Zen and the Art of Irish Blogging

Forgive me Father, for I have not blogged. It has been 261 days since my last post.

With so much happening in and around the Fighting Irish program, how in the world can any self-respecting blogger go silent for 8 months and 19 days? I have been asking myself the same question, off and on, for months.

The answer, I believe, is inner peace. Not inner peace about the world, or America, or even my own personal or professional life. But rather inner peace about the state of Notre Dame football. Over the past 261 days I realized that the reason I wasn't blogging is that I wasn't feeling the urgent need to write that has driven the OC Domer Blog since I started it 1,611 days ago (March 14, 2007). My motivation for blogging has generally been my personal angst about what the Fighting Irish were, and what they weren't.

In the spring of 2007 the Irish were coming off a 10-2 regular season and a Sugar Bowl appearance. But they had been hammered by USC in the regular season finale (44-24), and were pummeled by LSU in the bowl game (44-14). Brady Quinn was heading for the NFL and four young, untested quarterbacks were vying to replace him. Jimmy Clausen eventually won the job over Zach Frazer, Demetrius Jones, and Evan Sharpley. The three seasons of the Weis/Clausen era (3-9, 7-6, 6-6) did little to ease my Irish angst. Of course, the excitement of Brian Kelly's first season under the Dome made 2010 a great year to blog Irish football.

But something funny happened in over the final four games of last season: The Notre Dame football team started to play the way the Fighting Irish are supposed to play. Following back-to-back losses to Navy and Tulsa (can you feel the angst?) Notre Dame hosted the #15-ranked Utah Utes, and in miserable rainy conditions the Irish dominated. After the game I wrote about the experience of being there:

First, although I don't get to South Bend for a lot of games, the game against Utah was the first I can remember for a long while where I felt that the crowd was being vocal enough to give our team a true home-field advantage. It has seemed to me in recent years that the Notre Dame home crowd is generally pretty flat, and not too fearsome for opposing teams. But the crowd was into it last week (sparked by Robert Blanton's punt-block touchdown!) and I really felt that Utah was having trouble communicating and that they were rattled by the crowd. It was awesome!

Second, the scene after the game was unlike anything I had ever seen. I stormed the field as a student at Notre Dame, but I have never witnessed anything like the celebration last Saturday. It was clearly a catharsis. On one level it is silly for a 5-5 Notre Dame team to storm the field after a win over Utah. We're the Fighting Irish for crying out loud. On another level, this team, these seniors, those students have experienced tremendous adversity over the last four years and even in the last few weeks. They needed some good news like nobody's business. The first win over a ranked opponent for this senior class was a sufficient excuse to celebrate. The students poured onto the field, and it didn't take long for the ushers and security staff to switch from trying to stop it to just making sure nobody got hurt. The team and the band and the students were all partying together, and the crowd was so jammed in that the band couldn't march out through the the tunnel. So they just kept playing! The fact that my wife and I watched from the stands while both our kids were down on the field (somewhere!) just made it that much more special.

Third, and this is probably just the optimist in me, but the outstanding play of the defense and the efficient play of the offense (including the appearance of a power running game) really felt like a turning point for this team and for Coach Kelly's program. From the stands you could feel the confidence of the team grow as the game wore on. I sure hope we're able to look back at this game and say "We were there" when Coach Kelly and the Irish turned the corner.

The Utah game did feel like a real turning point in the program. That feeling was reinforced when Tommy Rees and the Irish went to the new Yankee Stadium and did what a Fighting Irish football team is supposed to do to a service academy team - beat them soundly (27-3).

A week later the Irish were in OC Domer country, playing the Trojans in the L.A. Coliseum. It was a glorious day of rain and unseasonably cold temperatures. Both teams were playing back-up quarterbacks in the game. It was only the four Irish turnovers that kept the game close, as the Irish out-rushed and out-gained USC, capping the game with a punishing 7-play, 77-yard drive featuring Robert Hughes power runs of 6, 12, 13 and 5 yards, the final rush for the game-winning TD. I stood with my wife in our typical end zone Coliseum seats with all the other Domers, the rain dripping off us, and I was very happy and excited. But I was also overcome with an intense feeling of relief. The Irish had finally snapped the streak of eight straight losses to the Trojans. To me, the world was once again restored to its proper balance. Notre Dame had gone into the Coliseum and had pushed the Trojans around, literally shoving them backwards the length of the field to score the final touchdown (20-16). It was clear to me standing there in the rain, cheering for Old Notre Dame as the clock wound down, that the Fighting Irish were back. Maybe not all the way back, yet. But Coach Kelly clearly knows what he is doing, and while there may be some bumps along the way, Our Lady's University finally has the right man for the job.

