The participants this year include: Clashmore Mike, Inside the Irish, UHND, Rakes of Mallow, Her Loyal Sons, Subway Domer, OC Domer, We Are Notre Dame, Domer Law, Irish Round Table, Irish Creed, We Never Graduate, Bad Trade, One Foot Down, and Charlie’s Nasties.

The schedule is as follows:

• Purdue — UHND
• Michigan — Her Loyal Sons
• Michigan State — Inside the Irish
• Stanford — One Foot Down
• Boston College — Domer Law
• Pittsburgh — Irish Round Table
• Western Michigan — We Never Graduate
• Navy — We Are Notre Dame
• Tulsa — Subway Domer
• Utah — Clashmore Mike
• Army — Rakes of Mallow
• USC — OC Domer
• Postseason Wrap — Irish Creed

We look forward to responding to each week’s prompts as we are able and thanks again to all participating!

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• Counting Down the Irish at NBC Sports
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• Here Come the Irish 2010

This article is © 2007-2013 by De Veritate, LLC and was originally published at Clashmore Mike. This article may not be copied, distributed, or transmitted without attribution. Additionally, you may not use this article for commercial purposes or to generate derivative works without explicit written permission. Please contact us if you wish to license this content for your own use.

There are a few surprises on some of the lists and it’s always fun when someone gathers together the variety of opinions available in the blogosphere and allows some meaningful discussion to take place around the conclusions. So, head on over to Inside the Irish and check out Anthony’s picks.

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This article is © 2007-2013 by De Veritate, LLC and was originally published at Clashmore Mike. This article may not be copied, distributed, or transmitted without attribution. Additionally, you may not use this article for commercial purposes or to generate derivative works without explicit written permission. Please contact us if you wish to license this content for your own use.

For those unfamiliar with the publication, Here Come the Irish is the brainchild of Notre Dame alumnus Jim Walsh over at the Maple Street Press, and is one of the best Irish football preview annuals you’ll find. The Maple Street Press takes pride in producing thorough, in-depth, and thoughtful analysis, and the 2010 version of Here Come The Irish is no exception. Written by ardent and informed Irish football followers, it comes packed with great information for both casual and hardcore fans.

To purchase a copy you can visit the 2010 Here Come the Irish webpage where you will find a brief preview, full table of contents, and all the appropriate ordering information.

To whet your appetite, an excerpt from the introduction of Anthony’s 2010 opponent preview:

This bodes well for Notre Dame. A home game-heavy and favorably ordered schedule awaits a talented team. While the Irish certainly have concerns of their own, if new head coach Brian Kelly can maximize the roster potential a nine or 10-win season is a distinct possibility. Ultimately, a successful season will be decided by the play upfront. The Irish offensive line must play well against several strong defensive fronts and Notre Dame’s own defensive front will face multiple offensive lines with plenty of experience. Win the battles in the trenches, and a double-digit win season is within reach.

Some additional highlights from the publication:

• An Irish position preview and discussion of Kelly and recruiting by former Blue-Gray Sky contributor Pat
• A profile of Notre Dame’s assistant coaches by Keith Arnold of NBC’s Inside the Irish
• A somewhat comedic piece on how to accept yet another head coach (and when it’s acceptable to name your dog after him) by Pete formerly of Blue-Gray Sky
• A breakdown of the freshman class and the 10 make or break players of 2010 from Frank Vitovitch of UHND.com
• A profile on Crist and a piece on Kelly working to win over the South Bend community by WNDU’s “Dean of Local Sports” Jeff Jeffers
• An overview of Kelly’s offense by X’s and O’s guru Chris Brown of Smart Football
• An article detailing the pace of Kelly’s spread offense by college football statistician Brian Fremeau of BCF Toys and College Football Outsiders
• A profile of Kelly by Brian Hiro of the North County Times
• The five statistics to watch in 2010 by Patrick Borchers, better known on various Notre Dame message boards as OmahaDomer
• A piece on recent Irish players in the NFL by John Walters of FanHouse
• An interview with former Notre Dame athletic director Gene Corrigan—including some great quotes about hiring Lou Holtz—by Craig Chval

If you’re looking for some quality Irish football content and a way to make it through the rest of the off-season, be sure to pick up a copy.

