Spartans smacking around the Irish so far...

[Puddy]

17-0 after one quarter. 185 yards net offense versus 20 for ND.

 

Didn't Charlie Weiss get a 10-year extension last year

[Brewer]

Nice throw Brady.

[GWPFFL BrianW]

Of course we have to listen to Bob Davie and Hairberger all over the Irish nuts all night long. UM HEY BOB! Michigan State 31 Notre Dame 14... and it's only halftime. This Irish defense is beyond awful.

[theeohiostate]

MSU looking very impressive.

 

I was looking past them on the OSU schedule and just keying on the Iowa and Michigan game, but the way Stanton is playing gives me BIG concerns with our young defense stopping them.

 

Big 10 football looks really solid this year. 5 really solid teams here.

[GWPFFL BrianW]

cant ever overlook sparty. They're the type of team that beats the conference leader, but then goes and gets upset by Minnesota or Indiana. And Stanton, I think besides Troy Smith, is the most dangerous qb in the big ten. I'm glad MSU is off of Iowas schedule this year, even thought historically we've had pretty good luck vs the spartans.

[godtomsatan]

And Tyrone Willingham is now 3-1 as Washington beats the oh poopy out of UCLA in the 2nd half.

[GWPFFL BrianW]

u mean after tonight, he may have a better record than god?

[untateve]

was I the only one watching Florida-kentucky?

[Puddy]

Michigan State is doing their best Michigan State impression. Trying to give away a game they had in hand.

[Puddy]

ND takes the lead. This is Michigan State in a nutshell. Unbelievable. Less than 3 minutes left. Should be a very interesting finish.

[godtomsatan]

 

Stupid Papists.

[GWPFFL BrianW]

Nice to see the Spartans play a game of "lets see how many things it takes to help Notre Dame win"

[Pope Flick]

Stick that gold flag into that Spartan logo.

[GWPFFL BrianW]

hey pope where ya been this past week?

[Egret]

Not a hugh surprise. Sparty fans always get way too excited early in the season.

[lkirc]

That was perhaps the worst case of over conservative coaching I have ever seen! The spartans just stopped everything that was working and went into a shell. They had no passing yards until the final drive. What was that kickoff returner doing taking a knee on the 12 yard line? I don't care if you have no blockers on the field. Run till you get tackled!

 

This program will never improve until they learn to agressively go after wins. Right now they play not to lose.

[GWPFFL BrianW]

The int return for a td was absolutely terrible. Senior QB should not be making that throw. And I'm talking high school senior. Like I said... Michigan State did everything they possibly could to lose that game. I tip my hat off to Notre Dame though, a win is a win, and its another road win, but listening to hairburger, and Bob Davie with the Irish nuts on there chin all game long was revolting. Thing is, I've always liked Notre Dame, but its commentators and the bandwagon fans who have been M.I.A. for the last week all of the sudden are back to chirp away about how great the Irish are. And no, Pope, I'm not talking about you, I just like joshing you a bit. I know you probably, like many of my family, sat through the Davie and Willingham years just cringing every saturday. But no team has a bigger group of bandwagon fans than Notre Dame. NO TEAM! And it's not even close.

[Pope Flick]

The int return for a td was absolutely terrible. Senior QB should not be making that throw. And I'm talking high school senior. Like I said... Michigan State did everything they possibly could to lose that game. I tip my hat off to Notre Dame though, a win is a win, and its another road win, but listening to hairburger, and Bob Davie with the Irish nuts on there chin all game long was revolting. Thing is, I've always liked Notre Dame, but its commentators and the bandwagon fans who have been M.I.A. for the last week all of the sudden are back to chirp away about how great the Irish are. And no, Pope, I'm not talking about you, I just like joshing you a bit. I know you probably, like many of my family, sat through the Davie and Willingham years just cringing every saturday. But no team has a bigger group of bandwagon fans than Notre Dame. NO TEAM! And it's not even close.

 

 

I've been a ND fan my whole life and I don't see how Davie's on the Irish nuts, as it seems every time Weis takes a gamble (like 4th and 5) Davie's always saying "I sure wouldn't do that, I can't believe he's doin it" and all I can think is "that's why you were bartely aboce .500 Bob." It's funny - all I hear is jealousy and whining from him (especially the GT game) while you hear the opposite.

Gp figure.

[GWPFFL BrianW]

I dunno, 'Brady Quinn is the most mentally tough QB I've ever seen.' or "This Notre Dame can explode at any time." which they did, but really if he was watching the game, he would see that it wasn't the vaunted offense, it was Michigan State just blowing it at every turn. I think we can agree to disagree, cuz I know you're right, he 2nd guesses Weis all the time. Like when there was FOUR minutes to go, and he couldn't believe Weis wasn't using timeouts. Even with the new rule changes, 4 minutes is a LOT of time when you're only down one score and you have your opponents pinned back. I think its a combo A. He IS jealous of Weis and B. He REALLY loves Notre Dame and wants them to succeed regardless of who coaches them.

[Possum Jenkins]

After having suffered through that Michigan loss in person (the absolute worst sporting event I've ever been to) and then the first half of the State game I'll admit I was ready to smash my new widescreen...

 

The difference between Weis and Willingham is that even when ND looks like crap and we're down by a bunch I still feel we have a chance to come back (I was delusional in the Michigan game until there were about 6 minutes left...). When Willingham was coach, I never felt like we could launch a comeback (and we never did).

