Two simple points:  Point 1. Wimbush, for all of his talent, has been erratic, late with reads and been sailing passes all year.  Given the above, having him pass it often early against a fast opportunistic defense in an incredibly hostile crowd is going to lead to turnovers.   That’s common sense.  Just like “not throwing” the ball in a hurricane is common sense.  It’s not okay for a head coach to later lament “That’s just being more accurate and being on time with the throw,”  No Brian, “that’s just being the coach who thinks about how to put his QB in a position to succeed.”    Pass plays come with high execution risk by nature and Wimbush has been completing a very low percentage of this passes and his downfield accuracy has been awful.  In 2014, chuck and duck play-calling helped turn Everett Golson into a turnover machine with Notre Dame often falling behind two scores early.   Saturday night smelled of 2014.  Ian Book’s interception was the result of a bait and switch that Miami practiced all week.  The strip sack later in the game wasn’t because “Brandon has got to feel the pressure and step up in the pocket”, it was because Notre Dame was way behind… wait for it…  because of three interceptions that led to 17 points, the entire team was pressing and Miami was teeing off.  Yeah, your pressure sensing is going to be off in that situation.

Point 2. Slow developing running plays are fresh meat for a fast penetrating defense.  That strategy didn’t work against Georgia and it didn’t work against Miami.  As I noted on Saturday night, if ND just ran straight at Miami in the first half, we probably would have been down 7-0 and won the second half.

Instead, Notre Dame played right into their hands.  Richt later seemed flabbergasted that ND was so easy to dispatch.

Richt said Miami’s defensive staff, via the radio chatter in his headset, was “predicting” what Notre Dame was going to do. Diaz said Trajan Bandy’s pick-six was predicted. “We did say on the headset, Trajan’s going to intercept this pass.” 

It wasn’t an execution problem.  It wasn’t a turnover problem. It was a coaching problem.

Kelly acted later as if the team didn’t take care of the football.  “You’ve got to protect the football, and we did not do a very good job of protecting the football. That can’t get lost in this whole narrative of what kind of offense you’re going to run. First and foremost, you’ve got to protect the football, and we didn’t do a very good job of that.”

And why was that, Brian?

The post It’s Not an Execution Problem, Brian appeared first on NDNation.

The reboot is extensive and seems to cover eight broad areas:

1. Strength and Conditioning and Nutrition
2. Defensive Coaching
3. Offensive Coaching
4. Special Teams
5. Recruiting
6. Scouting
7. Leadership and Mental Preparation
8. Brian Kelly

Reboot 1: Strength and Conditioning and Nutrition

Click Here For Player quotes on S&C

Why is S&C so important in college football?  The S&C coach spends more time with the players than the other coaches which are limited by time constraints.  In many ways,  S&C sets the “culture”… as what you do on a daily basis IS the culture of any team and that shows up on gameday.

“It’s the intangibles: effort, mental toughness, being responsible for doing what you need to do,” Saban says. “It does require a tremendous amount of physical conditioning to sustain those things. People loaf when they’re tired. Fatigue makes cowards of us all.”

Last year’s exit interviews confirmed that the problem wasn’t with the players, the problem was with leadership and process. Players were allowed to make “fungible” workout schedules, there was little oversight or accountability and players became noticeably weaker as the season progressed.   There were four staff members “kind of” driving accountability across the team and a head of S&C who was dealing with health issues.

In addition, Notre Dame had lost it top nutritionists.   From a major college standpoint, it was a mess.  Chase Hounshell, who went from ND to Ohio State described OSU’s philosophy this way: “There was always a competition going on and eyes watching you. You’re always just in competition. There is always a winner and always a loser at Ohio State…. At Notre Dame, we didn’t have any competition going one-on-one with someone”.  It was so bad that kids were going to side workouts to get in shape.  Injuries, lack of power, lack of stamina, lack of commitment were all cited as issues.

As Mike Frank has noted many times before, it’s fairly easy for players to get complacent at Notre Dame as there are so many distractions and football is not the only possibility for student athletes. At other schools, football is looked at as the only route to success.  At Notre Dame, players become investment bankers.   In other words, it’s harder to get their attention and commitment.

Notre Dame appears to have pushed all in. Notre Dame hired Matt Balis, who worked for Ohio State’s Micky Marotti and directly for Urban Meyer at Utah, who brought in team-based competition, sports science, high tech and unprecedented oversight.  The S&C staff ballooned from 4 to 9 (with interns.)  Under Balis are David Ballou who is the “velocity” and sports science expert and Jacob Flint who specializes in Olympic lifts.  Here’s a short summation of the changes:

• From four coaches overseeing 52 man workouts and giving players flexibility to nine coaches overseeing eight 13 man squads, each of which has a team leader and a strength coach.

