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Notre Dame Friday Mailbag - Part I

Our Friday Notre Dame Football Mailbag was jam-packed with a ton of great questions about the Fighting Irish! We had to break it into four shows! Here is part one. Shop for Irish Breakdown gear at our online store: https://ibstore.irishbreakdown.com/  Join the Irish Breakdown premium message board: https://boards.irishbreakdown.com  Stay locked into Irish Breakdown for all the latest news and analysis about Notre Dame: https://www.irishbreakdown.com​ Like and follow Irish Breakdown on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/irishbreakdown Sign up for the FREE Irish Breakdown daily newsletter: https://www.subscribepage.com/irish-breakdown-newsletter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Duration:
55m
Broadcast on:
03 Aug 2024
Audio Format:
mp3

Our Friday Notre Dame Football Mailbag was jam-packed with a ton of great questions about the Fighting Irish! We had to break it into four shows! Here is part one.

Shop for Irish Breakdown gear at our online store: https://ibstore.irishbreakdown.com/ 

Join the Irish Breakdown premium message board: https://boards.irishbreakdown.com 

Stay locked into Irish Breakdown for all the latest news and analysis about Notre Dame: https://www.irishbreakdown.com​

Like and follow Irish Breakdown on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/irishbreakdown

Sign up for the FREE Irish Breakdown daily newsletter: https://www.subscribepage.com/irish-breakdown-newsletter

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're NFL Sundays are about to get a whole lot more magical. When you bundle NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV, you get the most live NFL games all in one place. And with multi-view, you can watch up to four games at once, so you can catch all the action right from the comfort of home. Watch every game every Sunday on NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV. Sign up now at youtube.com/Sundayticket. Device and content restriction supply, local and national games on YouTube TV. NFL Sunday Ticket for Out of Market Games excludes digital-only games. All is back, and Exporting Goods has what you need to win your year. We've got everything from cleats to sambas, dunks and more. Plus, the hottest looks from Nike, Jordan and Adidas. Find your first day fits in-store or online at dicks.com. All right, Brian, it is that time we have come. It is Friday. It means it is the Friday, free-for-all mailbag. We've got a boatload of questions already queued up, ready to rock and roll. Let's just jump into it, man. Let's just get after it. I'm excited. Best day of the week. Remind people of how the process works. Yes. So if you are going to put a question in, get in the chat, little MB at the beginning or the mailbox emoji, that way it's easy to see. We can start those up, get them into the queue. If you want to jump your question to the top of the list, you've got to give us a super chat, it gets jumped to the top of the list, and we will answer that question next, but we will pretty much go in order for the most part, unless some person put in like 20 straight questions. We might have as much of that lately. Okay. Yeah, there you go. That's just good. Yeah, no, that's definitely good. But we will try to get to everybody's within the appropriate amount of time. I don't know if we ever get to everybody's, but the appropriate amount of time so that we're not here all day. But hey, we're here for the long haul, and I'm excited about it. So again, MB or the mailbox emoji in the chat, and we'll get that question up as soon as we can. Speaking of super chats, boom, John A. Well, and thank you so much for the super chat. My man, really appreciate it. Actually, I was cleaning out my shelf in my closet, and I came across, you know, the coin that you gave us when we were down at the bowl game. And so I always keep it right there on my shelf and just made me think of you, John. And so I'm glad you got the first question today. I know her mind is too. Yeah. And if has this really, this box she has for her really nice jewelry, I put it in there. Yep. So there you go. So John's question, based on what you've seen so far, do you believe the defense will be able to execute aggressive play calls such as the infamous double safety blitz with consistency in 24? Well, I'm not a huge fan of double safety blitzes, unless you're inside the five, right? It's too soon for that, John. I appreciate your super chat. It's a little too soon for that. I'll say athletically, I think they can do that as far as do they have the defense down enough and those type of things. It's too early for that. It's too early for me to say that. I mean, our golden is going to run as defense, right? And he's going to have a much more, well, overall secondary is going to be in linebacker. You're going to be more athletic than you were last year. I shouldn't say way more athletic. You're way more athletic at certain spots that number two safety spot. You're going to be more athletic than you had in the last couple of years. Your line-backing core is you're not losing any athleticism from the guys you lost. So you're not, because we felt Marist and JD were very athletic guys, but you're bigger now at linebacker at certain spots than you were a year ago. Every bit is athletic, if not slightly more so, and you're going to be more athletic at safety. So talent-wise, they should be able to do those type of things, but as far as are they going to be good at it or not, it's too early to tell. Of the three practice, only one of them was a full practice and that was without pads. So it's a little too early, but I mean, look, they're a long athletic defense fence. You saw that today. Yep. This is a very long athletic team. We saw it in the spring. Yep. So that's not surprising. Yeah. You're going to be able to do some of those things. Some people felt like, "Well, if the D-lines as good as it is, as I mean, you can blitz less." And I'm like, "I actually think it's the opposite if you're someone like Al Gold." I mean, when Brett Venables had those great D-lines at Clemson, he didn't blitz less. He blitzed more, because it's like, "You're so focused on my front that you've got to now figure out a way to then also handle our linebackers." That's just kind of the way he looks at it. So I think you're going to see that, but athletically, they're going to have all the tools they need to be that kind of dominant group. And we'll see if we'll see what it looks like specifically, but it's too early for me to say specifically. Schematically, these are things that I'm going to be great at. I think they can execute what he's done in the past really well. That's about all I can say. PrizePix is America's number one daily fantasy sports app with over 5 million active members. PrizePix is the easiest and most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports. Unlike other apps, on PrizePix, it's just you against the numbers. All you do is pick more or less on two to six players' stat projections and watch the winnings roll in, baby. Get in on the daily action with your friends and become part of the PrizePix community today. Get in on all the excitement and win up to 100 times your cash with the summer games on PrizePix. 