Scheduling update

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Notre Dame Reveals 2009-10 Schedules, will play Mount Union in Two-Game Series
Athletic director defends scheduling Division III team by citing rest of home schedule.

NOTRE DAME, IN--Kevin White wants Notre Dame football fans to look at the big picture.

White, the ND athletic director, knows the dates against Mount Union College (October 24, 2009 at Notre Dame and the opener in Alliance, Ohio on September 2, 2010) are raising eyebrows among Notre Dame fans who consider the Division III school an unworthy opponent.

The matchup with the Raiders, the Division III national champions in 2005 and '06, was announced Saturday and rounds out the Irish's 12-game regular seasons.

This is the first time Notre Dame has played a Division III team. Mount Union is a private, liberal arts college with an enrollment of just over 2,000, and has been a Division III power for decades.

"I tell (ND fans) to take a look at our schedule overall first and foremost and see it's one of the toughest and best they'll have had in a few years," White said. "They have (at home) Nevada, BYU, Boston College, Rutgers. Mount Union will be a nice addition."

White said finding a team for that 12th spot has been difficult. He said there were several BCS teams that wanted to schedule Notre Dame, but the Irish had future scheduling constraints and could not return the game.

Some fans are disguntled. Other fans agree with White's belief, that facing the Raiders is not a drawback to a fine home schedule.

"Mount Union won a national championship the last two years, so it is not like the team is terrible," said Charlie St. Amand, 28, from Gary. "I don't mind them playing what will likely be a scrimmage. If that is what it takes to win a national championship, I'm all for it."

The Irish make about $4 million for each home game. Mount Union will make $400,000 for playing at Notre Dame Stadium in 2009, White said, and the teams will split the gate when the Irish travel to Alliance, Ohio in 2010.

"I'm sorry a series with Alabama didn't materialize, but we've been rewarded with something even bigger," said White. "I think it will be an awesome series, especially having the chance to play in venerable Mount Union Stadium [capacity: 5,529], the oldest stadium in Ohio. It will surely be a tough ticket."

The Raiders went 15-0 last season en route to their second-straight national title at what is called the Division IIII Football Championship Subdivision.

"Like everyone around the nation, we have great respect for the tradition at Notre Dame," MUC coach Larry Kehres said in a release. "The fact that they are playing us speaks a lot of our program and the things that we've accomplished."

Irish walk-on Tunney O'Hanlon, 29, a transfer in his second year with the Irish, is not pleased with the matchup.

"What the fook?" he said. "I came all the way over here to play an exhibition? No offense to those lads at Mount Union, but I'd rather chase geese back home. What's next, playing Galway middle school [O'Hanlon's grade school in his native country of Ireland]? Fer fook's sake."

When told of O'Hanlon's comments, White responded, "Would Galway Middle School count towards bowl-eligibility? I'll have to look into that."

White said it is not prudent for Notre Dame to schedule a higher-profile game because the Irish lose on the financial end, and would possibly even lose the game.

"I've been singing this song for a long time," White said of adding a Division III game. "I'm optimistic. We've got a lot of options to engineer a favorable schedule and we've got to look at it. Football is more than just competition."

1931

"Go on out there, go on out there and play 'em off their feet in the first five minutes. They don't like it! Play 'em! Play 'em! They don't like it! Come on boys! Rock's watching!"

-Knute Rockne

Spring haze

Spring practice is already one-third over and it's still pretty tough to peer through the fog of coach-speak and all-too-brief video clips to figure any answers to some of our big questions about the 2007 Irish. Still, news is trickling out, however slowly. Here's a quick rundown of what's going on.

Before we dive in, those of you who haven't been able to enjoy the practice and interview videos on All-Access can now check them all out here on a Mac friendly page. Enjoy.

Getting Defensive. The first major position switch of the spring saw rising sophomore running back Munir Prince switch a blue practice jersey for a white one and join the defensive as a newly-minted cornerback. The move wasn't a total surprise, but not many expected it to happen so soon. According to Charlie, it's not a pure depth chart move, but rather a switch to see if Prince fits in better at corner.

"We're going to give it a fair go, a legitimate look," Weis said. "This isn't just an emergency move where you are moving a guy over there just to get another guy over there"....“He asked me to consider it and I said consider it done. He asked me to consider it, and we made the move (Saturday) morning.”

