Midstate01;1038049 wrote:6-6, say no more
I was unaware that Jimmy Clausen played defense?
I don't really understand why all of you Buckeye fans got your panties in a bunch about my comment. It is a fair one.
The 2011 Notre Dame team was really quite loaded with talent, the seniors were the #2 recruiting class in the country. The backfield was about to have two 1,000-yard rushers until Jonas Gray tore his ACL. The OL was very good, going two months without giving up a single sack (for a QB who is slower than I am) and run blocking for 4.8 yards a rush (27th in the country). The receiving corp had two all-Americans and a John Mackey Award finalist, and the defense's scoring ranked 26th in the country and played at a very high level for all but a few quarters.
The quarterbacking though, was really rather pathetic when you take a look at it. On the surface, Tommy Rees looked like perhaps any sophomore quarterbacking dealing with a learning curve. But it was more than that. His fumble against Michigan opened the door for a comeback and he simply wasn't good enough to play with the defenses of Stanford and Florida State. In the Florida State loss particularly, he had the game winning drive going for him and he throws, incorrectly as post game interviews have stated, to a double-covered
John Goodman instead of a single-covered guy running a simple drag. He is no good.
The comment was meant to display how close this team really was to being very good. This wasn't a "Hey with Brett Favre or Otto Graham or Dan Marino they'd be undefeated!" That is asinine. Jimmy Clausen graduated from Notre Dame last year, his junior year he was outstanding and was good enough for third-best QB rating in the country with a 161.4 rating (just about Matt Barkley's this year).
I don't think it's crazy to say "hey with the previous QB they'd be undefeated," it's a perfectly legitimate hypothetical statement. Would Jimmy Clausen have thrown that retarded interception that Dayne Crist threw against South Florida? I doubt it. Would he have fumbled--for no freaking reason--like Tommy Rees does against Michigan? I doubt it. Would he fumbled the snap like Dayne Crist did against Southern California? I doubt it. Would he have been a bitch against Stanford and Florida State? I doubt it.
I'm not QQ'ing or anything, just simply realizing that this was Notre Dame's best team in awhile and they didn't get it done because of poor quarterback play. It'll be until 2013 until they are in position to make a run again.
