the staff should step back and review if they are getting the most out of existing S&C. There is some evidence we're not.
evidence and that I'd weigh against the 12 other games of evidence.
All these numbers from the combine are about individual players against other individuals for a given position. The game is played with 11 players on the field, not our ILB versus the other teams ILB or our RB versus their RB. It is our 11 O versus their 11 D and vice versa.
Within the context of the NCAA game, ND was able to put 11 players on D and 11 more on O that combined had greater skills and fewer weak links than 12 of the teams we played in 2012 and probably all but about 5 teams in existence.
Our problem was Alabama was able to put 11 players on the other side of the ball that combined were better than our 11 players.
Teo isn't the best NFL prospect at MLB. Motta isn't the best NFL safety prospect. Theo isn't the top NFL RB prospect. None of ND's guys other than maybe Tyler are better than all other NFL prospects at their position. That doesn't mean jack shit in terms of how well ND can play the NCAA game. Their talents at the NCAA level and combined were / are way above average.
We are also playing catchup to the SEC. They are playing a totally different game by a totally different set of rules than we have been playing by. Kelly is trying to rewire ND to find an ethical path to beat them while staying within the rules that they freely ignore. We closed a lot of ground in 2012 -- but not enough. I think it remains possible to beat them at their own game. We don't have to be able to beat them 10 out of 10 times. We don't even have to get good enough to beat them 5 out of 10 times. We have to get good enough to beat them 3 out of 10 times -- and then play our A game in the title game. That's possible in my view.
It also is possible the SEC is going to trip on its dick before we do. It takes one hell of an engine to hide the shit they are doing forever. The SWC did it for 10+ years and then 1 kid at SMU blew the whole thing sky high. History can repeat itself.
valid to use him as an example. However, it is safe to say compared to other NCAA players he was elite. Surrouned by a bunch of other above average NCAA players and it isn't a surprise his OU teams were very good. It wouldn't surprise me if someone said those defenses weren't loaded with a bunch of top 3 draft picks.
Probably the only number that truly surprised me at the combine was Motta's bench. Other than that, their numbers align pretty well with what we saw on the field. Manti's greatest assets are his ability to diagnose plays and beat them before they happen. He was never one to run down backs from behind.
Motta was a hard hitter but often did not have the closing speed to make his tackles in space. He clearly improved in pass coverage but was nowhere near as disruptive and well-positioned as H. Smith was in the passing game last year. I think it was unfair to compare them but perhaps a testament to the improvements he made.
Wood's and Riddick's numbers are exactly what I would have expected.
I just don't get the gnashing of teeth here. Nothing at the combine takes away from the fact that these are good football players.
I have really wanted to make some comments on everyone's reaction, but I couldn't figure out where to start.
The straight line people have drawn connecting a single outlying data point to Longo, the S&C program in general, a lack of "SEC talent," the departure of the nutritionist (especially hysterical to me), etc. has been just mind-boggling.
to form a firm position... despite the fact that there are likely 3x that many points with any issue. Anyone who hasn't read 'thinking fast, thinking slow' should. I digress.
I'd say its 2 points here and everyone's off 'n running with some theory seeking validation, counting yays and nays and pronouncing some finding obvious because "these guys support me." Which is circular reasoning hell.
Couple of points:
The nutritionist has nothing to do with the combine. She supposedly left for more money. That's a commitment issue.
I have no idea what Motta means to S&C. I think we've done well there.
Alabama is kicking everyone's ass, any school that doesn't ask "should we do that"? Is playing for second place and will be pondering later "why didn't we do that"?
Lots of jargon in your head.
I can be guilty of it, but there's none there.
I can say it more simply, "most people find two things that seem to go together, and automatically make assumptions."
Do you like A or B?
I'll also offer C
"Assumption is the mother of all bad thinking"
until people started defending him (for no reason). Even then, most people shrugged their shoulders as if to say it wasn't a big deal and he wasn't "at fault." JVan simply said that we are behind Alabama from a talent and development standpoint, which is pretty hard to argue.
truth be told, if I had known that he was having the guys flip tires in jean shorts and tank tops I likely would have made fun of him.