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Pick more, pick less, it's that easy. When it comes to towing, seeing is believing. That's why Chevy Trucks Advanced Camera Technology offers up to eight available cameras for 14 unique views, so you can focus on the view that really matters. Chevrolet, Together Let's Drive. Learn more about Chevy Trucks at chevy.com. Safety or driver assistance features are no substitute for the driver's responsibility to operate the vehicle in a safe manner. We the vehicle owner's manual for important feature limitations and information. Ditral 103 days in, if it were your call, who would be your quarterback roster order after Tyler Puckner at QB1, of course. I mean, I'm okay with where it is now, and I would say I'd probably be a little bit quicker with the trigger when it comes to making a move at number two, but right now I'm comfortable with where it is now. I mean, it's fine. It's like, look, Steve Angeli has to learn to throw the ball beyond his first read. He's going to have to figure out how to do that, but I don't think he's going to turn a ball over a ton. The younger guys, you'll see CJ forced a couple balls in there that last practice that we saw, and they're still part of that learning process. It's just look, there's a very clear, you know what I do have a bias in one area. I'm biased towards talent, and I tend to like talent and can recognize talent, and the reality is, Vincent, you said it today when we were walking away, no, I think I said it to somebody said it, I'll say it to me, thing goes you, but the two young guys throw the ball better than two older guys, just pure throwing it, just pure throwing it. There's a lot more to go into playing quarterback than just, can you spin it? But CJ and Kenny, if you're just talking how the ball looks coming out of their hand, it looks better than it when Rylean Steve throws it, just does, you know what I mean? So I would probably give those guys a little more work with the twos than they've done through three days based on what we've seen, because there's a significant difference in just arm talent there. But right now, I'm comfortable player, the quarterback order is. And I've said this before, if you go into a game this season, and if Stephen Jelly has to get you out of a game, I'm comfortable with that. If I got to replace Rylean Leonard for more than two games, I'm going with one of the two young guys. And two weeks ago, I'd have said it's going to be CJ. But from what we've seen in the first three days, Kenny Menchie is locked in right now in battling, and he's now back to what I hoped he would be, which is can Kenny have this sort of the aggressiveness to come out there? And at least from what we've seen so far, he's really upped it, but he's a little bit more locked in than he was at this time of the spring. So that's a good sign, a good sign to see. I wonder how the blue gold game, because he struggled early in the blue gold game, but he finished really well in the blue gold game. I wonder if that kind of gave him a little bit of an emphasis like, dude, I actually can do this. He's a pretty good player. And maybe that pushed him, hopefully pushed him a little bit more than what we saw. Because again, if you think CJ Carr is the answer, you want Steve Angeli and Kenny Menchie to be as good as they possibly can be, because that forces CJ to really raise his game. Even if you think that's the truth, you want to see Steven and Kenny playing as well as they can, because then if CJ gets the job, you know, he really is as good as we hoped he would be because those two guys are good players in different ways. And that's something that it was good to see that. Very, very good to see that today, or the last couple of days. But I'm comfortable with the like, there's a, well, I'll wait until we get to some others, but three days is not a time to be thrown mixing the depth chart up a lot based off what your plan was already going in. If you had a plan for a battle, it has to go at least a week before you start really messing with it. Well, and from a quarterback perspective, a quarterback standpoint, I mean, at least what we've seen, they're not doing anything that's going to differentiate one guy from what we see. From what we see. I mean, it is drill work. You know what I mean? Yes, there are certain things that you can see, how the ball comes out and things like that. But, you know, we've talked at nauseum about, you know, what are Steve Angeli's weaknesses. Well, one of his major weaknesses is progressions and going through his progressions and things of that nature, right? We haven't really seen anything like that for him to even attempt to be good or bad at you know what I mean? As far as in practice is concerned. And so that starts to come as you start to build on the playbook and things of that nature. And so this is all about drill work and, you know, footwork and things of that, you know, doing that up front. And then when you start getting into plays and dissection and, you know, reads and things like that, that's where kind of the rubber meets the road when you're talking about the quarterback position, right? I mean, you can tell some stuff from some other positions in drill work. And you can tell stuff in quarterback play with drill work. But the important thing is, is the ball coming out on time, is it going to the right place? Are you able to read the defense? You know, those kinds of things, they're not really going to be doing that in volume until next week at the absolute earliest, right? So yeah, it's going to be a minute before they start shaking up the depth chart, in my opinion. If they do it all, I mean, maybe they don't, but it'll be a little bit. I have to say this, Archer 452, one of our residence house offenses, maybe don't run the WCA Blitz. Listen, man, you're not able to comment on that. And Notre Dame fans can say that you're not allowed to say that. It's so too soon. It is still too soon, Archer. That is not okay. Gifted you that W man. Oh, my goodness gracious. All good, man. We're just messing with you. Nobody liked that blitz or nobody liked that blitz. No. Yeah. Yeah. Still stinks. It does. John A1, if the NCAA adopts the NFL policy to wear soft caps during games with a legacy of the Golden Helmets die, I'm confused by this. The NFL teams have to wear. They don't have to. I think they can if they want to, okay. They're allowed. I think the only way that that goes away is if it's a situation where they force you or say everyone to wear them. Yeah. Because not everybody wears them in practice, quarterbacks don't wear them way more this year than in the past. Agreed. Yes. I do agree with that. Yeah. None of the QBs had it because they're not going to get hit. So what, you