The head scratching aspect is the two extremes of his tenure

by FunkDoctorSpock, Your Nightmares, B* tches, Tuesday, February 17, 2009, 05:28 (6253 days ago) @ omahadomer
edited by FunkDoctorSpock, Tuesday, February 17, 2009, 05:42

The first two years were the best by any coach at ND since Ara. Wins, winning percentage, degree of improvement over the last two years of the prior regime, scoring differential, etc.

The next two years were, all told, one of the very worst stretches in ND history.

ND, after all was said and done, was one of the most improved teams in the country in 2008. We were +3.5 in wins and +181 in points. That's on par with the gains made by UNC and Pitt and slightly below what Alabama accomplished. But you can't look at that and fail to comment on the fact that ND was coming off a 3-9 sh*tfest.

For me, the thing that was most encouraging about the Hawaii Bowl was the fact that the team was able to lock in and play well, and respond to the coaching staff, despite the way the regular season ended. For lack of a better term, the got up off the mat.

I ran the numbers on all 44 BCS conference/affiliated bowl teams (which I will post back here this week) and what that showed is that ND was the youngest of all those teams. We managed to make, and win, a bowl game despite the fact that true freshmen started more games than 5th year seniors. That's almost unheard of in college football.

But again, that must be tempered by that fact that the two other youngest teams were Georgia Tech and Florida. Now, Florida is just scary. But Georgia Tech is another story. Lost in the shuffle, it seems, is the fact that that program won 16 games over Gailey's last two seasons and always seemd to pull off at least one upset. Also, Georgia Tech played not one but two IAA teams. When they played a refocused LSU team they got throttled.

As I've said many times, on paper last years team bore a striking resemblance to the 2004 team. And in the end that is what they ended up showing on the field. THe key diffference being that we won our bowl game convincingly and add a Top 20ish recruiting class that has several projected impact players.

It follows that on paper the 2009 team is going to look a great deal like the group from 2005. Only on paper the 2009 team is going to be more experienced and more talented.

I expect ND to be a BCS caliber team in 2009. That's not a rah rah, pie in the sky expectation. That's a perfectly reasonable expectation.

It's true that ND has been, in all likelihood, the youngest major conference team the last two years. But that's in the past.

We have the talent, we have the experience, we have the maturity, we have the playmakers. Do we have an overall coaching staff that can put it all together? If I was a betting man I would bet on yes.