Where's Golic?

Mike Greenberg filmed an "essay" for the ESPN Fan Feast series, where notable ESPN personalities ruminate on the one sports experience they believe everybody ought to share. I found it amusing that amidst all of his poetic musings on the power of "The Sign" (or PLACT as it is known in shorthand to some), he couldn't make any room in the piece for his radio cohort Mike Golic to perhaps expound on what it was like in the "dark ages" before The Sign. Of course, Greeny did make time for a chuckle-worthy cameo by another Irish icon:

For further reading, the official UND archives has a historical page on The Sign here. Of interesting note - most of the background extras for this piece are ESPN employees. And they say there's a vicious anti-ND bias at the Worldwide Leader.

They Bring You The News

...so you don't have to get it yourself. ESPN's evaluation of Tommy Rees must've been in the outgoing mail bin when I last checked. This morning's full-scale evalutaion:

The first thing that jumps out about Rees is his release. In fact, we are surprised he has not received more attention due to his delivery alone at this stage. He is a prospect that coaches may look at and see an intriguing prospect three years down the road with upside and late bloomer potential...He can beat the rush with his delivery and while he does not have an elite arm, his release can compensate somewhat. Arm strength is efficient and allows for him to make most, if not all the necessary throws when his feet are set. Rees' overall accuracy is also an impressive trait. Throws a soft, catchable pass that rarely strays to far from the strike zone...while he may not be in the elite category in terms of overall physical tools, he has a high ceiling for development and productivity and is the type of player we could see being a different player down the road than he is now. Good, under the radar prospect.

Utupo & Rees Under The Radar; Reaction Over the Top

The reaction in some corners to the most recent ND recruiting developments has me in a more reflective mood (more reflective than usual, I guess). It's not to slight these two men who've just signed on to the program when I say I had know idea who they were or if they were being recruited by Notre Dame until after they announced they'd committed. That such a thing would be consider "odd" says a lot more about me, and the somewhat uncomfortable direction the business of college football has been heading in for some time, than it does about these players.

"Recruiting" used to be a lot different. Coaches, particularly old-timers, acknowledge as much when they have to try and pretend that it's really them using Facebook and Twitter to keep up with the latest high school studs. The explosive powers of the internet have long since put an end to the days when only a select few, if any, high school athletes could garner national attention, to say nothing of the fact that the permanent revolution in the televising and marketing of college sports is expanding the selection of schools every year that a player might find desirable. Put it this way - in 1986, Rocket Ismail knew that only a handful of schools would truly showcase his talent to the whole country, Notre Dame of course being one of them. In today's age, with the power of YouTube and Facebook behind him, Rocket could've been an even bigger star while attending Central Connecticut, because we all would've known about him long before he ever put on a college uniform.

That's why most college football fans are consuming highlight reels and obsessing over star rankings more and more with each passing year. The information is so available - and the players so heavily scrutinized for so long when, only 15 years ago, such proclamations would've been laughed at - that the built-in assumption is that only schools who stockpile 15 "five-star" kids per year are collecting anything resembling a talent base.

To that end, the two commitments Notre Dame picked up on the heels of the July Fourth weekend inspired another idiotic round-robin among the message board and blog community over if the coaching staff had been reduced to scraping the bottom of the barrel. The players in question: DE Justin Utupo (left) of Lakewood, CA & QB Tommy Rees of Lake Forest, IL (above, right). Neither rated in the national top 100 nor the national top 10 at his position. Both were the "last spot", theoretically, for their position in this recruiting class (the Irish now have three defensive ends committed and two quarterbacks, about the norm for a recruiting year which follows one that was light on those roster areas). And both had unwanted distinction of being "the next guy on the list" after other, more highly-touted prospects had chosen schools other than Notre Dame. So the legion of armchair recruiters took to the keyboards and, while not critiquing these two players, certainly held the coaching staff in contempt for "failing" to meet the Notre Dame standard when it comes to the acceptable talent level for recruits. Some of you must surely be thinking "Where have I seen this movie before?"

Of course, I too am an "armchair recruiter" too easily swayed by "eye-popping" scouting reports or ludicrous highlight reel cuts, so it would be unfair of me to launch into a rant about how all the other guys doing the same thing are being unfair. I also would not dispute the notion that if a "bigger name" in the quarterback department such as Blake Bell or Devin Gardner had committed, Tommy Rees probably wouldn't be in the position to get an offer from Notre Dame.

That doesn't mean Rees isn't a good player.

