Rockne's Roundtable

Just to clarify we had 4 draft picks, not 6.

Last year's team was snake bitten because BK (who I am a fan of) pulled his 5 star QB after 30 minutes and let his 2 star wonder play for 10 games while looking worse and worse every week. If Gray doesn't fumble and Crist doesn't sit we win 10, maybe 11 games. So the talent was there we just bollicksd the whole thing against USF.

Q-U-A-R-T-E-R-B-A-C-K P-L-A-Y.....put a true game manager at QB last season like a Greg McElroy and we are playing in a BCS game and looking at a minimum 10-3 season if not much much better.

It can't always be coaching.....at some point it's on the students.....Kelly has had success everywhere he has been with a multitude of QB's. It was a very young QB corp once Dayne crapped under the lights.

But it was a coaching decision to continue to play Rees who had a total of 19 turnovers on his own last year. As well as to pull your starting QB after the 1st half of the 1st game of the season. That was all coaching not player fault. I'm a fan of Kelly but disagree with how he handled the QB situation last year. Rees should have never been the starter and Crist should have never been benched.

Rees was not 12-4 as the starter for the Michigan game last year. He was 4-0 as a starter because the defense won him those games. Kelly dropped the ball on that one plain and simple. Rees should have been pulled during the Michigan game and never started again.

My point with the MIchigan game is that we should have already put the game away before the defensive debacle in the 4th quarter. It should have been 45-7 or at worst 33-7 entering the 4th quarter instead of 24-7. 3 unforced turnovers in the red-zone were the culprit.

I agree about Diaco changing up in the 2nd half costing us with FSU. But the blitzing style is not Diaco's style and we saw under Tenuta where the blitz, blitz more and blitz again philosophy gets us.

As far as the CB's I'm not sure they were coached well under Weis' tutelage(duh) as there have been many comments by kids like Blanton and Harrison thanking God that the new regime came in and coached them up to their abilities(other than Gary Gray's issues at times last season). Still not sure what those issues were about as he had a solid 2010 campaign. We have recruited our fair share of talented CB's. Last year's CB recruiting was the exception rather than the rule. I have never seen so many crazy things happen to one position group during a recruiting cycle. We at 1 time could have had 3 5* CB's in that class in Darby, Tee, and Yuri Wright. SMH

19BlueandGold85,

The last really stellar secondary at Notre Dame was the 2002 unit that helped lead the 8-0 charge. Shane Walton was a consensus first-team All-American while the other corner, Vontez Duff, was third team. I thought free safety Glenn Earl was smart, a playmaker and underrated. The strong safety, Gerome Sapp, was a prime-time recruit who put it all together his senior year in 2002.

We could go on for days about why the secondary hasn't been as proficient.

The areas where you're never concerned about Notre Dame recruiting top people are offensive line, tight end and even quarterback (although you wouldn't know it by what transpired last year). Conversely, defensive line and corner usually seem to be the areas where Notre Dame has issues attracting "SEC-type" athletes. That's why there was so much elation about landing Lynch and Tuitt in 2011.

It's almost similar to men's basketball. Mike Brey will never get the big-time, five-star, one-and-done recruits — i.e. the type Kentucky annually lands. But he does an exceptional job of finding people who fit what he wants to do and buy into the school/program.

Likewise, Notre Dame football and prime-time defensive linemen/cornerbacks really don't go together much — and losing people like Lynch, Darby and Shepard (whatever the reasons) reinforces or validates that assumption. It becomes almost a self-fulfilling prophecy.

With that said, when Darrin Walls and Raeshon McNeil signed in 2006, it was almost like Shepard-Darby this year. Getting Gary Gray also was considered a major coup in 2007. That's recruiting. Everyone brags about it — but then the next class is always "the real deal." That's why it's gone in one ear and the other for me for a long time.

One thing I will say about the secondary: It seems Notre Dame doesn't make any great position switches there anymore, or develop athletes after they began at or were recruited for another position. Did you know that 1993 first-round draft pick Tom Carter was a high school QB who never played corner? Or that Jeff Burris started his career at tailback and was a second-team USA Today All-America running back?

The 1988 secondary included Todd Lyght, who was recruited to be Tim Brown's heir at flankier, Stan Smagala, who had only been a running back in high school, and Pat Terrell, who was a starter at wide receiver the previous year. Dan Devine's ND teams were amazing with that too. Dave Waymer was the starting flanker for the 1977 national champs, but moved to corner in 1978 and 1979 and had a super NFL career.

The 1977 national champs had a secondary that featured 1975 quarterback Joe Restic, 1975 co-starting fullback Jim Browner and 1975 starting split end Ted Burgmeier. Plus, most schools recruited Luther Bradley as a running back. You just don't see that happening much anymore. Even in 2002, Duff was a top-flight running back coming in, and Earl started out at receiver.

Maybe Bennett Jackson and Austin Collinsworth can change the trend.

It's also a team game, and if the front seven has problems, not even the greatest football players in the secondary might be able to compensate for the deficiency, and vice versa.

Thanks Lou. Great response as always.

Coach,

Yep, it was Pete Mitchell with 13 catches for 132 yards and 2 scores.

That '93 season by Bobby Taylor may have been the greatest I've ever seen by an Irish cornerback, with Shane Walton in 2002 also right there. Week after week he would be matched up against an outstanding receiver, including Lee Gissendaner right from the start against Northwestern, Mercury Hayes at Michigan, Courtney Hawkins for MSU, Johnny Morton versus USC, top guys at BYU and Stanford, and then Vanover and Green for FSU.

He had a pulled hamstring going into the BC game and struggled some, but he had a fantastic campaign even though he was overshadowed by Burris.