DT Parks to ND

We have to have one of the most talented DL hauls in the country in the last 2 years. So that’s nice

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Freeman's got so much riz they need to call him Aura Parseghian

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But holy shit, he is a monster.

https://www.hudl.com/video/3/19549649/69391613b01409f9212ae302

Are the opposing OLs just not that good?

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They were a tough team. They're only loss was to Mount Carmel (Roman Igwebuike's school, and probably 15 other D1 prospects). But they beat a number of traditional Catholic powers like Marist, St. Rita, Loyola, St. Patrick (David Florunsho's school). But the traditional Catholic powers besides Mt. Carmel were kind of down. They beat up on a good Downers Grove North squad in the playoffs.

The competition was good, but probably not what it's normally been for some of these Chicago programs.

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both ended up with at least 3 elite recruits last year.

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I believe his team won the state championship last year and they play in the catholic school league, which is competitive - I know we have dozens of guys here who can speak to the talent in his league.

I didn't watch all of the video, but it appeared he was going up against good sized kids, if a bit overweight/undeveloped. Really impressive combo of size, strength and speed.

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for the next couple of years for anyone's. Leaving aside the fact that we have "ND players," who has better players just from a football perspective? The list of contenders is pretty small. I guess Georgia, OSU, Oregon, and Texas are about it. They all have some players I'd want but I'm not sure I'd go for a full trade.

What are the "weak" spots? We're looking at WR's who have something to prove. Nominally, TE and RB lack proven performers. But we're TE U. The next guys will step up. At RB, no school is likely to ever again have two first round picks but I am all in on Williams, James, and the others.

On defense, there are NFL teams I wouldn't want their DB's over ours. We have a LB group that will terrorize opposing offenses. I suppose at the edge we're looking for guys like Young to be more consistent.

I wouldn't trade Carr for any college QB. I guess I'd like to see the back-up situation clarified and hope that he can get some meaningful reps.

But who has got it better than us?

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"Somewhere in Middle America"

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The one area I think we may be glossing over with hope and optimism is WR. But that doesn’t change your fundamental point.

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Faison was held under 50 yards in half the games last year. Greathouse's last 11 games, including his big playoff performances, have seen him put up an average of 32 receiving yards per game. No one else has played a meaningful snap aside from a few plays from Gilbert

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can create an offense where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

There are some big signs of progress, but our WR group, as it currently stands, does not appear to be a "plus" for a playoff team.

There's all sorts of opportunity for growth, of course. Faison is a full-time football player for the first time. Graham very well might be an OSU-quality stud. Maybe Greathouse delivers a "Brian Smith/Jonas Gray" senior year performance after a disappointing start. If Gilbert can stay healthy or Porter can get healthy...

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If we don't see a guy like Cam Williams or Micah Gilbert insist on playing time we might be looking at a lot more 12 personnel than we would like

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access again. So I'm not sure we are going to get hardly any useful info out of there.

But 12 personnel would suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. I think we have very good TEs, but we don't have gamewrecking TE weapons. Take 12 personnel and our RB group, and our quick strike capability would be really limited. We'd be an offense that's highly dependent on a very high execution percentage.

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It was 5% in 2023. He's not going to run regular two-TE sets if he has the horses at receiver. And for anyone who doesn't believe we have that now among the players that we've accumulated in that group, I'm more than happy to take the other side of the bet.

Now unshackled from lax and questionable QB play, Faison is going to explode. I'm buying all the stock there. Greathouse has shown what he can do on the biggest stage when healthy. Will he be? There's no motivator quite like competition, and Mylan Graham will take every snap that Greathouse can't. That is at least two guys on the field that defenses will need to account for. Porter is a wait-and-see in the short term but won't likely be rushed and could pay significant dividends later in the season when the games get real. Kids like Gilbert, Burress and Saldate could break out, and other, younger options like Finley, Fitzgerald and Frazier will light a fire under their asses to either shit or get off the pot. The depth & talent of this group will create a force multiplier that ensures those who emerge will elevate. Adapt or die? Excel or transfer.

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I believe it's time for us to fly.

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You end up maximize his ability to be precise in critical downs and get us into good run fits. If a good secondary is able to just play cover 1 or 0 on you all game long you need to double down on controlling the game at the line of scrimmage.

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But you wouldn't want to see us running 2 TE a majority of the time, not with this QB.

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In other words, is that something you do at the start of the season to ensure success until the wide receiver room gets more established? Then versus lesser teams or teams ND is blowing out … you have a chance to work on developing other personnel groupings.

The goal would obviously be that Carr is able to run a wide variety of personnel packages successfully by the tournament/ later half of the season.

I just dont see a defense that obviously can bottle ND’s offense up until maybe Miami … and that’s 8 weeks in to the season. That’s a lot of time to validate what works vs weaker programs. For example, right now the prediction markets have ND as a -20 point favorite over Wisconsin predicting something like 42-21 outcome. The only close game before Miami is BYU, which sets up as a potential trap game being that its a road game. However, even then ND is expected to win something like 31-20. And that’s ND’s lowest scoring game before Miami.

That’s plenty of time for ND & Denbrock to develop ND’s WR group.