know, what's the point? Yeah. I don't. Were the offense alignment wearing them? Brian. Yes. They were. Okay. So yeah, most of the receivers were wearing them. The running backs for the most part were wearing them. I mean, it's definitely more. You've seen that number really in camp. Yeah. Actually, I used to kind of be opposed to the idea because I just felt like it's like, dude, you got to get these guys used to contact. Like you can't have those on all the time and then just not have them on on game day. Sure. The more I thought about it, I was like, you know, in a lot of like this is anecdotal. So it may not have actually been this way, but I always felt like a lot of the concussions that happened during my coaching career happened in the first week of practice. Sure. When you went from not wearing a helmet for months to wearing a helmet and, you know, and it's like, you know, it actually kind of makes sense to have those on early. But I think eventually kind of have to ween them off of it a little bit. Right. And we'll see if they do that or not, but look, I'm all for things that for player safety as long as we understand that, that yeah, we just got to think a little bit more long term about certain things. I'll just leave it at that, but the like I said, the only way that I look at it is will they do it and as far as now does the NFL, do they force guys to wear the NFL policy? They have to wear in practice. I don't think so. I just think that they they allowed it as a possibility if you really want to wear one during a game. Got you. I would be surprised if a whole lot of guys actually do that, but did you watch the Bears game last night, Vince? Did anyone, did anyone have it? Starting tonight. And then I got, I got overruled. Okay. They weren't playing any of their starters. So right. It was, I was always my favorite spring games, to be honest with you, is when you, is the non-starter ones because you actually get to see guys, you're not going to be a chance to, you know, a lot in the, in the season, but yeah, I didn't, I didn't watch the game. So I didn't, I didn't notice that anyone had it on, but I mean, we've seen guys in the past have to wear a special home, but you remember Mark Kelso? They, I'm actually looking at some highlights of the Bears, Texans game, and I literally don't see anyone wearing those. Unless they look different in person than they do. They don't. They don't. They like maybe for like games, they're a different type or something like that. I did, and the highlights that did see Khalid Kareem was balling yesterday. Yeah. So that was good to see. But like, you remember Mark Kelso? Look like Marvin, not Marvin the Martian. What was the, the Martian from the, to the Jetsons, remember the big old head? Remember Mark, Mike, Mark Kelso had for the bills, that's safe for the bills because he had some head issues. Yeah, we're like a giant padded on his helmet, the name of his helmet. So I mean, especially if you have concussion issues, I mean, look, I'm good with that. Just, for me, it's like John Ash, should they adopt the soft cap policy for safety? I think they should give people choice, inform people of what the study show. What's the data show? This is what data shows with it without it. Give them real data. Don't give them spend data to, you know, get them to do what you want. Give them real facts and then let people make choices. Big fan of that. Well, you know, when it comes to their actual, their own actual bodies, you know, like, where they're, their decisions of their body doesn't affect another brain. But when it comes to things, and that was my whole thing, like during the 2020 and 2021, like let people make choices. Give them the actual facts, don't lie to them, just let them make choices. And then that's kind of where it comes down to. Well, and the technology, the technology of helmets these days, too, is actually really good. I mean, it's a big difference even for when you and I used to play. I mean, it is, I don't know when the last time you had a helmet in your hand, Brian, but like, way different, they don't look as nice, in my opinion, modern helmets don't look as nice. Because they got all the different, like, pieces and parts, cool and everything, but it makes sense. Way safer. Either way safer. Like, I put my kids helmet on the other day, and I'm like, holy cow, number one, they're about half as heavy, number two, they fit so much better, like around your actual head, as opposed to just, well, you got something on there. I mean, it just, the helmet technology is so much better than it used to be. And that's what I would love and continue to focus on is make the helmets safer. Absolutely. That's a big key. Absolutely. Yeah. The great kazoo, that's who it was. The great kazoo. The green martian guy. Yeah. Had a big old head, remember, up top? Yeah. Mark council had that. So. Yeah. Good stuff. Good stuff. Johnny, one of the current projected starters at both tackle spots seemed to struggle in opposite areas, Wagner versus power rushes, jagga saw versus speed rushes, how should the staff address those weaknesses? Well, I don't, I don't think jagga saw struggles against speed rushes. I just, I know that's the narrative out there. I don't think that's actually the reality. Go back and watch the spring game. Watch every play. Don't just watch the two where he got beat because there's plenty of times where speed rushes he handled just fine. Charles jagga saw has mechanical issues that at times cause him to have a hitch in his giddy up. That's when he gets beat athletically he's, he can handle speed rushes just fine. He's got to play with proper angles, right? That's the big thing. You get out of your stance in the proper angle, if you go too flat, you're going to get beat by speed. If you go too, too back, then you're, you know, you could get beat by power. Handle it that way. Right? Like coach up the technique. He doesn't have, he doesn't have an issue with, I've seen Charles jagga saw get beat with a bull rush. Why? Cause he came and his stance too high and he was on his heels and the guy got in his chest and drove him back. That's just, that's just, it's a technical thing with Charles, but I, I just, Vince, I know you've told me that this narrative is out there because you, you, I listen to whoever I'm co hosting with. That's what I listen to. But there's no, I see no issue with him when his mechanics are good. I see no issue with him, you know, with speed rushes, everyone is going to get beat occasionally by a very good speed rusher. Sure. It's going to happen, but I don't think overall it's an issue. It comes down to he's got to be more consistent with his focus and his technique. That's the key with the meal. It's different because the meal does have a genuine issue with power rushes because of his lightness for a meal. It's just he's got to do a better job of really anchor if, if his body is where it needs to be to hold up. Sure. A meal has to do a better job of anchoring against those type of moves and, and for him a lot of