The Independent is the essential listen for fans of Fighting Irish football. Pete Sampson of the Athletic and Matt Fortuna of The Inside Zone are back to take you inside the Notre Dame program. With a combined 35 years + of experience on the ND beat, this twice weekly podcast has you covered for everything blue and gold.
Making the playoffs and winning a game… Ole Miss is about where I’m at in terms of expectations. If we lose to Georgia in the second round, I’m not unhappy.
7 mins. in and I feel like you guys have been at the beach....It's been a bad July for ND recruiting. Taylor gone, Meadows gone and Deuce looking. It's been a little while since recruiting has my bummed.
Take a chill pill chicken little. Try to enjoy a legitimately deep talented and promising team and start of the season. When ND wins the so called five star recruits will notice the difference and even more will come. Go Irish
College football has changed so much since I watched Joe Montana throw a football that, legitimately, being in the mix for the CFP seems like success. The days of BYU winning a national championship have faded into memory.
Feel like so much of the optimism has to do with the overall talent level, especially at QB. Getting a top transfer in Riley Leonard, plus having CJ Carr and Deuce back to back classes is something we haven't had in... Forever? We're used to having a plucky overachiever at QB, not a prime talent.
Chicago has a biased reporter who seems to think the sun rises and sets with Chicago high school football.....not necessarily a reflection of what is going on but reporter biases
To think Mike Denbrock is going to run into the issues of 2023 is Brian Kelly and Tommy Rees offense syndrome mindset if you do something else top to bottom logically you expect NEW RESULTS AND PERFORMANCE Mike Denbrock offense is set up for WR and QB success it's spread out of 11 personnel and RPO and tempo with an attack down field mentality and he's going to teach QBs under center from the neck up to audible and read defenses and feel good about firing the ball in rhythm and we have a room of speed and athleticism and talent in the wide receiver room under WR Coach Mike Brown that is a NFL WR developer that's not what we had under Brian Kelly and Tommy Rees and the reports from the NFL teams say that Notre Dame receivers are way behind in development when they get to NFL training camps regardless of their raw talent that is positive so they became inconsistent and projects for NFL coaches ☘️ BIG PICTURE VIEW
The best position to put Sam Hartman in WASN'T MISSING ON OC ANDY LUDWIG #1, #2 YOU 🤬 KNOW THAT 2023 WAS STILL MAINLY THE TOMMY REES "SCAN OFFENSE" ND media and fans who know X's and O's it's Rees predictable plays and process to give the QB predetermined reads vs audibles taught to the QB and 6th year player had to eat it and receivers were open Gerad Parker added some red zone but this stuff was Tommy Rees offense. The Tony the Tiger Bowl was Gino Guidugli scheme and plays that showed creativity over the regular season game plan and the receivers DID HAVE TALENT! They didn't produce due to the offense #1 in general it's a track record and Chansi Stuckey didn't develop the ENTIRE ROOM Tobias Merriweather and Braylon James not able to impact at all was deflating on top of the WR injuries where do you get Sam Hartman chemistry and confidence from? YOU HAVE TO SUPPORT THE TALENT ON ALL LEVELS and because it failed it's lazy to blame the talent that's so Brian Kelly era message that is a EXCUSE vs looking for why it's not working. ☘️
Fantastic job, guys! I do have one small disagreement about last year's Duke game. I believe Duke's home Rose Bowl game, which was its second Rose Bowl loss was probably the biggest game in Duke's football history. We tend to forget that Notre Dame was a Rose bowl Champion, so perhaps it doesn't mean as much to us, or perhaps we are all guilty of recency bias.
CMF offers player development and a gameplan strategy. Playing a physical brand of football is what CMF has brought back to ND since Lou Holtz. CMF is doing an awesome job bringing in athletic players and overall speed on both sides of the ball. Only if CMF can improve the QB play....now we're cooking with hot grease....
Matt....DisneyLand, or World? Big difference buddy. I got tips for WDW. The first one is planning a trip to WDW is, logistically, roughly akin to the Invasion of Normandy.