It also doesn't mean he'll blossom into a great player, as if flying below the radar automatically marks one for greatness. Many guys aren't hyped on Scout & Rivals because they just aren't that good (and thank God I never played football to let these guys get a crack at me, because I'd have rated straight zeros). Yet we'd all be well served by remembering that (and the pun is unavoidable here) the stars do not always align. Even if both of these players were the best in their class, the expectation should not be that Rees or Utopo would automatically arrive on campus a starter and rack up untold personal glories along the way (that's what it would be, but that wouldn't make it less absured). We also develop amnesia about the fact that such expectations get thrust on a select 40 to 50 players heading off to many different programs every year, and every year without fail we look back on the class from a few years prior only to wonder how a lot of those other "can't-miss kids" become footnotes in a Where Are They Now? piece. That should tell us how flawed the process is. Yet we (reliably) keep coming back for more.

Over at Blue-Gray Sky, they have made a project of yearly evaluations on how right (and just as often, how comically wrong) those predictions and expectations turned out to be. Checking out the analysis of how the class of 2009 panned out nationally (in other words, which of last year's seniors were supposed to be the best in the country when they came out of high school) gave me pause. For every Rey Maualuga and Jonathon Stewart, bona fide All-Americans and future NFLers, we find a Fred Rouse, Tray Blackmon, or Luther Brown, who never rose above bit player status if they were lucky, and wound up in prison if they weren't (#20 Melvin Alaeze, DE - conveniently enough one of Ron Zook's first "big catches" at Illinois). Heck, the player who earned pretty much unanimous acclaim as the best in his class once he actually, you know, got on the field - Arkansas's Darren McFadden - ranked #51 with Scout.com's national list. Can you imagine anybody during the fall of 2007 arguing that Darren McFadden wasn't one of the 50 best players in the country? But in the spring of 2005, when the recruiting evaluations came, before any one of these players had played a single down, such an opinion might as well have been the law of the land.

So in the end, all I really know about Justin Utupo and Tommy Rees is this: they play football, reasonably well we can assume, as multiple Division I bowl championship subdivision coaching staffs have extended them full scholarship offers (top contenders for Utupo included Oklahoma State, Oregon State, Utah, BYU, Missouri, & Nebraska, while Rees had offers from Tennessee, Stanford, and also Miami-OH where former Irish offensive coordinator Mike Haywood is now head coach). Presumably such offers were extended because every staff believes this two young men can develop both into football players who can help them win and good young men who can represent their school with pride. How long it will take or how "great" they will be is a question beyond anybody's ability to answer. Long ago, in an age before Tom Lemming, this was how it was done all the time. Coaches had a vast informal network of scouts who passed along the word about a certain kid, they followed up, and they either offered the kid a scholarship or not. It was also easier then to offer lots of kids whether they were all great or not, considering the 85-man limit wasn't in effect. But now, in the age of viral videos and high school football on ESPN every week, clearly any kid who doesn't rate a 6.0 on the Rivals.com scale is a bum. Further, and I think this was the point a lot of people were hung up on, the coaches who would even think of recruiting such kids are bums grasping desperately for somebody, anybody, to be a warm body in the class and would be better off at a MAC school.

Of course the irony in all of this is that a lot of the shortcomings of a program (especially Notre Dame) will be be ascribed to a failure of recruiting, and then fans/pundits will try to build up some goodwill and patience during struggles by pointing out "look how good the recruiting is going!", when in truth it may not be all that different than it was before. It's still the crapshoot it was in 1975, it's just that now the average fan who wouldn't know about half of Notre Dame's roster until they actually played against Michigan during their sophomore year now knows about every player on the roster and how they performed during week 2 of their junior year...of high school.

I've said it before, I just think the whole process of recruiting and trying find the "secret" of it is the ultimate chicken-and-egg proposition. To back up my point: last year's Heisman Winner, Sam Bradford? A three-star recruit. Now, was he just 'horribly' misevaluated? Was he superbly developed by a coaching staff that knew his exact talent and molded every part of the offense around him? Was it a combination? Or was it intangibles? From now on, I think I'm gonna adopt a 'Justice Potter Stewart describes pornography' approach to identifying "legit football talent":

I can't define it, but I know it when I see it. And I haven't seen Justin Utupo or Tommy Rees play yet.

However, ESPN has, so here's their take. Get excited or depressed at your own discretion. Utopo:

Utupo is an active defender. He plays a little out of position in high school as a defensive tackle, but we feel he will make the move to defensive end in college. He has solid size though he looks as if he may not be as big as listed. He will use his hands to shed and make a play on the ball. Does a good job of being able to get to the shoulder of the blocker and get in the gap. Does a good job of being able to stay square and keep himself in a position to make a play. He displays good speed and short-area change-of direction skills. He will leave his feet at times, but for the most part is a physical wrap-up tackler. As a pass rusher he can create some push and work off the block. Utupo combines some ability with effort and can be productive.

...and Rees:

No evaluation available at this time.