Two things jump out to me with the early position swap. First, our cornerback depth chart is now actually deep. And fast. And talented. Then again, we are talking about the Notre Dame secondary so any positive news should probably still be tagged with a "I'll believe it when I see it" label. The good news about Prince is that he's not a stranger to cornerback; he was named 1st Team All-State as a junior at corner. The second thing that jumped out at me is that early enrollee Armando Allen must really be impressing the coaches if they felt comfortable moving Prince already. The BGS expectation meter on Allen has now just been turned to eleven.

Busted. Speaking of cornerbacks, just when ND added another talent in Prince, injury took one away. Early enrollee Gary Gray fractured his arm during drills and his spring ball is over.

"It's not displaced, not all the way through, but it's enough where you have to put it in a cast for a minimum four weeks," Weis said. "We talked about it last night. This isn't something you wait. You just put it in a cast. There is no pin, no operation, you just let the thing heal."

Bad news for sure for Gray, but the good news is that he'll be healthy in a few weeks and it shouldn't affect him for very long.

Leaders. The captains were announced for the 2007 season and 5th year seniors Travis Thomas and Tom Zbikowski are repeating as captains. Joining them are5th year John Carlson and rising senior Maurice Crum, Jr. Unlike last year where Travis was the lone captain of the special teams, Weis said that all four captains have a say on special teams this year.

This and that. A few other quick notes that I've noticed while checking through newspaper updates, video clips, and the like. According to James Aldridge, he wasn't allowed to lift weights with his lower body all last season by order of the coaching staff. That had to have affected him during the season. Maybe we'll see a more powerful Aldridge with a spring and summer of lifting under his belt........With people focusing on rising sophomores Eric Olsen and Matt Carufel, rising junior Michael Turkovich seems like he's not letting go of that starting left guard spot. It's still early, but he may just line up next to his classmate and likely starting left tackle Paul Duncan......The defensive players generally seem happy with the new defense. Not that I'd expect them to come out and say they hate it. We still have no idea who the starters are going to be though. True to their word, the coaching staff are trying out guys in different variations to try and find a solid starting eleven. (For a daily update on the starting lineups being used, check out Michael Rothstein's Irish Insights blog.)

Getting to know.... In addition to the excellent and comprehensive spring coverage on Irish Eyes, Irish Illustrated, and Blue & Gold, here's a quick collection of links to online newspaper articles about Coach Corwin Brown, offensive tackle Sam Young, tight ends Konrad Reuland and Will Yeatman, wide receiver David Grimes, offensive guard Eric Olsen, defensive tackle Chris Stewart, quarterback Demetrius Jones, and wide receiver D.J. Hord. Nothing too earth-shaking here, but a nice collection of stories on guys that figure to play a big role in how successful ND is next season.

Again, not too much in the way of big news as the various position battles are still underway and Weis certainly isn't tipping his hand about the QB battle. This Saturday the entire two-hour practice will be open to the media so there should be more interesting news following it, even if the practice is a special teams heavy practice like last year.

Tight End U

The pipeline of top prep tight ends to ND continued with Cincinnati native Kyle Rudolph committing to Notre Dame on Monday. He's the fifth member of the Class of 2008. Rudolph visited Notre Dame earlier in March as part of ND's Junior Day and decided to end his recruiting early.

"Just being up there and being around guys who will be my future teammates ... the people are similar to the people I went to Catholic grade school with and Catholic high school with. It just makes sense."

At 6'7", 230 pounds, Rudolph will be a tempting red zone target for an offense that loves to feature the tight end. High school video highlights show that Rudolph is already adept at catching the jump ball TD pass, sometimes only needing one hand. Rudolph is also a very accomplished basketball player -- he's already a two-time conference player of the year in the GCL South -- and that shows up in his footwork on the football field, especially near the sidelines. If you want more highlights, you can check them out here and here. Rudolph's coach notes that he's a great player who will fit in well at ND.

"He's kind of a once-in-a-lifetime player," Ramsey said. "He has great hands, he runs great routes, and he's a great blocker. God gave him a lot of ability, but to his credit he's never rested on that and he works hard. I think he's in the perfect situation at Notre Dame, in an offense that uses the tight end a lot."

Rudolph chose ND early, but still had a pretty impressive recruiting cohort from which to choose. Ohio State, Michigan, Tennessee, Miami, Virginia, Boston College, and Louisville were some of the programs that offered Kyle. And while the recruiting rankings are still being formulated, Rudolph is named to the Rivals "Top 250 to Watch" list as well as ESPN's Top 150 list. Getting an Ohio prospect that was offered so early by Ohio State is perhaps the most noteworthy part of Rudolph's recruitment; the Buckeyes haven't lost many in-state targets lately.

