Fickell seems like a great hire for ND - would allow continuity with coaches, retention of a strong recruiting base and the hiring of what at least seems to be a really really good coach.  

40 minutes ago, Chisoxfn said:

Fickell seems like a great hire for ND - would allow continuity with coaches, retention of a strong recruiting base and the hiring of what at least seems to be a really really good coach.  

They need to find a way to keep Freeman

59 minutes ago, fathom said:

They need to find a way to keep Freeman

100% - I'm thinking Fickell and Freeman will work in the short term, but it just means Freeman eventually goes somewhere else vs. ND.  Who knows, maybe they will just hire Freeman but Fickell is pretty good and I do think ND will lean to the more proven guy who in the short can keep Freeman. Freeman can than take a bigger job in a few years or take over if Fickell isn't as good or if Fickell is elite and gets poached by some other program...with Freeman now being in a better spot to step up.  

I don't think it would be anyone other than those 2 - but I'm not a very creative thinker when it comes to college football.  The Kelly to LSUthing shocked me just as the USC hire shocked me.  

7 hours ago, fathom said:

They need to find a way to keep Freeman

What I'm hearing from relatives who work there is that Freeman is the overwhelming choice of players, recruits, and the student body. I think Fickell would be tolerated but passing over Freeman for anybody else won't go over well. I will puke if it's Campbell.

26 minutes ago, CentralChamps21 said:

What I'm hearing from relatives who work there is that Freeman is the overwhelming choice of players, recruits, and the student body. I think Fickell would be tolerated but passing over Freeman for anybody else won't go over well. I will puke if it's Campbell.

Freeman will leave it sounds like if it’s not him

7 hours ago, fathom said:

Freeman will leave it sounds like if it’s not him

He can go to LSU and why not...may end up there anyway.

On 11/30/2021 at 2:16 PM, CentralChamps21 said:

In 11 years before Marcus Freeman joined his staff, Brian Kelly had zero top 5 recruiting classes. As it stands right now, both the '22 and '23 classes are top 5. That's why Freeman needs to be the coach. He's the only guy who's been able to thread the needle of ND's standards and the talent required to compete with Alabama/Clemson/Ohio State. You can't let a once in a lifetime recruiting beast get away.

They’ve been stacking the classes up once he got there. I wonder if they try to get a veteran head coach on on the staff as a AHC or something. Hiring Freeman, gives them connections to the OSU coaching staff, maybe he can poach some guys. 

 

1 hour ago, Joshua Strong said:

They’ve been stacking the classes up once he got there. I wonder if they try to get a veteran head coach on on the staff as a AHC or something. Hiring Freeman, gives them connections to the OSU coaching staff, maybe he can poach some guys. 

 

Apparently Freeman is a done deal, and Rees is going to stay as OC.

This is pretty exciting. I don't know if it will work - but he's young, energetic, and sounds like he impresses everyone he talks to. Rees is a really solid OC as well. This could all blow up in ND's faces but if it did - they can take a different swing in a few years. If this works - they could have a new dynamic face of college football. That said - I am sure there will be bumps along the road as he learns.  

32 minutes ago, Chisoxfn said:

 This could all blow up in ND's faces

It absolutely could go really badly, but it had to happen and here's why. The 2012, 2018, 2020 teams got blown off the field in BCS/Playoff games. Those were good teams and they were well-coached, but there was a noticeable talent gap.

In one year, Freeman has landed a volume of 4-5 star recruits that Kelly never did. They just can't, absolutely can't afford to lose him, and the only way to guarantee that is to make him head coach. Even if he goes 40-20 in five years and then moves on, I won't think they would have won a championship with someone else.

As great a job as Luke Fickell has done at Cincinnati, he's never had to go out and get a Top 5 recruiting class, so I can't just sit here and assume he could.

Looking like yet another title for Bama.

Yawn.

10 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

Looking like yet another title for Bama.

Yawn.

