About a year ago, Erik Boal wrote a piece for HOFMAG.com about Jimmy Clausen, the hot shot California high school quarterback who predicted four national championships for Notre Dame when he committed to play football for the Irish beginning in September of 2007.
Well, Claussen made his college debut as the third string quarterback in Notre Dame’s embarrassing 33-3 loss to Georgia Tech at South Bend on Saturday. Forget a national championship. It’ll be interesting to see if the Irish can win more games than they lose this season. As for Charlie Weis, it looks as if the honeymoon is over for this career assistant coach. He was lucky he inherited Brady Quinn from Tyrone Willingham because his record in recruiting good players to Notre Dame has to be questioned. Weis appears to be just another blowhard.
Speaking of embarrassing debuts, how about Appalachian State sticking it to Michigan at Michigan. Lloyd Carr is another coach who had every resource in the world. Although he won 77 percent of his games at Michigan, he too must be considered an underachiever. See ya Lloyd.
ESPN announced on Friday that it was getting out of the “scripted programming business” after The Bronx Is Burning. ESPN’s problem wasn’t the format. The problem was the projects they picked and the actors they cast. Really, Tom Sizemore as Pete Rose in Hustle was dreadful. Brian Dennehy as Bobby Knight was even worse. Despite the dumbo ears, John Turturo was terrific as Billy Martin in The Bronx Is Burning. Yet again, terrible casting of Reggie Jackson, Graig Nettles, and especially Max Casella as the classy Dick Howser sucked all the credibility out of ESPN’s latest and final effort at scripted programming. Meanwhile ESPN’s sister network, ABC, launched 11 new series this summer and all of them failed. I’m guessing they can’t wait to unveil Cavemen on October 2. Wanna bet Cavemen is cancelled before the World Series is over?
How great is the FedEx Cup, golf’s first playoff series. Tiger Woods at #1 doesn’t even play in the first event, #3 K.J. Choi withdraws from the second week, and it really doesn’t matter one way or the other. The only thing that becomes more obvious every day is that Tiger Woods is golf. He is bigger than his sport now. Jack always had to contend with Arnie, or Trevino or a Tom Watson. If Jack had a bad couple of tournaments people still watched. If Tiger misses an event, the networks might as well broadcast bars and tone.
Speaking of classy champions, golf lost one this weekend with the passing of former Master’s champ Gay Brewer. Brewer was a classy decent man.
all points well taken, except three uses of the word classy is a little much don’t you think
Comment by ernest t — September 3, 2007 @ 10:57 am
“who predicted four national championships for Notre Dame when he committed to play football for the Irish beginning in September of 2007″
Get your facts straight, dumbass. He said those were his goals, it wasn’t a prediction. If you think Ty did ND any favors with his pitiful recruiting aside from Quinn, you’re truly an idiot. Look at the current Jr. and Sr. class.
Wait two years, we’ll see how much you’re talking when Weis has his recruits in place.
Comment by Mark Holton — September 4, 2007 @ 3:51 am
Mark Holton’s comments caused me to read the Erik Boal story on this site…..Claussen sure sounds like a putz to me…..sounds like he might have been better served to just sneak into town quietly……
Comment by Hale Mary — September 5, 2007 @ 12:35 pm
Ty is 2-0……..Charlie is 0-2……..Why did the dude Holton take a shot at Ty……
Negative !!!!!
Comment by Blue Hoo — September 10, 2007 @ 10:14 am
Frank, you might want to abandon any ideas of writing future posts on Notre Dame because you are clearly way out of the loop. If you even use facts to support your arguments then they are just wrong. Weis has gotten two of the best recruiting classes in Notre Dame history– thats a fact. IN FACT, next year’s incoming freshmen class is judged by many writers to be the best recruiting class in the nation– better than Meyer’s, better than Zook’s and much better than Carr’s. Ty Willingham couldn’t recruit, that was the major strike against him which led to his demise at ND.
Comment by Mike — September 19, 2007 @ 1:31 pm
mike confuses the word “judged” which is subjective, with results( 0-3) which is objective. if it’s a fact that weis has gotten the two best recruiting classes in ND history, then weis must just be a crappy coach…because he’s 0-3 with his players…….maybe heading to 2 - 10?
ETB
Comment by ernest t — September 19, 2007 @ 7:05 pm
Well if “judged” is subjective then I guess the experts are all wrong about next year’s incoming class. ETB I think you missed the point, Weis is playing with Ty’s recruits, not his own. The Irish have one of, if not the toughest schedule in the country so that doesn’t help a coach who has a bunch of first year starters who are mostly freshman and sophomores. I think you need to wait 3-4 years before you can make a final judgment on Weis as a coach — that is when his recruits will be juniors and seniors. The same goes for Clausen, give him this season and next then expect big things from him.
I agree, Frank is clueless when it comes to college ball. This blog is so worthless that it is fun.
Comment by run — September 19, 2007 @ 10:04 pm
Ernest, so I was confusing the recruiting class of 08′ with the 0-3 record? Really? Weis is 0-3 with TY’S PLAYERS…. yeah, he is a crappy coach if you think true freshmen and red-shirt freshmen are supposed to be more skilled than 4th and 5th year seniors. Yeah, he was a pretty crappy coach the last two seasons and in his years in the NFL too… yeah, you’re right.
Comment by Mike — September 20, 2007 @ 8:53 am
Mike: Is he losing with Ty’s players or is he losing with true and redshirt freshman….you’ve got me confused…why is he losing?…because of Ty’s players?….because HIS players are inexperienced?…or because he is a crappy coach who is too full of himself…more than half of the players on this team are his players….more than half of the players on the teams the past two years you brag on were Ty’s players ……and for the record he was an ASSISTANT coach in the NFL…….BIG difference
Comment by ernest t — September 20, 2007 @ 9:22 am
Last night on ESPN…..Keyshawn Johnson and Bill Parcell’s addressed the Notre Dame problem.
In effect they said, ND won the past two years because Weis was playing with Willingham recruits. Willingham recruited “speed”……they continued by saying Weis was recruiting slower less athletic players and for that they are now paying the price.
This is Weis’ third year of recuit’s he must be held accountable for the WORST ND start ever.
Maybe Run is just as clueless as he suggests others are….
Comment by ernest t — September 25, 2007 @ 5:21 pm