Category: Brian Kelly

Fighting Irish Football returns to the practice field

The Notre Dame Football team returned to the practice field in preparation for the 2020 season yesterday.

Since Notre Dame has announced that none of their players tested positive for COVID-19, it seemed safe to be able to get back onto the practice field but with precautions. That’s exactly what happened yesterday as Brian Kelly led his team back to work.

The hype video showed the team in three different areas: in their outside field, in the weight room and in the new indoor facilities as well. It looks like masks were worn only inside the weight room, a practice the Irish football players should get used to.

It’s great to see the football team get back in action, but with much consternation about what will happen in the 2020 season. At the current moment only the PAC12 and B1G have announced conference-only schedules, with the SEC, ACC and Big XII still yet to make a decision. This obviously looms large, as the Irish await what the rest of the college football world does. At least we have the return of the Irish to the practice field.

Notre Dame: This Week in Twitter

Another week of Notre Dame centric tweets can be seen right here.

Let’s take a look back at this week’s action on Notre Dame Twitter:

 

Happy Birthday transfer safety Nick McCloud

Happy Birthday to incoming freshman tight end Michael Mayer

Head Football Coach Brian Kelly changes his profile pic

Notre Dame Football account does the same

Kelly has been impressive during his tenure with the Irish

Head Baseball Coach Link Jarrett hired a year ago Sunday

Former Notre Dame basketball star John Paxson on his time in South Bend

Lou Holtz sticking up for the Fighting Irish nickname

College Football Jobs Ranked, Notre Dame highly coveted

The Irish head coaching job has been and will continue to be one of the best jobs in all of college football.

Coaching the fabled Notre Dame program has always been a high-profile job, expectations for every coach that lead the football program will always be sky high. Although the Irish have not won a title since 1988, the job is still held in high regards as 247Sport named the position as the 9th most coveted head coaching job in the country.

Brad Crawford, who ranked the jobs for 247Sports, sees that “there might not be a brand stronger than Notre Dame in college football. Touchdown Jesus, South Bend, the gold helmets … you get it.” It very hard to argue against that, there are not many schools with the same tradition that Notre Dame sports.

The explanation of the ranking is something that we all know, but Crawford points out two reasons why the Notre Dame job gets the 9th spot. The “drawbacks here that other programs don’t have in the Top 10 is location and academics. The standards at Notre Dame are higher than most and Indiana isn’t exactly pumping out elite athletes annually. That’s why Brian Kelly has taken a nationwide approach to recruiting during his tenure.”

The national approach has worked, but not quite as well as Kelly would like. In the last 5 recruiting cycles, including the current one, the Irish will have signed just 2 instate players. Kelly has said the recruiting needs to go to another level to compete with the teams they need to beat to be among the best in the nation.

The Notre Dame head coaching job will always be one that comes with gigantic expectations and lots of scrutiny. It is not cut out for every coach, some of them just can’t handle what it means to be the Irish’s lead man. Kelly’s been at the helm for 10 years now and he’s helped bring back some respectability after the Bob Davie, Ty Willingham and Charlie Weis eras.

Sporting News ranks best programs of the decade, Notre Dame ranked highly

Bill Bender of the Sporting News came up with a formula to determine the best schools from the last decade and Notre Dame finished high.

The end of the decade has brought many people to retrospectively look at what has happened in the last 10 seasons.

Bill Bender of Sporting News came up with a system to determine the best schools, giving 10 points for a national title, 5 points for each title game appearance and college football playoff selection, 3 points for a New Year’s Six or BCS bowl appearance and 2 points for each Heisman winner. Winning percentage, All-Americans and NFL draft picks were also part of the equation.

With that scoring system, the Irish amassed 27 points, which put them 12th. Bender breaks down the last 10 years of Irish football, noting that “Brian Kelly led the Irish to a BCS championship appearance and a College Football Playoff appearance as part of undefeated regular seasons, but the reality checks Alabama and Clemson provided show what it takes to reach those national championship heights. The Irish are 33-6 the past three seasons and have produced the 11th-most NFL draft picks.”

Looking at the top five schools, Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, Oklahoma and LSU, only the Sooners have not won a championship in that time frame. The Nick Saban-led Crimson Tide dominated the decade, resulting in 166 points, over 40 more than second-place Clemson. Not too hard when you played for a championship 6 out of the 10 years.