Sports Nutrition Associate.
Alabama, on the other hand, had just one Director of Performance Nutrition and one Nutrition Intern.
Saban could only get an intern for his second position, while ND opened the checkbook for an Associate. And yet ND still lost.
I just don't understand it.
I must say though, if Saban thinks the second position only merits an intern, why is ND wasting the resources on an Associate? Just another example of ND's screwed up priorities and lack of commitment We'll never catch Alabama with missteps and wasted resources like this.
that should be our core strategic advantage.
But you can't make him eat.
There's something to be said for our lack of speed and strength as observed both on the field and at the combine. Eifert did well at the combine and did well in the AL game given what he had to deal with. Meanwhile his fellow players who are both at the combine and played in the championship haven't done as well.
I wouldn't blame the program but I would look at why we have the outcome we do and make adjustments such that we're putting out a better product than AL does.
a standout from a strength perspective, but we've been winning in the trenches consistently going back to Utah 2010.
I don't think anyone was confused by the S part of S&C.
We did not consistently win in the trenches during several games. Most notably against alabama but puzzlingly against wake forest, pitt, sc, bc and stanford in 2011 as well as byu Purdue Pitt and bc in 2012.
Yes we won games but we failed to establish dominance against weaker programs.
These facts coupled with the performances of our players at the combine suggest that we need work on strength. We have not done very well. Our conditioning can remain about the same and I wouldn't be upset. That is doing very well. If the strength and speed of individual players doesn't improve I imagine most of us will not be happy.
into normal incoherence... followed by impugning motivation, name calling then the infantile 'you're 'with those dumb guys' brilliance, only to reemerge as planted 'socratic' questioning (which has zero to do with the intent of the process.)
Save us a the pain. Ask why and you won't find it absurd.
and try and get ahead of the story to form a narrative.
in defensive mode causing you to post like crazy.
You end up creating long threads out of nothing.
Hold up mirror, look
Kabong nailed it below.
So if I nailed it, then I guess it's good.
Kettle issue.
Most of my posts were meant for one reason but interpreted by others and yourself as meaning or intended to mean something else.
They simply meant what they meant.
I thought it rather poignent.
S&C wasn't a part of the conversation until you made it so.
You refuted complaints that no one was making until you refuted them.
traditional lifting nor 40 times, that's meaningful info that people didn't know. I certainly didn't introduce Longo into the equation, that happened before me.
I didn't "refute" anything. I simply added new information. If anything, my information reinforced the idea that combine times might be related to Longo.
That's the opposite of 'refuting'. Hence Pot/Kettle.
It actually started an interesting discussion that let to PN's informative posts.
If BI/others didn't have this preconceived notion as to the intent of my post, there would be no consternation.
Agree--but is this a sign that Longo is
by Hanratty5ND (2013-02-25 18:38:27) cannot delete | Edit | Return to Board | Ignore Poster | Highlight Poster | Reply to Post
Overhyped?
Have to admit--unless Motta was hurt, 11 reps is a pretty damn embarrassing. How is that possible after 4 years in the program?
Not sure if that says more about Motta or Longo. I keep hearing how great Longo is. And he may be. But ND still needs to get bigger and stronger. The National Title game was evidence of that.
One post justifies multiple threads, most of which were either started by or pumped up by you?
And that's all it had to be, then the preconception party started.
Take out preconception amd JT and it could have been an interesting discussion on Longo's techniques or just ended there.
Your cause and effect are upside down.
They were absolutely horrible in 2012 and we failed to impress. BYU worked us over hard and we did not dominate. SEE said dominate the trenches. We did not do so in those games and any other claim is not factual.
BC was a solid game. BC ran for about 53 yards. Most of their passing yards came on dump-offs. On offense our line controlled the line of scrimmage and we ran for nearly 200 yards. Offensive miscues by our skill players is what prevented that from being an impressive win on the scoreboard, althoug 21-6 isn't terrible.
