played interhall for your old dorm. Fr. Bill saw him play and suggested he try out for the team.

As was Rashon Johnson at Alabama. Just a couple of examples that popped into my mind.

Although, all time, I'd have to guess that Nebraska's walk on program has been the most productive and beneficial to the program.

Most of my friends who were walk-ons went straight to walking on, and didn't bother with interhall, but there are probably some guys that go that route. Ho kicked for Sorin before being recruited for the team.

Kevin Pendergast was another walk-on who kicked some meaningful field goals (although he was also a crossover scholarship soccer player before going to football).

I wouldn't be surprised if it did. I thought I've heard stories of the coaches coming out to look at some of the more talented guys. It's a lot easier to get an idea of how useful someone might be (even on the scout team) if you see them in a game situation.

Time is limited for the next few weeks...in the middle of studying for the CPA.

I think it would be a great topic too, although my knowledge of ND football (in depth, at least) only goes back about 10 years max. I know of Rudy (obviously) but not as familiar with guys like Reggie Ho.

I'll see what I can dig up.

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is to have a few years of horrible recruiting.

Before you know it, walk-ons are playing all over the place.

This would make a terrific blog post too, imo.

Even if you just focused on famous ND walk-ons of yore. (Although Rudy's the most famous, Reggio Ho probably had the most impact.)

I realize that the walk-on program is designed to find about 20 moving tackling dummies, but it is always interesting to see how successful some of ND's walkons have been.

Some from the past and present:

Bobby Burger
Mike Anello
David Ruffer - not much of an impact, but he did get in for one kick
DJ Fitzpatrick - probably a preferred walkon, but oh well
Pat Dillingham - Poor guy
That FB Schmidt - played a lot

Probably more but I can't seem to recall that many more. There were a few OL (James Bent, Chrvanick) during Weis' first couple of seasons when the OL numbers were way down that were second teamers and got invited back for 5th years but they really never made an impact like the above. Bemenderfer originally (technically) was one, but that was another exception.

He beat him good, too. Just tossed him like he was nothing.

The best thing about Ragone is that he's very tough. So there's little doubt that, if his knee allows, he'll use stuff like that as fuel to come back with a vengeance.

I saw that this morning when I was perusing the videos and found myself nodding along. Implicit in his description of Aldridge is the admission that Schwapp was quite limited.

I have to wonder, though, why it took this long to figure this out. Couldn't we have developed someone else for FB starting last year?

Sounds like he is at TE (especially with a uni # like 86). At the very least it gives us another body at TE (total of 4 heading into the fall). He's probably a stronger blocker at this point, so he could be a great fit as the 3rd TE in packages like Goal Line and New York.

It also sounds/looks like Ragone isn't close to being ready. He was getting beat in the Irish Eyes drill rather handily (Brian Smith?) and he just doesn't look comfortable cutting laterally in some of the warm-up drills. Hope it's just a confidence issue.

you have been trying to make about FB and TE the last two years:

http://notredame.scout.com/a.z?s=109&p=2&c=851483

What does James Aldridge bring to the fullback position?

"The good thing is, now James is repping in there and that will eventually allow you to put in formations where you can take somebody like Armando (Allen) and line Armando out of the backfield; now all of a sudden you are running or passing against base defense because you have a base offensive personnel group out there without putting a lesser skilled player in a position to be able to do that. I think there are some serious options that would open up if this continues to move in the direction that it is going."

Fauria pushing Ragone is good news as well.

Perhaps the 2009 offense will resemble the 2005 version, and with a better, more attacking defense than '05?