Projecting Jimmy Clausen

Frankie,

Time for new content the gerbils are falling off the wheel! By the way, keep up the good work and happy new year!

Green Banshi,

Explain your logic to me: 1) the 2nd half of the UF-Cinci was a draw, but 2) UF ran up the score. Both can’t be true. So did UF run up the score or did Cinci match UF in the 2nd half? According to your logic, UF should’ve sat on the ball and let Cinci make it even more of a game in the 2nd half. Crazy! (BTW: The game was over by halftime.) I hope BK runs up a lot of scores. For someone complaining about the wussyfication of our society (I agree with you) it’s strange to also cry about running up of scores. Wussies cry about people running up scores.

Urban Meyer is a joke. Glad we did not end up with him. What a crybaby. He gets his a$$ kicked by Alabama and he’s having chest pains and quits and then reinstates himself. What a complete joke. He’s as big of a joke as Tebow – and running up the score on the upstart Cincinnati – outrageous. Reminded me of that cla$$less Jimmy Johnson at the U running up the score on Faust. That Leach guy is a real man and a great coach. James should have his pu$$y a$$ handed to him and should have been kicked off the team. James is another suckatitty baby just like Meyer. Oh my god, what kind of society have we become. Kelly will do great at ND, so get of his a$$ – I have no doubt he will make it happen. At least he can beat UConn and Syracuse and Pittsburgh and Oregon State. And no doubt he would have beaten UM and Stanford and NAVY. If he had the 2009 ND team, they might be playing FU in the Sugar Bowl. He went undefeated at Cincifrigginati with a 49th ranked recruiting class. Do you understand what I am saying you freaks???? And he won at Central Michigan!!! They were exciting to watch with Lefevre. Can you imagine what he is going to do with a 10th ranked class??? Cincifrigginati scored 24 on the Gators without Kelly coaching UC and motivating them. The 2nd half was a DRAW. URBAN MEYER YOU FRIGGIN SUCK – I hope you do not come back to FU Gator Nation – trying to run up the score on the upstart Cincinnati. And that pathetic Tebow is not fooling anyone with the biblical verses. Those kind of femmbotts (Meyer, Tebow, James and some of the Notre Dame fairweather “fans”) make me want to puke. Get a damn life.

I missed the Under Armour game. Did we land/lose any kids? How have our recruits looked?

How much can one university sweep under the rug? McKnight has photo’s taken of him driving the SUV(which he says didn’t happen) that was given to his girlfriend by the USC Marketing Manager who also owns http://www.4joemcknight.com.
Move along now, nothing to see here!
“No Comment” Carroll had no choice but ommit him from the bowl game as instructed by the student police. Now McKnight says that the “Media” ruined his life.
That’s what happends when you don’t show up for your USC classes(Cover-ups,loopholes, & scams 101)
First there was Bush, then Mayo, now McKnight. Year after Year and nothing ever hapends to them.

What most people fail to realize is; Ask yourself this how many qb’s are there in college football each year that come out of college that actually make it in the pros? One? Maybe two? It’s a tough tough position.

Clausen in the NFL scares me. I can not get the picture out of my mind of the Navy game when we were down near the goal line where Clausen was flushed out of the pocket and he tried to punch it over the goal line. A Navy linebacker came up and absolutely “cold cocked” Clausen. He was folded up like a wet paper napkin and he to be helped off the field. It was a f’ing NAVY linebacker!!! The LB probably weighed, what 195 lbs? Clausen in my opinion is way too fragile for the NFL. What’s going to happen when he scrambles and gets hit by Ray Lewis? Lights out.

I am so tired of the crap opinions of armchair fans who ignore the facts of Jimmy Clausen’s 3 year performance at N.D. But don’t take my word for it. Lou Somogyi is a better expert than any of us and this is what he says about Jimmy’s QB skills:

Statistically, the numbers speak for themselves. As a junior this season, he eclipsed Bob Williams’ 60-year school record pass efficiency record of 161.37 set during national title year in 1949 with his 161.42 mark this year. Clausen had an eye-popping 68-percent completion percentage, a phenomenal 8.8 yards per attempt, and unbelievable 28 touchdowns compared to only four interceptions.