My feeling of inner peace with respect to the Irish was obviously boosted by their impressive performance in the Sun Bowl. Media darling Miami, with all that "speed", couldn't hang with Notre Dame on either side of the ball. The final score was 33-17, but the game wasn't that close.

Although I was hugely impressed with how the defense had matured over the final four games of 2010, and how Tommy Rees had stepped in and led the offense after Dayne Crist went down with injury, I didn't feel the urge to sit down and write about it. It's hard to be interesting when the substance of your posts boils down to: "Wow! We're really good! Did you see how good we looked!"

So where does the OC Domer blog go from here? I have been giving it a lot of thought. The Blue-Gray Sky set an awfully classy example of how a blog should probably just ride off into the sunset when the sense of urgency fades, and real life intrudes. But I don't think I can be that classy. The OC Domer will endure, but it will probably change from what my readers have seen over the past few seasons. I'll still be blogging, but posts will, I expect, be a little less regular. I probably won't write as many long game-preview posts or post-game analyses. I will be gracefully (I hope) bowing out of the weekly Irish Blogger Gathering. But when I notice something that moves me to offer my two-cents' worth, I'll be here. You'll probably see more non-football topics as well. (I know I have threatened that before).

The changes here don't mean I am less passionate about my team, or my alma mater. It just means that I'm more at peace with the state of the Fighting Irish, and that other aspects of my life will be getting a little more of my attention. At least for now.

A Little Blogkeeping

There are a couple of items I want to address before we can move forward with the 2011 season.

1. Congratulations to Tommy Rees, who has been named the winner of the 4th Annual OC Domer Player of the Year Award for 2010. What can you say? A backup QB who takes the reins of a team on the brink of collapse and leads it to wins over Utah, Army, USC and Miami is a no-brainer for this award. Past winners of the OCDPOTYA include David Bruton, Michael Floyd, and Golden Tate. Tommy is no less deserving of this prestigious honor just because I am months late handing it out. The runner-up for 2010 was defensive sensation Manti Te'o, with honorable mention going to kicker David Ruffer.

2. Congratulations to the winner of the OC Domer 2010 Fantasy Football League: OC Domer! I want to thank everyone who has participated in the OC Domer FFL over the past four seasons. I have really enjoyed running the league, and I hope everyone else had fun too. As part of the general reorganizing and re-prioritizing here at OC Domer HQ, I do not plan to organize/manage a league for the 2011 season. Not because I didn't enjoy it, but just because I want to use that time pursuing other interests.

3rd Annual OC Domer Player of the Year Award

The ballots are in. Actually, they've been in for a while, collecting dust as I've been too busy/distracted to count them. But the results have finally been tabulated. It's time to announce recipient of the 2009 "OC Domer Player of the Year Award." The OC Domer Player of the Year Award is intended to recognize the Notre Dame football player or players who played the best when it mattered the most. The award is based on a horrendously complex and intricate scoring system that would take too long to explain and that you wouldn't understand anyway. Suffice it to say that the primary criterion was a consistently high level of play, with significant bonus points awarded for exceeding expectations.

Past winners of this prestigious award are David Bruton (2007) and Michael Floyd (2008). Bruton is now playing on Sundays for the Denver Broncos, while Floyd had another amazing year for Notre Dame, finishing second on the team in both receptions (44) and receiving yards (795) despite missing (only) five games with a broken collar bone. Hopefully Michael will get himself squared away after his recent off-field embarrassment and will have a truly monster 2010 season in Brian Kelly's high-revving spread offense.

The OC Domer Player of the Year for the 2009 football season is: Golden Tate.