Doesn't ESPN realize half the ND fanbase is trying to anoint this kid the next Joe Theismann, and the other half is ripping into the staff for "whiffing" on all the good QBs, thereby getting stuck with this bum? Get it together! (Rees' profile does come with video, though.)

Your Regularly Scheduled Programming

When news rains on the recruiting front, it pours. Perhaps it's because of all the ominous signs of the noose around Charlie Weis' neck, or maybe because of it, that recruiting has taken on a more aching, desperate tone this offseason. With each day passing by without a big name highlight reel to chew over, Irish fans resorted more and more to chewing off their own fingernails.

Well, rest easy and chew on this. In the last 7 days the Irish secured four verbal pledges, each one addressing a key need in the construction of a class that, like the one preceding it which just entered summer school, needs to bring in solid reinforcements rather than ready-to-go standouts at every position (though certainly some positions have a more urgent need than others during this recruiting calendar). But we can do some amateur depth chart engineering at a later. Here are the fab four in no particular order:

• Andrew Hendrix, QB, Cincinnati, OH (Moeller High School). You all remember Moeller as the school which gave Notre Dame Gerry Faust - and boy, was that the gift that kept on giving. Moeller's far from the De La Salle-type juggernaut it was during Faust's heyday of the late-'70s, when the Crusaders went unbeaten five tims in six years and were four times picked as the mythical national champions of prep football. Faust then was plucked from Ohio to lead the most storied college football program in the country...and perhaps it is fair to say neither school has been the same since. The word that seems to define Hendrix at this point is "raw", which I guess could be seen as either unproven, or simplyuntapped - obviously a lot of programs saw potential that could be built on with his junior years numbers: 1,700 yards, 11 TDs, and 7 INTs. A far cry from 50+ touchdown throws for recent signal-calling studs, but nonetheless Hendrix fielded offers from the in-state Buckeyes, Purdue, Stanford, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Miami, Nebraska, Northwestern, and Maryland. He certainly isn't a finished product from a physical standpoint and isn't the best athlete Weis has recruited at the position - that honor goes to Dayne Crist...yes, even ahead of Demetrius Jones. There's been plenty of positive buzz around Hendrix that ought to only grow with his commitment to the Irish. ESPN's recruit index raved about his arm strength and the possibility of him being "the biggest sleeper of this class", by which they meant nationwide, not strictly Notre Dame.
• Blake Lueders, DT, Zionsville, IN (Zionsville HS). An imposing 6'5", Lueders picked Notre Dame over a host of ACC and Big 10 schools. Ranked as a four-star prospect and the #14 player in the nation for his position by Rivals, the story of his commitment phone call fired up a round of chatty internet message board posts about the net gain of having new defensive line coach Randy Hart out on the recruiting trail - Lueders specifically mentioned taking another unofficial visit to South Bend just so his parent could meet Hart and hear his vision for the Irish defense:

  “You know the energy he has,” Lueders said. “He exploded with enthusiasm, and started going crazy. He said I made his night and went on and on.”

• Lo Wood, CB, Apopka, FL (Apopka HS). It's slightly unfortunate that yes, his name is "Lo" and he hails from "FloRida", prompting what hopefully will be many choruses of "Shawty got low, low, low, low..." from the slightly inebriated students during his upcoming career. The cost of doing business in the era of never-ending one-hit wonders. But I digress. Wood, a 5'10" corner with speed, talent, and plenty of opinions on both, drew almost instant comparisons with RJ Blanton, the locquacious freshman who stepped into the #2 corner spot by season's end and figures to be a starter when the '09 campaign opens. Wood also conducted probably the most theatrical commitment since Jimmy Clausen, calling and then cancelling a press conference at his high school before revealing he was actually at Notre Dame on a second unofficial visit with his father. Notre Dame made the final cut over Michigan, Georgia Tech, and Ole Miss, and another new addition to Weis's staff received special praise as Wood broke down the decision, singling out his primary recruiter Tony Alford in addition to his future position coach Corwin Brown. What the Irish staff may be lacking in big-stars early on in this campaign they at least make up for with the kind of high-energy recruiting you need to compete in today's college landscape.
• Chris Badger, FS, Provo, UT (Timpview HS). If there's one school that knows the perils that come with a committed prospect agreeing to go on a visit to other schools, it's Notre Dame. Some awfully big fish got away like this: Justin Trattou, Omar Hunter, Marlon Pollard, etc. When all the recruitnik headlines the following Monday lead with a variation on "He was blown away", it's even worse news. So it was with Badger, a bruiser in the middle from Utah who had previously committed to Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh. That's where Randy Hart enters the picture once again, giving Badger the hard sell to get him to visit, then selling him harder on the beauty and tradition of the Irish program that had Badger's dad (an alum of The Farm and a "big skeptic" on Notre Dame, to use the prospect's own words) wearing a shirt from the Bookstore before the visit ended. Interesting footnote: as one might have guessed given his Utah residency, Badger is Mormon and made a point of spending time on campus with Manti Te'o, who was wrapping up the first week of summer school:

  "We went to church together on Sunday for a little while," Badger said. "We both think it's great being out here and representing our church and doing our best to represent our church and being great people and great football players."

