surprising to me.
I hope FIsher and Spindler rising up so high so early reflects how great they are - like future Day1 or Day 2 NFL draftees - rather than how weak we are at OL with the guys of the prior two classes.
No surprise at WR. No size at WR anymore. They all seem like "good guys" but serviceable is the term that comes to mind. These guys wouldn't be stars anywhere it seems. Davis and Lenzy best of the bunch of suppose. Austin - he has been hurt so much I can't bring myself to think he'll do anything.
CB seems fine. SS is desperate. Maybe we can get a grad transfer????
Two Back, Two TE seems like the way to go. Have Lenzy or Davis be lone wqide out.
Buchner clearly has physical skills. Throwing motion weird but I assume he can scramble open and creat mayhem. I hope Coan starts and we ensure a wide open competition next Spring. Coan's style probably closer to what Kelly likes anyway.
Will step up
I heard that too. Possible, yes. Hyperbole to make a point, maybe.
Been there, done that.
Two main reasons why our WR recruits underperform. One, our staff does not develop home grown players very well. Case in point: Michael Young, who is not as talented as a few young guys on our roster, had a breakout year at Cincinnati in 2020.
Two, we haven't had a top QB and passing game in the Kelly era. Kizer had arguably the single best season in 2015 with Will Fuller as his main target, but every other year has been average or below average.
as the WRs themselves if not more. Very good WRs can underperform with average QBs. Book for all his skills and grit was not a great passer. His accuracy was ok. He was not great on deep ball and he, whether by design or his conservative nature, would not make throws to give WRs a chance to make contested catches. And Book was the best of the group other than Kizer as you note. Kelly’s QB recruiting and coaching is one of his biggest failings among the list. I cannot understand how given the exposure a QB gets at ND he has failed to get elite talent. Buchner is the only hope to be that on roster and coming in.
which I don't understand. The level of talent has dropped exponentially since Denbrock left with multiple entire class whiffs. This last class looks decent but I'm not confident Alexander will coach them up.
Par for the course.
All for access....which is almost nil to begin with.
always the waiver wire, I suppose.
I'll use Claypool as an example. Great kid/player/measurables...he goes in the 2nd round and his rookie NFL production says he should have been a 1st rounder. Why wasn't he? I think it was because of Book and his inaccuracy...when he got to the NFL and with a real and accurate QB, he became a better and more effective player.
chicken/egg stuff, I guess. But the QB play at ND under Kelly has been mediocre. Golston may have been the most effective QB Kelly has had. That Tommy Rees was a multi season starter still boggles my mind. Kizer had a good first year. Zaire...nope. Wimbush...ditto. Great kids and athletes, but not elite college QB's.
Not that it is overly impressive, but the QB development under Kelly has been terrible.
It's not a coincidence that top level QBs don't give ND a sniff.