•  From an approach that seemed a bit behind the times… to one that integrates different philosophies. “It’s all effort based,” Balis said. “It is a principle program. We are going to take from the Olympic world. We power clean, and hang clean. We are going to do velocity training with the Elite Form and move the bar fast. Dynamic effort, high intensity until failure. We balance those things”

• From very little accountability to constant accountability.  Teams are graded against each other, individuals on teams are ranked from highest to lowest and it’s all on a board for everyone to see. Results are posted on the boards with winners and losers, those who are “hungry” and those who, uh hum, aren’t.

• Low tech to high tech. Data from every session is analyzed. Ballou posts things like:   “Squat peak power numbers up = best game speed numbers of season”. Kelly noted: “we have numbers that speak to strength gains in the weight room. Our ability to track it now has really given us a physical edge as we go into each and every week, and it’s something that we can relate to our players weekly.”

• From in-season maintenance to in-season training. More from Ballou: “the Team has the best Monday lift of the season. Bars were moving fast in the squat rack today!” “Hard to overstate importance of speed in football. Acceleration, Deceleration, & COD show up every snap. Transfer of training so important.” Kelly also talked about in-season training, “we’ve made incredible strides during the season. We’re a stronger football team today than we were in August… we’re taking the weight times the speed to get the wattage, and that’s giving us the neuromuscular firing that’s giving us those numbers that we can track our players. That is applicable to the force against the ground, and we’re seeing some great moves for us.”  

• From injury prevention to dysfunction diagnosis and corrective action. Notre Dame uses a Dari motion capture tool to analyze player dysfunctions, for instance, Jay Hayes had a problem that was fixed with orthotics.  Every day players report in on soreness and tiredness and coaches monitor their status on an electronic board. As Eric Hansen noted,  “High on the wall is a video screen with every Notre Dame football player’s picture contained within a small box and a series a numbers listed under each photo.” Kelly said that pro-active approach extends to pregame preparation, “Dale Jones has done an incredible job with our correctives. He should get a lot of the credit. On game day he probably gets his hands on 30 to 40 guys, so he’s done a really good job in that respect.”

• Rebuilding the nutrition program which had atrophied after the program lost several nutritionists. ND will be getting its own football dining hall when the revamp of the GUG is complete.

Reboot 2: Defensive staff and philosophy

Brian Van Gorder took a posture of “if you don’t know it… it’s on you”.  New defensive coordinator Mike Elko believes that if players aren’t getting it, he wants to know why and will simplify if necessary, “If they can’t learn concepts, they’re constantly going to be seeing things that they don’t understand. You’re asking them to do things that make sense to them. You’re explaining why.”  Elko also believes in dictating the direction of the game.  He wants to make negative plays that stall offenses and cause turnovers.  To that end he brings pressure from everywhere, but in a very sound and simple way so that players trust in themselves and play faster. Perhaps most heartening is his focus on fundamentals and drills to create turnovers, practices are very intentional.  Elko, to this point, has proven to be very good at in game adjustments.

Reboot 3: Offensive staff and philosophy

New Offensive coordinator Chip Long says he’s looking to be a physical football team and believes in a play-action based game predicated off a strong running game.  “At the end of the day, we’re gonna be able to run the ball and run the ball to win,” Long said. “And then be able to take shots when we want to. We’re going to be a physical football team.” I have to admit, I was very suspect about his commitment to the run, but he has proven me wrong.  Every week, Long distributes videos of players knocking their opponents backward.  Perhaps the best sign of the impact this philosophy is  Chase Claypool who is crushing defensive backs and Durham Smythe who’s become an effective sixth lineman.   Long runs plays out of multiple formations, which means we don’t need constant personnel shifts that give the play away.  Are we really seeing effective use of misdirection?  Who’d a thunk it?   Long runs a lot of two tight end sets, which means we can show power and then split a tight end out. He also uses the HBack (think fullback) to overload on power. Last week he ran a four tight end set.  That makes a lot of sense with the depth we have at the position.  He also likes to roll out his QBs, which I’ve been screaming about for years.

Reboot 4: Special Teams

Not seeing it.  Polian has to be feeling some heat as the weakest link on the team.  Next.