Only 7 points separated the Irish and Auburn, which was 10th, while 8.5 points away was Wisconsin at 8th. The Irish are not that far away from being viewed as one of the best teams of the decade, and, hopefully, this decade is a bit more fruitful than last 10 years.

This past week in Notre Dame Twitter

Take a look at the best Irish tweets from the week.

Going forward, we at Irish Wire will bring you the best of what we saw during the week on Twitter every Sunday. Hope you enjoy!

Irish 2021 defensive tackle commit Gabe Rubio getting some work in:

Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly preaching the team’s new motto:

Great qualifications for associate head coach Mike Elston:

Happy birthday to transfer wide receiver Bennett Skowronek:

Recently drafted Notre Dame pitcher Joe Boyle signs his contract with the Cincinnati Reds:

Notre Dame hockey shows off its sweet helmets:

The hype for Irish linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah continues:

Notre Dame commit Buchner Compared to 1st Round NFL Draft Choice

The future Irish signal caller, Tyler Buchner, has been compared to a rival school first round selection at quarterback.

Last year in March, California quarterback Tyler Buchner made his college decision. His selection delighted Irish fans, as the five-star player kicked off the 2021 recruiting class. Buchner missed the majority of his sophomore year after an ACL injury, but that didn’t stop Brian Kelly from accepting his verbal commitment. A return to the field in his junior year, only made Kelly’s decision to accept the pledge look fantastic: Buchner returned to his elite form.

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With yet another round of updates to the 2021 recruiting class, Buchner kept his five-star designation, and 247Sports took a look at each of those prospects. As the 28th overall prospect, Buchner will arrive in South Bend next year with extremely high expectations. National recruiting analyst Greg Biggins sees a bright future for Buchner as he “projects as a impact upper tier Power Five starter and future high-round NFL draft pick.”

Chance Linton, who assembled the piece, gave Buchner a second-round NFL draft projection. What was interesting, however, was the player comparison Linton gave Buchner, former USC quarterback Sam Darnold. The former rival QB threw for 7,229 yards with a 57/22 TD to INT ratio in 27 career games, 24 starts. It’s high praise to be compared to the third overall pick of the 2018 draft.

When Buchner arrives on campus, if his ranking stays in the same area, he will be the highest-rated quarterback recruit to enroll at Notre Dame since Gunner Kiel in 2012.

Buchner will have an opportunity to contribute as a freshman. With senior Ian Book playing out his eligibility, a fierce competition for the starting spot is expected. Brendon Clark will enter 2021 as a third-year player, while Drew Pyne will be on his second season in South Bend.

Buchner will battle both for the starting spot, and, as the highest rated of the three, he might just be able to beat his competition and make an impact early in his Irish career.

Irish in Top 4 for Class of 2021 Michigan WR

Notre Dame makes the cut for a very intriguing wide receiver prospect in enemy territory.

Over the weekend, Michigan standout wide receiver Andrel Anthony released his final 4 schools, as instate Michigan and Michigan State along with Penn State joined Notre Dame as contenders for his commitment.

Although Anthony has yet to set a commitment date, the 6’2” and 175-pound wide out will be difficult to lure out of his hometown of East Lansing. The Spartan’s are viewed as the favorite in Anthony’s recruitment, so Brian Kelly and DelVaughn Alexander have their work cut out for them.

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At this stage of the 2021 Irish recruiting class, there is just one wide receiver committed, Ohio’s Lorenzo Styles Jr. Notre Dame is definitely looking to add another player to the position group, as they previously had a commitment from Georgia’s Deion Colzie. It seems like the search to find a pairing to join Styles Jr. is continuing and Anthony would be a welcome addition to the group if Notre Dame can lure him away from the Mitten state.

Notre Dame announces staNDtogether Time

The Irish football team with get together tomorrow and hold a prayer along with a peaceful march on campus.

The Notre Dame football team will come together tomorrow, Friday June 19th for a peaceful prayer and walk in support of equality and unity. The march begins at 12:30pm EST at the Irish Green Arena, and a request has been made to wear black along with protective face coverings.

