Irish Seek Their Inner Matador

[Roderick]

I would love to see what this guy has to say Sunday morning.  Interesting analysis though.

http://www.onefootdown.com/2011/9/1/2384657/notre-dame-vs-south-florida-preview-irish-seek-their-inner-matador

[Jihme]

fair analysis if you go by our stats last year.  we haven't played and thus haven't proven anything this year.  of course we all hope that we're vastly improved, but we can't know anything for sure until we play.  just hope and pray and the off-season improvements translate into a win like we all think it will.  Go Bulls!!

[Roderick]

Agreed.  Here's a fun fact they forgot to mention, courtesy of tampabay.com:

"Since 1997, USF's first, fresh-out-of-the-trailer, who-*******-tee season, Notre Dame has won 99 games. USF has won 103.

In other words, there isn't as much difference in the programs as you might think. In recent seasons, Notre Dame has lost to Tulsa and Navy and Pitt and UConn and Syracuse. In the book of legends, there haven't been a lot of new chapters lately."

http://www.tampabay.com/sports/college/usf-bulls-need-not-pay-attention-to-notre-dames-history/1189035

[GaUSFBull]

I would love to see what this guy has to say Sunday morning. 

Be very careful what you wish for. 

[dznick51]

Every single blog post and article that have read by a ND fan slams the Big East for being a weak conference, which I don't agree with.  A lot of bloggers and writers say that USF isn't as good as they appear on paper because of the weak competition in the BE.......If the BE is so weak, why doesn't ND just join?  We all know the BE would jump at that and then apparently ND would win the BE championship every year and get the automatic BCS bowl game bid.  For a school that prides themselves on academics, this seems like they're not being too smart about things!

[Bullshiznitz]

Every single blog post and article that have read by a ND fan slams the Big East for being a weak conference, which I don't agree with.  A lot of bloggers and writers say that USF isn't as good as they appear on paper because of the weak competition in the BE.......If the BE is so weak, why doesn't ND just join?  We all know the BE would jump at that and then apparently ND would win the BE championship every year and get the automatic BCS bowl game bid.  For a school that prides themselves on academics, this seems like they're not being too smart about things!

Its even funnier, when you consider that since 2008, Notre Dame is 1-4 verse that "weak" Big East conference.  Reminds me of UCF fans constantly bashing the Big East even though they're an 0 for against the Big East

[DominantIrish11]

They wont join the Big East because it comes down to money. Why share revenue when you can keep it all to yourself? ND is in the Big East in other sports. Does't make sense for ND to join a conference in football.

[BullFan98]

fair analysis if you go by our stats last year.  we haven't played and thus haven't proven anything this year.  of course we all hope that we're vastly improved, but we can't know anything for sure until we play.  just hope and pray and the off-season improvements translate into a win like we all think it will.  Go Bulls!!

What he said!

[Who'sYourData?]

Actually, I thought that was a pretty darn good analysis for someone that doesn't follow the USF program.  In reality, on paper we are clearly an underdog though not a huge underdog.

A few reasons that we have to be more optimistic than the author of the article:

He pretty much blames the lousy offense last year on Daniels.  This isn't entirely off the mark.  He does note that Daniels should be better with another year of experience and another year in the new system.  What he does not take into account was that last year two of our top three receivers were out for the season (Love, Griffin), and there weren't any ready made options to replace them.  We lost Bogans, gained Love and Griffin.  But we also gained another year of badly needed experience for guys like Landi and Mitchell.  And we have apparently added two stud freshman WRs.  It is difficult to guage just how much that could help our offense.

He doesn't seem to buy into Scott as much as we have, and again we have added other depth at RB after losing our expected top two going into last season.  The experience Murray gained last year will help immensely this year.

He is correct that we lost a lot on both OLine and DLine, but for the most part our starting lines are players that have a good bit of experience.  Also, the reserves that will play are likely at least as good as our reserves from last year and probably better.  It feels like we have some young players that are really going to impact the team in a positive way this year.

He correctly points out that our defense wasn't quite a good last year as advertised.  But I tend to think we are going to take a jump on defense just like we will on offense.  Second year in the same system, the defense was adjusting to a new way of doing business last year. 

Overall, I think our talent is better and deeper than it has ever been.  I also think this coaching staff is better at preparing a team to play than the previous one.  I don't really have a lot to base that on until they prove it on the field.  But I really do believe this USF team will be much stronger than last year's team. 

I really don't know if we are quite ready to beat Notre Dame in South Bend, especially with Brian Kelly at the controls.  But I do think we will perform better than Mr Matador expects.  I do have to give him big props for the "Seek Their Inner Matador" line. 

[Skingraft]

fair write up...we need to just play at this point

And i just cracked my 1000th post....