Sports blog information from USA TODAY.
Knute Rockne was the highest former Fighting Irish coach to make the list, coming in at three. He trails only Paul Bryant and Nick Saban on the list.
In honor of 150 years of College Football, ESPN and other publications have been releasing their lists of greatest all-time everything this year.
Earlier we went over the 150 greatest games list and the incredible games Notre Dame contributed to that list both good and bad.
Today ESPN released their rankings of the 150 greatest coaches in college football history.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Notre Dame is again well represented.
First up – “Rock”
offers from several powerhouses including Ohio State, LSU, Michigan, Penn State, Florida and plenty of others. He made it known to the world Monday that Notre Dame was in.
The race to find the next great pass rusher at Notre Dame is on as Brian Kelly’s staff made a big-time scholarship offer Monday, to one of the top 2021 prospects in all of the northeast.
Aaron Armitage is listed as a four-star recruit from Blair Academy in New Jersey has already been given offers from several powerhouses including Ohio State, LSU, Michigan, Penn State, Florida and plenty of others. He made it known to the world Monday that Notre Dame was in.
Blessed to have received an offer from The University of Notre Dame☘️ ☘️ ☘️
@SaylorBlairFB @MikeCoyle12 @chatfootball @mccarthy_report @RivalsFriedman @BrianDohn247 @TodderickHunt @alexgleitman @gbowman26 @chatfootball @SWiltfong247 @CoachMikeElston @CoachBrianKelly pic.twitter.com/OLE1XDLjlY— Aaron Armitage (@armitage_aaron) December 9, 2019
Armitage is listed as 6-4 and 242 pounds and is easy to spot on film.
//www.hudl.com/embed/video/3/11616839/5da151ed6899191a883583ee
The current Notre Dame commitment list in 2021 is very-highly regarded but only has one defensive player on it, Gabriel Rubio, a defensive tackle from Saint Peters, Missouri.
You may look from a far and wonder how in the world a 7-5 Iowa State was chosen to get to Orlando over 8-4 squads they lost to. You might not think of a traditional football powerhouse when you hear Iowa State but they’ve got a following that would lead you to believe otherwise.
When chinstraps are finally buckled, mouth pieces are in and the Camping World Bowl gets here on December 28, Notre Dame and Iowa State will be playing for the first time in each-others history.
What needs to be known about Notre Dame’s next opponent as preparations for the season-finale are now upon us?
Here are five things to know about the 7-5 Iowa State Cyclones.
A Loyal Following Helped Earn Them This Invite
Since taking the Penn State job in 2014 he’s returned the Nittany Lions to glory, winning the Big Ten in 2016 before falling in the Rose Bowl to USC. What about Kelly?
News came down Friday that Penn State head football coach James Franklin has been extended through 2025, putting an end to rumors he’d end up at Florida State.
That got me wondering about where Brian Kelly ranks in terms of all college football coaches.
If Saban is the GOAT and Dabo Swinney is the next best thing going, how far down would you have to go in order to find Brian Kelly?
James Franklin took a program that was awful before and has again turned south since his departure into a pretty respectable team in his time at Vanderbilt.
Since taking the Penn State job in 2014 he’s returned the Nittany Lions to glory, winning the Big Ten in 2016 before falling in the Rose Bowl to USC.
He’s gone 55-23 overall since 2014 but 44-11 in his four years Penn State has played without any scholarship restrictions.
Residing in the Big Ten East is no simple life as Ohio State, Michigan and Michigan sit in your division and provide top-tier competition on an annual basis (OK, perhaps not Michigan State).
It gets me wondering though, which coach would you rather have if I were to give five years with each at the helm?
Brian Kelly took advantage of a generous schedule by year-three and had Notre Dame playing in (and getting blown out in) the national championship his third year on campus. Year-nine saw Kelly take Notre Dame to the College Football Playoff where eventual national champion Clemson routed them, 30-3.
Franklin has won at Penn State and in his first year without scholarship restrictions won the Big Ten. However, he hasn’t done so again and despite having a top-ten team this season, is yet to get back to that second Rose Bowl appearance.
I’m curious which coach you’d rather have going forward.
Brian Kelly appears to have an elite recruiting class taking shape for 2021, 11 years into his run.
Franklin again won ten games in one of college football’s best divisions and seems to have Penn State on a level they haven’t been at with any consistency since the nineties.
It’s a tough to make a choice and both coaches bring plenty of off-the-field drama with them.
But gun to my head, Kelly has shown an ability to hire quality assistants on the regular who often take head jobs elsewhere and find the next up-and-comer in the coaching ranks regularly.
That’s something Franklin is yet to show, as he has watched only Joe Moorhead leave, taking the Mississippi State job previous to 2018.
