It didn't do too much for him in 06 but I think it laid the foundation for an NFL ready body, and Ndukwe contributed right away for the Bengals.

Also, Chris Stewart, but that goes without saying.

Though that then makes me wish Weis didn't broadcast the mixed signal in public. The kids read the press.

I'd just like it more like he handled Stovall or Kamara. Put a linemen number on him and push him.

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Having watched Alford up close, of that much I'm quite certain.

I think kids need more coaching than that. I think kids sometimes need to be told, "We need you at 230 and that's where you'll be or you wont play." I feel like leaving this sort of thing up to him might make for a good life lesson for hughes and a lousy situation for the depth chart.

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told the guest coaches about particular buttons to push. The coaches know darn well that messages from these guys will carry extra weight with the kids.

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given Hart's comments on his own charges throughout the spring.

I just don't see it as that big of a deal. I'm also not going overboard on this business about how "soft" or out of shape the team is. It's an overreaction by the same usual suspects who made up their minds about Weis a long time ago and who cling to any offhand quote or scrap of data that gives them an opportunity to attack him.

For all anyone knows, Berry's comment was meant to be a motivating tool for the team as they head into the summer rather than simply an announcement of a team-wide shortcoming.

Are these the only examples of players whose weight has been a topic for Weis?

With Stovall and Kamara, Weis was clear about what he wanted.

With Hughes, it was very wishy-washy. Basically, it doesn't matter what he weighs, so long as his style of play fits what he weighs-- pounder or slasher.

I don't disagree with your point. Kids cut corners.
But I still would suggest that Weis, having no regard for health or nutrition himself, never having played the game, and being in the cocoon of the NFL where his responsibilities were so limited, does not understand how important this issue is.

I don't really think that enters into the equation. I really don't. I think Urban Meyer's kids would be just as likely to scarf down peperoni pizza at the dining hall if it were readily available to them rather than a training table.

A lot of people make the argument that if these kids want, then before or after training table meals, they could just go and cheat, and that's true, and I'm sure some might, but these programs at these other schools are such that they really instill the idea that "everyone is doing all they can to get on that field, start, and compete at the top level," and it seems to have a way of reinforcing itself. Those who cheat on that will likely fall behind.

As things stand now, we've got kids making their own decisions without any sort of group reinforcement. I roomed with athletes and we'd wait for them to get home from practice so we could all dine together. Our own brand of "group reinforcement" was seeing how many slices of chocolate cake we could consume. I juts think it takes more will-power in that situation.

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I have a concern about Weis here.
Yes we need a training table. But we also need a coach who serves as an at least reasonably healthy role model. These kids are young, they are followers not leaders.
I'm not saying we need some super buff Dwight Howard clone as coach, but it would be hard for impressionable college kids to take nutrition seriously when their coach is 100 pds overweight. Especially a first time head coach, who never played the game, and with no track record of his own.
Not to start another long debate about Weis here, it's all been rehashed, and this is a fine point I realize. But his incredibly bad health seems highly inappropriate to me given his role. There are trainers and nutritionists there to help him. He should be setting an example.
I was there in the Ara era, and players were in awe of him. They killed themselves to please him, not just so they could see the field but because they desperately craved his approval. He was the man every player on that team wanted to be. They practiced hard and played their asses off every Saturday for him.
I really can't imagine our kids feel that way now.

I'm 31 now (that can't be right), and I can't believe the difference my intake makes just to every-day things like working at a computer, let alone actual physical activity. I just can't help but imagine that bad fuel makes a real difference to 17-21 year old guys who are competing at that level.

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Some of the athletes (in all of the sports) are excellent about their nutrition, and it shows. I always felt like the trend was the guys who had to hustle just a little more to keep their spot or whatever tended to be better about it. But that left our "stars" sort of doing harm to themselves via bad fuel.