All in all a great start to the final stretch run of the summertime. As tomorrow marks the turn into July, it's hard to believe that the season is just 66 days away. Yet paradoxically it's driving me crazy having to wait 66 more days.

Another One Bites the ResLife...

I went back and forth on what headline to choose. Suffice to say a ton of stuff has happened in the last 72 hours, all of it in one way shape or form set to have a big impact on the future of the Notre Dame football program. There was addition, subtraction, probably even a little long division. Some friends became enemies, some enemies became friends, and all of those various news items deserves its own separate entry. So, in other words, more to come.

Today though, brought another head-scratching roster alteration that can be laid at the feet of the Office of Residence Life. Earlier in the week, as the full roster of Notre Dame players arrived for summer school and unofficial training camp - including incoming freshman such as Cierre Wood and Manti Te'o - it was announced that tight end Joseph Fauria, who had shown major improvements in spring ball and secured the No. 2 tight end position behind Kyle Rudolph, would be missing the fall semester for the never-promising "personal reasons":

The university says that Fauria has not enrolled for personal reasons and will not be enrolled in the fall semester either.

Charlie Weis will be losing a valuable asset at tight end, and hopes to have him back.

"Joseph won't be with us this fall but I hope to have him return for the spring semester," Weis said in a statement.

Fauria confirmed as much - his plan to return after a semester, similar to the path of Darrin Walls & Gary Gray - to the Chicago Tribune on Wednesday. Well, you know what they say: men plan, ResLife laughs.

By Friday, Fauria had announced his intention to transfer, stating that he'd asked for (and received) his release and would look to remain close to home on the west coast, possibly at a Pac-10 school. The news (so far) has been reported only by Mike Frank's very reliable Irish Sports Daily. Mike runs a premium news site so I hope I'm not jailbreaking some exclusive news, but the official statements from Fauria are here and haven't been restricted by any password info, so judge for yourself. The especially relevant words:

Fauria again said that he was disappointed because he felt that he was doing the right things on the field and in the classroom.

“The truth is I had a really good spring. I pushed for my number two spot on the depth chart and that’s where I was. I had a 3.0 GPA,” he said.

He also said that his transfer had nothing to do with the Irish football program.

“I’m not leaving because of the coaching staff. I love all of the coaches. My tight ends coach Bernie Parmalee was amazing, my recruiting coordinator Brian Polian, I was really close to him, he was great,” said Fauria. “I loved being coached by Coach Weis. It was great, he knew what he was doing. I’m proud to say that I was coached by him and that I was able to play for him. The reason why this took me so long is because of my friends on the team and my friends at the school.”

Fauria said that the way the University staff handled a situation caused him to make his decision.

“ I’ve always been a fan of Notre Dame, but I was mistreated by the Office of Residence Life,” he said. “They mistreated me very much. Something happened at school and I don’t think the punishment fit the crime. They didn’t handle the situation how it should have been handled. I guess they were trying to make an example out of me and I was not the person to do it to.”

Fauria did not go into detail about exactly what happened.

“I wasn’t being handcuffed or anything, but I’m not going to go into detail with that,” he said. “I’ll leave it open for interpretation."

Now as a former employee of the Office of Residence Life, I want to put forward the one caveat of my experience, which I myself am fully guilty of: when you're 18, 19 years old, it's pretty much a guarantee that you'll feel the punsihment didn't fit the crime.

Having said that...I'm with Fauria on this one. I also don't need to leave my statement open to interpretation (even as I speak without all the facts)

This is yet another case of ResLife drawing a line in the sand and deciding that, heaven forbid we acknowledge still-maturing young men and women can make mistakes, we have a standard here and if you fall below that standard, you are taken out with rest of the trash where you belong. And again, having been on the inside, I can say that's it not a simple case of Notre Dame being unduly harsh on athletes - this crap happens to kids who never got closer to the football field than the 47th row of the stadium. There are indeed some kids who simply had it coming, but I personally figure that it wouldn't be so horrible to at least adhere to a three-strikes policy.

If Bill Kirk were a movie character, he'd be George Banks from Mary Poppins: "Madam, kindly do not attempt to cloud the issue with facts." Not to mention common sense.

Return Engagements

We've been negligent. We have failed in our obligations as ardent watchdogs against complacency and ineptitude. We have...

Sorry, for a moment this post was kicking off as if it were President Obama's annoucement on creating a new consumer credit agency. We're far too shallow and football-obsessed to raise our game to that level.

