Notre Dame 2011

Notre Dame 2010 Statistics

(Independent) The Irish play on a grass field at Notre Dame Stadium (seats 80,795)

• Brian Kelly is in his second year as head coach of Notre Dame. He is being counted on for ND’s return to glory.   Completing 2010 with an 8-5 record and a four-game winning streak isn’t a bad start.
• The schedule this year has a balanced mix of opponents from different conferences : 3 Big Ten, 3 ACC, 2 Pac-10, 2 Big East, and 2 service academies. Perhaps this is Notre Dame’s way of saying they do not belong in any one conference and therefore they are NOT joining one and will remain Independent.  And why are they independent? It’s because of their history.  In their early days when they were blackballed and no one would play them, they were forced to travel all over the country, even to the west coast, to find opponents.  That’s how they developed a national following.
• The quarterback situation may not be finalized, but they are in good shape. Last year quarterback Dane Crist replaced four-year starter Jimmy Clausen (NFL playing for Carolina) and was doing a fine job until he was injured.  True freshman Tommy Rees stepped in and had a sol
  

  Wide Receiver Michael Floyd

  id performance—going 4-0 in the games he started against Utah, Army, USC and Miami (Sun Bowl).  Even though Crist is the starter, Rees could definitely have significant playing time (Kelly had a similar issue at Cincinnati when Tony Pike was injured and Zach Collaros came in and showed impressive accuracy and he ended up using both QB’s).

• Notre Dame is in a great position this year with the return of 9 starters on offense. The top running back, Cierre Wood returns as do the top three receivers (including Michael Floyd, who hopefully stays out of trouble).  The offensive line is extremely experienced and should be greatly improved compared to last year when they had to replace three starters and learn a new system.
• On defense they lose just one starter on each level (8 return): one defensive lineman, one linebacker and one defensive back.  Plus, they have depth in addition to experience at all levels. They return their top 6 tacklers on the team, including #1 tackler, linebacker Manti Te’o.
• There are going to be high hopes for this team in the second year of Kelly’s system. People believe in the potential for 2011 because Kelly is a proven head coach who knows how to win consistently.  He didn’t only win at Cincinnati, he re-wrote their record books and took a team that been unranked since 1976 and finished every season ranked, including a #8 finish his final year.
• Notre Dame certainly hasn’t had that type of leader at head coach since Lou Holtz.  This team (and its fans) have been through a lot lately. Last year was the final year of the five-year Charlie Weiss era, which saw the Irish football team perform at historical levels of failure.  The Weiss era followed the Ty Willingham era, which was just three years and despite his lack of success, the fact is that he never had a chance given such short tenure.  The alleged facts are that ND wanted Urban Meyer and fired Ty so that they could get him, but Urban went to Florida, which is when they hired Weiss.  And to further complicate matters, the only reason they hired Ty was because of the George O’Leary mess.  O’Leary was hired then almost immediately fired due to the untimely exposure of the lies on his resume.  Prior to the Ty era was the Bob Davie era, which is quite forgettable.  BUT, prior to that era was the Lou Holtz era.  And he was great.  He won a National Championship for Notre Dame in 1988 and almost followed it up in 1989 and 1993.  His last year with the Irish was 1996 and fans still miss all of those AP Top Ten finishes.
• Notre Dame may not have the best football team in the country at this moment, but they have the best history and this is what American football is about.
• Who are the Four Horsemen?  They led Notre Dame to a perfect 10-0
  

  The Four Horsemen 1924

  season and their first recognized National Championship.  The article written by Grantland Rice that bestowed this name upon those four players after their defeat of Army in 1924 stated:  “Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore their names are Death, Destruction, Pestilence, and Famine. But those are aliases. Their real names are: Stuhldreher, Crowley, Miller and Layden. They formed the crest of the South Bend cyclone before which another fighting Army team was swept over the precipice at the Polo Grounds this afternoon as 55,000 spectators peered down upon the bewildering panorama spread out upon the green plain below.”

• What does win one for the Gipper mean?  In 1928 against a largely favored Army team, head coach Knute Rockne delivered a speech that inspired his team to defeat the Black Knights 12-6.  That speech included the famous quote told to him by George Gipp, who died after contracting pneumonia (Ronald Reagan plays the Gipper in the 1940 film “Knute Rockne—All American”): “Some time, Rock, when the team is up against it, when things are wrong and the breaks are beating the boys, ask them to go in there with all they’ve got and win just one for the Gipper. I don’t know where I’ll be then, Rock. But I’ll know about it, and I’ll be happy.”
• Who is the most important head coach in Notre Dame’s history?  Knute Rockne.  He was the head coach of Notre Dame from 1918-30, a period during which he had five undefeated seasons, won three consensus National Championships and had the best winning percentage of all time (.881). He was died in a plane crash in 1930 following two consecutive National Championships.