it's going to be about angles. He's going to have to play with really good angles. You know, if he takes on just Nick Skowerten in a straight bull rush, you know, he, he, and he's, he gets caught squared up on his heels. He's going to get beat, you know, so, so be good with it. Now, the other thing they can do schematically, Vince, is there are some things they can do with chipping and, and, and some, and cutting, you are still allowed to cut, right? You just, you can't cut the way they used to. There's some things they could do in that regard. You can't like cut and roll, like you can't backside cut. But I'd have to look into this specific rule on that, to be honest with you, but I, I, you know, again, it just is, is his body going to be able to hold up or not? That's, that's the key. But for him, it's, it's going to really come down to he, especially he's going to have to make sure his base is always strong. And I don't mean strong is in like weight room strong. I mean, like, you know, like if you, if you have a friend and you guys remember, I don't know if you guys did this as kids, maybe we were just bored and stupid, but you do that thing, we try to like push each other and see who could push each other back, right? You got to really brace yourself for that. You know what I mean? Well, if you don't brace yourself the right way, you could win three, four in a row where you brace yourself and you're stronger, but then all of a sudden that one time you don't have your feet set, he goes a little too soon and he gets up underneath and you're getting beat. You're not, I'm stronger than that guy. Just beat him three, four times in a row. But that one time I don't have my base set. I got beat. Well, he's going to have to really focus on that base. Yeah. I'm going to be the big thing for a meal. Hey, it's Kaylee Cuoco for Priceline, ready to go to your happy place for a happy price? Well, why didn't you say so? 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Muhammad Abdi, Brian, Northern football program seem to be dominant in every division except FBS examples, North Dakota State, South Dakota State, University, Montana, Patriots, Mount Union, Purple Raiders, etc. Well, I mean, the defending national champion was from Michigan. One of the best programs in all of Cox football in the last 10 years has been Ohio State. Notre Dame has been pretty flippin' good in the last 10 years. I mean, I don't think that it's really that different. I mean, Southern schools have always been very strong. There's never been this contingent of like 20 Northern schools that were great. It's never been the case. Here's another reason why. To answer your question specifically, the reality is there's a lot more Southern schools at the FBS level. There's some Southern schools in the FCS level, but not a ton. And there's only a couple in Division III. I mean, there was a time when I was at Christopher Newport, Vince, that we were the Southern most school on the east coast of the Division III level. The schools in our league, we were in Virginia, and then yeah, we weren't the Southern most school. The teams in our league were, 'cause we were in a league with like Chihuahuan and Methodist and some of those North Carolina schools. We played Greensboro, but like there's no D3 in South Carolina, there was no D3 in Georgia. There is now, there's no D3s in Florida. So like we would literally go to these when I was at Defiance, we would go to these recruiting fairs in Florida and try to find these D2 and D3 kids, 'cause there's just not a lot of schools down there at that level. And so that's why a lot of those kids go up north. I mean, Mount Union, when they were beating us when we were, I was coaching back in 2010, 2001, had studs from Florida on their team, because they would go down there and get those guys. Yeah. So, you know, that's kind of part of it as well is there's just not as many of those southern schools that is an option for those kids. And you know, that's something that it really is amazing how national some of the lower-level schools rosters are. It really is shocking to me because I figured they'd be, and the majority are regional, but not always, I mean, not always. The other thing is some of those schools produce a lot of really good, like the best players in Indiana tend to be 1 AA, 2, 3 type of guys. Sure. The best guys in Florida tend to be D1 kind of guys, right? And in certain states, you're going to, you know, guys are going to get, guys are going to get, how is the way to put this vince? Overvalued? Yeah. The benefit of the doubt, and you'll give it away, you'll get a Florida kid before you give one to a high kid because the assumption that the Florida kid is better. So I think there's some of that as well to it, but like Wisconsin, Wisconsin has a great division three football. Why? A lot of the best, and it's predominantly all from Wisconsin and then some from Illinois. Yeah. Why? Because that's what that state produces really a lot of is that type of guy. That's why the walk-on program at a place like that's really good because they'll get some of those really good, they're not really good enough to be necessarily out of school, vision one type of guys, but they produce a lot of those, you know, they produce a lot of really good football teams. That's why Ohio has such great division three football because there's the Mac, Ohio state Cincinnati, and then for a long time, there was no 1 AA outside of Youngstown and Dayton, no D2. Now I think they have Ohio Dominicans D2, I believe. One Dayton doesn't even give athletic scholarships. Correct. So Youngstown did, and then there was no D2. So it's like, if you didn't go to the Mac, you went to D3. We would beat Dayton for guys because we could give better packages to your point because Dayton played in that non-scholarship level of, you know, like with Valpo and Morehead State. Butler and Butler. Yeah. Right. And so we would beat them for recruit because we could give them better packages. Yeah. So we recruited against Dayton for the best players more than we'd recruit against other division three schools. And so, you know, those are the things you look at is just that there's Ohio. There's a lot of, so we're in Virginia, for example, the tough time that we would sometimes have a curse for Newport was you not only had UVA and Virginia Tech, but then you had Richmond who's a one double A school, you had Norfolk State who was a one double A school, then old Dominion came along, they were a one double A school. Now they're a D1 school. You had Virginia Union, which is a D2 school HBCU program. You had Virginia State, you know, who was a division two program. So there just was a lot more of those one double A's and two's were kids would go to. Sure. And so we had, we're in Ohio. There weren't, it was the Mac and then it was D3, you know, outside of Youngstown. Yeah. Same with Indiana. There's just not a lot of options. No. I mean, there's Indiana State and the one thing about Indiana is there are a lot of NAIA's that can give money