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This article is © 2007-2013 by De Veritate, LLC and was originally published at Clashmore Mike. This article may not be copied, distributed, or transmitted without attribution. Additionally, you may not use this article for commercial purposes or to generate derivative works without explicit written permission. Please contact us if you wish to license this content for your own use.

Well, that’s all about to change. We’re proud to announce the addition of Andrew Crafton to the team of writers here at Clashmore Mike. Andrew is currently finishing a degree in Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota after a stint in the Air Force. His parents are long time faculty at Notre Dame and he’s seen more than his share of games inside Rockne Stadium.

Andrew loves getting down and dirty with statistics and will be writing on a more sporadic schedule whenever he can find his Irish muse. Luckily, we convinced him to join up after we were able to preview his latest statistical opus entitled “Clutch or Luck? Brian Kelly’s Performance the Past 5 Seasons,” which we’ll be publishing here shortly.

Additionally, our staff is basically all back to full strength and our usual off-season posting schedule has resumed. In particular, Anthony’s got some great articles all queued up and we’ll have some renewed discussion concerning the preparation for Brian Kelly’s freshman season as head coach.

Thanks for sticking with us!

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• Evaluating the Irish: Stanford Cardinal
• A Theory on College Football Performance: Part 3 – Game Day Performance

This article is © 2007-2013 by De Veritate, LLC and was originally published at Clashmore Mike. This article may not be copied, distributed, or transmitted without attribution. Additionally, you may not use this article for commercial purposes or to generate derivative works without explicit written permission. Please contact us if you wish to license this content for your own use.

Unreasonable Evaluative Criteria

Personnel

While evaluating personnel is a crucial reason fans attend the annual Blue-Gold game, one should be careful not to overextend analysis into the realm of fantasy. Being able to find reasonable ways to draw conclusions about player development should not include an overemphasis on the current state of the depth chart. Why?

Many events have yet to play out between the middle of April and the end of August. Summer conditioning and fall practices will alter players’ physical capabilities, as well as allow them to hone their skills inside Kelly’s new system. Additionally, there are several incoming freshman that will murky the positional waters. Formulating an accurate picture of the depth chart come fall at this point in the team’s development, is nebulous at best.

Another area that many extrapolate conclusions where meaningful analysis is extremely tricky is in regards to evaluating the overall potency of the offense or defense as a whole. This is an issue because it is difficult, if not almost impossible, to analyze a team scrimmaging against itself. Is the offense highly explosive, or is the defense just extremely bad?

Too often, online analysis of the team after the Blue-Gold game is rife with prognosticators praising the defensive line’s penetration or bemoaning the lack of effective run blocking. The bottom line is that one has to be careful to draw measured and precise conclusions about the performance of any unit when they aren’t in a real-game situation. Merely scrimmaging against teammates they regularly practice with taints a semi-objective observer’s ability to discern players’ true progress.

Further complicating matters is coach Brian Kelly’s “vanilla” approach to defensive scheme during the spring scrimmage. While attempting to get fans, and his players, to buy in to the fast-paced and explosive offense he was hired to install, Kelly is also undoubtedly making it more difficult to successfully draw conclusions from either unit’s performance on Saturday.

Coaching

Just as there are things to be wary of regarding personnel on display, so should fans expect to temper their enthusiasm or depression regarding the coaching staff. As I noted in the previous paragraph, because of Kelly’s toned-down defensive packages, it will be somewhat trickier to come to any sort of definitive conclusion regarding the offense’s progression in adapting to the new offensive system. Passionate fans are likely to exit Notre Dame stadium swooning over how potent the offense was and how far the defense still has to go in order to be competitive in the fall. In fact, Kelly stated as much in a recent interview regarding the format of Saturday’s game:

“You’ll probably leave going, ‘Wow, our defense didn’t make the kind of progress that we were hoping.’” Kelly said. “I’m just preparing you for it right now. This is going to be set up for offense, because we want to get out there and show some exciting football. But at the end of the day, our defense has made great progress this spring.” (Source: South Bend Tribune)

Another area in which expectations must be tempered is in assessing the coaches’ rapport with their players. This staff has had less than six months with the team and it is going to take awhile for the players and staff to get used to each other and begin to develop into a cohesive group. This aspect of team development cannot be underrated as it affects a multitude of other tangential things such as on-field communication and player assessment.