But we are coming back, starting today - you may not have noticed that we were away for awhile, but that's fine. In all honesty, we didn't notice either. But having made the bold choice to resume blogger coverage, we couldn't have the first post back be about just any old thing. What topic could prove worthy of our renewed attention?

• Recruiting developments, such as the verbal pledges of Cincinnati's Alex Welch, New Jersey's Bennett Jackson, or South Bend's very own Daniel Smith? Eh, old news. Besides, the current "shockwave" in Irish recruiting circles is...
• The commitment the Irish didn't get, from Nick Montana? The youngest of ND legend Joe's four kids, the four-star QB from Oaks Christian Academy (Jimmy Clasuen's alma mater) chose to become the signature recruit in new Washington head coach Steve Sarkisian's first class, giving Sark a ratio of 1 marquee recruit to zero games coached at UW. This puts him comfortably ahead of his predecessor, the Molder of Men, who clocked in at a robust 0.5:48 in that department (half credit for Jake Locker, which gets bumped to a full credit if/when he manages to stay healthy for a full year). And spare me the smart-aleck "You just can't let Tyrone go, can you" replies, which leads to the next story...
• ...the answer to the age-old question of "Who got paid more by the University of Notre Dame in 2008, Charlie Weis or Ty Willingham?" Apparently Tyrone landed on his feet just fine. Nothing I say is gonna cause him to lose any sleep. If anything I'm keeping the man modest (not like he needs help on that score). But we still don't have a worthy blog post yet.
• Wait, how about the potential scheduling news, like Army at Yankee Stadium, or rumored discussions/pinings for a series with Wisconsin, Miami, or Texas? Eh, some smoke there, but too little fire.
• The insanely early pre-season rankings beginning to leak out there, such as ESPN (Notre Dame's #17) or Phil Steele (who put the Irish at 7 and rated Golden Tate a first-team All-American. I will have what he's having)? It's...June. Too early. Just too early.
• Joe Paterno finally ascending to Bo Schembechler's throne as the grouchy old man of the Big Ten by implying Notre Dame might need the Conference That Can't Count, but they want no part of Notre Dame? I'm gonna stick this one in my back pocket for later.
• Coach Weis' venture into that strange vortex of time-wasting terror known as the "Twitter-verse"? I'm ashamed to admit I do an almost daily check-in for his posts. Which begs the question Obi-Wan once posed: "Who's the more foolish, the fool or the fool who follows him?"
• The controversy over President Obama's appearance at Notre Dame's commencement exercises and the predictably lame wisecrack he made about the football team afterwards? What did I say at the top about not having the class to get all polticial around here?

So we've chucked aside pretty much everything Notre Dame related that happened in the past three months, which when you look at in sum doesn't add up to much. I just want to hit fast forward to Sept. 6th already. That's no way to end a blog post though. We need to offer up our own original spin on something, so we arrive at Monday's "I shall return" two-fer in the two marquee sports.

Granted, one was official and the other conditional, and the players involved are returning to very different circumstances, but each one addresses a vital need for their respective programs. First we have former Big East Player of the Year in basketball, Luke Harangody, who went through a "ho-hum" junior season where he was the only player in the country to rank in the top 10 in scoring and rebounding. Yes, you read that right. Not Blake Griffin, not Hasheem Thabeet, not even God himself, Tyler Hansbrough. There was one player who was Top 10 in points and boards, and he plays for Notre Dame. Unfortunately a seven-game losing streak in late January knocked the Irish to the far corner of the NCAA Tournament discussion and the season fizzled with an NIT berth (the Irish lost to Penn State in the semifinals).

The news of Harangody's return, proudly broken on Mike Brey's entry into the Twitter-verse, comes as a perfect jolt in the arm for a program that might not be on the down-side of the NCAA bubble for long. The Irish have a good mix of talent returning (or entering) the fold next year, depending on how willing you are to consider transfers Scott Martin and Ben Hansbrough - yes, he's related - as "returning" starters. Include Tory Jackson and what figures to be a more developed rotation with Jonathon Peoples, Tyrone Nash, potentially Carleton Scott & redshirt sophomore Tim Abromaitis, along with incoming freshman Joey Brooks & Jack Cooley, the Irish might not suffer such a steep drop-off in depth as everybody expected (though it turned out they weren't as deep as many believed in 2008-09, a critical reason for the mid-season collapse).