that will make life a little tough. We'd lose kids when I was at Defiance and we were co-recurred in Indiana. We'd lose kids to Marion and, yeah, and St. Francis and, and, and teams like that. But, you know, there just aren't a lot of those programs in certain states and that helps. I mean, in Wisconsin, it's like Wisconsin. And then the two Wisconsin football leagues because there's actually two leagues where there's, there's the University of Wisconsin system schools. That's Whitewater, Oshkosh, you know, really good. And then there's the other one that like St. Norbert's in and some of those. There's, so there's a lot, but there's no one double A school in Wisconsin. I don't believe, I don't believe there's any D2 schools in Wisconsin. It's like you're going to Wisconsin or you're going D3. And that's a big reason a lot of those schools were really good. Yeah. So the best players in most states go to that school. Right. And, and then they're able to build up their reputation where they kind of go out and find some of those players. And so, and then once you kind of, once you kind of start that reputation, you've gotten to get it. And there's a lot of those really good football players like, like Trey Lance, who was a great player at the 1, double A level, but he was from Minnesota. And so, and the other thing too is those states tend to get under recruited. Right. Of course. Yeah. And so some guy that's really talented who doesn't go to the University of ends up at some 1, double A school and they really are very good. So those things kind of, because I mean, if you think about who's dominated division 1, double A the last decade, it's been North Dakota state and South Dakota state. I mean, you know, James Madison snow, I don't have to another Virginia school that we used to have to deal with all the time, but like University of Virginia is not a very big or the Virginia is not a very big statements as far as population wise. I mean, it's gotten a little bit bigger in recent years because of all the, the DC transplants and all the people that work in DC, you know, which a lot of them don't live in the DC area in Maryland. Some of them live in Maryland, but a lot of them just go right across the bridge and live in Virginia. Yeah. And, and so you, you know, but if you look at the, if you look at like the, the number of, I always look at it like this, Vince, you look at the number of electoral votes, right? Virginia only has 13. That's it. You compare that to like Florida who has, see, where's Florida? Florida has 30, Georgia has 16 to have three more. That's a significant population shift. Illinois even has 19. So Virginia is closer to Indiana in, in electoral votes than it is a lot of those bigger states, you know, Ohio is at 17 and Ohio used to be in the twenties. Yeah, they did. And so you're a, you're a smaller state. Well, if you think about Virginia, there's Virginia, Virginia Tech, Old Dominion, Jane, you got four division one football teams in the state of Virginia now. How many are there in Ohio, Vince? Like it's like you've got Ohio, there's Bowling Green, there's Ohio state, obviously Toledo, Toledo, Cincinnati, Akron, Akron, and Kent State. So you've got seven. Yeah. So there's seven there. And then you've got gunks town as a, as a one double A, yeah, that's eight schools that can offer scholarships and then a bunch of D three. And this is a state that's significantly more populated than Virginia, whereas in Virginia, you've got UVA, you've got Virginia Tech, you've got James Madison, you've got Old Dominion who are D one, then you have Norfolk State, you have Richmond who are both one double A, then you have Virginia State, you have Virginia Union, eight scholarship programs in the state of Virginia. So you know, so Virginia doesn't produce as many, Virginia used to have really good D three football. College water was really good, they played for national title one year, seeing you when I was there, we were really good. But since Old Dominion and a lot of those teams have kind of come along, James Madison, you should only give out 65 scholarships because they're at the FCS level. Now they give out 85, they do a lot of work in state. So those things all factor in that's, that's, look, if there was four or five division one double A schools in Ohio, Mount Union doesn't win 10 straight national titles, right, because half their roster would have been on scholarship at the one double. I mean, they were legit FCS caliber football players, and they would have been on full rights. Oh, William and Mary's another one. I forgot about William and Mary. Oh, yeah. Because another really good, you know, and, and I got recruited by William and Mary when I went to my visit there, their best player was Darren Sharper, who played the NFL for a long time. So yeah, I come, thank you, V dub 804, my Virginia guy, right? He's up there. He's, he's up in the Richmond area, I would believe. But yeah, that's another scholarship program that's right there that's got, in a lot of schools have great academics, UVA's got great academics, William and Mary's got great academics, Richmond's got really good academics. Virginia Tech has some really good programs that are very good academics. So there's just a lot of different, there's just, it's a small state and a lot of different options. And then you go down to Georgia and it's like the, it's like what? You've got the Georgia Southern, Georgia State, Georgia Tech and Georgia. And then after that, it's like, there's just, there's Savannah state and then there's just not, there's not a lot of other options. So a lot of those kids will go up north to go to school somewhere. And then the same thing with Florida, there's just not as many options. So when you look at Florida, Florida State, Miami, then you got like Florida Tech, Florida National, Florida Atlantic. And then I think there's a couple of detail and then it's, there's nothing else. South Florida. This is a state that's three times as big as Indiana from a population standpoint. South Florida, UCF, right? There's as basically as many scholarship programs in the state of Florida for football as there are, there are in Virginia, Ohio, and it's a way bigger state. So a lot of those kids matriculate up north to go play football. Yeah. And so yeah, it's a, it's definitely geography. I mean, that, that geography is a big part of college recruiting, man. It's a big part of it. It's a huge part of it. Yeah. It's a good stuff, man. Oh, Hampton University is another one. I completely forgot about Hampton, who's had really good foot back in the day with coach Taylor. Like that, Hampton's another one. I mean, you're talking about like almost, almost 10 programs of division with football and then you wonder why the Virginia teams aren't competing for championships anymore. Like, like they used to is they're getting water, not watered down, but it's just not as many kids. Exactly. You know, it's just not, and it's harder to go out of state for some of those guys. So yeah, it's, it's good stuff. Good