It would make sense for Joe to stick around. Any starter at a program like ND has a shot at going pro. Sticking around a year might mean the difference between never putting the pads on again and (even an uneventful) career at the next level.
Pantsb | Email | Homepage | 10.26.06 - 11:29 am | #

Didn't they start him @ Will and move TT to Sam? I swear I read that somewhere.
Houser | Email | Homepage | 10.26.06 - 11:32 am | #

TT didn't get moved to SAM - that's his position. TT moved to the weak-side on Saturday.
Bill | Email | Homepage | 10.26.06 - 11:39 am | #

8-16: Michigan's next three opponents before the big game (Northwestern, Ball State and Indiana) are a combined 8-16 this year. Each one has lost more games to I-AA opponents this year than the Wolverines have lost to anyone.

7-17: As for the Buckeyes' three remaining opponents before The Big One (Minnesota, Illinois and that same Northwestern team), they are a combined 7-17.


Funny how ESPN didn't mention this on Sportscenter.
Stupidity of youth | Email | Homepage | 10.26.06 - 1:13 pm | #

A little off-topic, but I saw Talley in the dining hall last night with other football players after practice..any rumors that he's possibly back on the team?
Danny | Email | Homepage | 10.26.06 - 2:48 pm | #

He's probably just friends with everyone, although it'd be great if he'd come back.
Erik '04 | Email | Homepage | 10.26.06 - 3:00 pm | #

Who knows? Sometimes you "don't know what you got 'till it's gone". Maybe Talley is starting to second guess his decision. But it's more likely that he's just friends with the other players. Would be nice if he came back though.
JohnWA | Email | Homepage | 10.26.06 - 4:14 pm | #

From what I have heard around campus, Talley will not be returning.
Rumor MIll | Email | Homepage | 10.26.06 - 4:20 pm | #

Many people often pointed out that Brockington appeared to have the most potential out of the remaining LB's in practice. Looks like his abilities are starting to come to fruition.

He looks a little slow to me, but appears to be a pretty good tackler.
Andrew | Email | Homepage | 10.26.06 - 4:20 pm | #

Maybe they can figure out how to teach mitchell thomas to keep containment and then we dont have to look for Aldridge to resurge the slo-motion dancing coming out of the backfield.

Im all for TT to take some carries against USC again. Its hard to watch him on defense, when we know the capability of his ball carrying skills. Dude has wheels and power. The jury is still out whether he can shake off o-lineman coming off the line, although his effectiveness shines when they let him fly into the backfield.

I just read Mandel's piece on Weis' poll gripe. That dude tries to play down the subjectivity of voting like every beat writer is calculating each team's game with pie charts and mathematical eqauations. What a joke.
brian quinn | Email | Homepage | 10.26.06 - 4:32 pm | #

On NBC's site (don't have the addy) John Walters goes to point out that a lot of the "Weis Gripe" was taken out of context, and that some clarifiying portions are left out by most of the AP people.

One more reason to hate US media people. Does the BBC cover Notre Dame football?
E-Man | Email | Homepage | 10.26.06 - 4:42 pm | #

Take Mandel's article on Weis' poll grips, but replace BC with Texas as the team he compares ND to......

Then any 'point' he made is essentially contradicted and refuted.

Mandel (poll voter extraordinaire) is the best publicity for a playoff system I have ever seen......
Jimmy Two-Times | Email | Homepage | 10.26.06 - 5:16 pm | #

Its not even worth getting into detail about but that piece invalidates 90% of his own Top 25.
Stupidity of youth | Email | Homepage | 10.26.06 - 6:24 pm | #

Also I love the Middies, but if there was ever a time to smoke somebody- now is that time. Sorry boys. I hope we outscore our next opponents 150-20. If you have to go back to the mid 90s Spurrier ball to be respected than fine. Its wrong but whatever.
Stupidity of youth | Email | Homepage | 10.26.06 - 6:25 pm | #

re: Talley
I think anyone who believes it was Talley's own decision to leave the team is kidding himself. He's not coming back, and I doubt he really has any say in the matter.
imposs1ble | Email | Homepage | 10.26.06 - 6:30 pm | #

I can't see how it would be anybody's BUT his decision. CW might have been comfortable with him leaving, but would never have initiated or suggested it (I don't think). Why would he? What does the team have to gain unless it was for disciplinary issues and he said it wasn't. Would he lie? I don't know the answers to these questions.
Erik '04 | Email | Homepage | 10.26.06 - 6:58 pm | #

What annoys me about the Weis gripe stuff is that ND fans can't point out stuff like that without everyone saying, "Oh, shut up, you guys are always whining." The perceived media bias against ND that people think keeps us in contention unjustifiably has a flip side: those same media types JUMP at the first chance to push us down or call us whiners or start writing about how ND is never going to contend again, ever. Charlie had a point, even though he was speaking in good fun, but by dint of being ND's head coach he's not allowed to make it. ARGH. I'm so tired of people refusing to treat ND as anything other than a creation of the media, and equally annoyed that those people don't recognize that they are equally as biased but in a different way.

That wasn't on topic at ALL. Awesome.
Heather | Email | Homepage | 10.26.06 - 7:28 pm | #

Okay, I know I run the risk of being castigated for saying this, I can really see both sides of this.