Expectations for Golden Tate coming into the 2009 season could hardly have been higher. He was expected to team up with mates Michael Floyd, Kyle Rudolph, and Jimmy Clausen as part of a prodigious offense that would lead the Fighting Irish to a 10-win (or better) season, a BCS Bowl berth, and maybe if everything fell right a chance at playing for a National Championship. Given the importance of "exceeding expectations" in the the judging for OC Domer Player of the Year, Tate had to be considered a long shot for this honor, since he was expected to be an All-American. But he didn't just play great. He amazed us. And when Michael Floyd was out with a broken collar bone and quarterback Jimmy Clausen was hobbled by "turf toe" that turns out to have really been "torn-ligaments-toe", Golden Tate carried his football team on his back. He played wide receiver, running back, quarterback, and more while willing his team to nail-biting wins with highlight-reel catches and runs to rival any in the history of Notre Dame football. Speaking of highlight reels, here is the Golden reel from 2009:

How amazing was 2009 for Golden Tate? Here's an excerpt from a recent Notre Dame press release recognizing his selection as an All-American:

The 2009 Biletnikoff Award winner, Tate recently capped off the best receiving season in Notre Dame football history. He finished with 93 receptions for 1,496 yards and 15 receiving touchdowns in 2009. Tate added two rushing touchdowns, one punt return for a score and totaled 1,915 all-purpose yards, second most in Irish single-season history.

Tate equaled or surpassed eight school records this year, including most catches and receiving yards in a season, tied for most touchdown catches in a season, most receiving yards in a career, most 100-yard receiving games in a season and career, most receiving yards per game in a season and tied for most consecutive games with a touchdown reception.

Tate ranks in the top eight nationally in nine different statistical categories and no wide receiver had more games with at least 100 receiving yards this year than Tate's nine. He also scored at least one touchdown in each of the final 11 contests for Notre Dame.

Tate, who recently declared his intention to enter the 2010 NFL draft, departs as the most prolific receiver in Notre Dame history. He recorded 2,707 receiving yards on 157 receptions with 26 touchdowns. Tate ranks second in career touchdown receptions and is tied for third in career receptions.

Congratulations to OC Domer 2009 Player of the Year Golden Tate! And thank you Golden for giving everything you had for Notre Dame over the past three seasons. Good luck in the NFL!

OC Domer Player of the Year Runner-up is: Jimmy Clausen. Jimmy just completed his best season at Notre Dame, completing 68 percent of his passes for 3,722 yards with 28 TDs and only four interceptions in 2009. He set a school record by passing for at least 300 yards in seven games and his four fourth-quarter comebacks for victories are the most in a season by an Irish quarterback. Clausen is ranked first or second in 32 passing categories at Notre Dame, including tops in career completion percentage, completions per game for a career and tied for first in lowest interception percentage over a career. He completed 695 of 1,110 pass attempts for 8,148 yards with 60 touchdowns and 27 interceptions while starting 34 of 35 games played for the Irish. Jimmy is expected to be a first round pick in the upcoming NFL Draft, although his ranking by various draft pundits is quite variable. However it plays out, I hope JC's surgically repaired toe heals well and quickly, and I hope he represents Notre Dame with distinction in "The League."

OC Domer Player of Year Honorable Mention goes to: Manti Te'o. Although he arrived a little too late to save Charlie's job, Manti was easily the most highly decorated defensive player to come to Notre Dame in the Charlie Weis era (Named 2008 High School Athlete of the Year by Sporting News. Defensive player of the year by USA Today. Inaugural high school recipient of the Butkus Award, given to the best linebacker in the country. Two-time recipient of Hawaii Gatorade Player-of-the-Year award in 2007 and 2008. Sporting News rated him the top defensive player in the nation and second-best player in the country. Rated second-best overall prospect in the ESPNU150 and best linebacker according to ESPN. Et cetera, et cetera). Expectations were high for Manti, but I was surprised by how much impact he had as a true freshman. He ranked fourth on the team with 63 tackles including 5.5 tackles for loss, one sack and added one pass breakup. He played in all 12 games and started nine contests. His 63 tackles were the most by a Notre Dame freshman since 1975 and the third most all time by an Irish freshman. Te'o became a full-time starter for Notre Dame in the fifth game of the season against Washington and he ranked second on the Irish with 57 tackles over the final eight games. Te'o is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and he recently announced that he will be delaying his traditional mission trip for at least one year and possibly until later in his life, which means he will continue at Notre Dame during his sophomore year and will be a member of the Irish football team in 2010. And there was much joy throughout the land.