stuff. Good conversation, mom. And I appreciate that. John A1 assuming Mitchell Collins, Great House Thomas have already locked into the second, the sixth man rotation, excuse me, who are the top three contenders for the last two spots? Faison would be one. Faison for sure. KK Smith for sure and because you're saying three for the two and then Jayden Harrison. Well, actually, I don't even think you have to throw Michael Gilbert in there. Yeah. There's really four guys competing for two to three spots. I think they could go to seven. I think they could go to seven too. And I, cause I think they may have kind of a package situation too where, you know, they may take that seventh guy, making, making part of a package. When they go 12 personnel, Michael Gilbert's the boundary guy in 12 percent. Exactly. I'm smelling that out there. Right. Right. I don't have a clue if that's the case. They line up and know that we've seen a lot of three wide receivers all day today. Yeah. When they had the offense. I'm just using that as an example. Yeah. You know, or when they go 21 personnel, they want to do something different. Right. And then you'll have a speed package, you know, you may go like a, we would call it like 11 speed, you know, you know, or you'd call it NASCAR. Some people call it all types of different things, right? And what that means is we're going 11 personnel, but we've, we've dictated that when we go 11 this, these three players are the three receivers who won on the game. Right. Right. We may go like 11 big or 11 12 big, right? And so we don't just go 12, you just, okay, whoever the rotation is, whoever my starters are. We go 12 big. I want my two, six, four guys out there. Right. There's things you can do like that as well. Vince, to your point, to back up, Vince's point that there's, there's packages where you say, Hey, look, we want to make sure when we go, when we go, you know, NASCAR, what ever, we want KK, Chris Mitchell and Jaden Harrison on the field, right? Something like that. You know, and we're going to go fast and we're going to have, you know, three guys that run high, low four fours or high four threes on the field, some like that, I'm just throwing out names. Yeah, right. Hey, when we go big, we, I want, I want miles, I want to both columns on one side of the field. I want him over here on one side and I want Jaden Thomas on the other side or I want my Gilbert or something like that. You know, exactly. So find a way to the field was, I think it's actually a good idea, but they just won't be part of the quote unquote rotation where you're going to see them on a constant and they may still be there at times, but that's a way to guarantee that you can get more guys on the field to where at least I know we're getting him in there in that situation, exactly, which could pay dividends obviously this year, but then also down the road. If it's a young guy, like they tried to play a lot more guys last year. The problem is there just was no method to the madness. Exactly. None. If it was just randomly in the middle of a series, they would rotate. Yeah. So anyway, that, that, that, that was, I think they have a little bit, I think they're from what I'm told, they're going to be a little bit more strategic with that kind of thing this year, which makes perfect sense. Ditrol Honda, let's talk about conditioning. How's everyone holding up in general? Not asking for unreported injuries, just curious, it seems to be better than the past few years. Vince, I mean, again, it's, it's day three. You don't really start seeing guys drop off until usually closer to day five. Yeah. Like late next week when we start getting, because like when you start off, there's nobody on the bikes. Yeah. Right. Those are just about pre-existing injury. Exactly. Like Hanukiah, towards ACL, right, right, you know, Quentin Autry is coming off a shoulder in surgery, and then there was one other guy, Jabron Payne, who tours AC. Right. But generally, as camp goes on, that group tends to grow, you know, with some sore guys on the bike, sore guys over there doing other stretches, sore guys on bands and that group tends to grow just a little bit. So what we'll find out more, because I think our availability ends at the end of next week or close to it. And so it'll grow. It always does, you know, but that, but that also, Brian, I also want to say this, that's not exactly an indicator of lack of conditioning either. It's just, you know, camp, I mean, those are camp injuries, some soft tissue stuff, some, you know, wear and tear, you know, things like that. That's not necessarily a conditioning thing. You're not really going to get a good nose or at least we won't for conditioning purposes until, you know, third, fourth quarter down in Texas, you know, let's see what they look like. You know what I mean? Like, that's going to be the first indicator for me as to what the conditioning is like for these players, because we're not there for an entire practice to see what they look like at the end, you know, and so everybody's fresh for the first 20 minutes. Yeah. I mean, that's just being honest. Everybody's fresh. You know, so. Well, and that kind of ties into the next question from John A1, he says, what is your current impression of the early impact Lauren Landau has had seeing Jalen's need at 210 plus seeing Wagner physically ready to play, et cetera. Part one of my answer to this question is kind of what some of Vince said. I'm not worried about it. I can't tell you right now, like if they don't look great physically and if they're not relatively healthy by the end of the third day, you've got a major problem, major problem, or you had a lot of guys that got hurt that they're coming off like spring injuries or something like that, right? Major problem. Yeah, if they, I've never seen a fall camp where like third day, you've got a million guys out. Right. Another name, except well, since Bayless arrived, remember there'd be like all these heat exhaustion and guys out of shape. Remember that before. Oh, yeah, I'm here. They're taking off pads and he was always filled with dudes in the first couple of days. Yes. Because they just weren't in great shape and it was always a lineman because they just weren't in great shape. Yep. That's not an issue for this group. Nope. You know, we're just haven't seen that. Like with Jalen seed and the meal wagner coming into it like, I don't know how much of that I can attribute to Lauren Landau yet on day three because they're juniors now. Like if you're a strength coach that should even warrant a salary, those guys should be physically ready to go now. It's where strength coach makes his money is limiting soft tissue injuries and stamina endurance and explosiveness. It's too early to really evaluate those things. Now I've heard great things. I'm not trying to poo poo on coach Landau. I just don't want to give you guys false hype about, oh, they look great through three days is scholarship athletes at Notre Dame, Lauren Landau is the greatest ever. I don't want