Submitted for Discussion: @NDHFC's latest on winning.
by domer.mq 
, Wednesday, May 20, 2009, 09:10 (6217 days ago)
Figured I'd bring this up here to see what the minds here think of all this.
http://www.herloyalsons.com/blog/2009/05/20/the-one-where-herloyalsons-questions-ndhfc-...
It's sort of stuck in my craw, for some reason, on an otherwise beautiful spring day.
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Sometimes I rhyme slow sometimes I rhyme quick.
As nice as it would be
To blow the doors off everyone on our schedule, I think he's right. If you go back and look at every national title winner in the last 10 or so years, I think you'll find at least 1-2 games each year that were probably quite a bit closer than they should have been.
For example, Hinton posted a few clips from Vick and Va Tech's '99 season today in which they went on to lose to FSU in the title game. Vick had to engineer a drive in the last minute of the game in Mogantown to beat WVU that year with a FG. Tech also played a close game in the Carrier Dome that year against Cuse.
Lou's teams had similar problems against seemingly overmatched opponents during his glory years.
Obviously if you can completely dominate the team on the other side of the ball, its much more aesthetically pleasing. But a win's a win, even in this era of YouTube, exhausting statisical analysis and microscopic study of each and every play.
I'm not looking for complete domination of all opponents.
by domer.mq , Thursday, May 21, 2009, 09:58 (6216 days ago) @ Jeremy (WeIsND)
But I'm really concerned about this notion that players need to make plays, or, in other words, create big moments in games, to win. The 2005 ND team beat most of their opponents by a margin larger than any of those opponents faced against anyone else, and while there were some big plays, the "games Weis should win" were largely won in a rather ho-hum manner. There were, obviously, some phenomenal moments, but they weren't needed against the likes of BYU or even Purdue (though Shark's catch will live forever, it wasn't really needed).
Since Weis has been developing this 2nd core group of talent, who are now Jrs., he's been harping on this "players making plays" thing. And while those guys where Frs. and Sophs., I really wish he'd spent a lot more energy on the "learn the fundamentals" thing.
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Sometimes I rhyme slow sometimes I rhyme quick.