Although a longer tenure, Kelly has seen Chuck Martin, Matt LaFleur, Butch Jones, Bob Diaco and Autry Denson take head jobs elsewhere after being his assistants at various points the last decade or so.
The ability to hire quality assistants is so important to me and if Kelly keeps seeing assistants get head-jobs, it must mean he’s doing something right.
James Franklin is a very good college football coach and worthy of every dime he gets from Penn State.
But even if you complain about Brian Kelly on the regular, would you take Franklin over him given the chance?
At very worst that question is harder than you’d like to admit while truthfully, Kelly’s resume at Notre Dame is incredibly-difficult to compete with unless you’ve actually won a national championship.
Franklin’s extension at Penn State and the desire of other premier programs to hire him should make you appreciate Brian Kelly as a coach a bit more, even if you’re not entirely in love with him.
It didn’t take long at all for Kyle Hamilton to make his presence known at Notre Dame this year as fall camp was pretty much just a daily breakdown of how many interceptions the freshman from Atlanta had that particular afternoon.
It didn’t take long at all for Kyle Hamilton to make his presence known at Notre Dame this year as fall camp was pretty much just a daily breakdown of how many interceptions the freshman from Atlanta had that particular afternoon.
It didn’t take long for him to make an impact on the gamefield either, getting substancial playing time as a true-freshman in the opener against Louisville before returning his first career college interception for a touchdown a week later against New Mexico.
The season would see him pull down four interceptions in total and have pretty much an entire defensive gameplan built around him in October’s win over USC.
On Friday Pro Football Focus named their Freshman All-American Team and named Hamilton their first-team safety.
Notre Dame landed the best coverage safety in the entire 2019 recruiting class. Hamilton recorded a near-elite 89.7 coverage grade in his true freshman season, allowing just seven passes to be completed on 22 targets. Those seven went for 74 yards and no touchdowns. However, the Fighting Irish safety stole possession four times by way of interceptions, and he forced another five pass breakups for a passer rating of 3.0 when targeted, best among all defenders in the nation with at least 15 targets.
– Pro Football Focus 12/6/2019
High praise for a star in the making at Notre Dame.
Finally the biggest draw in the Big XII comes up on our breakdown. Is Texas back?
In one of the worst kept secrets in college football at this point, we sit and wait to act surprised when on Sunday we will all officially find out that No. 15 Notre Dame will be headed to play a Big XII opponent in the 2019 Camping World Bowl.
That means a trip to Orlando but who the Irish play in the game is still very much up in the air for multiple different reasons.
For one – Oklahoma and Baylor both right now sit at six and seven in the College Football Playoff rankings respectively, with both still being very much alive for a potential New Year’s Six Bowl game berth if they are to fall in Saturday’s conference championship.
🚨 FINAL BOWL PROJECTIONS OF THE SEASON 🚨 pic.twitter.com/MSoZHAtzrE
— Camping World Bowl (@CWBowl) December 4, 2019
That’s important because it would change the Alamo automatically getting whoever loses and instead, give the bowl the chance to pick which of the 5-4 Big XII teams it would like, as Kansas State, Iowa State, Oklahoma State and Texas all finished in a tie for third place after all going 5-4 in conference play.
It got me wondering though – who should Notre Dame fans be rooting for to play?
I get that some Irish fans will have a family or friend that is connected to one of the schools that will make that their obvious choice, but for everyone who doesn’t, what are you rooting for to happen?
A quick look at the potential match-ups, one at a time.
Kansas State
Notre Dame checks in just ahead of Wisconsin and Penn State who come in at nine and ten respectively while the same Michigan team who beat Notre Dame 45-14 in late October checks in at 11.
Notre Dame football fans have been a bit frustrated and upset that despite going 5-0 in the month of November, their Fighting Irish squad only moved up to the fifteenth spot in this week’s College Football Playoff rankings, two whole spots higher than they were rated five games ago at the start of November.
It won’t get them out of the Camping World Bowl and into the Cotton or Orange Bowls, but there was one place that does see them as a top-ten team in the nation.
Pro Football Focus released their latest PFFELO rankings following Week 14 of the college season and threw some significant praise Notre Dame’s way, ranking them seventh.
