Football 101

[Killian]

In my internet stumblings, I recently found a really well written football blog. It is hosted by some dude named Chris Brown (not the old Tigers third baseman who had to go on the DL because he slept on his eye wrong) that breaks down parts of the offensive game, concentrating on passing.

If you are looking to kill some time, take a read:

Smart Football

[The Seer]

Way too complicated reading......



Sincerely,



Karl Dorrell

[Terry in Crapchester]

In my internet stumblings, I recently found a really well written football blog. It is hosted by some dude named Chris Brown (not the old Tigers third baseman who had to go on the DL because he slept on his eye wrong) . . .

Actually, I was thinking of the Chris Brown who played DB for ND in the early to mid 80's. That guy?

[Killian]

In my internet stumblings, I recently found a really well written football blog. It is hosted by some dude named Chris Brown (not the old Tigers third baseman who had to go on the DL because he slept on his eye wrong) . . .

Actually, I was thinking of the Chris Brown who played DB for ND in the early to mid 80's. That guy?

Considering he would have spent most of his time learning offense from Faust, doubtful.

[Terry in Crapchester]

In my internet stumblings, I recently found a really well written football blog. It is hosted by some dude named Chris Brown (not the old Tigers third baseman who had to go on the DL because he slept on his eye wrong) . . .

Actually, I was thinking of the Chris Brown who played DB for ND in the early to mid 80's. That guy?

Considering he would have spent most of his time learning offense from Faust, doubtful.

Touche. :wink:

Of course, Faust did win at the high school level, so his musings on offense might have some value, depending on who his audience was.

[Danimal]

I still can't believe they entrusted the ND-legacy to a freaking high school coach, even one that won A LOT at that level.

I would be hard-pressed to hire a high schooler to be a 1AA head coach let-alone to be the man for ND.

[Killian]

I still can't believe they entrusted the ND-legacy to a freaking high school coach, even one that won A LOT at that level.

I would be hard-pressed to hire a high schooler to be a 1AA head coach let-alone to be the man for ND.

They were coming of an era of Ara and Devine and thought they could do no wrong.

Faust could recruit like a son of a bitch, but he couldn't coach for shit. Honestly, he's very similar to Ron Zook. At least Zook had some college experience.

Hell, if Faust had the coaching accumen of Bob Davie, Lou Holtz would never have become head coach at ND.

[Terry in Crapchester]

I still can't believe they entrusted the ND-legacy to a freaking high school coach, even one that won A LOT at that level.

I would be hard-pressed to hire a high schooler to be a 1AA head coach let-alone to be the man for ND.

They were coming of an era of Ara and Devine and thought they could do no wrong.

Faust could recruit like a son of a bitch, but he couldn't coach for shit. Honestly, he's very similar to Ron Zook. At least Zook had some college experience.

Hell, if Faust had the coaching accumen of Bob Davie, Lou Holtz would never have become head coach at ND.

Agree with all of the above. One ironic thing is that George Welsh, who had a decent run at Virginia, wanted the job and the Administration passed him over for Faust. He definitely would have been an improvement, at least from a coaching perspective, over Faust. In terms of recruiting, Faust's major weakness was that he was overly enamored by power players, and his teams always lacked significant overall speed.

Holtz took ND to the Cotton Bowl in only his second full season, with mostly Faust's players. That might not sound like much, but consider that the Cotton was still a major bowl at the time, ND had never won more than 7 games in a season under Faust, ND lost its projected starting QB that season (Terry Andrysiak) very early on to injuries, and ND played a monster schedule that year.

[PSUFAN]

Thanks for posting this link. I've enjoyed reading it a great deal.

[MiketheangrydrunkenCUfan]

Thanks for posting this link. I've enjoyed reading it a great deal.

Ditto. I just read the article on the spread. I'll definitely be reading more. It's nice to not only know what a team is doing but also why & how they're doing it.

[Terry in Crapchester]

I still can't believe they entrusted the ND-legacy to a freaking high school coach, even one that won A LOT at that level.

I would be hard-pressed to hire a high schooler to be a 1AA head coach let-alone to be the man for ND.

They were coming of an era of Ara and Devine and thought they could do no wrong.

Faust could recruit like a son of a bitch, but he couldn't coach for shit. Honestly, he's very similar to Ron Zook. At least Zook had some college experience.

Hell, if Faust had the coaching accumen of Bob Davie, Lou Holtz would never have become head coach at ND.

I was there for the Faust years. It actually seems harder to believe that ND did this in retrospect, 20-some years later, than it did at the time.

Part of the reason for that -- you had to know Faust personally to understand. He had pretty much an unmatched love for ND. He had no personal connections to ND, but had sent a bunch of his high school players there over the years. And he had a real infectious enthusiasm about him. Plus, he was so damn likeable that you were willing to suspend your objective analysis just because you were rooting so hard for the guy to do well.

For that matter, he wasn't a dummy, either. I remember him coming to our dorm and talking to us in the spring of '83. One of the things he mentioned that has stuck with me over the years -- he voiced an opinion that Pope John Paul, if he lived, would have a profound impact upon world peace. Very prescient words, as it turned out.

Comparing Faust and Davie is like comparing apples to oranges. Both were unsuccessful head coaches at ND, but that's where the similarities end. Faust was a great recruiter (I don't have stats on this, but I'm sure that if you looked it up, you'd see a disproportionate amount of guys who played under Faust wound up in the NFL, considering that his career record at ND was 30-26-1), although perhaps his one fatal weakness in this regard was that he was so enamored of power football that his teams frequently had a sizeable deficit in overall team speed. Faust was a guy who "got" ND, loved ND, and could recruit, but was just plain in over his head from a technical standpoint.

Davie, OTOH, was probably qualified, at least from a technical standpoint, to be a serviceable, albeit not great, head coach at the 1-A level by the time ND made him head coach (although not at ND). Davie was an average recruiter (that's probably a charitable assessment). His biggest problem at ND was that he didn't "get" ND at all, didn't understand why it was, or for that matter should be, a unique place among the ranks of 1-A football, and he alienated a lot of people in the process (browse the ND boards, and from time to time you'll still see reference to his now-infamous suggestion that ND "needs to schedule more directional schools.") Another problem for Davie at ND was that he made no secret of the fact that Texas A&M, not ND, was his dream job. Now, this isn't a knock on Indy Frisco, and I'm not naive enough to doubt that Davie is alone in the coaching profession in preferring A&M to ND, but the feeling of most of ND's fanbase is that any coach who feels that way has no business coaching at ND.