Against BYU, we ran for almost 300 yards against a very good defense and were in their backfield all day on defense (66 rushing yards allowed and 4 sacks). No clue where you get the idea that we were "worked." Our defense wasn't able to keep them out of the end-zone after our offense gave BYU a couple of short fields (their TD drives were 36 and 50 yards). They gained a little over 100 yds in the secnod half.
we got worked over by BYU. Did you forget Riddick's miracle hand down to stay up for a 55 yard run? BYU was in our backfield all game. There was no domination on our part but we and they had a lot of lucky breaks.
BYU had an interception at our 35 and another at their 39.
We should have locked up victory near the end of the 4th quarter but we couldn't convert 3rd and short because we couldn't dominate the line of scrimmage. You can read all about the game here: http://scores.espn.go.com/ncf/playbyplay?gameId=322940087&period=0
Again, the facts don't support any assertion other than one that suggests that we need to improve. The performance in the combine and on the field suggests we should. Furthermore, no one is discounting the progress we have made as a program and how much a part our improved S&C has played in that progress. That said there's a lot of room to grow.
Please keep in mind that I was directly contradicting the claims made by SEE and even if I cede that we "dominated" BYU (I don't), that doesn't change the fact that our performance in the many other games I mentioned still contradict his claim that we have consistently dominated in the trenches. We haven't.
How did we get worked over by BYU? Please explain. They were in our backfield all game? 1 sack and we averaged 6.3 yards per carry running for nearly 270 yards? A team can't dominate winning 17-14, but we controlled the trenches in that game. Same for BC.
Nobody claimed that we dominated in the trenches in every game. You are blowing one safety struggling on one workout in the Combine way out of proportion. Going toe-to-toe with Stanford is to me the most important thing we did all season. I think that Alabama showed that there is still another step to take, but ND did well in the trenches in '12.
EDIT: I also didn't see the post including the word "dominate" before See's edit. I would definitely not agree that we have consistently dominated in the trenches since 2011.
There is a difference of opinion there. We didn't consistently win the line of scrimmage in 2011 and we certainly did not dominate. We did not consistently dominate in 2012 and we had issues in 2012 that we overcame through good circumstance in many games.
Most disturbingly we didn't dominate lesser opponents. This is not an issue Alabama had.
These nit picky arguments distract from the larger point that we're going to need to improve if we want to win it all. No one is saying we haven't improved.
Tearing down 1/3 of the performances in a 12-0 regular season seems to me to be an odd way to do that. Particularly when you are drawing a line from one players disappointing combine to results during the season (we obviously can win a championship with T'eo playing MLB). Your post didn't read like "2012 was good, but to win a championship we need better athletes."
If you hadn't originally said "consistently dominate in the trenches in the trenches since Utah 2010" then there wouldn't be as much debate about that claim. That said you did and have since edited your post. That's fine but we haven't consistently dominated in the trenches since Utah 2010 and have been worked over pretty badly in many games or failed to dominate teams that should be dominated.
I'm not sure why you didn't respond to the points of my post when in fact you did respond to my post.
and thought you said dominate when you did not then I apologize.
Wrt to controlling the line of scrimmage IMO. I think the yards per carry stats show that.
and there's lots of games from last season that bears that out.
The Stanford game would have been a loss a few years ago, hell maybe even 2011.
Oklahoma and SC would have been a loss, too. They would have outlasted us in both games.
I have no idea why Motta only benched 11 reps or why Te'o ran a poor 40 yard dash.
But I'm pretty sure that it's not because of the S&C coach.
Still, there's no excuse for getting shit-hammered like we did against 'Bama. That wasn't because of Longo either. It was because Brian Kelly called a shit game and the team had its head up its ass.
People are making a lot out of Motta's poor showing. Maybe he got hurt, maybe he has a motivation problem or maybe he was not properly prepared.