Assuming no miracle happens in Atlanta: Alabama, Cincinnati and Georgia have spots locked up. Last spot is Michigan's if they beat Iowa and Notre Dame's if they don't.

 

5 minutes ago, CentralChamps21 said:

Assuming no miracle happens in Atlanta: Alabama, Cincinnati and Georgia have spots locked up. Last spot is Michigan's if they beat Iowa and Notre Dame's if they don't.

 

Whatever they do, Georgia shouldn’t be able to play Alabama again until they at least win a playoff game first.

Right now, it might be Michigan/GA and then Alabama/Cincy.  From a competitiveness standpoint, though, Cincy/MI and UGA/Bama would be more compelling semi finals, I guess.  Then again, Bama might overlook Cincy.  Unlikely, but possible.

OkState and OU definitely didn’t belong anywhere near the playoff.

Notre Dame might/should be able to hang with Cincy or Michigan.

Just now, caulfield12 said:

Whatever they do, Georgia shouldn’t be able to play Alabama again until they at least win a playoff game first.

Right now, it might be Michigan/GA and then Alabama/Cincy.  From a competitiveness standpoint, though, Cincy/MI and UGA/Bama would be more compelling semi finals, I guess.  Then again, Bama might overlook Cincy.  Unlikely, but possible.

OkState and OU definitely didn’t belong anywhere near the playoff.

Notre Dame might/should be able to hang with Cincy or Michigan.

Cincinnati is better than people think. I'd give them a fair chance to beat anybody except Alabama. I know Michigan destroyed Ohio State but I'm not 100% sold on them and Georgia looked absolutely awful today. Notre Dame is honestly probably one of the best four teams right now but they lost to Cincinnati and all the other teams on their schedule that were highly ranked to start the season (Wisconsin, North Carolina, USC) all underperformed and finished the season unranked so ND's resume just doesn't stack up.

Seemed like OSU’s RB had a better chance if he had turned up field rather than trying to beat one guy to the corner. He’s going to relive that play for a long time.

9 minutes ago, Middle Buffalo said:

Seemed like OSU’s RB had a better chance if he had turned up field rather than trying to beat one guy to the corner. He’s going to relive that play for a long time.

They had seven shots inside the five in that quarter and couldn't score.

 

Guess that was the high point of the Iowa effort against Michigan...oh, well.

Michigan might be the best team in the country 

There could be some debate about how the four get matched up against each other, but the four are definitely going to be Alabama, Michigan, Georgia and Cincinnati. My guess is we get Alabama-Cincinnati and Michigan-Georgia.

On 12/4/2021 at 10:51 PM, fathom said:

Michigan might be the best team in the country 

I wish Cade was more dynamic but they’ve been clicking on all cylinders otherwise. The 3 weeks off could cool them off but we’ll see. This is new territory.

12 minutes ago, Brian said:

I wish Cade was more dynamic but they’ve been clicking on all cylinders otherwise. The 3 weeks off could cool them off but we’ll see. This is new territory.

Hard to jump to much conclusions - Iowa's offense is horrific.  The game could have been interesting if they could do anythign when they moved the ball into Michigan territory but this is the worst Iowa offense I've seen in 2 decades of the Ferentz era. Usually they can at least run it well - but the oline was weak this year and the QB play was terrible to go with weak wideouts (no surprise), etc.  

1 hour ago, Brian said:

I wish Cade was more dynamic but they’ve been clicking on all cylinders otherwise. The 3 weeks off could cool them off but we’ll see. This is new territory.

Their trick plays are incredible this year 

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/32860460/college-football-top-10-bottom-10-moments-2021

Something like 13/18 semifinal games have now ended up with double digit losses...pretty deflating ending for Michigan.  Just shows the gap between UGA, Bama and the rest of college football.

44 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

Something like 13/18 semifinal games have now ended up with double digit losses...pretty deflating ending for Michigan.  Just shows the gap between UGA, Bama and the rest of college football.

The gap between Georgia, Bama, and to a lesser extent Ohio State and Clemson, and the rest of college football in recruiting of 5* players is obscene.