Reboot 5: Recruiting

Taking a page from Ohio State and harkening back to the day of Vinnie Cerrato, Notre Dame is looking to build out its recruiting ability.    For reference, Cleveland.com published a deep dive into Ohio State’s recruiting operation that detailed the Buckeyes’ 10-person recruiting department and how Ohio State identifies talent and how it recruits it, from film evaluations to on-campus visits to social media engagement.  Notre Dame is changing its philosophy, rather than go for the best players out there, they’re looking for the best players who they believe will thrive at Notre Dame.  To do that, Notre Dame believes it needs to recruit for the skill and not depend upon coaches: “Our resource focus is on fit evaluation more than talent evaluation,” Swarbrick told Irish Illustrated. “I very much think we have to give our coaches additional resources to evaluate fit. That’s by far our biggest challenge.”  Notre Dame now has a head of scouting.  Bill Rees, father of Tommy, is looking for clues into what creates a successful Notre Dame recruit. It has been heartening to see the words “Catholic” and “cathedral” used so often in recruiting. Perhaps the staff is focusing on feeder schools where it already has a built in advantage?

Reboot 6: Scouting

Rees was hired as director of scouting, but he also scouts opposing team’s talent for weaknesses.  Additionally, Kelly said he’s now self-scouting weekly which he admitted he hadn’t done before.  We’ll just let you think on that one.

Reboot 7: Leadership and Mental Preparation

Leadership is much more intentional. Notre Dame named 7 captains, gave them responsibility and monitors their collective success and failure.  Workout groups and locker groups are changed to make sure cliques don’t develop and to create a climate where the team supports one another.  Mental Performance consultant Amber Selking has been working with the team on adopting the right mental approach. Says Kelly, “She gives us a language we can all speak and understand when it comes to building mental toughness.” Kelly continues, “This all feeds into how we played in the fourth quarter last year and how we correct that. We’ve worked collaboratively in putting together the mental performance pieces for our football team since January. She’s worked in physician groups, she’s worked individually, she’s worked with the units, offense, defense and special teams, and then she’s worked one-on-one with me, so we could have this collaborative approach to mental performance.” As Holtz used to do, Selking uses techniques to help the team mentally rehearse for performance.

Reboot 8: Brian Kelly

Brian Kelly has, to this point, elevated himself from offensive tinkerer to head coach.  You can hear it in his press conferences, you can see it in the on the field performance.   As many have noticed, Kelly doesn’t have a playsheet (his woobie) in his hands during games, a clear signal that he’s actually turned play calling over to Chip Long.   That’s important because Kelly would get so caught up in the minutiae of the offense, he let the rest of the team fall to shit.  Literally, the entire team suffered from some malady last year.  Now he’s actively involved on a daily basis following up with players and actually seems committed this year to developing the team.  He’s involved with players, toned down his criticism and seems to view his role differently.  Of course, one bad loss and who knows what will happen.   For now, I’m buying the ‘boot.

The post Revisiting the Reboot appeared first on NDNation.

The probability concept puts a little more thought around predictions than just ” is ND better than X”? We ask every fan to estimate the probability of the Irish winning each game and use that to calculate expectations. Without further ado, the results:

2018 Findings

• On average, fans expect approximately 7.2 wins this year (Down from 8.9).
• At the most optimistic boundary (highest responses garnering at least 5%) fans are slightly more optimistic and expect 10.7 wins (UP from 10.3.)
  
• The pessimists are wildly more pessimistic; the pessimistic boundary expects 4.8 wins this season (Down from 7.5.)

There seem to be five levels of opponents

• The Underdogs:  Southern Cal, Stanford, Georgia
• The coin tosses:  Miami, Michigan State
• The slight favorites:  UNC, NC State
• The solid favorites:  Navy, BC
• The heavy favorites: Wake Forest, Temple, Miami(OH)

Here are the rolled up results with the 5% cutoff:

And here’s the roll-up of the pessimistic, optimistic and upper bounds:

The post The 2017 NDN Probability Poll Results appeared first on NDNation.

Swarbrick has made his call, placed his bets and hopes to put that all in the past. The program has undergone a massive reboot with one exception, Brian Kelly is still at the helm. I’ll leave that argument for others to chew on and focus on what’s in front of us with a caveat, I’ve never seen such an overhaul on a college team before, but logic tells you it’s going to be hard to get that many new pieces highly coordinated and embedded into the team culture. With that out of the way here’s the season preview.