Eifert was better than expected, Wood about as expected, T'eo a bit below expectations, Riddick got hurt and Motta well below expectations. That isn't much in the way of a data set.
We got beat by Alabama about every way you can get beat. They had a decided physical advantage on us, our staff got out-coached and two key members of the defense (at least) played the worst games I've seen them play.
You can have the greatest strength coach in the world, and if the players don't put in the extra effort it won't matter. He can't do the lifting for them.
I do think the formal training table has helped things. We didn't have the late season nosedive that we saw, particularly under Weis.
It ultimately comes down to Kelly. Presumably he understands that having a physical advantage over as many opponents as possible will make his job easier.
General tone tends to be negative than positive. More venting than thinking. Tends to be the nature of the beast, I guess. Folks come to places like this to get things off their chest rather than pat each other on the butt.
The Bama game raised the angst level, so some folks continue to see the glass as half empty as opposed to half full.
The combine number reaction appears to be selective logic. Eifert did great, Teo mixed (outside of his 40, which got all of the play, he did well besting his key competition in a number of the tests), and Motta bombed the test.
Not sure what to make of that. Some seem ready to give the S&C program an enema for some reason. S&C is not perfect and there may be a number of steps the staff can take to improve it, but it doesn't seem horribly broken IMO.
nobody said anything about the s and c program until people started to claim that people were complaining about it.
It's another example of people creating an issue where there isn't one in an effort to stay in front of the news and create a narrative. I was going to avoid this thread as it is doing the same but then I read your post.
S&C has been a strength. We looked remarkably strong against Oklahoma, Stanford, etc.
Maybe Longo's a poor S&C coach, but we've seen consistent improvement across the team over a few years. This team has been winning the LOS battles for two years now.
Seems like an odd thing to focus on based off one guy's bench.
If they are conditioned to focus on the problems in the program, they will take one or two players' combine performance and turn it into an indictment of the program as a whole. I am constantly amazed at the traction that such silly illogical points tend to get here at times. My hypothesis is that the love that many have for ND football leads to the irrational ranting. Seldom is there any logic in the points that are made. Ignoring the rantings seems like the best option.
...people read posts that point out improvements that still need to be made and interpret them as "an indictment of the program" when all they're doing is pointing out where we still need to progress. No one is "indicting" anything or anyone.
My sense is most folks here agree on the core issues but present it in opposite (often antagonostic) ways. Some folks carve out the half full side of the debate and tend to present information in a very negative way. Others take the half full approach. The two shall never meet but for some reason feel a desire to convert the other. Not that anyone should care what I think but while I find some good insights here on regular basis, there is a lot of sideshow drama and emoting that seems quite silly, immature, and pointless.
If you come here expecting "NDNation is going to be negative about this", you're going to see negative "tone" anywhere you want.
People have just been wondering if the Bama embarrassment and the so-so showings might indicate an S and C issue. Tey might. They might not.
Some people seem to think that the 12-0 season entitles the staff to a criticism-free zone for the next year.
some people have sought to get out front to prevent criticism but nobody criticized the coaches.
I don't remember the rash of experts telling us how much ND's weaknesses were exposed by Stanford, OU, USC, or Michigan, four pretty talented teams. It's hard to understand just what exactly was the cause for the BCS collapse.
But if Alabama is on a level by itself, how did it lose to A&M, and coulda/shoulda/woulda lost to LSU and/or UGA? A conundrum.
Whelmed by the bright lights while fot the Bama players it was just another BCS champ game. 3. Once ND got down 14 Kelly was in full panic mode.
I think we all understood going in if that happened, we'd get our doors blown off. You're never as bad as your worst game...
. . . Purdue or Pitt. But then Alabama showed up.
or ill.
What in hell has Motta been doing for the last 7 weeks? What was Manti doing?
In fact, I have no doubt about it.
I am sure that coach Longo prepared them very well for their games and overall fitness.
Sometimes guys just don't do well in certain situations. Sometimes some guys just aren't as talented as you'd want them to be.