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I think that dovetails with Rich Rodriguez's recruiting philosophy. He's a huge recruiter at Pahokee and Florida schools of that ilk. A lot of the kids he gets down there are undersized and not hotly pursued by major programs, but it's pretty clear what he's trying to do: bring in kids with lots of athletic ability and room for growth (not to mention a burning desire to escape their bad circumstances), then hand them over to S&C god Mike Barwis to be turned into scoring/killing machines. It worked pretty well at West Virginia, and it will probably end up working at Michigan, too, if and when he finds a stud QB.

Anyone who has experience in strength and conditioning knows the importance of diet in body development. You better plan on working out (and having the metabolism) like Michael Phelps if you want to be able to eat anything you want.

I've witnessed both the good and bad of athlete's dieting at Notre Dame. Brady Quinn was an absolute freak when it came to what he ate. You have probably seen him without his shirt and it shows.

On the other hand, I've seen certain position players have pizza and fries on their plates for dinner. I've also seen freshmen defensive linemen, who should be putting on college muscle for the first time in their lives, eat Gran N' Go. That meal consisted of a PB&J as the main course.

Here's a somewhat relevant excerpt from Ivan Maisel's "Ten Commandments for learning how to recruit":

5. Make your own evaluation.
The ability to see a skinny 16-year-old for what he could be at 21 is, as Davis put it, "the craft and the art of evaluation." The trick is to learn what to value and what to ignore.

Tommy Tuberville, looking for work after 14 years at Ole Miss and Auburn, described an evaluator as part geneticist.

"How much weight can he gain?" Tuberville asked. "You're looking at his parents, looking at his brothers and sisters."

Davis said the facilities that the player has available to him in high school can lay a trap for a recruiter.

"You may be buying the finished product," Davis said. "There's a little bit of that in Texas. Those schools have got more money than God. They have a strength coach, 15 high school coaches. The players have been in the same program since sixth or seventh grade. You get them and four years later they are the exact same player.

"You go to Pahokee, Fla., where a kid eats once a day, his parents may not be around," Davis said. "You get him in a weightlifting program. Two years later, he's three times better than the kid from Texas."

As to the question, personally I don't think the lack of a training table is hindering programs greatly. These kids ought to be dedicated and disciplined and if they're not, that should be reflected on depth charts.

On the other hand and with regards to athletics only, not having a training table isn't helping the programs at all. Things that don't help may end up hurting, even if indirectly.

that the healthy, nutritious options are right there in the food line, and it's up to the players to be disciplined and eat the right things.

My response: C'mon. We're all proud of the fact that the football players and students eat together, but something has to be done because if the strength coach thinks there's a problem, there's a problem. What's hard to figure out is how big of a problem it is and how much it has been affecting us on the field.

to A) listen and B) succeed in getting something better implemented.

Sorry, but I saw too many footballers in the SDH enjoying the same stuff I was enjoying while knowing full well that the S&C staff was exhausting themselves trying to counteract that. Peppered Flank Steak night won out very, very often. I doubt it's changed much.

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and that he either had or planned to talk to Swarbrick about the need for a training table. That's all the convincing I need.

I know all over the web, talk of the lack of a training table, a real training table, at ND has been hashed over.

Now I see talk by Bert Berry about how ND needs to get into shape. And he's right, we've got a small defense. It needs to be able to add "and fast" to "small" in order to be successful in this scheme. Otherwise it'll just be "small and easy to block."

I can't help but notice that Marrotti, a guy I dealt with during my time and ND (and, quite frankly, liked quite a bit), seems to be having a great deal of success with putting out a highly conditioned team at Florida. But at ND, if I recall correctly, there was a lot of griping about his ability to do his job. Then again, I also know that Davie couldn't seem to make up his mind about how he wanted the team shaped either.

Still, I also know that Marrotti was always very concerned about the lack of a true nutrition program at ND for all of the athletes, not just the football players.

I guess my question for the board is this: Do you feel the lack of a training table and full-blown nutrition program is hindering ND's ability to compete on the field? (We'll save talk about whether or not such a program would hurt the real intergration of the athletes with the student body for a later date.)

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