All things being equal, though, the story "behind" the story for Notre Dame basketball is that they should manage to stay about where they were while the Big East heavyweights come back to Earth around them. Again, that's a "supposed" view point. The Irish and Georgetown were supposed to be right in the thick of a juggernaut Big East last year and...well, you know how that turned out. Let's take the glass-is-half-full approach though, and put it this way: between a conference that suffered massive losses of star power via graduations and early NBA departures, a softer non-conference schedule, and now having the only returning member of last year's all-conference team, the Irish ought to once again shoot back up the Big East rankings. At the very least, they will not see a repeat of the eight-game death march where they played, in order: @ Louisville, @ Syracuse, UConn, Marquette, @ Pittsburgh, @ Cincinnati, @UCLA, Louisville. For those scoring at home, all 8 of those teams finished with winning records, 7 of them made the NCAAs, and three of them earned #1 seeds. Not even featured in that meat grinder were West Virgnia and Villanova, a #3 seed which went to the Final Four. So yeah, the conference should get easier while Notre Dame figures to at least stay where they are, if not improve given the return of a star player on a mission. Just before Brey broke out the Twitter, Harangody used that oh-so-2006 tool of text messaging to offer his coach a modest proposal: "Let's go win the Big East."

Right about the time Harangody and Brey were exchanging 140-character high-fives, Eric Hansen on the South Bend Tribune was reporting - also via the Twitter-verse! - that another surprise return could be in the offing at the Notre Dame football offices. In this case the player in question wasn't a returning All-American, but his taking of a fifth year could go a long way towards assuaging Irish anxiety. We speak here of Evan Sharpley, journeyman quarterback who figured to have played his last snaps during garbage time of the 2008 Hawai'i Bowl.

Having completed the football season, all signs pointed toward the end of a gridiron career as Sharpley skipped spring workouts to focus on baseball, where it sure seemed like a corner had been turned during his junior year (.324 with 13 HR and 40 RBI). A great follow-up never materialized unfortunately, and Evan's final go-round on the diamond ended with a mere .223 batting average and 5 homers. His raw power was still enough to get noticed by somebody though, as the Seattle Mariners took him in the 50th and final round of Major League Baseball's draft last week (Sharpley's teammate, centerfielder AJ Pollock, became the highest-ever selection out of Notre Dame in the same draft, picked 17th overall by the Diamondbacks). Considering how often corner infielders ascend to a big league roster as 50th-round picks, it was a smart move for Sharpley (at Weis's suggestion) to quietly go through the application process for a fifth year after the spring semester ended.

There were two competing schools of thought on this one: a) that it was a positive for Sharpley to return and provide some needed depth at the QB position while also bettering himself with a year of post-graduate work for life after football, all while getting a summer to prove himself in pro baseball (the Mariners agreed to let Sharpley return at the start of fall training camp, similar to the deal Jeff Samardzija cut with the Cubs before his senior season in 2006). Then there was b) Weis is so desperate for a quarterback he's reaching to the scrap pile after whiffing on Jake Heaps, Blake Bell, Nick Montana, Austin Hinder, and every other good quarterback in the universe...or something like that.

Look, it's true that if either Demetrius Jones or Zach Frazer were still at Notre Dame, Sharpley likely would've played his last season in '08. Ditto if Weis already had a quarterback in the fold either as an incoming freshman or a rising high school junior. But even if that were the case, that the Irish had a commitment from a Montana or some such, that wouldn't exactly do much to plug one of the holes in the current rosts, which is the kind that seems insignificant (who ever really thinks about the thrid string anyway?) until the moment you need it, at which point it gets exposed for the gigantic sieve that it is. Phrased differently: as the roster currently stands, the Irish are one snap away from untested redshirt freshman Dayne Crist having to take over the offense. And if that came to pass, the Irish would then be one snap away from probable disaster with either walk-on Nate Montana or emergency QB John Goodman at the reins. So the question becomes do you want flashbacks to the Pat Dillingham era if an injury crisis erupts in 2009, or at least some tested veteran presence in the 'last resort' spot? At quarterback, it's a good idea to go three-deep.

Safe to assume that both of these players are welcomed back with open arms, with the caveat of course that there are no guarantees in this life, particularly in the case of Harangody. Now that they're back, so are we. Buckle up, Irish fans - it's going to be a very interesting year.

iPhone, Blog Home...

Alright, time to see if this mobile blogging thing works. This was sent from my iPhone. No, really. Couldn't make that up.

To attempt to put a traditon in words...

There are no spectators...just patrons.

There is no rough...just the first cut.

There are no chop blocks...just civilized clashes.

And there are no corporate tents...just the Butler Cabin.

As Spring starts to show its face across the country, the Masters emerges as a reminder to everyone that there is that something special about the world's best tackling Alister MacKenzie's masterpiece at the site of a former Georgia indigo plantation. The venue is unique in that the golfing world has had the chance to get to know the same track over the years - a luxury not afforded by the other three majors.

Sure - the driving range net has been raised in the last few years and additional property has been acquired to lengthen the 13th hole. And yes, as Jim Nantz reminded us 24 times during the NCAA championship, there will be "live streaming coverage" available online of all the action at Amen Corner during the 2009 tournament.