Reasonable Evaluative Criteria

Personnel

While fans should avoid making broad generalizations regarding personnel, evaluating players based strictly upon their own merit has usefulness. This is even more true when observing players that have changed positions (Theo Riddick, Harrison Smith, etc.) or whose stock has purportedly risen in spring practice. Evaluating an offensive lineman on his technique or physical performance will yield a more accurate grade than if he’s critiqued based on his performance in a particular alignment or contrived situation against his own teammates.

Additionally, how comfortable Harrison Smith looks at safety, what Kyle Rudolph’s progress looks like coming back from injury, and whether or not the kickers have increased their overall accuracy are all appropriate, and measurable, phenomena that can be debated. It is these specific developmental questions that are most useful in a spring scrimmage. Essentially, evaluating players on their own individual prowess executing their position, instead of as a part of a larger whole, will result in a much more accurate picture of the aggregate.

Coaching

Likewise, evaluating the coaching staff and even the new offensive and defensive systems is possible given the right criteria. For example, plays that have been specifically deployed and practiced in the last few weeks will function as telltale markers onlookers can identify to see where exactly the team is in their progression towards being able to fully deploy Kelly’s offense and defense. Because these plays are about rote execution and not about being comfortable enough to riff off of a particular offensive or defensive framework, it is much easier to observe whether the fundamental building blocks of the new Irish playbook are coming together.

Hopefully we’ve now successfully outlined a sound strategy for assembling an accurate developmental picture on Saturday. By reminding ourselves that there are still plenty of practices and unknowns between now and September, and in asking the right questions and limiting the scope of our evaluations, we can form a more exacting opinion as to what the future holds for the Fighting Irish football team of 2010. The Blue-Gold game is, after all, the final opportunity most of us will have to see this team before they run out of the tunnel to face Purdue this fall.

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• Spring Football Focus Part II: Conditioning
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This article is © 2007-2013 by De Veritate, LLC and was originally published at Clashmore Mike. This article may not be copied, distributed, or transmitted without attribution. Additionally, you may not use this article for commercial purposes or to generate derivative works without explicit written permission. Please contact us if you wish to license this content for your own use.

Chicago-area listeners can tune in to the Joe O. & Rock Show on 670am at 9:40pm ET to listen to Pilcher’s interview live. For those outside the midwest, you may listen via the web at 670thescore.com—click on the “Listen Live Now!” link in the upper-right corner of the frontpage—or simply click here.

Anthony will once again provide a follow-up article on Clashmore Mike, along with the audio of the interview segment, covering his thoughts on the interview and expounding on anything he doesn’t get a chance to get to on the air. Once again, our thanks go out to 670 The Score for the opportunity.

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This article is © 2007-2013 by De Veritate, LLC and was originally published at Clashmore Mike. This article may not be copied, distributed, or transmitted without attribution. Additionally, you may not use this article for commercial purposes or to generate derivative works without explicit written permission. Please contact us if you wish to license this content for your own use.

Michael will largely be responsible for covering things from a human-interest perspective. Additionally, he’ll also be participating in our roundtable articles and anything else that catches his fancy. I am personally looking forward to reading him wax eloquent on historical topics such as the great Austin Carr.

Finally, it’s with some measure of pride that Clashmore Mike can now boast a staff that continually ranks among the highest contributors on Bleacher Report. Anthony Pilcher, Jonathan Hunn, and Michael all have contributed heavily to the Notre Dame football section and will continue to produce quality pieces.

We’re very excited to have Michael contributing. Please feel free to get in touch with him or leave a comment.

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This article is © 2007-2013 by De Veritate, LLC and was originally published at Clashmore Mike. This article may not be copied, distributed, or transmitted without attribution. Additionally, you may not use this article for commercial purposes or to generate derivative works without explicit written permission. Please contact us if you wish to license this content for your own use.

Offense

To the expectations of those who have waited—patiently or otherwise—for Notre Dame to develop any semblance of an effective ground game, never mind “smash-mouth football,” Charlie pulled out all the stops, giving the ball to Armando Allen, Robert Hughes, or Jonas Gray a total of 53 times. To new coach Tony Alford’s credit, it appears as though his talented corps of running backs have significantly improved their field-vision and have begun playing with more grit and determination to ferret-out running lanes and grab an extra one or two yards at the end of the play. In short, there genuinely is a lot to be pleased about regarding the technique and behavior of the running backs yesterday. However, there are still a few lumps in the proverbial gravy.

