(upbeat music) All right, being nation, welcome back to another edition of the Irish Breakdown podcast. Boy, I feel like I haven't seen you guys in forever. We didn't do a show this weekend. We had to cancel yesterday's show because we had a meeting over at Notre Dame. And I've kind of missed y'all a little bit, to be honest with you. And I'm excited today, fall camp starts tomorrow. I am going to be heading over to Notre Dame Stadium or Notre Dame's facilities tomorrow. 9.30 practice we have tomorrow. I'm excited about that. So our first full chance, we're gonna get to see the whole practice. So I actually are only full practice opportunity of fall camp. So we're not gonna have a ton of fall camp availability. Just so you guys know, we're not gonna, I think we get like six, maybe six practices that we're gonna get to see, including the first three. So we'll have a lot to report on what we see there. So tomorrow's show will be a TBD as far as the, or TBA, I guess, as far as the time when it'll start, 'cause we're gonna have practice at 9.30. That usually goes for about two hours. I'm gonna come back from practice, write the practice report, put that up, then we'll do the show. So it's probably gonna be two o'clock show tomorrow, just to let you all know kind of what that plan is for tomorrow. It will not likely not be a one o'clock show because of the practice schedule and the content that we gotta get done for that. But it'll be worth it because it's gonna be a lot of fun tomorrow. We're gonna have a, obviously I'm gonna have my practice reports at irisbreakdown.com. We'll get them up on the message board first, then we'll put them out on the irisbreakdown.com channel. And then, of course, we'll do a show. And I'll talk about what I saw yesterday's practice and I'm very much looking forward to seeing that. Keeping in mind that this is a non-padded practice, but it will be good to see guys out there running around, how do guys look, what kind of competition, kind of energy, who's playing where. Those will be good things to see. And then, of course, that'll give us a gauge on what we'll be able to evaluate when we get to the end of fall camp. We'll say, okay, well, here's where they started and here's where they finished, right? And as we get ready to go to the Texas A&M game. And I'm tell you, we're tomorrow also, not only first day of fall camp, but it's one month until the season kicks off. I'm so excited. It helps me get over the fact that I went last week and bought my flight and my hotel for the Texas A&M game to cover that game. That stung a little. So now that you kind of get past that and start thinking about the upcoming season in fall camp, get excited about that for sure. So let's talk about today's show, what are we going to talk about today? Number one, we're going to talk about fall camp. We're going to preview fall camp. And so we're going to get into some of the different aspects of it. I'm going to talk a little bit of big picture about the season in this team. And then I'm going to get into what to look for type of discussion. And it's not so much, some of them are kind of questions, but it's not so much the questions about the team. Written articles about that. We'll talk about that as we get closer to the end of fall camp. We'll talk about that as we get closer to the season. But it's more of, what am I looking for? When you get to fall camp, what is it that you're looking for? What do you want to see? I've got people in the chat asking, you have a super chat from AST12321. Thank you for super chat, by the way. And I'll answer this one here later. But it says, what do you need to see from CJ Carr this fall that to know he's on pace to be the future of the nerding football versus what do you want to see from Riley Lender now? I'll dive into that when I get into the what I'm looking for section. But that's an example of where I am in regard to fall camp. It's what are you looking to see? What do you want to see from this team? It's not so much some of the questions that have to be answered. Some of it's a good thing. And what are you looking for? What's going to define this football team? And I'm excited about that. I'm excited to see who this team is going to be and what the DNA of this team is going to be. And every fall camp, there's guys to step up, right? I'm looking for that. That's sort of a big picture team thing. Who are the veterans that step up? We do these articles, and we do these shows during the off season about senior step up and sophomore surge and freshman impact and all that. And now's the time when we start to see who those players are. We see it all the time, right? I mean, you think of Jevon McKinley stepping up in 2020. You think of Howard Cross's breakout last year. You know, you go back over the years. And every year, there's certain things that happen every year, especially on good teams. Some veteran player that didn't do a whole lot in his career has a breakout season. Some sophomore that maybe you're not anticipating, stepping up and performing well, steps up and performs well. Some freshman that we weren't expecting to be a star becomes a star. There's all types of things that happen with a football team as it evolves. And those are things that you start to see in fall camp. Some of those things you can't know, you can't know. Like if I was able to say, OK, this one random player is going to have this huge breakout, book it down, market, you know, it'd be kind of take some of the fun out of it. I don't know who some of those guys are. I have some things that I'm excited about. And by the way, if you're not on the message board, you are definitely