC and DC this off season. I wonder if Tenuta will turn up out there? Someone has to hire that guy right?

Elsewhere Skip Holtz jumped from ECU into the Big East by landing the South Florida job. This is a nice step up for Skip who is still a borderline flyer. As a side note what's up with Skip throwing up the Hook em' Horns? I didn't realize the Bulls had stolen that.

Completing the circle by being named Skip's successor at ECU is none other than Ruffin McNeil. After filling in for Mike Leach after he was fired at Texas Tech McNeill interviewed for the Tech head job that ultimately went to Tommy Tuberville. I would expect that all the former Leach assistants that Tubs cut loose in Lubbock will also follow Ruff to ECU.

Meanwhile Mike Leach, Jim Leavitt and Mark Mangino are all sitting somewhere pounding scotch and saying to themselves "Derek Dooley. Seriously?" Yeah.