I could live w/ this just the thought of Traore and Bryce coming off the edges in 2026 as a SR and JR has me so giddy...praying for good health for both of them and that Traore will come back for his SR year
this is absolutely stunning to not lose anyone of importance to the portal after the spring...just an incredible job by Freeman and the GM and ND
i think this shows the ND players are bought in for the 2025 season and ND is going to have serious depth to make a long run like last year but I would much prefer we avoid the season ending type injuries we got hit with i don't think any team in the playoff was hit by injury as hard as ND
Thing is, even if the drop to 105 is delayed and implemented over a couple years, scholarships are still a few over the current limit. There has to be some attrition, albeit minor. I would still not be surprised to see a few grad transfers in a couple weeks as players wrap up their degrees. They have to stay to finish school anyway, might as well wait to amnounce and get a few workouts in. If nothing else, we know this team has a strong culture.
I thought last years team was the best ND team this century and it’s not close, and they were limited in pass game. I think QB hits and this is better than last years. There’s also no real bully in the house nationally, so why not? Navigate the first three and roll.
What I would give for a prime usc or bama-like opening weekend where a fringe contender is absolutely embarrassed
I also think an underrated phenomena is the lack of hurry to go to the nfl and make the league minimum for 3 years and retire. a guy like Payne can make some money here for a year , play in 4 games and redshirt, hit the portal next window way healthier and with a degree same goes for a lot of the depth guys
Honestly, this is where NDs plan works. If you can say high level football with and education and at worst, you get a great degree and if it doesn’t work, go transfer and get paid, that’s great. They don’t have dozens of players hitting the portal yearly because of that.
Recruiting will pick up and someone dropped an hour long highlight vid of last season I will watch 1000 times.
chad thought they were coming because of him when they were really coming for marcus. ya love to see it.
I started one episode that was kinda corny af (to be expected with a lot of the into/buildup) knowing that I wasn't going to make it to anything good that night so gave up on it. I also have this weird thing where several of my favorite shows of all time I didn't watch the last episode because of the feeling that it's over forever. I think The Wire and Justified are both examples. (Or maybe I was too lit up and forgot) But there is some similar aspect here that after I watch this it's over.
We’re still in on Jacobson, Premer, Anderson, Ludwig (and I think we’re still trying for Sutter). I’d prefer those guys over Mueller for sure. this kid is new to football and has limited film, hard to judge him. We kind of fucked by not going after Sutter earlier but we were seemingly focusing on Harrison and Brock Harris early on. I don’t think we want Mueller to join the class this early, which is why we seemingly asked him to push his commitment date out but he wouldn’t. Definitely like other options more than him
ND is trying to get Mueller to delay his decision because they want to figure out other TE decisions first His offer isn’t committable if he follows through with that commitment date
More than anything, I think that game forced him to take a stance of leaving no doubt thereafter. There was no room for error the rest of the way, so we had to win and win big in every game post NIU. And for the first time in decades, we went on a run of just beating the piss out of teams win in and week out. That, in turn, developed a mindset of dominance within the program that we haven’t seen since Holtz. That mindset was the most important differentiator we saw between Freeman and anything Kelly did at ND. Every one of Kelly’s great teams was just trying to scrap together wins week over week, which is not the mindset an elite team needs to have going into a playoff. We beat Georgia and Penn State because we felt we were supposed to, not because we were simply trying to.
Lol Njie put his name in the draft? He can withdraw but what is he thinking, guy was the worst player on the team last season
You can’t show a highlight video of the bowl games / season with selective replays and not show a slow-mo replay for the greatest 1 yard TD run in ND history. Should be a mandatory slow-mo replay every time someone flashes that Love run vs. PSU.
USC fired their s&c coach so I was reading their board. lol they all think Bowden is the second coming it’s Wild. He is single handedly bringing them to the promise land apparently.
I'm sure Bowden is scratching the same itch with that program that he did his early days here. If you have zero shame and try to hook up with every girl at the bar, you will get laid a lot. That doesn't mean that when you go out where Derek Jeter and Leo are around you are going to get any attention.
Bowden is tampering like he did with Hartman and Leonard. ND fans acting like he’s the anti-christ need to take a chill pill. Guy is doing exactly what 95% of his colleagues would do in the exact same situation. And good on ND for fending him off. My opinion on him remains unchanged. He’s an extremely effective child in an industry where attracting teenagers is the name of the game.
I think he’s a really good HS recruiter but may be limited beyond that. I’m glad we have a real adult running the entire operation now, though do wonder if our HS guys are as talented as Chad was. The initial results would suggest they’re not far off, but time will tell. All in all, I think both ND and USC got better with that move.
I'm sure we still have some shameless pitchmen, they just aren't in charge of planning and strategy. Which is a very significant reason for Chad leaving, he was probably going to have to answer to someone else and take orders.