But Mr. Jones would be proud. "The National", as the locals call it, has withstood many of the pressures of the corporate 21st century. One could draw a few parallels here to Notre Dame and the attempt to preserve its unique heritage. Both at Augusta and at Notre Dame, this tradition speaks for itself...for to attempt to put it into any more words than that would be a worthless cause.

Enjoy the tournament this year.

Bubble Bursts

Barring an unprecedented run next week in an arena they always seem to have a difficult time in, Notre Dame will not be making a third straight trip to the NCAA basketball tournament.

The odds certainly weren't in the Irish's favor as the calendar flipped to March, with them scrambling desperately to recover ground after a seven game losing streak across January and February. But the dream is now officially over for Mike Brey's team after a close battle tonight with #16 Villanova turned into a blowout over the final 8 minutes, with a final of 77-60 that felt like a much closer game for a long time - except when it counted the most. We can play the blame game at a later date; at this moment, what seemed to be so promising back in Maui has fizzled and died on the vine before getting the chance to flow deep into March as we all hoped it would. Post mortem to follow.

Taste of the Islands

So, last Wednesday Notre Dame signed its recruiting class. It was a modest haul by many estimates, with the class ranking somewhere in the lower half of the top 25 by the major evaluation services - 24th by Scout, 20th by Rivals, 14th by ESPN - but the Irish got a big boost right at the finish with the signing of Manti Te'o:

Just to get an obligatory Anchorman quote out of the way, Te'o is kind of a big deal. People know him. He has many leather-bound scalps of running backs who've been flattened into the Earth by one of his hits, which you can scope out on numerous YouTube videos. He was also the consensus National Defensive Player of the Year whom the trudging, "bumbling" 7-6 Notre Dame Fighting Irish beat out the USC Trojans for. That's a nice accomplishment. It wouldn't hold a candle to actually beating them on the field of play, but don't discredit the effort that went in to convincing a player of Te'o's caliber to join the Irish. This was a great performance by Charlie Weis and his top recruiting lieutenant, much-maligned special teams coach Brian Polian.

Perhaps the biggest immediate impact Te'o might have is a psychological one, his presence alone seeming to help keep up the momentum from Notre Dame's bowl victory in Hawai'i. It also netted the Irish a small but speedy teammate in wide receiver Roby Toma, a now ex-UCLA commitment with a slight frame that still houses a 4.45 speed. Additionally, Te'o jumping on board was all the evidence that Oakland, CA linebacker/defensive end Chris Martin needed - he gave Weis his verbal commitment for the class of 2010 before the ink was dry on the 2009 letters of intent. He also has a pretty good spiel ready for the intense recruiting that follows instead of precedes a commitment these days:

“I call it a script, but it comes from the heart,” said the 6-foot-4, 232-pound junior defensive end/outside linebacker from Oakland, Calif., who last week verbally committed to Notre Dame to be part of its 2010 freshman football class.

“When other coaches call me, I’m going to be up front and honest,” the Bishop O’Dowd High standout said. “I’m going to say, ‘I appreciate the attention you’re giving me. But I’m committed to Notre Dame, and that commitment is solid.’ ”

Pause, pause. Click.

Here's the 3-minute slice of Weis on Signing Day courtesy of Rivals.

Weis recaps wild Signing Day @ Rivals Video

Again, Read Your Email, Please...

There's not much point in having the blog email box open for business (and putting up a post trumpeting that announcement) if you're not actually going to live up to your word and check the mail. Or update the blog. To wit....

I'm getting heat from my fellow "inside circle" that signing day has passed and there is no blog from George. We're all waiting.

Hope all is well with you...somebody mentioned it and I thought it a good chance to give you some crap.

It was either this or diss the Sox.

Ken Girouard

Diss the Sox? He wouldn't dare.

When the Streak is Over

Looking at Notre Dame's upcoming schedule two Monday afternoons ago, a friend remarked, "They're in trouble". I responded that they ought to be alright as long as they could defend their home court, as that would mean three quality wins in an insanely tough league. And what if they don't, he asked. "Well," I replied, "then they'll be in trouble."

After tonight's discouraging 71-64 loss to #8 Marquette, the Irish aren't merely in trouble - they're on the bubble of the NCAA Tournament less than three weeks removed from being ranked in the Top 10. To look at this glass as still-half-full, if the season were to end right now, Notre Dame would undoubtedly have one of the strongest arguments among fringe contenders considering the schedule they've played inside the conference and out, plus the fact that they have nailed down wins against Georgetown & Texas while pushing Louisville to overtime and taking UConn and Marquette to the final minutes. The flip side, of course, is that all three of those losses (not to mention a Syracuse game that turned from a 5-point contest into a 19-point loss during the final six minutes) were games the Irish had a chance to win; they couldn't close the deal even once. At some point you're no longer a good team that's missing breaks - you're just a mediocre one that can't finish (see Notre Dame's '05-'06 season). Plus, this was not supposed to be a team that was sweating out making the NCAAs come February.