Despite his obvious talents, Clausen was just 16-18 as a starter at Notre Dame.

Those numbers would have fallen under the classification of fiction — right up with Santa, the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy — when I was growing up in the 1970s. Back then, merely throwing more touchdowns than interceptions and completing 55 percent of your passes was a Holy Grail for Irish quarterback legends such as Joe Theismann (31 touchdowns and 35 interceptions during his career), Tom Clements (whose 3,594 yards passing in three seasons as a starter was less than the 3,722 Clausen had alone this year) and Joe Montana (a modest .520 career completion percentage with 25 touchdowns and 25 interceptions).

In 38 years of watching Notre Dame football, I have never seen a quarterback with the sheer accuracy of Clausen, be it the long ball, intermediate, crossing pattern or dump-off while under duress. When it came to having a small window where only the receiver was able to catch the ball and then putting the ball at the precise and only location it could be, Clausen had no peers.

There were flashes of that skill displayed in his first two seasons at Notre Dame, but in the one open practice this spring, I was slack-jawed when I watched him in warm-ups throw from the opposite hash mark a 10-yard out pattern that had to travel about 25 yards through the air. Pass after pass, the ball was placed exactly where it needed to be — to the point where he could probably have done it blind-folded. My thought was when NFL scouts see him do this in a combine, they’re just going to write down in their notes “1st round.”

Yet amidst all the remarkable individual stats, here was the ambivalence: If he’s so great, critics might say, why was Notre Dame 16-18 with him as the starter?

Well, football is a team game — offense, defense, special teams — and an individual can never be the whole team. Just ask 1956 Notre Dame Heisman Trophy winner Paul Hornung, whose Irish were 2-8.

Maybe the only other quarterback in Notre Dame history who started at least 10 games in his career and finished under .500 was Daryle Lamonica (1960-62) during the Joe Kuharich era.

Every 20 or years or so since 1959, a phenomenal passer from California matriculated to Notre Dame during a down era. First it was Lamonica, then Steve Beuerlein (1983-86) and now Clausen (2007-09).

Lamonica was on 2-8, 5-5 and 5-5 Irish teams. Beuerlein was 21-19 as a starter, and the Irish were 5-6 each of his last two seasons. Clausen, as mentioned, was 16-18.

In the NFL, though, where he became a Pro Bowl performer and “The Mad Bomber,” Lamonica’s career winning percentage as a starter (.784, 66-16-4) for the Oakland Raiders is second all-time, behind Otto Graham (.810). It’s all about timing and the team you wind up with, college or pro.

Beuerlein played 17 years in the NFL, the most ever by a Notre Dame quarterback in the NFL, was selected to a Pro Bowl, and even has a Super Bowl ring as a backup (Dallas).

Similar to Clausen, Lamonica and Beuerlein were merely in the wrong football team situations at the wrong time at Notre Dame. If Lamonica could have played for Ara Parseghian in 1964, he would have been the Heisman Trophy winner. Had John Huarte not received the tutelage of Parseghian and Tom Pagna in 1964, he would have remained a nondescript backup quarterback, not a Heisman winner.

Had Joe Montana been drafted by the hapless New Orleans Saints (or Aints as they were known back then) in 1979 instead of San Francisco, there probably never would have been a “Super Joe.” Bill Walsh was the first-year head coach at San Francisco in 1979.

Timing is everything in a coaching search — and it’s the same for quarterbacks.
Certainly, Clausen benefited from having exceptional quarterback counsel from Weis — and the best trio of receivers in one time in school history with Golden Tate, Michael Floyd and Kyle Rudolph, all probable future first- or second-round picks.

Conversely, somebody such as Theismann didn’t see one of his starting offensive lineman for the 10-1 and No. 2 Irish play in the NFL, nor one of his running backs, nor his tight end, Mike Creaney. Split end Tom Gatewood was a fourth-round pick with decent but not great speed, and his pro career lasted only two years.