Firstly, there is some merit to the idea that what Weis wanted fans, press, and future opponents alike to take away from the Blue-Gold game was a renewed potency and change of character from last year’s anemic Irish ground game, regardless of whether the rushing attack has actually made a significant leap in production. And secondly, it was readily apparent that the defense was tiring rapidly in the second half and that this resulted in much of the running game’s overall success that occurred late in the game—as testified to by Armando Allen’s offensive MVP honors despite having the worst overall rushing statistics on the day (MVP ballots from media were due with a full ten minutes left in the game).

Conversely, while reactions to the passing game’s impotency cite the unusual format and purpose of Saturday’s scrimmage as the primary cause, there is little reason that plausible game-like conditions, contrived or not, should result in such a poor showing from the vaunted Irish passing attack. An alternate possibility is that Clausen and Crist were hamstrung by imbalanced play-calling and by the general unavailability of their top-flight receivers—Tate split time between the game and Frank Eck Stadium, Floyd had only one catch, and Allen was used sparingly as an option in the passing game.

Defense

One of the bright spots for this year’s team appears to be the pronounced mobility and aggression of the young defensive line. Ethan Johnson had a huge game, recording six tackles including a two-handed sack and the line as a unit recorded three sacks with numerous hurries. This positive however, must be weighed against the relative inability of the Irish front four to stop the run—Zeke Motta and his linebacking brethren were a busy bunch—and the apparent relative success of the offensive line’s zone-stretch scheme in opening holes for Hughes and company. It is crucial that this year’s line be able to record the occasional sack and pressure relentlessly without over-pursuing and allowing opposing backs to enter the secondary.

The secondary also ended up notching a productive performance with their stifling coverage of the Irish receivers. Robert Blanton returned a Clausen interception for a touchdown, Harrison Smith registered six tackles (two for a loss), and also of note was Darrin Walls’ six-tackle performance—he’s a welcome option returning at cornerback. All in all, the defense did a remarkable job of showing off it’s new quickness up front and experience in the secondary. I’m looking forward to seeing this unit hit the field in the fall.

Special Teams

Beyond Armando Allen’s nice return of 29 yards and one average Golden Tate effort, there weren’t many punts and absolutely zero kickoffs to give fans an idea as to whether the relatively non-explosive return unit expects to rectify the situation in 2009. The jury also continued it’s deliberations in regards to the kicking game—Brandon Walker was able to convert a 48-yard field goal that had just enough leg on it to clear the crossbar, but he also badly shanked one of a handful of otherwise solid PATs off the left upright. It appeared as though the game was a microcosm of last year’s inconsistently average special teams. Hopefully progress has been made which wasn’t evident in the Blue-Gold showing.

Summary

Without overextending to draw strained conclusions from the 80th annual spring contest, it is readily apparent that the Irish are making steady progress in their goal to rectify the most glaring weaknesses in last year’s personnel and coaching. It is also equally obvious that they have much more ground to cover before the fall opener against Nevada if they hope to enter the BCS picture this season. Weis’ own words from the press conference following the game are as accurate as anyone can muster:

“I think we’ve improved in a lot of areas, but we have a long way to go to be a real good football team. At least potentially you could see the elements are in place to be a real good football team, but we have a lot of work to do.”

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This article is © 2007-2013 by De Veritate, LLC and was originally published at Clashmore Mike. This article may not be copied, distributed, or transmitted without attribution. Additionally, you may not use this article for commercial purposes or to generate derivative works without explicit written permission. Please contact us if you wish to license this content for your own use.

Our intention is to provide live, interactive coverage during the game via the Live section of our site which can be accessed in the navigation bar above, or by clicking the following link:

Clashmore Mike Live

Please feel free to join us as we begin coverage at 1PM EST. You can also feel free to follow us on Twitter where we’ll be sending our shorter, off-the-cuff reactions to the game as well:

Clashmore Mike at Twitter

It’s a beautiful, sunny day here in Notre Dame, IN! Go Irish!

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This article is © 2007-2013 by De Veritate, LLC and was originally published at Clashmore Mike. This article may not be copied, distributed, or transmitted without attribution. Additionally, you may not use this article for commercial purposes or to generate derivative works without explicit written permission. Please contact us if you wish to license this content for your own use.