OVERALL TALENT AND RECRUITING

Notre Dame has a surprising amount of talent. Here’s an objective star look (from rivals) at ND 2017 vs Clemson 2016. The cutoff for National Champions has been 55% at a 4-star rating or higher. ND is at 68%. That stat is certainly not an end to itself, but it is a rough guide.

Offense – 73% Four Stars
• 5-star players: Clemson 1, ND 1
• 4-star players: Clemson 7, ND 7
• 3-star players: Clemson 2, ND 3 (McGlinchy, Adams, Smythe)
• Not-rated players: Clemson 1, ND 0

Defense – 64% Four Stars
• 5-star players: Clemson 2, ND 1
• 4-star players:  Clemson 6, ND 6
• 3-star players: Clemson 2, ND 4 (Bonner, Martini, Tranquil, Coleman)
• 2-star players: Clemson 2, ND 0

It should be noted that ND has 4-star backups behind every 3-star starter except Bonner (unless Ewell earns that spot or Jay Hayes slides in.) Notre Dame just hired Bill Rees (Tommy’s father) to head recruiting evaluation. ND is currently on track for a top 10 class, which could be a top 5 class with a good season or drop massively with a poor season. Overall the staff has upgraded recruiting ability almost across the board. Elko has certainly surprised people with his ability to bring in top talent given his Wake Forest background. Certainly, a wait and see approach is warranted, but some positive early returns on the recruiting front.

DEVELOPMENT

Notre Dame’s massive restructuring of Strength in Conditioning boosted the staff from 4 to 9 (including interns) hiring Matt Balis as the head of football, David Ballou for velocity (essentially measuring not just power, but also technique/deployment of power) and Jacob Flint was retained to oversee Olympic lifts. The team now lifts in 8 different groups of 13 or so and each group is tracked every day on their progress (or lack thereof.) Ballou is also using technology to for injury prevention. Early returns have been positive, but… they always are at this point. Notre Dame has also added a nutritionist and a sports psychologist to round out development.

DEFENSE

It’s hard to overstate just how bad Notre Dame’s defense was under Brian Van Gorder. So, I’ll let the numbers do the talking, his defenses were ranked: 84, 39 and 90ish (through 4 games last season.) New defensive coordinator Mike Elko is stressing a few key points: fundamentals (tackling), resetting the line of scrimmage (to get negative yards), turnovers, finding homes that maximize player strengths and disguising defenses without overcomplicating them. Easier said than done after years of neglect.

Defensive Line

The biggest concern is the defensive line and there are a lot of concerns. The biggest of big concerns starts right up the gut. Nose tackle Jerry Tiller has been highly inconsistent and there’s a decent question around whether he’s really an offensive tackle playing defense. Behind him the loss of Cage leaves Mokwuah and Tiassum, two lower rated players with big bodies and possibly freshmen Darnell Ewell or Kurt Hinish. A lot of size, not a lot of proven ability, though I have noted the propensity of upper class defensive linemen to grow into their roles. The 3-technique or defensive tackle is in equally uncertain territory. Jonathan Bonner is up to 291 pounds, but he’s a tweaner (DE/DT) who’s undersized at DT and not fast enough for DE. Elijah Taylor showed some promise, but he’s coming off a lisfranc injury, has lost weight and still isn’t at full speed. There is hope in the form of Micah Dew Treadway, a big 305-pound kid who can bend and move, but he’s yet to make an impact. Freshmen will also be given a look here. Perhaps the best solution is for 4-star Kareem to take over the SDE position with Trumbetti and have 4-star Jay Hayes slide into the DT spot. Together with Hayes the younger (Daelin) that would give ND a 4-star defensive line across the board. Daelin Hayes at drop end is the big wildcard on the team, he has all the talent in the world, but with two shoulder surgeries, may not hold up all season. Behind him, Julian Okwara and Ade Ogundeji are showing promise, but they’re all sophomores.

Linebacker

This is the strongest area of the defense with experience across the board in Martini, Morgan and Tranquil backed up by 4-stars in Bilal and Coney. Martini, at 6’4” has been cited by Elko as a player with underrated athleticism, Morgan is expected to have a standout year and everyone seems to think that Tranquil’s natural position is Rover (he plays well close to the line of scrimmage.). Overall, an encouraging situation.

Corner

Can 4-star Shaun Crawford come back from his Achilles injury? If he can, he’s the best athlete in the secondary. 4-stars Nick Watkins and Julian Love are penciled in as the starters with 4-stars Donte Vaughn (size) and Troy Pride (speed) behind them, both earned valuable playing experience. It doesn’t look like ND has shutdown corners, but highly capable corners with potential. Not a bad place to enter fall camp.

Safety

Safety is a bigger worry. The transition of Nick Coleman and his sub 4.5 speed to free safety looks like it is paying off. The strong safety spot looks like it’s the highly athletic Jalen Elliott’s to lose, but Navy transfer Alohi Gillman (pursued by USC and Michigan) has been getting first team reps over the summer and is viewed as a run stuffing SS. If he’s cleared, many expect him to start over Elliott. Studstill, Morgan, Robertson and Genmark-Heath will be fighting for a spot on the two-deep. IF Coleman works out and Gillman is cleared, safety may move out of the major concern box.

OFFENSE

As bad as the numbers were on defense, Kelly’s offenses have been almost as terrible (actually worse over his tenure) ranking 66, 49, 80, 74, 40, 34 and 53. Please get him away from the damn offense. The stress our terrible offenses have put on the defense can’t be overstated. Chip Long is the new offensive coordinator, he brings with him some good and some bad. On the positive side, he likes to run two tight end sets and play-action (a foreign concept to Kelly) at tempo. Theoretically that stops defensive substitutions and COULD lead to a more physical offense. My enthusiasm is highly tempered by the reality that Long did not the run the ball often as an offensive coordinator. Look for some run pass options (RPOs) to be combined with play action and some zone read to keep teams off balance. There’s a lot of talk about physical football, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

Quarterback

Brandon Wimbush is considered as good a raw talent as ND has had at the quarterback position. He has size, 4.6 speed, a rocket arm and has been a team leader. That said, he has almost no experience and his interceptions in the spring game are worrisome. Notre Dame can expect to have some growing pains, but also some Wow plays from a QB who has running back skills and the ability to throw it 70 yards down the field. Ian Book looked surprisingly good in the spring game.

Running Back

People around the program feel very good about the running back situation. Josh Adams is 225 pounds with breakaway ability, Dexter Williams is the most dynamic runner (as he showed in the spring game) and is up to 215 pounds and Tony Jones may be the best all-around back on the team. At 225 he has great feet, balance and a surprising burst. Notre Dame, barring a run of injuries will have a very good-looking backfield in 2017.

Tight End

Alize Mack is the headliner, at 6’5” 251 he has the speed to stretch the field and line up wide and is adding the size needed to support the run game. Some feel he’s a possible first round draft pick. Then there are Durham Smythe and Nic Weishar, neither has really distinguished themselves. They’re veterans, but neither is likely to be an all-American. That said, people are drooling over the potential of Brock Wright and Cole Kmet. Big kids who can run. Kmet, especially, is opening some eyes. He was viewed as more of a pass catching tight end, but is now up over 250 and still has the same speed and hands.

Wide Receiver

Now this is an interesting position. Notre Dame’s top two returning receivers are E. St. Brown and Kevin Stepherson. Stepherson had hell of a freshmen year, but has consistently been in the dog house which moved him down on the depth chart in the spring. That let 4-star recruits Miles Boykin and Chase Claypool, both 6’4” 225-pounders break into the starting lineup. With ESB, and the tight ends, Notre Dame can put some massive targets on the field who can also pound defensive backs in the run game. And both Boykin and Claypool can run. 225 pound Javon McKinley is actually the highest rated wide receiver on the team and he’ll be back to full speed this fall. Of course, then there are mighty mites CJ Sanders and Chris Finke who are both dangerous in the open field and transfers (old timers) Cam Smith (speed) and Freddie Canteen. Notre Dame will have a lot of toys to play with on the outside and be able to create a lot of matchup problems if they don’t get too cute.

Offensive Line

The best for last. On the left side, Kelly’s two most important recruits, Mike McGlinchy and Quenton Nelson are both considered possible first round picks in the NFL draft. In the middle, Sam Mustipher (with two years of eligibility) has been a leader throughout the spring and the summer and many believe could become an NFL pick himself. On his right is 4-star Alex Bars (who Kelly once called the best lineman on the team) and then two highly rated recruits in Tommy Kraemer and Liam Eichenberg. The freshman class has surprised everyone with 325 pound Aaron Banks and 290 pound Robert Hainsey leading the plaudits. Josh Lugg, the Pennsylvania lineman of the year, reported in at 6’6” 300 pounds.

SPECIAL TEAMS

Special teams have had some special individual players, but have been missing the team part. CJ Sanders on returns, Justin Yoon at kicker and Tyler Newsome on punting have all shown the ability to be top flight players, yet special teams languished under Booker. Enter Brian Polian who had great special teams performance in his one year under Harbaugh at Stanford, but middling results at Notre Dame under Charlie Weis. With his sole responsibility on special teams and some really good pieces to play with, Polian will have to prove Stanford wasn’t the result of Harbaugh but his own coaching. Overall, ND will have very good skill players on special teams.

SCHEDULE

The schedule is hard, but not excessively so. It’s ranked between 10 and 20 by most outlets. The slate is littered with bowl team, but USC, Stanford, Miami and Georgia are top rated teams almost across the board. Georgia looms as possibly the biggest game in Brian Kelly’s late career. A win would restore a lot of the lost confidence in the team, a loss… and it wouldn’t surprise me if the wheels started coming off the seemingly always broken red wagon of Brian Kelly.

And then there’s the jumbotron factor…

The post Notre Dame Football Fall Primer appeared first on NDNation.

Without further ado, the 2017 survey:

The post The 11th NDNation Probability Poll (we’re old) appeared first on NDNation.

What’s apparent from all sources is that Longo and Booker have been a problem for years.  Brian Van Gorder, from the FSU game on, has been a disaster as a defensive coordinator. One can make a very good case for  the hires of Mike Elko and Brian Polian.  The latter coached special teams under Harbaugh at Stanford and was recruiting coordinator for their best recruiting class in history.  But now, with the news of Mike Denbrock leaving*, it’s clear Kelly hasn’t evaluated himself on offense as he’s evaluated the rest of the team.

While he was known for his offense at Cincinnati, his defenses were actually better than his offenses in two of three years.  Kelly’s early offenses were at Notre Dame were middling to terrible.  He consistently asks his quarterbacks to shoulder too much of the load which leads to inevitable breakdowns.  Even his best offense in 2015 couldn’t push around a depleted Ohio State defense at the line of scrimmage.  It was embarrassing.

Kelly has proven himself to be a constant meddler and tinkerer, pushing Notre Dame into a precision passing game (which is an oxymoron in college football with 20 hours a week to practice.)  Last year’s three ring coaching circus starting with two quarterbacks starting the year was hideous to watch.  Sanford was the OC, Denbrock called the plays (or whatever th F&$%’was going on)  and Kelly was in the middle of the mess making it messier.

Kelly hasn’t shown the CEO ability to hire the right guy and then coach him to establish an offense with a power identity. Instead he tricks himself into thinking his plays could work… if only … much like Weis and Van Gorder did as noted a previous columns:

 his players don’t have enough practice time to be able to execute what is schematically possible, however enticing, without a high risk of error. Charlie Weis always bemoaned what was possible and that his players just weren’t able to execute the plays that were possible; seemingly forgetting that there are more moving parts on pass plays and thus more risk.

When the highly predictable breakdowns occur,  Kelly screams at players rather than  his own inability to see his scheme and play calling  as the real problem.

Kelly’s only “Notre Dame worthy season” came when Martin became OC and established the run and protected the defense.  And even though that offense was putrid from an output perspective, it held the ball, wore down opponents and helped toughened up the defense which was among the top in the country. When your defense is constantly practicing against  such a passing efficiency based offense, it’s hard if not impossible to develop the rock hard mentality needed to trudge through a season undefeated. So Kelly’s offensive choices are affecting the defense’s ability to perform.

Despite that success while running the ball, Kelly, ever the tinkerer, seems determined to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result.  You can’t solve a problem with the same thinking that created the problem.  Perseverance is one thing, myopic arrogance is another.  Einstein, Kelly is not.  He can be a tough-nosed bulldog and he certainly has good enough players to win if has the self-awareness to see his offensive passing fancy as the problem.

Does Brian want to be known as a head coach or an offensive tinkerer?

If it’s the latter, his epitaph is already written.

*This is not an endorsement of Denbrock as his track record as an OC,  outside of the LSU bowl game(a thing of beauty), is very unclear.

The post Myopic Arrogance and Brian Kelly appeared first on NDNation.

The probability concept puts a little more thought around predictions than just ” is ND better than X”? We ask every fan to estimate the probability of the Irish winning each game and use that to calculate expectations. Without further ado, the results:

2016 Findings

• On average, fans expect approximately 8.9 wins this year (Up from 8.3).
• At the most optimistic boundary (highest responses garnering at least 10%) fans are slightly less optimistic and expect 10.3 wins (Down from 10.4.)
  
• The pessimists are slightly more pessimistic; the pessimistic boundary expects 7.5 wins this season (Down from 7.6.)
• Yet NDN doesn’t think ND is an underdog to anyone on the schedule in 2016.

There seem to be three levels of opponents

• The coin tosses:  Stanford and USC
• The slight favorites:  Michigan State
• The solid favorites:  Texas and Miami
• The heavy favorites: Nevada, Duke, Syracuse, Navy, NC State, Army and (surprisingly) Va. Tech.

Here are the rolled up results with the 5% cutoff:

And here’s the roll-up of the pessimistic, optimistic and upper bounds:

The post 10th Anniversary NDNation Probability Poll Results appeared first on NDNation.

Without further ado, the 2016 survey:

The post The 10th Anniversary NDNation Probability Poll appeared first on NDNation.

Charlie Weis always bemoaned what was possible and that his players just weren’t able to execute the plays that were possible; seemingly forgetting that there are more moving parts on pass plays and thus more risk.   VanGorder has fallen into the same schematic trap and he actually knows it (as he’s acknowledged at times), “We got a lot of packages and can play a lot of players in different ways and schemes, and that wasn’t the game really to do that,” VanGorder conceded after North Carolina abused Notre Dame’s defense. That could sum up his first two years and possibly his third.

To win, players need to be able to play without over-thinking and, as Tony Dungy preached, make plays in a repeatable consistent manner without error… and with 20 hours of practice time there are only so many “tools”/”inventory”/”pre-snap adjustments” that a team can practice and reliably count on executing in a game without a breakdown.

The problem is that Van Gorder starts with “inventory” and “tools” rather than a basic concept of time needed to execute with high probability.

In reality the equation is:

Total Practice Time [divided by] Practice Time Needed for High Execution of Each Permutation of X =

Inventory (X)

Note that the first two are relative constants (the first one is absolute.) But VanGorder starts with inventory and adjusts practice time for his tools to fit that inventory,

Total Practice Time [divided by] Inventory (X) =

Practice Time Available for Each Permutation of X Inventory (NOT ENOUGH)

So, unless the learning sinks in at a whole new level, this approach almost ensures that the massive breakdowns that happened at Auburn and his first two years at Notre Dame will continue.
He seems to get it intellectually, but he’s undeterred: “I think the biggest adjustment is how many times a college player has to see something before he solves a problem… And then once he solves it, the ability to recall and not allow it to happen again is difficult… Some guys need to rep 10 times, some guys need to rep 100 times.”

But instead of scaling back to fit the number needed, Van Gorder’s been trying to get the team to drink out of the firehose faster: “You’ve got to try to figure out which way they learn best and try to incorporate that in practice so their development will be faster.”

VanGorder will even have coaches check the notebooks of players after meetings to make sure they get the concepts right

But his math is backward because, like Weis, he starts with what’s theoretically possible. That’s apparently by design. When Van Gorder was hired he didn’t talk about execution excellence, he talked about the schematic possibilities he learned from Rex Ryan:

“Rex is different than (most) coaches in terms of his approach and how he sees the game and, schematically, how he works and coaches a game. It was invaluable for me, which tied into some core things to open my eyes again to somebody that’s really unique in the business. I think he sees the game differently, and he’s created things, from a schematic standpoint, that are problematic for offensive coaches… When I’m a coordinator again, how am I going to take these things Rex is doing and incorporate them into this solid system I’ve been a part of for so many years?’ I was already thinking ahead and planning ahead in respect to the many things I’ll take from the Jets and from Rex. It was a great influence.”

Yet Ryan has a hard time executing at the NFL level where you have far more time to practice.

What’s possible isn’t what’s probable.

Buffalo Bill, Preston Brown said this about playing in Ryan’s defense: “It’s so much thinking involved with it. A lot of guys [have] never been a part of [it]. It’s definitely been difficult. At times, when [they] let us play, you can see we can be one of the best defenses in the league…We have to understand that even though Rex is a defensive guru, that’s a lot at one time… . It’s been an issue with the personnel coming in and out. I mean, you can see it on games: People are running in and out; we’re changing plays here and there. So it’s definitely been an issue.”

Star Mario Williams bemoaned it as well: “You saw the game, and you’re trying to switch personnel as they’re coming out of the huddle… I don’t know who in the world is calling, saying what personnel they’re in or whatever, or how is that confusing. But apparently it is. My mindset is, if you’re an attack defense, you don’t let anything else dictate what you do. We’re gonna put who we’re gonna put out there, and then we’re gonna execute and make plays with the guys out there. I don’t care — I don’t need to wait on you to make a decision.”

