Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Todd McShay- Are You Drunk Right Now?


Since I work from home, I get to watch TV during the day. I just saw EsPN's college football head tell me that he thought it was noteworthy that UND finally is back in the national picture, from a recruiting standpoint...HUH?

Here's what I see:
'06 UND was 8th nationally, according to Rivals (5th according to Scout)
'07- 8th/11th
'08- 2nd/2nd
'09- 20th/23rd

Now, I'm not a math guy, per se, but That doesn't look to me like UND has made big strides. But then again, I don't work for EsPN.

Addendum
Hope's full recruiting class has signed...Rich Rodriguez did not get involved this season.

3 comments:

J Money said...

NBC agrees with Todd McShay's assessment.

Charlie Weis is hungy.

Plang said...

They weren't top 10 last year - that's what he means. What they seem to ignore is that recruiting doesn't mean jack s*** if the coach doesn't get much out of them. What good does being in the top 10 in recruiting do for you if your team plays below the 80th team level.

Personally, I hope recruiting there stays hot - It will make everyone scratch their heads when the best UND can do is squeak out 8 wins against a weak schedule.

Anonymous said...

ND fan here. I come to this board quite often as i enjoy Purdue basketball and am obviously interested in Purdue football given they are on schedule every year...so here is an unwarranted outsider perspective.

Make or break year for Chuck. I've given him a pass the last two years as this is the first year since Quinn left that his guys are truly making up the team. Starting in 07, the junior or senior classes did not have much if any talent in them. While there were sketchy coaching decisions, the team was incredibly young and the experienced players just weren't very good. Similar to Michigan this year. Weis first full class has pretty much washed out due to transfers or players not being as talented as subsequent classes. The only very good players in that class are Sam Young, Eric Olsen, and Darrin Walls.

Weis has shown he can win big with experienced talent and thats what he has on offense with Clausen, Allen, Tate, Floyd, Rudolph. Defense should be very talented also.

With the marshmallowy schedule (and that may be an understatement), anything under 10 wins is probably a reflection of poor coaching. ND will be favored, most likely, in 11 games this year. The games that stick out as potential roadblocks outside of USC are vs MSU, vs BC, and at Pitt.

As far as this class, if you look at average stars rather than the rankings, which are volume based, ND comes in at 11th on Rivals. This doesn't take into account that there were 3 special teamers taken, a K, P, and LS. All of whom are ranked #1 or #2 at their position. Wood, Evans, Watt, Stockton, Motta, and Te'o should all play this year. It's a good class, not as good as last year, but a good sandwich class between last years 1 overall and next years class which should be huge.

Anyways, just thought I'd give you a little background from a different perspective.

Keep up the great work on this blog. It's definitely one I try to hit quite often!