 

That was a season saver...

[Timmypg]

I've been a ND fan my entire life. I admit I am bias when it comes to them. To me the difference between Weis & Willingham is, under Willingham even when ND went 9-3 you knew they weren't that good. That year they got every lucky bounce they could. When they played USC they got killed.

 

Last year under Weis you can see the difference. When they won they weren't lucky they were better. The defense still stunk but the offense was 1,000% better.

 

That was a season changing win Saturday. They still aren't a championship team but they can be a major bowl team.

[GWPFFL BrianW]

You wouldn't constitute the win vs Michigan State as lucky? I don't believe btw, that willingham is better than weis. I think the jury is still out on Weis as a head coach, but I do see an attitude change. Willingham is a good coach that was put into a no-win situation. I don't think he's a bad coach, he's proving in Washington that he can coach, and he proved it at Stanford. I just don't think Notre Dame was the right situation for him at all. I do think Weis makes some great game decisions, and is very good at clock management (no doubt learned under the master Bill Bellichick). I'm just not ready to subscribe to the assumption (from a lot of Notre Dame "fans") that the guy can part Lake Michigan. I do see your guys' point about him bringing a winning attitude to the Notre Dame program, something that has been lacking for a long time. The biggest problem I think was Bob Davie. Davie screwed the Irish up so bad during his tenure there. There was a time when every single great catholic athlete in the Chicago area was going to Notre Dame and nowhere else. Davie pretty much ended that, and now Weis is trying to get that pipeline back. Agree or Disagree? I mean that is such a huge population, that Bob Davie just ignored for years.

[Pope Flick]

You wouldn't constitute the win vs Michigan State as lucky? I don't believe btw, that willingham is better than weis. I think the jury is still out on Weis as a head coach, but I do see an attitude change. Willingham is a good coach that was put into a no-win situation. I don't think he's a bad coach, he's proving in Washington that he can coach, and he proved it at Stanford. I just don't think Notre Dame was the right situation for him at all. I do think Weis makes some great game decisions, and is very good at clock management (no doubt learned under the master Bill Bellichick). I'm just not ready to subscribe to the assumption (from a lot of Notre Dame "fans") that the guy can part Lake Michigan. I do see your guys' point about him bringing a winning attitude to the Notre Dame program, something that has been lacking for a long time. The biggest problem I think was Bob Davie. Davie screwed the Irish up so bad during his tenure there. There was a time when every single great catholic athlete in the Chicago area was going to Notre Dame and nowhere else. Davie pretty much ended that, and now Weis is trying to get that pipeline back. Agree or Disagree? I mean that is such a huge population, that Bob Davie just ignored for years.

 

 

With Davei or Willingham ND is 1-3 this year, and maybe get beat by Penn State.

 

I disagree about Ty. He's a good coach for a decent program. Not so at ND. In fact, as much as I love Weis his team next year will be 8-4 at best in all likelihood, if not worse. Reason? Ty's recruiting "skills."

 

True, he did get Brady Quinn to come to ND. He also recruited Samardja who had 2 TDs in 2 years until Weis rolled in and he caught 15. Ty's problem lay in the fact that by his 3rd year for some reason his recruting had slipped terribly. His final class (this year's Jrs) was only 15 out of 25 scholarships. How does a college like ND eat 10 scholarships? That led to his demise because whether or not true, it gave the appearance that he didn't care on some level. (as an aside, look at his first for Washington: it included 3 players who weren't offered scholarships by ANY OTHER COLLEGE). That half-ass class has created a bottleneck the Weis needs to break, but clearly he can only do so much. Of those 15 players, about half left when he was fired, leaving what amounts to 17 JRs on this year's team (a few walkons have been added) of 104. In other words, Weis has Seniors, Sophpmores and Freshman and almost no JRs who will provide SR stability next season and I think that's going to hurt him for that year, but it should result in a solid, legit team in 2008.

 

Davie had more to do with Ty getting fired because of what you said above. ND simply couldn't afford to be patient as they hemorraged further. If Ty had been hired before Davie, there's no telling what would have happened.

[GWPFFL BrianW]

good point on the scholarships. Had no idea the Irish ate 10. That's inexcusable for any program IMO.

[Possum Jenkins]

 

True, he did get Brady Quinn to come to ND....

 

 

 

All due respect, but Quinn didn't even get a sniff from ND until Nduque (who was recruited by ND and had already committed) and his dad talked Willingham (or someone in recruiting) into taking a look at him. All Quinn ever wanted to do was go to ND and he was days away from committing elsewhere when ND finally came around to giving him a scholarship.

 

Samardja, on the other hand, languished on the depth chart until McKnight's injury and Weis's coaching made him into one of the most prolific receivers in Irish history.

 

Willingham is a joke. Word is he used to sneak on to the ND golf course on the second or third hole and back off on the seventeenth so that there wouldn't be a record of the number of rounds he was playing. Word also is he was pretty much a jacka$$ to play with, which doesn't surprise me in the least. This guy didn't work or recruit for $hit.

 

Once Weis gets through the last two years of Willingham's recruiting (Willingham's last official year and Weis's first, where he was just cleaning up the recruiting after the Superbowl when Willingham had already screwed it up) there will be a marked improvement from where ND is right now. They aren't NC caliber yet, but in two years they are going to start a run that rivals the recent success of USC.