Dayne Crist to start for ND against USF

[The Great 8]

I hope Giddens crushes him.

/thread

[E.T.]

Our FRONT 7 will be asking:

Paper or Plastic?

[hm101]

I believe the ND defense had more to do with their 5-win finish than Rees did. They yahoo college fb blog said it best but I can't link at the moment cause I'm on my phone

[JoeB]

Rees was pretty good down the stretch.  No surprise that Crist gets the start though.  B Kelly has been saying it all through camp.  It was basically his job to lose, like BJ's.  He is a little more mobile I guess.  Won't matter, our D needs to dictate things for us to win.

Go Bulls!!

[ChipFan7]

Rees is not to credit for Notre Dame's 4 wins at the end of the season.  The power running of Cierre Wood and the defense are what propelled that success.  If Crist would have been at the helm during that stretch, Notre Dame would have scored a lot more points, as it was Tommy Rees who allowed USC to hang in the game.  Rees turned it over in USC territory 4 times in that game, and the ND defense did all they could to hold USC to 16 points.  After Crist leaves, Rees could definitely make a name for himself, but much of ND Nation is happy with BK's decision.  BTW, I don't remember who said it, but Crist was not responsible for that loss to Tulsa because his season ending injury occurred on the second play of the game.  It was Rees' blunders and a bad coaching move at the end that sealed the deal for the Golden Hurricane.

[Ricky the Bull]

The B10 Network has last year's MSU/ND game on right now (Verizon FIOS).  Good opportunity to watch Dayne Crist run the offense.

[smazza]

Neither QB very mobile but if I was a ND fan, I think I would have wanted the guy who saved last season with 4 straight wins. I believe they are saying they won despite Rees in those games. This is good for the Bulls as his last game action was in a loss to Tulsa where he was hurt. I would imagine we will be bringing it a little harder than Tulsa was. Plus we have a lot of film on him from his 5 losses last year.

i would want the guy that is doing better NOW

[The Great 8]

If ND's defense is the reason they all the sudden went 4-0 to end the season what was the defense doing the game before with Tulsa at home? Or the game before that against Navy? Was half the first team injured and they all came back simultaneously?

Or, were they playing down teams with the exception of USC? (As you noted, who stuck around.)

[ND]

If ND's defense is the reason they all the sudden went 4-0 to end the season what was the defense doing the game before with Tulsa at home? Or the game before that against Navy? Was half the first team injured and they all came back simultaneously?

Or, were they playing down teams with the exception of USC? (As you noted, who stuck around.)

The scheme was terrible against Navy, our coaches are to blame for that one. The D was not that bad in the Tulsa game, Rees threw a pick 6 and they returned a punt for a TD. Look them up, they score a lot of points, ND was their worst offensive output of the season, they scored more on Oklahoma. I think ND's defense worst game was Navy after that it was Michigan and MSU, they got better as the season progressed.

[Mama_Bull]

If ND's defense is the reason they all the sudden went 4-0 to end the season what was the defense doing the game before with Tulsa at home? Or the game before that against Navy? Was half the first team injured and they all came back simultaneously?

Or, were they playing down teams with the exception of USC? (As you noted, who stuck around.)

The scheme was terrible against Navy, our coaches are to blame for that one. The D was not that bad in the Tulsa game, Rees threw a pick 6 and they returned a punt for a TD. Look them up, they score a lot of points, ND was their worst offensive output of the season, they scored more on Oklahoma. I think ND's defense worst game was Navy after that it was Michigan and MSU, they got better as the season progressed.

Everybody has excuses.

When Leavitt left abruptly, we expected to have five more dynamic offensive players on our 2010 roster, than we ended up with under Holtz. 

Our #1 WR Carlton Mitchell then decided to leave early for the NFL. Our #2 and #3 WR's A J Love and Sterling Griffin sat out the entire season with injuries. Our #1 RB 5-star Mike Ford was dismissed and another RB 4-star Jamar Taylor left the team.

As a result Skip was left with what he called a bunch of "misfit toys" trying to play WR for the first time and some untested RB's.

It's no wonder that we had difficulty scoring throughout the year. In addition, B J Daniels was kept on a very short leash because we had no QB's behind him. He still ended up getting injured in the Pitt game but tried to play through the pain. We needed to use a true freshman walk-on QB to finish up the Miami game and also play against UConn.

Daniels was finally healthy against Clemson in our bowl game. As a result, both he and our offense was much more effective.

Unlike last year, we should have a much better overall offense just with the return of healthy WR's Love and Griffin, who would have started last year, and the addition of 5-star RB Darell Scott, who has worked very hard all year to get back to his old self.

Holtz also brought in his long time weight lifting coach who has been getting very good results.

The point is, that we have as many reasons to be optimistic as ND fans.