to do that either. I want to say, look, let's be set a realistic standard. How do they handle the heat at Texas A&M? That's going to tell me how good of a job Lauren Landau's done with conditioning. That's a lot of it. It's going to be on him. You know, how do they handle? How many do we see 12 guys at different times go on hamstring injuries this year at skill position? That's going to be a big thing on coach Landau. That's what happened last year. There's a problem last year. How does this team handle November? Are they fresher? Are they are they still fast? Those are the things that you evaluate whether strength coach is doing a good job. If a guy doesn't have his team looking good, juniors, especially juniors and above by the third day campus, not only do is he not a good strength, he doesn't deserve to have a job. And so again, I'm not trying to poo poo coach Landau, I'm just trying to let you guys know. I know y'all are dying to hear how he, I'm just not going to lie to you. There's no way to evaluate how good he is after three days, just not. I mean, unless he's bad at his job. So I think we can say this. He's not bad at his job, Finn. So I'm saying sarcastically because there are a lot of guys out with hamstring injuries. But to really know how good he's going to be, we need time in different trade marks. All I can tell you guys is this, the feedback from my sources within the program so far is very positive. Players seem to really like them. They seem to relate to them. That says a lot because the players, the older players, especially were very fond of Matt Bayless, very fond of Matt Bayless. So the fact that they've taken to coach Landau is a good sign. It means he's commanded their respect with what he's doing. So the feedback's been great, the coaches from what I've talked to are really happy about the job he's done so far. That part's good. But as far as what we can see with our eyes, guys, like three days in, hey, they look like Division One scholarship athletes at Notre Dame. Okay, great. That's as much recruiting as it is anything else. You know what I mean? Like God has a whole lot more to do and Southern Abture's parents, DNA has a whole lot more to do with what he looks like than what Coach Landau does. Now, Southern Abture continues to get bigger and stronger and more athletic and his endurance is great. Then I can give that to Coach Landau, right? Like God in the young family, DNA is why Bryce Young looks the way he looks like not necessarily Coach Landau. Now if he gets faster, more explosive, his endurance takes off and he's able to stay healthy, that's where you give Coach Landau, right? If he can maximize those God-given tools. So, three days in, guys, these are Notre Dame scholarship football players that the recruiting impact is showing now. Yes. Let's just be patient and we'll have our standard. Because if I tell you guys right now, "Oh man, Lauren Landau's doing a phenomenal job." And then the fourth quarter against A&M, Notre Dame is aghast. Man Driscoll, you are so full of it. You told us that Landau is the best ranked coach since whatever and I'm just, they look great. They look like elite scholarship athletes at Notre Dame. I'm sure this is probably what it looked like when you covered Lou Holtz back in the day. Just athletes everywhere, depth of athletes. That's how it's supposed to be. I promise you this is what it would look like if you and I were covered in Ohio State or Georgia or Alabama or Texas. Man, these are big athletic kids, right? I mean, great. How we're going to know if Lauren Landau's doing the job is going to start August 31st. Correct. And then certain benchmarks throughout the season. That's what's going to tell us. He's doing a good job. Not anything we're seeing the first three days check in in the fourth quarter. Texas A&M in the humidity in the heat of August 31st and all those, all the different things that people are super worried about. You're going to get your answer. Yeah. You're going to get your answer. One thing I will say that I think we can at least early on get a good signal of. There are some younger athletes that have really filled out Jeremiah Love, Jaylen Snead, some of those type of guys, Jayden Greathouse, that seem to have gotten even faster as they filled out more explosively filled out. That is a very good, that's the only good early sign that I can give you that's actually some level of measurement because a lot of times when guys put on weight as athletes, they slow down with Jeremiah Love with Jayden Greathouse with Jordan Faison, even Jordan Faison's thick, a lot thicker this year events than he was last year and it's not just because of the number. When I look at those type of guys, that sophomore class, especially and you see that they're all getting thicker, but they're even more explosive, that's a good sign, but there's a lot more to it than that. I know that everybody's just thirsting for knowledge about certain things, guys, and I just don't want to lie to you or say something just because you want to hear it. I'm trying to give you guys honest, like this is how if you want to evaluate it, now's not the time, wait until we get to here and then we'll have a better sense of it. If Notre Dame's the better team in the fourth quarter against Texas A&M, then you can say, "Okay, this dude's doing something. This dude's doing something." If half your skill players aren't checked out with hamstring injuries by the middle of the season, then you'll know he's improved the strength program. Those are the things that are more important. I just don't want to give you guys stuff because it would be very easy for me to start saying things that sound wonderful and get you guys all excited and fired up and that it's just honestly, but it's not responsible reporting. That's why I look at it. It's not responsible for us to be like, "Everything is wonderful. Everything is great." Everything's going according to plan on day three. That's what we can tell you. There's not a, "Oh my gosh, these guys all look like the Avengers when they walked out compared to life here." Someone do. But again, that's DNA more than anything. So I don't want to go overboard on the effect of Lauren Landau right now. I'm not prepared to do that. I know other people are, the effect is there, it's also okay. Maybe it is, but I need to see it in a game and as the season wears on and check back in with me in November. Let's see how they do because there was a stark difference between November prior to Matt Bayless and November post, or during Matt Bayless's tenure. That was a very viewable difference. Let's see what it looks like. Let's see what it looks like. That's where I'm at with the whole strength. The other thing too is these guys did not step in. You could see a lot earlier under Bayless because he inherited such a bad situation. Absolutely. That's not necessarily the case with what Lauren Landau's stepping in. Agreed. Agreed. We've got super chat events. Oh! Zippy, 94. Thanks for the super chat. Looking at the talent, size, and