It also deserves mention that as with three of ND's other four public commits, Rudolph is from the midwest, which is Corwin Brown's recruiting area. We even had a quote from Kyle about Corwin in our previous post about Brown's impact on recruiting. Not that ND has had trouble recruiting tight ends from Catholic high schools before, but helping to get Rudolph away from Tressel is another sign that Corwin Brown is having an impact on ND's recruiting fortunes.

With the Rudolph commitment, ND has now landed their first choice --by that I mean the first guy offered -- at tight end for three straight years. Kyle will join Konrad Reuland, Will Yeatman, and Mike Ragone to form an incredibly deep and talented tight end corp. It is impressive what has happened to the tight end position under Coach Weis and Coach Parmalee. Not only has the recruiting been outstanding, but in the first two years ND has had two different players (Anthony Fasano, John Carlson) become Mackey Award finalists, with Carlson a near lock to make it three years in a row next season. And when Carlson heads off to the NFL, there will be four very talented successors looking to continue the streak, Rudolph included.

Letters for Easter

Last April, we covered the story of Easter Heathman, a witness to the Knute Rockne plane crash in 1930 who still to this day lives near the plane crash site. If you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend you do. Also, here's a short video on Easter that is well worth watching. An addition to the story is that this past September, Notre Dame recognized Easter and his role as unofficial caretaker of the Rockne plane crash site with an honorary monogram before the Notre Dame-Penn State football game.

Mr. Heathman turns 90 years old in a few weeks and this note was posted up by a friend of the family on ndnation. I think it's a great idea and am reposting it here for those that missed it the first time. If you have a few spare minutes this week, I recommend you write a short note to Easter wishing him a happy birthday and thanking him for all the help he has given curious ND fans who have made the trip to Bazaar, Kansas these past 76 years.

March 14, 2007

Dear Friends,

We would like to take this opportunity to keep in touch with just some of the wonderful people our family has met through Dad’s devotion to helping strangers visit the crash site over the years.

As March 31st approaches, some of you will realize that Dad’s birthday will be following on April 7th. This year, his 90th birthday will fall on the day before Easter Sunday, so it will be a busy weekend for many of us. Dad doesn’t want a big celebration, so we are keeping his party small. I am sure he would appreciate hearing from any/all of you, thus the request for a card shower.

On April 29th, PBS will air a film called “Flint Hills: Meditations From a Kansas Prairie.” There is about 5 minutes of Dad taking the filmmaker to the monument and being interviewed in his kitchen, standing in front of his 2 ND awards, proudly wearing his Honorary Monogram blazer. The rest of the film is about the grasslands, the flowers, the rocks, the burning of the pastures, etc.. There is even going to be a “premier” shown at The Hitchin’ Post in Matfield Green this Saturday afternoon! To view the film on the web, you can go to: flinthillsfilm.com. If you get bored with the flowers and rocks, just fast forward about 35 minutes to Dad’s interview. The last part about the prairie fires is interesting.

The Flint Hills will also receive national recognition in the April issue of “National Geographic.” There is supposed to be about 20 pages about our hills, so you might want to check that out too. No, Dad didn’t make their story.

We hope this finds everyone doing well, and until we meet again, take care and keep in touch.

Love,
Sue Ann and John

email:
eastersdaughter@yahoo.com

snailmail:

Easter Heathman
RR 1, Box 73
Matfield Green, KS 66862

Deceptively fast

It seems that Jeff Samardzija wasn't the only Notre Dame player last year who was deceptively fast. At the second Notre Dame pro day, Brady Quinn finally lined up and ran the 40, along with a number of other agility tests, and had great performances in all of them. Here's the take from nfl.com.

Quinn weighed in 233 pounds. He ran indoors on FieldTurf. He ran his 40s faster than expected (4.82 and 4.73). He also ran the short shuttle in 4.22 seconds and the three-cone drill in 6.79 (with tiny cones, not tall ones). In addition, he had a 36-inch vertical jump and a 9-foot-7 broad jump.

Now, the 40 is largely a silly measurement for quarterbacks. Sure, ND fans will note that Quinn's 40 is faster than JaMarcus Russell's (4.83) and about the same as Troy Smith's (4.72), but ultimately that doesn't matter much. QB's are paid to read defenses and throw the ball, not run in straight lines for 40 yards. Still, Quinn's times, especially his short shuttle and three-cone times, are impressive. Personally, I think a bit of credit for that goes to Quinn's specialized combine training out in Arizona, where he specifically worked on lowering his time on combine drills. But to some degree impressive times are also a reflection on individual work ethic, which is probably about the only thing the more savvy NFL teams take away from QB agility drills.