Who are your Notre Dame Players of the Year? I'd love to hear from you.

Golden Tate #2 on my Heisman Ballot

I received an e-mail from Shotgun Spratling at Blueworkhorse.com inviting me to cast my ballot for this year's Sports Blog Heisman Trophy. Voters are not limited to just the five players invited to New York for the presentation of that other Heisman trophy. Here is the full text of my e-mailed "ballot" as submitted:

Dear Shotgun,

Here is the OC Domer Heisman Ballot.

1. Toby Gerhart. He is most dominant player at his position, and his dominance doesn't depend on anyone else to make him look good. One-on-one, mano-a-mano he beats you down at the point of attack. Puts his team on his back and carries them to victory.

2. Golden Tate. You can't keep him from getting the ball, you can't tackle him, and you can't catch him. Once Michael Floyd broke his collar bone, everyone in the stadium knew Notre Dame and Jimmy Clausen were going to get the ball to Tate, and still nobody could stop him. Despite being double or triple covered every play, Golden still came up with huge plays time and again. Golden kept the Irish in games single-handedly for seven weeks. Without Golden Tate to throw to, Jimmy Clausen would not be in a position to make big money as a top draft choice in April.

3. Colt McCoy. My choice at the beginning of the season, he played his way down to third place during the season and especially against Nebraska.

Honorable Mention: Jimmy Clausen. He has become one heck of a quarterback. Will make Charlie Weis look like a really good coach once he starts playing and winning on Sundays.

My website is http://ocdomer.blogspot.com

I'm in the Far West.

Look forward to seeing your results!


OC Domer

What would your ballot look like?

2nd Annual OC Domer Player of the Year Award

The ballots are in. The results have been tabulated. It's time to announce recipient of the 2008 "OC Domer Player of the Year Award." The OC Domer Player of the Year Award is intended to recognize the Notre Dame football player or players who played the best when it mattered the most. The award is based on a horrendously complex and intricate scoring system that would take too long to explain and that you wouldn't understand anyway. Suffice it to say that the primary criterion was a consistently high level of play, with significant bonus points awarded for exceeding expectations.

Last year, the winner of the first ever OC Domer Player of the Year Award was David Bruton. Congratulations to David for having another terrific season in 2008, and good luck to him in the upcoming NFL draft. I look forward to watching him play on Sundays for many years to come.

The OC Domer Player of the Year for the 2008 football season goes to: Michael Floyd.

The freshman wide receiver from St. Paul, Minnesota came to Notre Dame as a highly regarded prospect. From his Notre Dame bio page:

Gatorade Player of the Year for Minnesota as a junior and senior ... named Minnesota Player of the Year as a junior and senior by the Associated Press ... named first-team All-American by USA Today following his senior season ... placed on Parade All-America team as one of the 58 best players in the country and one of four all-purpose players ... one of 30 players named to the EA Sports All-America first team ... named a second-team All-American by Scout.com ... earned first-team all-state accolades from the Minnesota Associated Press as a junior and senior ... recipient of 2007 Minnesota Mr. Football award ... named the state's Player of the Year by St. Paul Pioneer Press ... ranked the top wide receiver and the third-best player on the Detroit Free Press' Best of the Midwest Top 20 list ... rated the 15th-best player in the nation by Tom Lemming and CSTV ... Scout.com ranked him as the 16th-best prospect in the country ... touted as the 27th-best player in the country by Rivals.com ... ranked No. 28 by Sports Illustrated/TAKKLE.com ... rated the 29th-best player on the ESPN 150 list ... labeled by Scout.com as the top player in Minnesota and the fifth-best wide receiver in the country ... Rivals.com considered him the top player in Minnesota and sixth-best wide receiver in the nation.

But, quite frankly, I've seen recruits arrive in South Bend year after year with impressive accolades and lofty expectations only to watch them get mired in the depth chart, or lost in the crowd, or hurt, or to just fizzle out once they get onto the field. Can anybody say "whooosh!"? So I was hopeful that Mike Floyd would inject some talent into the roster at wide receiver, and that he might actually push for playing time in 2008.

