Lou Somogyi of Blue and Gold gave you a great rundown on Irish motivation, and how its affected the program to date.

Basically, ever since Lou Holtz left, it seems unmotivated players have taken the “fight” out of the Fighting Irish. There are reasons why Holtz has a statue in South Bend. Lou could straight-up coach football, and he could tug on any player’s heart strings and get them to run through a brick wall. If you can listen to Lou talk, and not feel anything, you don’t have a pulse.

Brian Kelly believes in motivation as well, but not by being the type of speaker that sends chills down your spine.

He believes motivation lies in two things.

1.) Trust in each other.
2.) Being prepared (mentally and physically).

These lead to “intrinsic motivation”.

It sounds good in theory, now, the Irish just have to win to back up his beliefs.

If they don’t, Kelly may have to try plan b.

Trust Fall!

The excitement is reaching fever pitch. Four days until the Irish kick-off against Purdue on Sept. 4th. If you’re a fanatic, you already know who Notre Dame’s back-up long snapper is, but if you have a life, and are just looking to get back into the football swing, you may need a primer.

For you, here are the Blarney’s 5 thoughts, and 5 predictions for ND in 2010:

The Thoughts

(To borrow from Peter King, say to yourself, “I think that-” at the beginning of every paragraph.)

1.) Former 5-star recruit, and 3rd year player Dayne Crist finally gets his chance to shine for the Irish. Crist has linebacker size (he will inevitably draw comparisons to Brady Quinn), can throw the ball with some heat, and is athletic enough to be a threat running. Accuracy, and ability to control the offense are the questions. With Kelly as his mentor (phenomenal track record getting quarterbacks ready to play), I think Dayne can throw for 2500-3000 yards, with 20 touchdowns, and 10 picks. If that is true, things will be looking up for the Irish.

2.) Tommy Rees is the true freshman back-up to Crist, but, who gives a damn? If he has to play more than mop-up duty, it will be a long year for the Irish faithful.

3.) Theo Riddick, T.J. Jones, and Cierre Wood will all be keys if Kelly’s offense is to be its usual 2 minute firework display. BK’s offense is a spread ‘em out, multi-faceted attack, that looks to bring the pain in multiple ways. Defenses will try to slow stars Mike Floyd, and Kyle Rudolph, so these explosive open-field runners will have to make defenses pay. Riddick, and Jones are the pass-catching mates of Floyd, but Wood may be even more important as a running back. The Irish haven’t had a big-play back since Julius Jones, and I no longer have faith in Armando Allen to be that guy.

4.) National analysts will be proven right, Notre Dame still lacks the talent on “D” to be an elite team. Irish followers like to believe that the problem was strictly a mismanagement of talent under the previous regime, but in truth, Bob Diaco probably only has 4 defensive starters that could play for a top 20 defense (Ethan Johnson, Darius Fleming, Manti Te’o, Harrison Smith). That means he can’t field even half of a good defensive unit. That’s like eating an Oreo without the creme, it’s just not good enough.

5.) Whether the Irish start good or bad, don’t read too much into one season. Willingham and Weis started on fire, and it turned out to mean nothing.

The Predictions

1.) Because of Notre Dame’s no-huddle, lightning-quick offensive attack, Paul Longo’s strength and conditioning program will be mentioned at least 752 times during broadcasts.

2.) Manti Te’o is going to knock somebody out. I mean, like a “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan 2×4-to-the-skull knockout. Hardest. ND. Hitter. Ever.

3.) Mike Floyd is going to outshine fellow stud receiver A. J. Green. Most consider the Georgia receiver the nation’s best (it must be because he is turbo-charged with “SEC speed”). What they don’t realize is that the Irish had the nation’s best last year (Tate), and before his injury, Floyd was clearly the #1 option over the golden one. Oh, and that was the “average” Floyd according to Brian Kelly. He’s even better now.

4.) The Irish win in November (thank you, Army). It’s not exactly a “win one for the Gipper” moment, but it’s a start. For two years, the only good thing in November for Irish fans was the turkey and dressing.

5.) The Fighting Irish win 9. Losses to USC, Michigan State, and Utah. Michigan, Pitt, and Stanford give Notre Dame absolutely all they can handle in slim, “luck of the Irish” victories.

Yesterday, I pointed out the two things that should sober up the championship thoughts of even Notre Dame’s most faithful followers:

The best players reside in the South. Period. These players join SEC schools to play their college football (i.e., they stay close to home).

Check any recruiting site, any you will see their rankings of top players are saturated with players that reside in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina, Alabama, etc. Every year, the flagship colleges from these states get these players, and top the recruiting rankings (you can include fellow warm-weather brothers Texas and California). Every year, an SEC school wins the national championship.

So, what happened to the cold-weather power programs (Notre Dame, Ohio State, Michigan, Penn St., etc.)? These schools are still able to garner a top 10 recruiting ranking some years (ND had #2 in 2008, Ohio State and Penn State have very good local talent levels), but for the most part, they are closer to #10 than to #1. The top spots (and more of the top spots) are taken by the southern schools.

If the best produce is grown in the South, and stays in the South, schools like Notre Dame would appear to be screwed.

However, there may be a saving grace. The Irish can recruit nationally better than anybody else. “National”, is what Notre Dame is built upon (and why so many ND fans fear joining a conference and becoming “regionalized”). Lou Holtz knew this to be true, that an Irish head coach can go into any house in America, and grab the attention of a recruit and his family. Notre Dame can, and has, pulled the best of the best from just about every state in the country (California and Florida included). Notre Dame, just by name, can naturally do what every program attempts to do once they reach their peak-cherry pick from all over the country (USC went all the way to New Jersey for Cushing and Jarrett, Florida went to California and New York in this most recent cycle, Bobby Bowden cited recruiting nationally and “forgetting ’bout them boys that brung ya there” as a hindsight reason that FSU started to falter). Advantage, Notre Dame.

Hold on a minute now, there is still a problem. National recruiting just isn’t as easy as it used to be for the Irish. There have always been boys (elite recruits, that is) that grew up loving their home state program (”born to be a Longhorn”), and no outside school really ever had a shot. However, there were also plenty of other recruits that would cross state borders to play for the “Yankees of college football” to get the exposure. Notre Dame took advantage of this. A lot. Now, with the exposure of cable t.v., and the internet, a player can receive attention anywhere, so there is not as much incentive to leave home (don’t forget that scholarship reductions play a role, too). If that wasn’t enough, the spread of information has lead to more regional pride than ever (”We’re better than you, haha!”. School boys in the South grow up wanting to wave an SEC banner along with their school’s banner. Oh, and one more thing, Notre Dame isn’t as “sexy” to 18 year olds across the country because they have been winners in, well, their whole lifetimes.

I’m spinning my wheel’s here a little bit, so let’s just finish this. The two school’s of thought are: 1.) Coach a school that has a great local recruiting base and use that to win it all. 2.) Coach at a school with national appeal, and pick talent from a larger basket to win it all.

Notre Dame must go with the second option. That is how they have won in the past. However, with the changes in the college game, there just isn’t enough proof that they can still live that way.