The numerous opportunities lost had to be the most frustrating part of this weekend's double-dip, a two-game skid that snapped a 45-game winning streak at the Joyce Center. In both the 69-61 loss to #3 Connecticut as well as Monday's rivalry game with Marquette (especially the primetime tilt with UConn), the Irish weren't undone by anything out of the ordinary coming from their opponent. They simply could not make open shots that were there to be made. Kyle McAlarney dropped in three 3-pointers in the first five minutes aginst the Huskies, then missed 15 straight shots. What was more maddening was that unlike in tonight's Marquette game, when the Golden Eagles played splendid defense by rotating their speedy guards to drape a defender on him all night, Kyle was looking at the basket free and uncontested a bunch of times. None of them went in.

The same fate befell Ryan Ayers and Zach Hillesland, who were a combined 2-of-15 for 4 points against UConn, which prompted Mike Brey to shuffle the deck and pull them from the starting lineup for Monday. It worked as far as getting some stronger production out of the players who replaced them - Jonathon Peoples in particular answered with a pair of big 3-pointers to finish with 8 points, as did Luke Zeller with 8 points and 8 rebounds. The switch did nothing to stop the tailspin of the two senior captains however, who "outdid" themselves by combining to go 0-for-10 in their new role as reserves (Hillesland left the Maqruette game with an ankle injury in the second half and did not return, though Brey suggested that the ankle alone wasn't the reason he didn't play the final 13 minutes).

Nobody's mistaking Notre Dame for a "deep" team, in the way a few select ones like North Carolina are with four to five NBA lottery picks on their two-deep. But earlier in the season they were getting quality production from all seven players in their normal rotation as well as star-making turns from Harangody and McAlarney. Luke's still getting the attention as he continues to put up Player of the Year-type performances game after game, because that's what kind of player he is. But everybody needs a supporting cast and right now he doesn't have one. Is it fatigue alone that's causing a lot of misses on shots we've seen them make before? Possibly. For comparison, let's look at the Big East's top two teams in UConn and Pittsburgh. They both have 8 players who average at least 10 minutes per game; Notre Dame has 7. Far more significantly, Notre Dame alone has four players who average more than 30 minutes per game; Pitt and UConn put together have just three (Jeff Adrien and Hasheem Thabeet for the Huskies, Levance Fields for the Panthers).

So now we have the good news/bad news proposition. Bad news first: things are not going to get any easier. First the Irish have to play in Pittsburgh on Saturday, where it'll be interesting to see the matchup of Harangody and Dejaun Blair. Then they have three days off before going to Cincinnati, and while Cincy may not be part of the Big East's top shelf, they were still good enough to hang around against Xavier & UConn. They've also accomplished what Notre Dame could not with a win at St. John's (though that was aided by the Red Storm's best player, DJ Kennedy, getting ejected from the game). After Cincy it's off to Westwood on Saturday morning (seriously: tip-off's at 10 AM Pacific) against UCLA, then back home to face Louisville on Thursday February 12th. All told it will mean having played 6 games against teams in the Top 10 in three weeks, 7 against the Top 20 (UCLA is currently #16). It's an impressive stat to put on a resume for the Selection Committee - but you have to come up with some wins. Who you played is a factor, but it's who you can manage to beat that separates you from the NIT. Right now the Irish are sorely wanting in the latter category.

But remember, in every problem lies opportunity: sure they have to play Pitt, UCLA, and Louisville. Here's the good news for the Irish: snag a victory in one of those games and it'll go a long way towards helping them; if they could take two out of three and tack on a win versus Cincinnati, they'll get out of this stretch roughly intact and with the hardest part of the season behind them. I've seen the Bruins play - the Irish can hang with them. We already know they can match Louisville and they get the benefit of playing at home this time. And after the Cards leave they get to the more charitable portion of their conference schedule which includes South Florida, Rutgers, and another game against St. John's, plus Villanova, West Virginia, and Providence, three teams more on the Irish's level as teams that are 'pretty good, but with noticeable holes' - though two of those games are on the road (WVU and Providence).

In the immediate post mortem, there's only one conclusion: 'The Streak' may be over, but the battle has only just begun for the cagers. Here's hoping Kyle McAlarney and the boys and can rise to the challenge.

Digger Phelps and Bob Knight were laughing before Saturday night's game against Connecticut, the first time the basketball version of ESPN's popular "College Gameday" had traveled to South Bend.