I had no idea that he would absolutely blow up the depth chart and establish himself as one of the top 2 Irish receivers before there was even a hint of Autumn cool in the air in South Bend. Yet that is what he did, as he set about re-writing the record books for Notre Dame freshman receivers. He scored a touchdown on his first catch for the Irish in the first game of the year, against San Diego State. Welcome to Notre Dame!

Floyd absolutely transformed the Notre Dame offense.

Pre-Floyd, the Irish had one real threat at the receiver position, Golden Tate, who could be taken out of the game fairly easily with one good cornerback and a little safety help. The other Notre Dame receivers did not strike fear in any defensive coordinators, as they lacked the speed to stretch the field or run away from coverage. The result was that opposing defenses were confident in their ability to defend the Irish down the field with minimal manpower, thus freeing up defenders to play run defense at the line of scrimmage or to blitz Jimmy Clausen. But once Floyd took the field, the game changed. You can't double team everyone, and both Tate and Floyd are talented enough to make any single defender look really bad on the instant replay. If you choose to focus on either of them, the other will kill you. Both guys can score from anywhere on the field. If you try to taken them both away with safety help, TE Kyle Rudolph will exploit the seam in the middle of the field. The bottom line is that having both Tate and Floyd in the lineup causes major headaches for opposing defenses, presenting them a lot of tough choices. The obvious choice is to respect Notre Dame's passing game a lot more by committing more defenders to the secondary, which frees up the ground game for guys like Armando Allen, Robert Hughes and James Aldridge.

Although only a freshman, Michael Floyd changed the personality of the Irish offense from a dink-and-dunk attack with a pedestrian running game to a dynamic quick-strike attack that could score touchdowns from anywhere on the field. In essentially a nine-game season (he was injured very early in the 10th game, against Navy), Floyd broke Notre Dame's single-season receiving records by a freshman with 46 catches for 702 yards (15.3 yards per catch) and seven touchdowns. Floyd has earned all-freshman second team honors from Sporting News, CollegeFootballNews.com, Rivals.com and Phil Steele.

Congratulations to Michael Floyd on a great freshman campaign and on being named the 2008 OC Domer Player of the Year. I look forward to seeing Michael back on the field for the Irish against Hawaii on Christmas Eve, and for the next three full football seasons.

OC Domer Player of the Year Runner-up was: Golden Tate. When I asked for input from OC Domer readers about who the Player of the Year should be, Golden was right there with Michael Floyd as a vote-getter. Golden had a great year and he should be congratulated and thanked for his terrific play. In the end, a key factor in choosing the OC Domer Player of the Year is the degree to which a player surprises the voters (i.e., me) by far exceeding expectations. Golden was outstanding this year, but for the most part he was expected to be very good. Thus he didn't garner as many points for exceeding expectations as Floyd.

OC Domer Player of Year Honorable Mentions go to: Mike Anello and Brandon Walker.


Who are your Notre Dame Players of the Year? I'd love to hear from you.

1st Annual OC Domer Player of the Year Awards

The ballots are in. The results have been tabulated. It's time to announce the first ever recipient of the "OC Domer Player of the Year Award." Before I do so however, I want to answer the question that is surely on your mind as you read this: How can OC Domer name a "Player of the Year" when there are still four games left to play? That's a fair question.

While there are four games remaining to be played on the 2007 football schedule, this season is OVER. We just finished playing eight straight games against top-caliber competition and went 1-7, mathematically eliminating ourselves from Bowl eligibility after playing just 2/3 of our schedule. There are four games left to play, but those games are not about this season. They are about next season. The next four games, in my view, are pre-season games for 2008. These next four games are against a much softer class of competition and will serve as an excellent opportunity for Coach Weis and his staff to develop the young players who will be the heart and soul of the 2008 squad. It's a rare chance to put young players in live-fire situations and see who has the talent and the heart to play football at Notre Dame. The next four games will allow Charlie Weis & his staff the chance to do what they failed to do in 2005 and 2006: Give meaningful reps to the players who will carry the program in the future.

I have decided not to wait until late November to decide Player of the Year honors because for purposes of evaluating the 2007 season I don't care who plays well over the next month. If Clausen or Sharpley have huge games against Navy or Stanford, it won't negate the fact that our quarterback play was horrible WHEN IT COUNTED. If the offensive line overpowers the Air Force and Duke defensive fronts, it won't negate the fact that the Irish barely managed 1 yard per rush WHEN IT COUNTED. If the Notre Dame defense bottles up the Air Force and Navy rushing attacks, it won't negate the fact that we were the 93rd best team in the country against the run WHEN IT COUNTED.