Personally, I think Weis knows exactly why ND got dropped in the polls. He's not "befuddled," and he doesn't really need anyone to explain it to him. He knows exactly why...and he's playing games. He's doing the same thing that Mack Brown did a couple years ago, which helped him pick up some extra votes and take Cal's place in a BCS bowl game. Weis is trying to point out some of the subjectivity in the system, and pick up a few votes here and there. Based on the public backlash, it might backfire...who knows.

Honestly, I don't have any problem with Florida and Tennessee passing us in the rankings. I know a lot of posters don't like Mandel's article...but I don't think it's unreasonable. It is real a stretch to say that every team is placed in every poll with the same careful review of stats and comparing teams with similar records. But that doesn't invalidate Mandel's basic points.

Our "best win" is against a GT team that just got smoked by a top 10 team. Second best win is a blowout of an intially over-rated Penn State Team. We got smoked by Michigan. We've played down to our competition several times (MSU, UCLA), needing 4th quarter rallies to win both games.

We're a good team, and we deserve to be in the conversation...but I'd be pretty nervous about taking on Florida or Tennessee right now. I honestly can't fault any voter that looks at the body of work of those three teams and decides that ND deserves to be behind UF and UT.

If you disagree, fine...let's debate. But please don't say that I'm a "bad fan," or "disloyal." I'm just a realist, and I happen to think our ranking is about right. I think we'll rise a few spots over the next few weeks, and our fate (and national perception) will be in our own hands in the last two games of the season...which I expect to be wins over USC and a BCS opponent.
Domer '99 | Email | Homepage | 10.26.06 - 8:51 pm | #

domer 99 - no castigation here. I totally agree with you. I think we're a solid top twelve team. Possibly we're top ten, depending on how one decided to compare teams - but we are not absolutely a top ten team (this is the major downside of having gotten our asses handed to us by the skunkbears).

As for CW's comments, I just kind of have to laugh at the media's reactions to this whole deal. CW makes reasonable observations about us moving down after a win, and everyone sees him as arrogant, seeking votes or participating in an Opus Dei plot to kill Jesus, while (if i remember correctly)just a few weeks back the asshole-in-chief from Auburn made some incindiary remarks about how his team was screwed without a playoff. The reaction to that comment was much milder. Can you imagine what people would say if CW said that AND THEN WENT OUT AND LOST TO ARK!!!!
domer03inbmore | Email | Homepage | 10.26.06 - 9:13 pm | #

I don't even give a shit about rankings. They only matter at the end of the year, and if you keep winning games you don't need to worry about it.

What I AM worried about is the play of our team. I have yet to see this team play a single game this year and think "Man, we really played a great game today."

We've seen moments of brilliance. Some of the drives we've seen have been incredible, and perfectly executed, and I'm not just talking about the game winners. Yet in between those drives we've seen dropped passes, poor blocking, mental errors, and Brady on his back. Three and out. It is incredibly frustrating.



This team needs to really improve over the next month in order to compete with USC. I want to see effort and emotion from this team (particularly the Oline, since I believe we have seen a great deal of defensive improvement from this team).




Lastly, as I post this, VaTech has a ten point lead on #10 Clemson and they are driving at the end of the 3rd. So for those of you who are worried about, it looks like we might get a one spot bump.
Brad | Email | Homepage | 10.26.06 - 10:23 pm | #

But Tommy Bowden is from one of the royal families of football, so he gets a free pass for his comments. CW is seen as "arrogant" by some people in the media, so he gets criticized all over the place.

Speaking of criticism of Weis and ND...anyone else here from Columbus? I know Sean is...anyone else? The local sports talk radio station (1460 AM) is an ESPN affiliate that employs Chris Spielman and Kirk Herbstreit, plus some local "talent." Other than Herbstreit (who respects and, I think, likes Charlie Weis), the rest of the on-air folks have an admitted bias against ND, and routinely talk about how much they hate ND. It's bad enough to hear about OSU nearly non-stop, but when combined with many segments bashing Notre Dame, it's pretty painful to listen to.
Domer '99 | Email | Homepage | 10.26.06 - 10:28 pm | #

Not to step away from good conversation, but might I urge some caution in quoting former Miami line backers in the titles of posts. You guys have to maintain some standards and purity, even if the Rock is freakin hysterical in Be Cool. You can't give him a pass on a ND football blog. Beat the rush, hate Miami now.
Fenian Fox | Email | Homepage | 10.26.06 - 10:45 pm | #

I'm thinking Beamer & the boys got a look at the excellent chart posted on markmaybewrong and saw that three of Clemson's victims were winless to date, and brought that bucket of whoopass with them tonight.
onehipdad | Email | Homepage | 10.27.06 - 12:02 am | #

Is it effort and emotion lacking on the Oline, or are we just not good/big/strong enough at the guards and center positions? I don't know anything about how an Oline works except that ours isn't working. I just wonder if effort and emotion will help or if we're just overmatched against good Dlines regardless of how much effort or emotion we put in. Can anybody shed some light on that?
JJ | Email | Homepage | 10.27.06 - 8:31 am | #