But it wasn’t just confusion and the timing that Williams complained about, it was how he was being used dropping into coverage: “I think I probably set a record on dropping [back] today, but that’s part of the scheme for us to go out and be put in a position to win,” Mario Williams said. “Whatever’s called, you have to go out and do it.”

Ryan’s reasoning for failure wasn’t that he had “too many tools”, it was that he failed to bring in players that already knew his scheme. Ryan is essentially admitting that there’s not enough time in the NFL to learn his defense and that he needs veterans of his system to make it work

And that’s the NFL

It’s harder in college as Todd Lyght acknowledged: “Just understanding the time restraints you have with the 20-hour rule, where you only get them for so much amount of time,” he offered. “In the NFL, you had them all day, so you could be very detailed in what you do. ”

Max Redfield sees it: “I would say consistently being successful in that scheme is harder than learning Chinese… It is the communication that is demanded from the safety as well as how many different responsibilities that can happen on a play-to-play basis. Responsibilities can change based on the formation, based on the receivers’ splits — and then after the snap of the ball, based on what the receiver runs. Knowing all those different things that you have to process in a split second is a lot, as well as communicating and making sure everybody else is lined up. It’s a lot, but it’s something that is demanded from you.”

As did Kerry Cooks: “It’s hard for a young guy to really understand and grasp all the things we’re asking him to do,”

Yet, VanGorder continues to talk about the tools in the toolbox, not how efficient the defense is at executing/using each tool.  Ironically, the more stunts and slants and drops we run the more confused WE look and the more plays we give up. At times our defense looks like a game of musical chairs where the best rushers drop into coverage, and the actual rushers are running around each other while ND gets scorched.  That mentality has led to horrific breakdowns that put Notre Dame 85th nationally in giving up big plays, 96th in big running plays and 95th in red zone defense. That’s one year after setting a record for points given up and a few years after his Auburn defense imploded. Not all of this is bad, some complexity it is certainly needed to keep offenses off balance, but ND appears to be too cute by half. In fact, cutting out half the permutations is probably where ND should start. It should be simple enough so that even if you lose a few key players, the defense won’t lose cohesion (as happened when Schmidt went down after Navy).

“Our players that are dialed in to it all, it’s pretty consistent for them. Now, a player that comes here and plays in our defense, he’s going to put a lot of tools in his tool box. But it’s not just wild tools thrown from all over. It’s pretty consistent for the player.”

If consistency in giving up big plays is the goal, Notre Dame is already there. It’s likely that Notre Dame will consistently give up big plays until the inventory fits practice time. One wonders what the defense would have looked like last year if Nyles Morgan weren’t kept on the sidelines because the injured Joe Schmidt was the only middle linebacker who could, as Elston revealed, get everyone lined up correctly.  “Athletically he struggled at times in space to make plays and everybody saw it, but the tradeoff was he was going to be in the right spot and get other guys around him in the right spot.” That’s some tradeoff, putting an  admittedly inferior athlete with an injury in the middle of the defense because it was too complicated for the superior athlete. I suspect that if ND just cut down the number of adjustments, stunts, slants and drops, Morgan could have played next to Jaylon Smith and those two could have choked off the middle third of the field.

Perhaps VanGorder will be right (he’s said before that it takes three years to “get” his defense), but Notre Dame’s defense has resembled an old Pac 10 defense for the last two years and time is running short for Kelly to deliver on his championship promise.

The post Brian VanGorder’s Math Problem appeared first on NDNation.

The probability concept puts a little more thought around predictions than just ” is ND better than X”? We ask every fan to estimate the probability of the Irish winning each game and use that to calculate expectations. Without further ado, the results:

2015 Findings

• On average, fans expect approximately 8.3 wins this year.
• At the most optimistic boundary (highest responses garnering at least 10%) fans expect… 10.4 wins.
  
• The pessimists are less pessimistic; the pessimistic boundary expects 7.6 wins this season.

There seem to be four levels of opponents (no slight favorites this year):

• The underdog: Southern Cal
• The coin tosses: Georgia Tech, Clemson, Stanford
• The solid favorites: Boston College, Navy, Pittsburgh, Texas
• The heavy favorites: Virginia, Wake Forest, Temple, Massachusetts

Here are the rolled up results with the 5% cutoff:

And here are the unvarnished results (with clear Chicago ballot box stuffing going on.)

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