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But I also don't want to see a bunch of 3rd and longs because our WRs are easily bottled up. I have no idea if that will be the case and hope I'm wrong but it's hard not to feel like Charlie Brown waiting for WRs to develop in this program sometimes.

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We've been explosive for two years due to our running backs. I'd hate to see us go back to the dink and dunk, short running game that we saw in the later Kelly years.

We've got a Lamborghini at QB, gotta let him out of the cul de sac.

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I looked at this after a few games last year, but here's the entire season.

Check out how much he threw downfield -- over 20% of his passing attempts were 20+ yards. Could that number actually go up this year?

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by comparison, here's Riley Leonard in 2024, just 10% at 20+: https://bluegraysky.com/forum/index.php?id=561492

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He's better, and the line is better on paper. He should have more time for deep plays to develop and I think the gameplan will be aggressive. The odds are in our favor, based on raw talent and numbers at the WR position. Just have to see it.

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and Neil Fak's short area quickness.

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so that I never have to read about it again.

And then go out and land 2-3 top 100 receivers in the '28 class.

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We've seen big hits from Freeman's first classes at almost every other position: Carr, Love, Knapp, Lambert, Traore, Young, KVA, Bowen, Moore, Tae Johnson, etc.

Stuckey was a bad hire, and Brown has probably been thelst "Replacement Level" guy on the current staff. WR play was pretty good last year, but in uncomfortable going back to watch highlights and seeing just how good Fields and Pauling were for us last year

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that story quite a bit. I'm cautiously optimistic on Gilbert -- he's a guy we trusted enough to throw a TD to against Miami. He's been dinged up, but it hasn't been chronic lower body stuff -- more freak trauma stuff.

Can Faison be, say, senior TJ Jones?

Can Gilbert be, say, Skrownek?

And then Graham needs to deliver the big plays.

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we have the most cumulative talent on both the OL and DL of any program over the last two classes. Credit to our old pal Funk at ISD for that nugget.

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WELCOME TO LA CUPULA DORADA, BRAYDEN!

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I think the children like it when I "get down" verbally.

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It seems he committed to Freeman on his official visit but wanted to honor his promise to take a visit to Oregon, which Freeman said was ok. When he visited Oregon, it seems the positive media reports of his visit by the Oregon beats angered his relatives. In the meantime, there was a lot of back and forth with the recruting mavens and no one seemed confident what he was going to do. Until this week when mostly everyone said he was going to ND. So it is a story of a kid who long had an ND lean, had some infatuation with another school, but ultimately stuck with what was most comfortable for him.
I think it speaks well to the high EQ of the Freeman recruitment process—being patient, sticking with the plan, etc.
It seems this kid is the very rare 3 down NT.

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All the beats seemed confident but not in good way. It seemed like the typical "the family wants ND but the kid wants Oregon." Nobody wanted go out on a limb but was a weird situation.

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The kid grew up around guys that know the game and I’m not just talking about on the field.

Someone he trusted probably said, “Hey, go out there & see what other schools have to offer and make sure YOU really believe in your choice to go to ND (so you dont 2nd guess yourself).”

And Freeman, being a guy who knows the game on and off the field (ie including the machinations of college football recruiting) probably talked with the kid and understood what he was trying to do.

Caveat: I only know what I’ve read in this thread, so my theory is just based on first instinct from what’s said here. I just assume the kid has some smart people around him that gave him the “football is a business” & “its good to understand what your options are” argument based on their own experience w the NFL and college.

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and whatever supposed struggle Parks was having with making a decision over the past month. Everything that came out suggested that ND was the clear choice, and Oregon didn't help their cause any with the static about his mom that was made public.

But maybe he always had a timeline in mind for announcing that wasn't made clear to sources. Doesn't really matter now.

the Polo Grounds

I'm not a big recruiting reel guy

Brother Rice won class 7A last year

I can't figure out how Brother Rice and Carmel (Mundelein)

Getting out over my skis a bit here.

I don't think I'd trade ND's roster or the likely roster

It’s hard to really know about other teams but agree broadly

WR is a glaring question mark

Agreed.

Yep. The WR group needs CJ to take his next steps so he

Camp will be pretty telling

Definitely. Though it sounds like incredibly limited media

Denbrock ran 12 personnel less than 10% at LSU.

Faison will be a slightly lesser version of Makai Lemon

good comp for his upside

running mostly 12 with Carr would be a big bummer

It's pretty much the entirety of the Bear case

sure on critical downs

How would that match up with NDs schedule?

I definitely don't want to see that

It would be a return to the dark days.

dug up some passing depth numbers for Carr

I expect the number to increase.

I suppose. Though I like Richie's potential at the boundary,

I am eager to put this nonsense to bed this fall

It's at least a little bit disconcerting

Faison and a healthy Gilbert have the ability to rewrite

Carr’s ability to feather balls will be a huge benefit here

Based on star rankings

Yawn. Just another 4-star player to ND.

Did not realize that he is Zorich’s godson.

And Tony Jones Jr's cousin*

Interesting recruiting story

It was surprising about how the story came out

that story doesn't make a ton of sense

I can see a way it does

My question is more about the delay

I kinda think many of them don’t.