Raking The Muck: Now With Shorter Commercial Breaks!

The biggest news out of the last couple days is that Brian Kelly and Jack Swarbrick went to NBC and finally got some changes made to the rather ridiculous length of commercials that plague Notre Dame home games.  (This may or may not be the fly on the wall recording of the conversation.)  If you've ever attended a  game in South Bend, you have almost certainly at one point or another stared death rays at the bastard in the bright orange gloves, holding up play for what honestly seems like an eternity. 

NBC is decreasing the length of the commercials from "interminable" to "1:45", but increasing their frequency.  Hopefully there is enough scoring they can all occur naturally before kickoffs, because the big momentum killers come when there's a big turnover or three-and-out then the crowd has to stand around for three minutes - which honestly seems like forever when you're there- before the action resumes.  Hopefully there won't be many of the "Score -> Commercial ->Kickoff->Commercial->Start of drive" sequences, which could be the worst thing in football.

Even if the effects on the games themselves are minimal, this is just feeding into the "Brian Kelly and Jack Swarbrick are absurdly detail-oriented" narrative that's been growing the last few months.  I hope this means the football season itself will go as well as the offseason has.

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The Wall Street Journal loves doing offseason stat crunching (in previous years, they were big proponents of the "Total returning offensive line starts equals success" numbers), and they've compiled rankings of starting talent in college football that you'll see pop up on Irish messageboards from time to time.  The results?  Notre Dame is third in the country in starting talent, behind only USC and Florida, and with a decent lead on Texas, Alabama and LSU.  When you add up those stars, it really is telling just how poor the coaching has been the last couple years.  Notre Dame has top three talent and isn't even ranked in the top twenty-five in the preseason, which shows just how important the development and proper deployment of twenty-year-old freak athletes is in this game.

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We'll be gearing up for Purdue in force next week, but as I was doing a little prep work over at Hammer and Rails, I saw a post titled "Myth Debunking Session 1: Notre Dame has an easy schedule."  Finally, I thought to myself, someone else is going to point out that by any metric you use, the Irish strength of schedule is somewhere between tough and well above average.  But there was a swerve, as this post was about Irish fans predicting 10-2 records on the merits of being able to run through an easy schedule.  

Personally, I haven't seen too much of that this year - the prediction of people I talk to is in the 8.5 win range, which is what Vegas thinks as well - but there is a tradition of Irish fans finding ways to dismiss as many opponents on the schedule as possible.  I've really enjoyed reading the old guard's reaction to Utah this preseason, as they try to come to grips with the fact that a non-traditional powerhouse has gone undefeated twice in the last seven years and has a Sugar Bowl win over Alabama, easily better than any Notre Dame win in a decade.  Also, did you know that Tulsa pretty much brings back its entire complement of skill position players?  Plus RICKY DOBBS, people.  The only games I'm counting as victories before the season kicks off are Western Michigan and Army.  After that, the Irish are going to have a fight on their hands week-in and week-out.

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Boston College linebacker Mark Herzlich is attempting to come back from both cancer and a pre-camp broken foot might will most likely not be full strength for the Eagles' opener, but odds are Dayne Crist and company will be dealing with him at full power come October 2^nd.

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Want an idea of how things are going in Michigan camp, as the RichRod Era goes into year three?  Well, this probably isn't the best sign:

Moundros may be the starter at middle linebacker. Right now he's taking a lot of reps. Mark has at least seen the field, which gives him experience (even if it's at a different position). He has intangibles. He needs to learn technique and system, but he was able to do that mostly in the spring. He's made very few mental errors for being new to the position.

So if you're keeping track at home, the potential starting middle linebacker for the Michigan Wolverines has A) Been on a football field before B) Has intangibles and C) Needs to learn technique and system.  He's got plenty of time to learn, however, since it is April and- What's that?  UConn arrives in Ann Arbor in eight days?  Oh, might want to get on that, RichRod.

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Love that Cierre Wood is currently number two on the depth chart behind Armando Allen, as he's got the sort of pedigree that will bring game-breaking speed to the position.  You can take a lot of things from Coach Kelly saying that Chris Watt is pushing Chris Stewart for the starting guard position, but considering all the good stuff that's been mentioned about the big senior, I'll take this as a sign that the coaches are really impressed with Watt, another much ballyhooed recruit. 

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I was initially depressed I wasn't going to be able to attend Notre Dame at Boston College, but considering the slate of games on October 2^nd, I think I'll be able to manage.  ND/BC is where my partisan attention will be focused, but in addition to that there's Texas/Oklahoma, Florida/Alabama, Penn State/Iowa, Wisconsin/Michigan State, Miami (FL)/Clemson, Stanford/Oregon and Washington/USC.  Difficult imagining a more perfect fall day.

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And finally, my annual reminder of how good the College Gameday intro used to be: