T1B

ol' charlie large has been talking a lot of shit for a 3-9 fat guy:

I think the first opportunity they're going to have to really make a statement is that day [Sept. 6 against SDSU], and then we'll listen to Michigan have all their excuses as they come runnin' in and sayin' how they have a new coaching staff and there's changes. To hell with Michigan.

a few assumptions made in that statement:

1. he coaches osu, not notre dame, and figures he can count umich as a win already.
2. they'll beat sdsu. doubtful.
3. they'll beat michigan. hardly.
4. that even before the game we'll be penciling it in as a loss.
5. and even if we do lose that dickrod will be late for his presser b/c he'll be searching all over for extenuating circumstances.
6. that he can pretend notre dame doesn't have workout facilities anywhere on campus.
7. that' his no excuses mantra excuses him from being a sub-par coach. i'm not making excuses when i tell my boss i'm too drunk to come to work, but that doesn't mean i'm not a piece of shit.

If you do lose to ND, I don't think Charlie will be late for his presser because he was "searching all over for extenuating circumstances." More likely, he'll be late because he was searching all over for a Krispy Kreme.

I wonder why JON feels the need to weigh in on every ND topic, considering they are dead.

Back to the point, I'd rather have a coach say this than something like "we need to close the talent gap with Michigan State."

The "to hell with Michigan" comment was a tongue in cheek reference to Bo's famous comment. Should Weis have said it? Probably not. But that's his personality and you have to take the good with the bad.

the "to hell with michigan" comment was fine, even if it had been without the bo context. nothing wrong with a little vitriol. but i think it's funny that he thinks 3-9 is somehow more palatable because he doesn't make excuses, and to highlight that he points to michigan for the ones they've never made. pretty ripe. we weren't bailing water last year. and of course, he should eat less.

Why would Michigan make excuses in a rebuilding year? That doesn't make any sense. Rich Rod doesn't need excuses. He knows going into the year they're gonna suck. I'm sure Michigan fans know this too. If they win 6 games I think that's a pretty darn good first year for him. I know Michigan fans aren't used to 4 or 5 win seasons but they're likely to have one next year and so I don't think there's a need for excuses. Is "we suck" an excuse??

TheJON wrote:Why would Michigan make excuses in a rebuilding year? That doesn't make any sense. Rich Rod doesn't need excuses. He knows going into the year they're gonna suck. I'm sure Michigan fans know this too. If they win 6 games I think that's a pretty darn good first year for him. I know Michigan fans aren't used to 4 or 5 win seasons but they're likely to have one next year and so I don't think there's a need for excuses. Is "we suck" an excuse??

Do you struggle with other things in your life this much? The "we're rebuilding" or "we have a new system" is an excuse.

MClub,

I agree that this series needs some vitrol. It has become way too stale over the past decade. I think Rodriguez and Weis are the perfect coaches for this series. It's going to be easy to hate them both.

If anyone says..."we lost but we expected to because we're running a new system", it's an excuse. If before the season even starts UM's expectations are temporarily quelled because of the new regime, that would be stating a fact. Noone gives UM a chance, and I like it this way. We'll win enough games to go bowling, mostly because of superior talent. No way this team wins only 4 or 5 games, the defense will steal a couple games and keep us in most. This aint Iowa baby.

Yeah, because Iowa wins 4-5 games every year, Steve.......(sarcasm)

And if any Michigan fan expects anymore than 5-6 wins this year, they're homers. You have no experience on offense. Your mediocre defense last year probably won't be all that much improved. You'll have an average at-best defense and your offense will finish 10th or 11th in the Big-10 in just about every category. On top of that your special teams is nothing spectacular.

Your so-called "superior talent" is inexperienced and talented or not, inexperienced football teams don't win many games because they have a lot of turnovers and bad plays do to a lack of experience and team chemistry.

You will be the Notre Dame of 2007. I remember this same discussion last year with Killian. I said they'd be lucky to win 4-5 games because of their lack of experience. Michigan has too much inexperience at too many key positions and there's no way a team like that wins more than 6 games and even that's very unlikely.

Michigan homers, or people who are basing their prediction on the fact that Michigan has had 6 or more wins for over 40 straight years? And they went through coaching changes and system changes. They won't be world beaters, but they will be slightly above .500 at worst.

ND's '08 season was exacerbated by Charlie's lack of college-experience. RR has been around the block and knows what it takes to get a younger team ready. With young guys you gotta work fundamentals and HIT, Charlie didn't do that.

Mich is without a qb that really fits RR's preferences and is short on experience. They won't be worldbeaters. But they do have talent and coaching to get by the meh teams. I'll say they go 7-5, no worse than 6-6.

As far as Charlie goes, after the '07 trainwreck I wouldn't be running smack and penciling-in wins. I know he wasn't that serious but it still definitely qualifies as bulletin-board material.

there's a big difference between stating the obvious and making excuses. We have a new coach installing a complex system, two freshman qb's battling for the starting spot, two or three offensive linemen, and are looking at seven freshman getting very significant playing time. it's not necessarily an excuse to point that out when analyzing performance. it becomes an excuse when the ifs start flying. or the internal fingerpointing. the problem here with albert weis is that he's a smug fucker. dick rod will probably make the mistake of saying something like, yeah, the dood missed a block, and weis will point to that as an excuse whereas he had to go for it on 4th and 8 because his kicker sucked. whatevs, it's notre dame: i have it listed on my schedule as a win.

michigan will win more than four or five games by november. schedule:

Sat, Aug 30 Utah
Sat, Sep 6 Miami (Ohio)
Sat, Sep 13 @Notre Dame
Sat, Sep 27 Wisconsin
Sat, Oct 4 Illinois
Sat, Oct 11 Toledo
Sat, Oct 18 @Penn State
Sat, Oct 25 Michigan State
Sat, Nov 1 @Purdue
Sat, Nov 8 @Minnesota
Sat, Nov 15 Northwestern
Sat, Nov 22 @Ohio State

Believe the Heupel wrote:On the bright side for Michigan fans, Keith Nichol announced he was transferring from OU today-and being that he's from Lowell and seems to be a good fit for Rodriguez' system AND it'd be a great way to piss off Sparty, I'd think Rodriguez would be all over him.

makes some sense. the RR system and i was thinking earlier today that i would expect he'd probably end up back somewhere in the Midwest proper/Big 10 country....but i never really put the Dick Rod and Nichol 2+2 together. i sure would have been nice to see it work out for NIchol at OU and I have a sneaky feeling Bradford may struggle a little next year.....but, Bradford 1. obviously exceeded all realistic expectations last year and 2. he committed early but was ranked much higher by most "experts" than OU fans or anyone ever gave him much credit for at time. Nichol was a name story for the decommit and highly regarded but Bradford was in the top 15 at his position.

the two schools i thought of were Iowa and Cincinnati. no reason for it. just hogwash thinking at midnight. something like that. BCS school where he can play, or "achieving" midwest "mid-major". or Penn State.

RR just signed two of the top dual-threats in the country. By the time Nichol can play again he'll have to compete with those guys plus the guy(s) that play this season. May not be the best place if he wants to be assured of playing.

A place like Cinci would be a good spot actually. Kelly is a first-rate coach and Nichol would likely be the stud of the qb's.


As far as Mich/ND goes it should be a very tough game. At ND it could go either way, we just don't know what either team will have this year.

Sat, Aug 30 Utah (WIN)
Sat, Sep 6 Miami (Ohio) (WIN)
Sat, Sep 13 @Notre Dame (LOSE)
Sat, Sep 27 Wisconsin (LOSE)
Sat, Oct 4 Illinois (WIN)
Sat, Oct 11 Toledo (WIN)
Sat, Oct 18 @Penn State (WIN)
Sat, Oct 25 Michigan State (WIN)
Sat, Nov 1 @Purdue (WIN) I'm not confident of this.
Sat, Nov 8 @Minnesota (WIN)
Sat, Nov 15 Northwestern (WIN)
Sat, Nov 22 @Ohio State (LOSE)

9-3...sounds great.

BlindRef wrote:Sat, Aug 30 Utah (WIN)
Sat, Sep 6 Miami (Ohio) (WIN)
Sat, Sep 13 @Notre Dame (LOSE)
Sat, Sep 27 Wisconsin (LOSE)
Sat, Oct 4 Illinois (WIN)
Sat, Oct 11 Toledo (WIN)
Sat, Oct 18 @Penn State (WIN)
Sat, Oct 25 Michigan State (WIN)
Sat, Nov 1 @Purdue (WIN) I'm not confident of this.
Sat, Nov 8 @Minnesota (WIN)
Sat, Nov 15 Northwestern (WIN)
Sat, Nov 22 @Ohio State (LOSE)

9-3...sounds great.

7 home games? fucking pussies!

Sin,
ballsUckingSCfan

Killian wrote:MClub,

I agree that this series needs some vitrol. It has become way too stale over the past decade. I think Rodriguez and Weis are the perfect coaches for this series. It's going to be easy to hate them both.

Since you mentioned it . . .

Here's an excellent article about public perceptions of Weis, both as a person and coach.

I've never met Weis. From what I've read about him, he strikes me as an imperfect person capable of both good and bad things, which gives him something in common with each and every one of us. He's definitely arrogant, the prevaling opinion at ND Nation to the contrary notwithstanding. He's also capable of a lot of compassion, as evidenced by the Montana Mazurkiewicz (sp?) story as well as the Hannah & Friends charity he and his wife established.

By way of comparison, I did meet Gerry Faust, and in my own personal experience, I can probably count on one hand the number of people I have met over the course of my life who were nicer persons. Because I was able to observe him while I was a student at ND, he taught me lessons in grace under pressure which I try, but too often fail, to incorporate into my own life. However, he failed to meet expectations while coaching at ND, and for that reason, it was necessary for ND to end its relationship with him, at least in the capacity of head football coach, one way or the other.

Regardless of what I thought, or did not think, of any ND football coach as a person, I have never rooted against any particular coach at ND, nor would I ever do so. To do so would be tantamount to rooting against the team, at least in the short term.

From what I've read about DickRod, there are reasons to dislike him as well, including the manner in which he left WVU. But I'm not letting my opinions, or lack thereof, of these coaches influence my rooting interests. I'll root for ND against Michigan because it's ND. If the two schools were somehow to switch coaches, my answer would be the same.

My main point is that it is easy to like Weis if you are an ND fan (last season, not withstanding). He understands ND, he doesn't make excuses, and he treats the fans and alumni very well. But he is also bombastic and probably needs to go to finishing school. Easy to love, easy to hate. I feel the same with DickRod.

I always kinda felt for Gerry Faust, he was living a dream when he got that job, ND were the ones dumb enough to hire a freaking high school coach to run a major program. Hell Tressel is about the only 1AA coach I can think of that got the reins of a national power. Faust wasn't even Div2,3, or NAIA! He made a hell of a story but he was GLARINGLY a hell of a gamble. A Duke may have to make a gamble, ND didn't need to.

I can see RR vs Weis becoming quite the rivalry. Both have egos and will talk some shit. Should be interesting. I'd give RR the edge since he is the more proven HC.