Theismann, Clements and Montana also were fabulous leaders with phenomenal presence in the huddle, as was Tony Rice.

Rice threw only two touchdowns compared to nine interceptions in his senior year, but he ran the offense that he was entrusted to with mastery, and generally performed at his optimum level when the stage was the biggest. He didn’t have the accuracy of Clausen — but Clausen didn’t have his feet and escape skills from a pass rush. Individual stats are just a minute part of the equation of judging a great quarterback.

When the pantheon of legendary Notre Dame quarterbacks is listed, it revolves either around national champs, Heisman winners, or Super Bowl champs, if not a combination of those three.

If Dayne Crist leads Notre Dame to a BCS victory in the coming years, people might remember him as a better quarterback or leader than Clausen, even if his stats aren’t the equal. If Clausen leads a Super Bowl victory in the future, his name will be etched among Notre Dame’s finest. It’s all subjective and incomplete until the final pass has been thrown.

I had my own reservations about Clausen when he originally enrolled. I had a stereotype of him being a prima donna from an affluent family with a sense of entitlement, in the Jeff George genre with a million-dollar arm but a me-first attitude.

I was also amazed at how relatively unpolished Clausen was with the media in his early years, especially compared to Cryst, who seemed like a natural, if not a pro.

The evolution of Clausen’s maturity on and off the field became more evident this year, and I was immediately impressed with his toughness after watching the beating he took during his freshman year behind an offensive line that underwent a Chinese fire drill almost every time he went back to pass. This year, while Clausen battled turf toe and other ailments, I had nothing but immense respect for his toughness, resilience and ability to excel in the fourth quarter when the game was on the line.

Another defining moment was after the 38-34 loss to Michigan in the second week, when Wolverine freshman Tate Forcier led the Wolverines to the game-winning touchdown with 11 seconds left, Clausen hung around on the field and waited for Forcier to complete all his interviews before congratulating him.

Depending on what era you watched Notre Dame football, you will always have your favorites. Those who grew up in the 1940s and 1950s will speak glowingly of Angelo Bertelli, John Lujack, Williams, Ralph Guglielmi or Hornung as the best who ever played for Notre Dame.

Others will speak of Terry Hanratty or Theismann, and my standard of excellence will always include Clements and Montana at the top with Rice — and Kevin McDougal as the most underrated.

Today’s generation might use Brady Quinn and Clausen, especially their stats, as evidence that they were the best ever. That’s fine, and it’s subjective anyway. Greatness is greatness, no matter what the era. But just because Clausen is the most accurate passer I’ve ever seen here doesn’t mean he’s the best quarterback.

It’s all subject to interpretation — and timing.

Let me ask you guys this? How many deep balls, 45 yards plus, do you getting completed in the NFL? Not many at all. A QB in the NFL is successful in making the proper reads, check downs, audibles, and not only knowing his job, but everyone else’s job on the offense. Petyon Mannins runs like he has a fridge on his back, but he knows the blocking assigments of his OL better than the OL does. You have to make the 20 yard out throw, and be able to fit the ball in tight space. If Clausen gets on a team with good WR’s he will be fine. Look at Kyle Orton and Jay Cutler…The Bears WR’s are terrible, their number 1 is a converted DB from THE U (I hate Miami), and their number 2 is a rookie out of Abeliene Christian. Clausen has shown he is willing to take the underneath throw, go through the progressions and hit the open man, and he didn’t miss too many reads if any this year. 3 of his 4 INT’s were tip balls. All the deep passes he completed were backyard draw a play on your hand throws because of the crazy mismatches he had with Tate and Floyd. He won’t try to make those throws in the NFL. He will move the ball, move in the pocket, and pick people apart. Will it take time for him to learn and adjust to the speed on the NFL, sure, but what QB doesn’t? Quinn hasn’t looked good until this year, and one of those games was against the Lions…I think Rick Mirer could light up the Lions for 375 and 4TD’s.

All I know is I look forward to 2010 and what Kelly will bring to the program.

GO IRISH!