missing out. This year's Intel piece was one of the most thorough that I've done, to be honest with you. And we had an offensive Intel piece, a defensive Intel piece. I have talked to a ton of sources around the program, gotten a ton of Intel about the quarterbacks, the receivers, the O line, lots on the D line and the secondary. People that are already members can tell you there was a ton of stuff in there. I've also had some Intel stuff on Doosnite on the message board yesterday. So if you're not on the message board, it is the perfect time to sign up boards on our breakdown.com. If for some reason, when you first sign up, you try to log in and it doesn't allow you to do so, just shoot me an email. I'll get you squared away. We're working through a little bit of a glitch right now, but you'll get squared away very quickly. But there's tons of great content on there. In my opinion, I was really fired up writing it and really fired up getting it. Talking to all the different sources, you see the continuity between different people and what they say about certain things. And that's when you kind of get excited when it's like, okay, well, everybody's telling me this. So you feel better that there's a chance that it's going to happen. So lots of lots of great Intel pieces on there, two Intel pieces on just the team. And then of course, there's a couple Intel pieces yesterday on Doosnite. So board members only, not going to talk about it in the chat, not going to talk about that Intel on the show. You got to be a board member to see it. But man, there's some stuff that has me excited about what this team can be. And if the sources that I talk to are correct and what they're seeing from this team, it's going to be fun. But you're going to see, you're going to know, if you're an Intel, if you're on the board, you're going to kind of know like, well, when certain player breaks out, you're like, oh yeah, well, that doesn't surprise me because we heard this summer that this guy was a breakout. So there's lots of reasons to be a board member. But those are reasons to be excited about the season, right? That's the big thing is that's what's got me fired up about what this season is going to be because there's a lot of talent. There's a lot of good players. We're going to find out just how good this staff is at recruiting when you look at the fact that there's so much of this roster is now made up of guys that this staff has recruited to campus. And I'm excited to see what it's going to do and excited to see what this team is capable of. So when you talk about fall camp, we'll kind of preview this a little bit before we dive into what to look for. Look, this is a big year for Notre Dame. In my opinion, this is a huge year for Notre Dame. Is this an end-all be-all? No, it's not. Is this a situation where if Freeman doesn't do this, it means he's not that. No, I don't think it's that. I do believe, however, that this program needs to take a jump this season for a lot of reasons. And we've talked a lot about them. Don't need to rehash them again. We'll talk about them a little bit differently and in more detail as we get closer to the season than we can actually talk about the season. But fall camp is such an important part to that. And people ask, we get questions on the buy-all hold and mailbags. Like, what's the most important time of the season? And my argument is they're all important. I mean, they're all important in some way. The importance of fall camp is obviously, this is the last chance to mold, truly mold your team. And there's always evolving aspects to your team as you go through the season. There's always things that maybe you're good at in September that maybe you're not as good at or even way better than by the time you get to November. There's maybe some things you're not as good at early in the season that by the end of the year you get better at. There's position groups that get better throughout the season. There's players that may start to begin the year, but by the end of the year, they're not starting. I've pointed to the 2016 USC team that started one in three with two-block losses. They make a quarterback change, they have some other changes. And by the end of the year, that's one of the best teams of college football. I was talking with a friend of mine about that, you know, about that team last night. So there are different aspects of your team that you're always evolving. But this is the last period where you're truly able to mold your team. And one of the questions we got, and I don't represent the mailbag or if it's the bicycle, I think it's a mailbag. But it's, when you look at your team and the difference between like fall camp and practice, once you get to practice, it's all game prep, game prep, game prep, game prep. There's sort of this continuity between it. Tuesday you do this, Wednesday you do this, Thursday you do this, Friday you do this, game on Saturday. And certain aspects of the week will change. You know, I'm just gonna focus on this concept this week because we're getting ready to play this defense, who does that, we're gonna focus on this coverage, this week or maybe we didn't do it last week. But the rep, there's still that consistency of your approach on a day to day basis. And your gear towards nothing but that Saturday. Fall camp is a little different. You're obviously working towards games and you'll do some things early that say, hey look, we think we need to be good at this to beat A&M and we're gonna start working on some of that now. You don't completely shut out game prep for A&M in the first couple of weeks of practice. But the first couple