Don't get me wrong. I'll be watching the games with my usual intensity. I'll be sitting on the edge of my seat, and I'll jump into the air screaming and scaring my kids and my dog when the Irish score a touchdown. But what I'll be looking for are the players who give me reason to hope that next year will be better.

The OC Domer Player of the Year Award is intended to recognize the Notre Dame football player or players who played the best when it mattered the most. I want to recognize the guys who showed up and gave quality efforts against the best teams we faced, not the rest of the teams we faced. The award is based on a horrendously complex and intricate scoring system that would take too long to explain and that you wouldn't understand anyway. Suffice it to say that the primary criterion was a consistently high level of play, with significant bonus points awarded for exceeding expectations.

The OC Domer Player of the Year for the 2007 football season goes to: David Bruton.

David is a junior free safety from Miamisburg, Ohio. On the season David has 35 solo tackles, which is second only to linebacker Joe Brockington (36), and 53 total tackles (third behind Brockington and Trevor Laws). From the free safety position he has 3 tackles for loss and one sack. He is tied for the team lead with two interceptions and also has forced one fumble. But the numbers tell only part of the story. Bruton has also made what are probably the three most athletic plays seen from the Irish this season. Against Michigan State, in the waning moments of the first half, David broke from his "deep center field" position on a long MSU pass and made an amazing interception at the sideline to end a Spartan threat. His reaction to the ball, the speed he showed, and the amount of ground he had to cover to haul in that pass were truly impressive. Afterwards Defensive Coordinator Corwin Brown said that he expects to use film of that interception to teach proper safety play for years to come. Against Boston College, on their first possession of the game, L.V. Whitworth raced around left end and appeared headed for an easy sixty yard touchdown. I was watching the game with my Dad, and I said to him: "He's not going to score. Bruton is going to catch him." And he did. Despite having no angle and being way behind at the start, Bruton ran Whitworth down and tackled him at the seven yard line. It was another impressive display of raw athletic ability and heart. The third play came against USC when Bruton not only blocked a Trojan punt, but picked the ball cleanly right off the punter's foot.

Those displays of athleticism, within his overall outstanding performance on the year make David Bruton the OC Domer Player of the Year. Over the 2005 and 2006 seasons (and even before) the Notre Dame secondary has been the weakest link on the team, and the deep pass completions to opposing receivers splitting the seams in the secondary have been a recurring nightmare. While Irish strong safety Tom Zbikowski has been at the line of scrimmage blitzing and trying to shore up the run defense much of the time, David Bruton is a big part of the reason that Irish fans haven't been traumatized by the deep balls down the middle this season. He's also a big part of the reason the Irish overall pass defense is ranked 13th in the nation, by far the best statistical ranking for the Irish in any category this year. David has also been outstanding on special teams. In addition to the blocked punt, he has been a sure tackler on punts and kick-offs. What put David over the top for this award was the fact that he has greatly exceeded expectations. Other contenders for the award who have had very good seasons were by and large established starters who were expected to be very good this year. Although David had some playing time in 2005 and 2006, and garnered defensive MVP honors at the Blue & Gold game this year, nobody was sure how good he would be. Would he be as good as Ndukwe? Or would we see a drop-off? Well, Bruton has shown far more range and athleticism than Ndukwe and the overall play at the safety position has been improved, despite Zbikowski's puzzling inability to return to the level of play we saw from him in 2005.

Congratulations, David. And thanks for giving it your all every week.

OC Domer Player of the Year Runners-up were: Trevor Laws and Pat Kuntz. Both of these players have given it everything they have all season long, and have played at a very high level. They end up runners-up because they were generally expected to be very good this year, so they did not garner as many bonus points for exceeding expectations. They were also hurt by the fact that, despite their tremendous effort, Notre Dame's runs defense has not been very good overall.

OC Domer Player of Year Honorable Mentions go to: Robby Parris and Duval Kamara.

Who are your Notre Dame Players of the Year? I'd love to hear from you.