The Irish now join multiple schools who have responded to the Black Lives Matter movement, including Clemson, South Carolina, Auburn and others to back the cause. After multiple instances of issues around the country, such as Iowa firing their strength and conditioning coach Chris Doyle for numerous accusations from players for his treatment of them, Oklahoma State’s head coach wearing a OAN shirt and star running back Chuba Hubbard not standing for that.

It takes many for a movement like this to continue to see progress and the Irish have joined in on the cause. Just look at how many player’s tweeted about the event.

 

 

 

Notre Dame understands it reach and the impact they can have on many young peoples lives. Actions like these bring groups together and with the college football season still influx anything the Irish can find to rally around is a good thing.

New 247Sports Recruit Rankings Sees Irish Commit Fall

With a new update to the 2021 class recruit rankings, a once highly thought of Notre Dame commit has fallen in 247Sports update.

In their newest update to their Top 247 players at 247Sports, Notre Dame commit Cane Berrong is going the wrong way in the rankings. Previously the Georgia tight end was the 218th overall player, but with another update, Berrong has dropped once again, all the way off the list.

It seems like the recruiting service is not very high on the tight end, as Berrong continues to see his ranking fall. It is unfortunate for the Irish to see this happen, but it’s hard to justify prospects moving anywhere due to the inactivity this summer with the country dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Players all across the country are being reevaluated on old tape and it doesn’t make much sense to me why we’re seeing movement in the rankings.

Looking at the rest of the class, there wasn’t as much movement. The crown jewel of the 2021 Notre Dame recruiting class is California quarterback Tyler Buchner, who went from 49th to 43rd, a move in the positive direction. Offensive tackle Blake Fisher dropped one spot to 85th, while wide receiver Lorenzo Styles Jr. moved up 3 spots to 125th. Gabriel Rubio, the defensive tackle from Missouri, once again dropped, this time from 112th to 147th while Philip Riley stayed at 216th in the country.

With this new update the Notre Dame 2021 recruiting class is currently 15th in the country, with just 11 total commits. Brian Kelly has made it known that to get to the next level, the Irish need to recruit with the elite’s like Clemson, Alabama, Ohio State and Georgia. Kelly and his staff will need to step their game up in order to finish near the top of the recruiting rankings this cycle.

Rivals: Irish in on top RB’s but not seen as leaders

Notre Dame has offered many backs in the 2021 cycle and face uphill battles to gain a commitment from one of them.

There is a lot of unknown as to who will lineup beside quarterback Ian Book for the 2020 season. What we do know is that after this year, the Irish will graduate Jafar Armstrong, Avery Davis, and Stanford transfer Trevor Speights, although each of them could petition the NCAA for an extra year of eligibility. If both opt to move on, the roster would only have 4 scholarship backs remaining.

This probably isn’t a number Brian Kelly and running back’s coach Lance Taylor want to see, so getting a quality running back in the 2021 is extremely important. Rivals took a look at the best 5 remaining uncommitted backs and the Irish have offered all but one of them.

The Irish have offered Texas’ Camar Wheaton, but at this moment he is viewed as a pipedream for Notre Dame. Mike Farrell, Rivals national director of recruiting, see Oklahoma as the leader in Wheaton’s recruitment. Michigan’s Donovan Edwards, however, is a much more realistic possibility for the Irish. Edwards had intended to visit multiple schools over the summer, but COVID-19 has stopped everyone from visiting schools. Although Farrell sees Michigan as the leader for Edwards, he also sees the back’s recruitment to drag on for a few more months prior to a commitment. If the Irish push hard for Edwards, I could see him spurning the Wolverines and heading a bit south to South Bend.

Like Wheaton, another Texas star in LJ Johnson has an Irish offer, but Notre Dame is not seen as a player in his recruitment. Prophet Brown, a California prospect, is a back that I really think could be a great fit in the Irish offense. Unfortunately, like Edwards, the Irish are trailing in Brown’s recruitment to the supposed leader in Oklahoma. Here is the kicker, the Sooners are in on Wheaton and are looking at Brown as more of a defensive back. These two factors could play a huge role in the Irish being able to get Brown’s attention and ultimately land a commitment from the back.

Getting a quality back in this class is paramount, the depth needs to be addressed. It could be another graduate transfer like Speights or the Irish could land one these talented backs. Look for Notre Dame to make a push for a 2021 back to create some solid depth for Taylor’s group.