of weeks of fall camp, the emphasis is a little bit different. Yes, you're focusing on scheme. Yes, you're focusing on the technical aspects and the refinement in that regard. But there's still a lot of culture building during this period of time. I know speaking as a player and coach, the summer workouts are important but this is the period where your team truly comes together as one or not. And whether that happens is gonna tell you a lot about where this team is. And does this team, do they connect together on the field? Do they connect together off the field? The leadership that you hope that you've been cultivating all off season starts to either come to fruition now or not and that tells you where you are as a football team. So leadership doesn't emerge the first day of December across the board, the first day of January when you get back. Now, first day of January, there will be some leaders that emerge as, hey, vocally, I'm gonna be a take charge guy now. But their actions have to then back that up the next, now we're in July, so the next seven months. Same thing is this is some guys maybe don't step up to that early leadership role but as this winter and then spring and now summer comes on, you start to then emerge into that leadership role either by your actions or because you're more of a vocal leader. Then when you get to fall camp, it's when it really comes to pass of what who you are as a leader, right? Or what your leadership structure is as a whole with your football team. And so those are all aspects of it that you have to look at as a football coach and say, hey, listen, who are we? What's the character of our football team? And yes, you learn parts about that throughout the off season. You're gonna learn parts about that in the winter. You're gonna learn parts about that in the summer. You're gonna learn parts about that in spring ball. You're gonna learn parts about that in fall camp. But the fall camp is that final period where, okay, here's who we are. It starts to become clear who you are. But at the same time, there still is that last little bit of time for molding. If you're just not a physical group, day one, you can improve it but you're just not gonna then become the 85 Bears with the 2017 Notre Dame offensive line. By the end of fall camp. That process is already begun. But if you feel you, hey, we're physical, but we haven't harnessed it in the proper manner, that's where fall camp harnesses it. Hey, we have a lot of speed, but guys don't necessarily know how to put it all together yet. Now is when you harness it. Hey, we feel like we've got some leadership stepping up, but this guy just needs that final push. This guy needs that final opportunity to where in fall camp, you create some of those circumstances that then put guys in a leadership challenge where they're gonna step up and lead or they're not. And, you know, part of it is like in fall camp, it's like there's times in fall camp and I learned this from some of the best coaches I was around. I learned this from being around Bowling Green with Urban Meyer and his staff were there. There's some days you're going into practice and you're basically saying, I'm going to be a giant jerk today, right? Not jerk is like your MF and players, but like nothing's gonna be good enough for me today. I'm gonna find, I'm gonna be on 'em all day, I'm gonna write 'em, I'm gonna push 'em. You say, well, why would you do that? Well, number one, I'm trying to get them out of their comfort zone. You don't want guys to necessarily get complacent at camp. That's a small part of it. The other parts of it are, look, I need to challenge them mentally, right? Like, okay, I know this guy can run routes, I know this guy's fast and he can catch. But how's he gonna be when you get to Saturday and that other cornerback's kicking his butter? He's in his ear, he's talking trash or fans are screaming at him or whatever. I'm putting him in uncomfortable, emotional and mental state to see how he responds. If he can't handle me on a middle of fall camp Tuesday after Tuesday morning getting on him and constantly, just no, it's not good enough, give me more. You're better than that, give me more. Then how's he gonna handle when things really get tough on a Saturday in front of tens of thousands of people with millions of people watching at home, right? So there's parts of that. That's part of the building process. And then there's other days where you're like, "Hey, I've ridden them pretty hard the last few days." Today, it's about building them back up, right? It's about encouragement. It's maybe that guy that you rode real hard the last couple of days. You see him start to put his head down a little bit. Now today is the day that I put Marm around him and we talk about why I'm hard on him and why I'm the gentleman and what I think he's capable of and how much I care about him. That's all part of the building up the mind and the body and the soul of your football team. And when you, if you can focus on those things and build those things and evolve that aspect of your football team, then you've got a chance to be really, really good. You've got a chance to be a really impactful football team. And that's basically where Notre Dame is right now. They're a team that has an opportunity to, they've got a lot of good pieces in place. They've got a lot of talent. They've got a lot of potential. At this point in time, it now comes down to can they, can they put it all together? Can they get it all to click? Can they get it all to say, "Hey, listen, "yes, the talent's here. "We've got the leadership pieces in place. "We've got the coaching pieces in