In their summary of the 10-2 Fighting Irish, Pro Football Focus offered the following:
It was back to a below-average passing grade for Ian Book, who had previously strung together three quality performances in an otherwise up-and-down 2019 campaign. The Fighting Irish still covered on Saturday thanks to a defensive touchdown with under a minute to go. The Fighting Irish defense didn’t quite live up to lofty preseason expectations, though, as we had them ranked as the top overall defensive unit in the country in the preseason. They have dropped to third in our opponent-adjusted unit ranking and are only represented by one honorable mention on the PFF All-American team. – Pro Football Focus on Notre Dame
I hadn’t previously seen that PFF had Notre Dame ranked as the best defensive unit in the country before the season started but that’s a bit surprising. Not that the unit wasn’t still very good outside of one awful night, but as we saw replacing the likes of Jerry Tillery, Drue Tranquill and Julian Love was a lot to ask, especially early on.
Notre Dame checks in just ahead of Wisconsin and Penn State who come in at nine and ten respectively while the same Michigan team who beat Notre Dame 45-14 in late October checks in at 11.
I won’t spoil the whole poll, you should check out their site for the full rankings but I will share that their lack of Baylor support at 17 is more than a bit surprising.
Buchner finished his 13-game junior season averaging 467 total yards per game, 6071 total yards and 81 total touchdowns.
Tyler Buchner won’t be playing quarterback at Notre Dame until at least the fall of 2021 but his recently released highlight tape has fans and scouts alike lighting up with excitement.
This might be the best player in the Country for 2021. Remember this tweet. 😎 pic.twitter.com/65zcTIBaOT
— Keith Miller (@coachKeith_100) November 30, 2019
Although his team The Bishop’s School or La Jolla, California lost the state championship last week, the fault hardly fell on Buchner who threw for 296 yards and three touchdowns while rushing for 353 and scoring five times on the ground.
No, that Lamar Jackson-at-Louisville stat-line isn’t a misprint.
Buchner finished his 13-game junior season averaging 467 total yards per game, 6071 total yards and 81 total touchdowns.
His highlight tape is somehow even more impressive than the stats.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUPvz3qGics&w=560&h=315]
Notre Dame is in a very good place having just wrapped up their third straight ten-win season, but Fighting Irish fans are understandably stoked for when Buchner will arrive in 2021.
Helton entered the year very much on the hot seat and no-doubt an 8-4 record with a bad loss at BYU, another loss to Notre Dame and a blowout loss to Oregon didn’t help his cause.
After an up-and-down season it appears change is on the way in Troy.
Sports Illustrated is reporting USC will let Clay Helton go, creating a very interesting job opening for Notre Dame’s biggest rival.
Helton entered the year very much on the hot seat and no-doubt an 8-4 record with a bad loss at BYU, another loss to Notre Dame and a blowout loss to Oregon didn’t help his cause.
𝗕𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗚: USC to dismiss head coach Clay Helton, per multiple sourceshttps://t.co/oDJjfQszqn
— Adam Maya (@AdamJMaya) December 1, 2019
The article lists Urban Meyer as USC’s top-target.
Even with the off-the-field issues he carries with him everywhere he goes, Meyer is a legendary football coach who would be a knockout hire.
Helton ends his USC run with a 40-21 overall record and a Rose Bowl victory at the conclusion of the 2016 season.
Helton started 21-6 in his first two full-seasons in charge but finished just 13-11 since the start of 2019.
Helton went 1-4 in his five games against Brian Kelly led Notre Dame, losing his debut in 2015 and winning in blowout fashion in 2016 before dropping the last three rivalry match-ups.
Stay tuned to FIW as this story and coaching search at Notre Dame’s biggest rival continues to develop.
It doesn’t ultimately matter in terms of ending the 31 year drought of winning a national championship but Notre Dame’s resumes stacked up next to a few teams ahead of it is interesting.
Following their 45-24 win at Stanford, Notre Dame moved up in this week’s Amway Coaches Poll Powered by USA Today.
Just who then did they pass?
Well, to some Fighting Irish fans delight they moved past that team that embarrassed them on national television at the end of October.
The latest Amway Coaches Poll:
1. LSU
2. Ohio State
3. Clemson
4. Georgia
5. Utah
6. Oklahoma
7. Florida
8. Baylor
9. Alabama
10. Wisconsin
11. Penn State
12. Auburn
13. Oregon
14. Notre Dame
15. Minnesota
16. Memphis
17. Boise State
18. Michigan
19. Iowa
20. Appalachian State
21. Cincinnati
22. Virginia
23. Navy
24. Southern Cal
25. Air Force
Dropped out: Oklahoma State and Virginia Tech
Realistically we could see Oregon and Wisconsin both lose next weekend, both having tough matchups in their respective conference championship games. If they both lose we could see Notre Dame move into the top-12 at the conclusion of the regular season.
It doesn’t ultimately matter in terms of ending the 31 year drought of winning a national championship but Notre Dame’s resumes stacked up next to a few teams ahead of it is interesting.
Many reputation vs. actual production discussions to be had. We will discuss as the week goes on.
