A Week To Go, Kelly’s 5th Year
A look back to where it started, if remembered, Kelly’s first practices started with him proclaiming we were going to see a fast, up tempo offense similar to his Cinncy teams and the practices were full of his red faced screaming at everyone reserving his most blistering attacks on QB Dayne Crist.
It didn’t seem to matter that Crist, coming off knee surgery, was strictly a drop back QB having served his time backing up Jimmy Clausen and learning Charlie’s Pro Style Offense. Christ was never going to be a Spread offense QB, so instead of adjusting an offense to fit the personnel he squared the the round hole. He also shattered Crist’s confidence and finished him off by yanking him after the first half of season’s first game against a lousy USF team.
Kelly showed a real flaw when instead of a chip shot Field Goal he chose Tommy Rees to throw a pick in the end zone. Kelly also got into Hendrix’s head and ruined him. Imagine what Kelly’s 4 year record would be if he did not have Tommy Rees, no matter how flawed, Rees saved Kelly’s job.
It is apparent to me that the 2012 season was a fluke and ND absolutely should not have been in the NC game against Alabama, whose RB’s ran over Manti Teo all game.
Ok onto Year 5 with an absolutely brutal schedule and before we even start we lose 3 starting players who we really could not afford to lose. And with a difficult schedule injuries are sure to occur and we don’t have the depth on defense to afford this. We do, however, have about 15 Safety’s – so I guess 1-2 can play DE.
On offense I firmly believe ND must score 40 pts per game to protect the defense and even with that ND will lose 4 games:
- Michigan – they are lousy but it’s a Night recruiting game and ND embarrasses itself in every one of these games.
- Stanford – lost a lot of good players on both offense and defense and we are usually out coached.
- Florida State – blow us out in the 4th quarter.
- USC – we could barely beat them when the lost scholarships and had one of the worst coaches in school history. I wanted Kiffin there forever.
The remaining schedule has opponents that can upset ND any Saturday and I am most concerned about Navy. We just have to get a 2-3 TD lead against those chop blocking bastards or they will eat that young defense alive. Here’s where VanGorder comes in. You can’t run a Navy offense in the Pro’s for a reason – the QB would get killed. Bob (bend/break) Diaco had absolutely no clue so I expect VanGorder to play them like a Pro team would.
When all is said and done this season will balance on 1- Golson, 2 – VanGorder and 3 – Injuries.
2014 Season ends 8-4