place, "but can you bring it all together?" It happens now. You're building towards this period and this is when it happens. This is when the soul of your football team is truly given, you know? And it's such a great time to be a coach. It really is like, this is the part of coaching that I kind of miss. There's a lot about coaching I do not miss, especially in this day of the way recruiting is now. I miss Saturdays, obviously, but it's, and you miss certain parts of the relationships with players and things like that. But like when you really come to the day-to-day grind, this is the part I loved because there's so much strategy that goes into practice every day. And if you're not thinking strategically about the course of your fall camp, and if you're not speaking strategically then what each day then does to build towards that, then you're really not gonna get the most out of your football team. So it's not just going out there and going through drills and throwing the ball around and working on tackling and working on this smash concept or slot fade concept or whatever the case may be, that's all a part of it. But as a head coach, it's all geared towards, you know, hey, how are we building the solo football team? And as a position coach, it's how am I building the sole of this position group? Right? If you're a receivers coach, O-line coach, D-line coach, linebacker coach, whatever, how can I build the sole of this group? How can I make sure that we're not just fast and athletic and technically proficient, but that we've also got some mental toughness to us. That we have to build a handle adversity, that we have the ability to go on the road and get down to a really good football team and say, hey, we're fine. We've been through tougher times in this. Let's just go out and do what we've done. This is why we sweat this summer. This is why we fought so hard in practice. This is why we put up with all this. This is why we did all this because of this moment right here, we're prepared to handle it. And fall camp is the time where that's established. And by the time you get to the end of fall camp, you know who your football team is to a degree. There are certain things you can't really truly learn until you get to games, but for the most part, this is when you kind of say, okay, I really feel like we are in a position now where we've been able to build this team and mold this team and cultivate this team to the point we're now ready to turn them loose on the world. And that's what I love about this period of fall camp. And that's really what Notre Dame has in front of them. You know, when you talk about why it matters, this is a great time for coming together. This is a great time for development. You know, this is a great time where character gets developed. And then also the final pieces, this is when your lineup gets established to a degree, at least to the start of the season. Like who steps up and when starting jobs? I mean, guys, there's starting battles at right tackle, left guard, wide receiver, you know, kind of de-end, linebacker, corner, safety. You know, there's battles for number two jobs, like who's going to be the number two quarterback? Who's going to be the, you know, hey, if number one, two and three receivers are established, who's four, five and six, right? Okay, you've got number one, tight end. Who's number two, who's number three? You know, you've got defensive end. Okay, you've got three, you're three deep across the board now with talented players. Who's one, who's three? You know, do you have two safeties you feel good about? You have three safeties you feel good about? You have four safeties you feel good about? You know, these are when those things start to happen. And those battles start to kind of reach their culmination point and somebody wins a job. And, you know, there's always times when you think, you know, who's going to be the guy and you end up not being it. A year ago this time, we're looking at this football team saying, hey man, you know, we think this team has a chance to go out and be really good on the offensive line. And we think this guy's going to start. And we think Billy Shrath is going to be starting left guard. We'll come to find out. That's not how it played out, right? It didn't play out that way. And Pat Coogan ends up starting. You think this guy is going to be a top receiver. He ends up not playing a whole lot or he ends up getting heard. And there's all types of things that go into it to where what you think your team is going to be going into fall camp isn't always what your team looks like coming out of fall camp. And that's one of the things that Notre Dame has in front of it is we're going to start to find those answers, right? And you start to look at who your team is and what they're capable of. And the heart and soul of your team is really developed at this point in time. And so when you ask, when people ask me, you know, why is fall camps so important? What makes fall camp different? That's all it now. It's a vitally important piece, right? And it sounds like, well, it makes it seem like fall camps most important period. No, because such a foundation has to be laid before that to even get you there. And if that foundation isn't laid properly, then you're making up for an overcoming the sins of the past, so to speak. And that's not really where you want to be. And so this is why I love fall camp. It's why I love fall camp as a coach. It's why I love fall camp now. It's why I get so bummed every year when we don't get the access that I want them to give us, which is every practice, you know? It's like even if say you can't report on it, you know, still let us be there and see it. 