athleticism, how many schools in the country are Notre Dame still behind? Ooh. And how far behind? Well, I think there's still some positions. Safety's one where I still think there's now I think that might change when next year's safety, the 25 safety class shows up with Bronte. When you get Jaydon Blair and Ethan Long on campus along with Bronte Johnson, that might be the case. But I think safety still needs an uptick in athleticism compared to the Georgia's, the Ohio State's going to have Lathan Ransom and Caleb Downs at safety this year. Now Notre Dame's safety group is going to be very good, but they're not as big and they're not as explosive athletically as that group. It may be better football players or as good as football players will find out, but there's a step behind there. I think areas where their name is made up a ton of ground linebacker, wide receiver running back. I don't know that there's a more explosive running back room in the country. I want to see it. There may be more productive maybe, but when we talk about athleticism, Notre Dame's is not taking a backseat to anybody when it comes athleticism at running back. They're not taking a backseat to anybody when it comes a pound for pound athleticism a linebacker. I mean, Jack Kaiser is one of the better athletes and college football linebacker in my opinion. Now is it, can he play inside? That's a completely different question because your question, Zibi, was talent size athleticism. I'm not, I'm not, that group's not taking a backseat to anybody. Notre Dame's corners, they're in the top group. I mean, they're absolutely in that conversation. Notre Dame still has to get better upfront off defensively. They're still another level to get to where they have the same size athleticism combination as a Georgia, as a Bama, as a, as, you know, programs like that. But the programs that I think right now that that's talent size, athleticism, or head of Notre Dame, probably still Georgia. Bama would have been if they didn't lose so many guys in the portal, mate, maybe Bama, but I don't even think Bama's there anymore. Really? I mean, look, we watched Notre Dame play Ohio State last year. Well, Ohio State was the better team that day because they won, right? But Notre Dame didn't lose that game because they weren't big enough or athletic enough thing with Ohio State. I mean, Notre Dame's corners shut down the number four overall draft pick again, because they shut him down again the year before that, right? I mean, you know, and Ohio State did a good job of shutting down Notre for certain parts in Notre Dame team. They didn't lose because they weren't athletically good enough. They didn't execute in the club. Ohio State's guys executed when it mattered. Notre Dame's guys didn't. I mean, that, that was additional in those two teams. The year before it was different, because you're like, they don't have them on a field that is that Stroud kids, the best kind of field, like that was different there. That was not true against Ohio State this past year, not because Ohio State's not good, just because Notre Dame's really good. They're very good too. So it just comes down to just a couple of those spots, I think that you could stand to get a little bit better. And I think the depth of athleticism needs to get better. So you know, receiver, there's still a need for an uptick in receiver, you know, especially you guys that they actually recruit out of high school, Notre Dame's, I mean, if you take away the portal class, this receiver court doesn't look as good. I mean, I'm excited about Jane Greathouse and hopefully KK Smith, but you're counting on some guys, you're just like, you know, come on hand, let the light go on, brother. You know, but even in a conversation right now, the portal has really rescued some recruiting woes from the past five years. Yeah. That's an area where they've still got it now. Last year's class is a big step in the right direction with Micah Gilbert and Cam Williams and Logan Chaldate. You've got to continue to build on that. Right now, they're not in the 25 class. They're not. They got to do better there. Right. So that's a position where high school recruiting has to still get a lot better. Running back recruiting, I'll stack Notre Dame's running back recruiting last three years up against anybody. Corner recruiting, I'll stack Notre Dame's corner recruiting up against anybody. Line back or recruiting, I'll stack Notre Dame's line backers up against anybody. Oh, line tied in. And in recently quarterback, even even if some things happen that we expect to happen over the next week or two, I'll still look, you give me CJ Carr and Noah Grubbs in a three year stretch. That's better than Notre Dame's in a long time, right? So there's still some positions where they got to get better, but overall, they have closed the gap significantly at a lot of positions. Not there yet. You know, edge, defensive end got to be more consistently good. That's not an area that I think they're recruiting as well as some of the other programs that I agree with. They get their Bryce Young and they're hoping that some Logan Thomas is, you know, pan out and things like that and, but they're just not recruiting that position at the same elite level other programs are, it's got to get better. It's getting, it's getting there, but like some positions like Mike Mickens is doing this. Like here's the gap. Here's the standard when Mike Mickens arrived and here's where Notre Dame was. And in three years, it's, it's gaps closed. It's like, it's, it's done. Right. Grant Taylor started it and then deal him a close built on it, but running back gaps closed tight end there. They were the gap setters there. Oh, line, line backer. It was here and then it's been closed. It's not closed at receiver. It's not completely closed at quarterback. It's not closed at safety. It's not closed at defensive tackle or defensive end. Those are positions where they still have work to do to get top to bottom the depth chart to where some of those other top programs are, in my opinion. So you, you, how, how do you feel about that? Yeah, that defensive line is the major area for me. Look, Notre Dame has one of the best defensive lines, interior defensive lines in the country. This year, but it's not because of how they recruited it. It's how they develop these guys. You know what I mean? It, those weren't come in day one, hey, these are five star guys. So in COVID helped because if it's not for COVID, they would, they don't have Howard Cross or Riley Mills on this year's roster. Completely agree. And so they need to get better at getting those, those top quality guys in here. Not, they got to see consistently, yeah, they got to keep developing, right. I, you know, that still has to happen, you know, and I'm happy with where the development is, to be perfectly honest with you, but I need, I need more. I need more. So that, if I was going to pick an area, that would be the, the biggest one for me. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]