The arm-tackling in coverage was embarrassing against Rutgers and has been all year. It makes no sense for Kelly to brand the program as physical, power football, and then have guys looking like they don’t know how to stick a guy. I don’t understand why he doesn’t just hire or assign a full-time coordinator, and of course have that guy also do recruiting. The other frustrating thing is the lack of big plays in the kick and punt return game. I’ve watched some great kick/punt returns during bowl season, so the “spread punt/new rules” excuse doesn’t hold up. At the very least, Kelly better have somebody new take over special teams.

I would have liked to see more of an emphasis on the running game. More two-back sets, jet sweeps etc. Half-back screens. Maybe even an “ogre formation” like Stanford has in the red zone where they bring in an extra offensive lineman. I also do feel like Kelly got too pass-happy in games, especially in the red zone. We all knew that ND needed to run the ball effectively this year without Golson, and we couldn’t do it. The other thing to remember is that the Golson-led 2012 offense also struggled in the red zone. We had to settle for a lot of field goals last year. Does that not concern you?

What do you mean 25 years and counting? I would certainly sign up for a run like we had in the late 80’s and early 90’s!

I disagree entirely on those three dropped touchdown passes. Fuller’s diving attempt would have been a great catch… but you’d like ND receivers to make great catches, right? Daniels had a poor day, as I remember him dropping another very catchable pass besides the one in the end zone. Honestly, Daniels needs to become much more consistent if he wants to play in the NFL. I’ll credit Jones’ drop in the end-zone to his shoulder injury, because he rarely has drops and that was a sure TD. But after watching three touchdown drops, I’m left wondering if maybe our difficulty this year in the deep passing game wasn’t entirely Rees’ fault. I’m glad Chris Brown had a nice game at least.

Rees’ receivers did him no favors in his last outing, dropping three touchdown passes that forced us to kick field-goals. If the receivers could have caught at least two of those, we are looking at a much better day for Rees. The story of this season was not merely Golson’s absence, but the lack of a running game. Rees is clearly limited in his skill set, we all know that. Nonetheless, if we could have run the ball 40 to 50 more yards per game and added 10 to 12 rushing touchdowns to the season, Rees would have looked like a better QB.

ND is a great university with aspirations to be on the short list of the world’s elite universities (depending upon who you ask, it may be there already or it may not) while maintaining, conspicuously and unapologetically, a conservative Catholic identity. That’s it, and it’s been that way at least since Father Hesburgh’s tenure, as far as I can tell. The football team is the football team. It’s an enormous money maker for the school, but it doesn’t control the school.

AMEN i say AMEN Brother !!! Well said. On the Money.