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Notre Dame Fighting Irish

Strength and conditioning coach Paul Longo has enjoyed huge success with head coach Brian Kelly in developing college programs since 2006.

Some sub-par performances by Notre Dame players in the NFL Combine are no reason for alarm about the strength and conditioning program.

Lou Somogyi
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      NDDillon

    • Lou,

      My, in my view, this is one of your better efforts of late and there have been many other good ones. At the risk of slightly oversimplfying, Charlie Weis's mentality was to recruit prospects based upon his NFL credientials. How many times did we see this mentality show itself at press conference after press conference when Charlie waived his hand with its three Super Bowl rings. He preached to his recruits: "If you want to go to "The League", come to ND." The problem with this mentality is that it gives tremendous short-shrift to the mentality that says, a la Brian Kelly, come to Notre Dame, first to be educated and earn a meaningful degree (meaningful, not just a degree), work diligently to make Notre Dame the best team in the country and then the NFL will follow, naturally as it were. To Kelly, Notre Dame is what is important, not the NFL. The NFL may or may not develop, but its not why we want you.

      In my opinion, one of Kelly's great contributions is that he has changed the culture to make Notre Dame once more the focus, not the NFL.

      As far as strength and conditioning, I could not agree more that the bottom line on evaluating a strength and conditioning coach is wins and especially wins at the end of the season. Paul Longo was hired to develop a strength and conditioning program for a football team, not a track and field or an Olympic weight-lifting team.

      Thank you for providing the proper perspective, Lou.

      This post was edited by hemy on 2/27/2013 at 10:22 AM

      hemy ●

    • Yes indeed, the professional ranks are filled with unknowns from smaller and/or losing programs. Being on a major power and receiving accolades puts you in the forefront, but if you are qualified the pros will find you.

      FBFAN

    • hemy,

      I don't know if my perspective is necessarily correct. Maybe a great front line led by Nix and Tuitt helped Manti look better than he wasi — just like Tony Siragusa and Sam Adams used to keep blockers off Ray Lewis. This is the ultimate team game.

      As a team and with the game was managed while committing much fewer turnovers, Notre Dame had a darn good 12-1 season. That's a reflection that something is right within the organization, although hardly at its peak. If they didn't need improvement, there wouldn't be this thing called "practice."

      Lou Somogyi ●

    • i'm not one to question Longo and his successes. and 12-1 is a pretty big leap forward for the whole program. but i sat in awe, just stunned, watching bama's lines physically beat us senseless. on defense, it did'nt help that it seemed like Diaco made few if any adjustments for that maroon tsunami up front. the eyes don't lie, and that was the worst spanking i've ever seen physically.

      Coach_Clancy

    • Coach_Clancy said...

      i'm not one to question Longo and his successes. and 12-1 is a pretty big leap forward for the whole program. but i sat in awe, just stunned, watching bama's lines physically beat us senseless. on defense, it did'nt help that it seemed like Diaco made few if any adjustments for that maroon tsunami up front. the eyes don't lie, and that was the worst spanking i've ever seen physically.

      Agreed that it was awful to watch. I'm still stunned that bama's players said, "we knew exactly what they were going to do" (about ND's defense).

      dc irish

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