Quinn likely isn't going to overtake Russell for the top spot in the draft -- which I think is a good thing as long as Kiffin and the Raiders hold onto it -- but with a second straight impressive pro day, he's really going to make it tough on teams like the Lions and Browns to pass on him.

Derek Landri also performed running drills for scouts for the first time since hurting his knee against LSU in the Sugar Bowl. Results again thanks to nfl.com.

Landri (288 pounds) ran his 40s in 5.00 and 5.00. He also had a 32-inch vertical jump, 9-foot-1 long jump, 4.32 short shuttle, 7.08 three-cone drill and 26 bench presses.

Pretty decent agility numbers for Landri. He also increased his bench press result by two from the first pro day, which can't hurt. It will be very interesting to see where Landri ultimately winds up on draft day. He's not the ideal size for the NFL, but he's a good athlete with solid production on the college level.

The last time I checked...

"I'm a big guy on tradition and on history, so instead of running from it I decided to embrace it and take on that lead role, because the last time I checked no busters wore number 3, so I'm just setting high expectations for myself."

-Demetrius Jones

I just thought this quote was great. Not just for Jones's willingness to welcome high expectations, but just for the way he phrased it. No busters wore number 3 indeed. While the Clausen storylines might be easier to write, you have to think many sportswriters secretly hope that Demetrius Jones takes over as starting QB, if only for more opportunities for quips like this one.

Of course, while we're talking jersey history, there is the little factoid that the last Notre Dame quarterback to wear the #3 jersey finished his career as a wide receiver. Buyer beware Demetrius. Then again, the list of successful QB's wearing the 3 is pretty lengthy. In addition to perhaps the most famous #3 in ND history, Joe Montana, memorable passers like Ralph Guglielmi, George Izo, Daryle Lamonica, Coley O'Brien, Rick Mirer, and Ron Powlus all wore the number. Not a bad group. And for a bit of extra luck, Harry Oliver also worked some Irish magic in the #3 jersey. Interestingly, no Heisman winners from this group, although Guglielmi did wind up in the College Football Hall of Fame.

While lacking the overall star power of a Joe Montana, Jimmy Clausen's #7 jersey actually has an equally successful ND history of quarterbacks. John Huarte, Joe Theismann, Steve Beuerlein, Jarious Jackson, and Carlyle Holiday are some of the more famous names to line up under center with the #7 jersey. And unlike #3, this number has a Heisman Trophy winning QB to its credit in Mr. John Huarte and another Hall of Famer in Theismann. Then again, the last Irish player to fight for a QB job wearing #7 is also currently a wide receiver. So maybe Jimmy should start practicing his route running too, just in case.

I'm afraid that history hasn't been too kind to Zach Frazer's #12. The last two scholarship quarterbacks (exempting Marty Mooney here) who wore that number, Ken Karcher and Gus Ornstein, both lost their QB derby battle and transfered -- Karcher to Tulane and Ornstein to Michigan State -- before winding up as backups in the NFL. I do have a bit of a question on Ornstein though. The all-time roster lists him as #12, but the photo I linked to his name has him with a #8 jersey. Can we get a ruling from the crowd? There have been a few talented running backs who wore #12 though, including Jack Chevigny, who scored the game-tying touchdown in the "Win One for the Gipper" game against Army, Ed Gulyas, who led the team in rushing in 1970, and Tony Fisher, who led the team in rushing in 1999.

Evan Sharpley's #13 jersey isn't really a traditional QB number, and given the number of players that probably strayed away for superstitious purposes, not too many famous Irish players have worn the number. The only QB's I could find on the all-time roster were backups Tom Cushing, Matt Johnson, and Greg Knafelc. We'll see if Sharpley can reverse this trend and give ND its first #13 starting QB. In the meantime, even though current NFL pro Bert Berry and Tom Carter wore #13 while at ND, the only player wearing the number that I can even find a picture of is Nicholas Setta.

Like Jay stated earlier, in the absence of true insider information -- Weis has curiously turned down our repeated requests for FedEx'd copies of practice film -- we have to turn to alternative methods to handicap the QB derby. And based on this entirely unscientific stroll down ND jersey memory lane, it looks like Jones has the slight edge on Jimmy. We'll just have to see if things change once they actually start throwing the football in practice.