'Cause I just, I miss that part of coaching. I miss that part of watching this team develop, watching what a guy looks like in practice one compared to what a guy looks like in practice 14. 'Cause here's another fun part of fall camp. You see guys every year and every coach and out there is gonna know what I'm talking about, whether you coach football or something else, right? You always have those guys and if you're, you coach ladies, those ladies have come out in the beginning of fall of practice and they look like a million bucks. And a football, this is especially true because on day one of fall camp, you don't have pads on. It's just helmets. You're not out there laying each other out and you've got those guys to come out and they look like a million bucks and they're fresh and they're happy and they're healthy and they come out like gangbusters. I wanna see what that guy looks like on practice 15. You know, 'cause about that halfway point, you start to say, okay, well, this guy doesn't have that juice anymore, right? Some guys power through it and they still can maintain. Some guys are like, they hit that wall and they are done. And then okay, some guys hit that wall and then you find out, okay, what comes next? Do you go out and push through it and then come out of it or do you hit that wall and just kind of go backwards? Those are all parts of fall camp because I've kind of joked about this in the past and I've said, you know, what I love about fall camp is there's an emotional roller coaster you go through as a coach, right? And every football coach, I think, will be able to attest to this. The beginning of fall camp, you're so excited and you think you can beat everybody. And then you come out the first three days of camp with no pads on and it confirms everything you feel about that team, right? It confirms that, you know, that, hey, you know, we are this, we are that and you feel like you can beat anybody but now we play anybody today, I think we can beat anybody. And then you get to about the end of week one, going into week two and you go through that period in your mind where you're like, I don't think we're gonna beat anybody this year. We are terrible because you hit that wall. You hit it as a coach. You've been grinding every day. You're away from your family a lot of times. You know, it's just your players are just kind of, you know, your guys that are running 4/4s are running 4/8s now 'cause they got those camp legs. You know, your quarterbacks were throwing frozen ropes on 25-yard comebacks or now can't hit a five-yard out, you know, 'cause you get that camp arm and there's a reason you get these camp insert body part, you know, because you hit that wall. And then when as a coach and mentally, you're watching practice, you're like, God, we're terrible. We're not gonna be anybody. And then over the next couple of weeks, you know, you guys pushed through those. It's all part of the building your body up process and your mind up process. And by the end of fall camp, you say, okay, here's who we are. Here's who we are gonna be as a team. You have that realistic view of who you're gonna be. And sometimes it's back to the, you know, hey, we can beat anybody. And sometimes you're like, yeah, we stink, you know, and so those are all part of what I love about the evolution of fall camp. 'Cause I promise you, if you were to talk to a coach now, talk to a coach in a week. Like if you could, oh, if I could get a position coach or a coordinator of the head coach, you know, on the phone after every week, right? So if I were to talk to, you know, let's say Al Golden today and, you know, in truthful where he's just being open and honest and I don't know Coach Golden. So I'm using him as example. And he tells me about the team, you know, we're just talking coaches in the office going over everything and he's gonna, he's gonna become excited about what this group is. And then if I talk to him in a week from now, his tone is probably gonna be a little different. And then if I talk to him a week after that, it's gonna be different. And then that's gonna be different because that's the evolution of your team. You, some things about your team, you're gonna find out like, wow, we're better here than I thought we're going to be. Or in another case, as you know, I was hoping we'd be further along here than we are, but we're not and that's disappointing. And so, and then maybe some of those things you power through and other things that you don't, to be honest with you. So those are all aspects of fall camp that I am, I'm really looking forward to for this year. So that's kind of my preview of fall camp, what to look for, why this period matters. And just overall, just sort of what the excitement is and how important this period is because this period is truly going to determine just what kind of football team Notre Dame is. And it's not about your talent, your athleticism. You either have that or you don't. They want tomorrow, July 31st. Somebody's not gonna run a 4-7 today and run a 4-4 tomorrow. It doesn't change your ability. If you are not accurate today, you're not gonna be accurate tomorrow, right? If you aren't strong today, you're not gonna be strong tomorrow. It doesn't change who you are athletically. It changes who you are mentally. It changes who you are maybe from a character standpoint and it changes who you are as a team because it's that part period to come together. And that's what has me excited about fall camp and that's the opportunity in front of Notre Dame. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (whooshing)