Both Brandon Walker and Ryan Burkhart are proving to be the weak link in a rebounding young Irish team that can ill afford to leave points on the field. Already we have seen the inability to pin opponents inside the twenty on kickoffs and lack of production in field goal situations contributing to an often-misfiring offensive unit. As this season stretches on, the unreliability of the Notre Dame kicking game will continue to jeopardize close games and place undo stress upon a young offense that at times has struggled with mental errors.

Brandon Walker is latest Weis-era placekicker that has featured such mostly-dependable legs as D.J. Fitzpatrick and Carl Gioia however, unlike those blue-collar kickers of the past, Walker has continually struggled with accuracy in key situations. Although he has the leg strength to get the ball through the uprights on field goals of 40+ yards, all too often those attempts are wide to either side of the upright. Last season Walker was a merely adequate piece of a completely underachieving whole, converting six of twelve field goals and 22 of 23 extra points. One can’t help but think that the reason the kicking game didn’t come under greater scrutiny last season is that everyone was busy watching the Irish crash and burn on a weekly basis through most of the year: the sound of the wheels falling off the placekicking unit was drowned out by the wailing and gnashing of teeth directed at the abysmal offensive effort.

Walker’s erratic kicking has been even more evident this season he is currently two for twelve on fields goals through four games. While it’s undeniable that he has been slumping lately and I definitely don’t want to kick a man when he’s down—especially a college athlete—there are some conclusions we can draw from his play thus far. Namely, that Walker is out of his league placekicking at one of the most visible college sports programs in the country. He wasn’t very highly touted coming out of high school (he was actually more highly ranked as a punter) and hasn’t adapted well to the increased pressure of the college game. As bad as the placekicking situation might appear, there is another area on Notre Dame special teams that is under performing as much or more.

As I spent the majority of my teen years living in the town right next to Wakarusa, IN and graduated from the same high school as Ryan Burkhart, I had a startling sense of pride that a bona fide Notre Dame recruit was from my neighborhood. However, Burkhart has been perhaps the most disappointing scholarship player for his past three years at Notre Dame. His incendiary leg, which was widely praised coming out of high school after going seven for eight on 40+ yard field goals his junior year and managing to connect on a 53-yarder in the opening game of his senior campaign, earned him a spot as the only kicker named to the Indiana Top 50 all-state team in 2005. Unfortunately, this same leg has been absolutely anemic since he arrived on campus. So weak in fact, that he didn’t see the field in his sophomore year.

After taking over for Bobby Renkes in the fourth game of the 2006 season against Michigan State, Burkhart performed admirably as a true freshman and completed the season as Notre Dame’s kickoff specialist. Mysteriously, Burkhart was withheld from action in his second year at Notre Dame, presumably due to unimpressive kickoffs on the practice field. Unfortunately it appears as though Burkhart was held out with good reason as his kickoffs this year have, more often than not, been missing the mark. There has been little to no evidence on the field of that formerly-impressive leg as Notre Dame is continually faced with opponents fielding the ball at around their own 10 yard line. This is an unacceptable result for a kicker at a big-time school.

Where do we go from here? Firstly, both Walker and Burkhart need to establish some—any—kind of consistency possible. If 30-yard field goals and kickoffs to the opposing five yard line are all that we can expect, let’s at least start to see some kind of regularity so we know what we can and cannot reasonably count on in game situations. I would consider this season a win for Walker if he were able to claw back to the .500 average on field goals from last year. Likewise, if Burkhart were able to show that he can dependably send the ball to the five yard line with an occasional touchback, I would breathe a bit easier for a considerable portion of the game each Saturday. The last thing the team needs this season is more inconsistency and adversity on the offensive side of the football to battle through.

Secondly, Charlie Weis (and Rob Ianello for that matter) needs to put some honest-to-Touchdown-Jesus effort into recruiting a top-flight kicker. How hard a sell can it possibly be to a blue-chip high school kicker to commit to one of the year’s best recruiting classes, play in front of the entire nation every Saturday, get an Ivy league caliber education, and start immediately? I’d be hard-pressed to think of a better situation for a two or three-star kicking recruit. It’s readily apparent that something needs to be done this recruiting season and that we can ill afford to hang the future of the Irish kicking game on the feet of walk-ons or unrecruited scholarship players.

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This article is © 2007-2013 by De Veritate, LLC and was originally published at Clashmore Mike. This article may not be copied, distributed, or transmitted without attribution. Additionally, you may not use this article for commercial purposes or to generate derivative works without explicit written permission. Please contact us if you wish to license this content for your own use.