I hope you're all enjoying the new site as much as I am, because the despite the narrower main body, everything is much cleaner and shinier I can't help but love it.  Trei and the guys who are upgrading the entire SBN network to this are doing a great job, and I think you're all really going to appreciate it once we get out of the cold, dark period of the offseason.

One of the best features is that the entire network is now connected, meaning that when I write a story up on Brady Quinn or anyone drops a Fan Post about him (Diaries have been renamed; think of this as "action figure" to "doll," or "Coke Zero" to "Diet," it's just manlier) and tag it as so, you'll see posts on Number 10 from all over SBN, whether that's from a Cleveland fan or a Pittsburgh hater.  Once I get done with finals week, I'm going to go through and retroactively tag a bunch of stuff in an attempt to fully get things connected.

Posting is also so much easier for all of us, as we're on a Blogger interface where bolding, inserting hyperlinks and italicizing is as easy as it would be on Word.  This might not be a big deal for those of you who "understand HTML," but after writing online for over six years, I still struggle with the simplest stuff.

Before I leave you for the afternoon, just an update on a few Notre Dame sports heading into their final stretches.  Both the men's and women's lacrosse teams have made the NCAA tournament, although in slightly different positions.  The ladies will be on the road to take on juggernaut Northwestern (just seems odd to say), while the men will be hosting their first game in the history of the tournament against Colgate on Sunday.  I know what everyone is thinking, and no, I don't know why they aren't playing one-and-done games against arbitrarily assigned opponents in random cities across the south with funny names.  I always like to settle my champions that way, but sometimes you just have to play it out on the field.

So take the time to claim your old accounts (it's really, really easy) and explore all the fun stuff you can do here.  Like this:

Hey Rakes Of Mallow,

Today is the big day. We've switched your community over to the new SB Nation sports blog platform. My name is Trei, and I'm here to help you get adjusted to the new home we've built for you. If you have questions or trouble with the new system, post a comment in this thread and myself or one of the team (lovitt, sixfoot6 or odacrem) will try to point you in the right direction.

Before we begin, I want to let you know we still consider this a beta platform, so don't be surprised if you find a few bugs or if everything isn't exactly right yet. We hope you'll take the time to report any problems you encounter at bugreport@sbnation.com. We'll be continuing to make changes and improving things.

Please take a few minutes to read about what's new below. But if you just can't wait to jump in, here are some quick things to check out:

1. Sign up for your SB Nation network account and claim your old blog accounts
2. Once you're logged in, press your  Z  key in any thread with new comments
3. Explore your dashboard and setup your profile
4. Read the guide to the new FanPost editor
5. Install the FanShot bookmarklet and post videos to Rakes Of Mallow from YouTube or images from Flickr
6. Click the "Rec" button on posts and comments to help other people find the good stuff.
7. Customize display options on your Edit Settings page

What Has Changed

SB Nation Network Accounts - the Big Change

Readers across all of our blogs told us they wanted one account to use on every SB Nation blog. To make this work, we're requiring that everyone create a new SB Nation network account. In most cases you should be able to keep your old username, but a few of you may have to choose something new, since every other community in SB Nation will be going through this same transition. We tried to be as fair as possible in deciding who gets to keep which name, using a formula that takes into account length of membership and frequency of activity.

We want to make it as easy as possible for you to participate on all of our blogs, but we don't want to encourage everyone to start visiting rival team blogs and initiating flame wars. To maintain friendly communities we ask that you explicitly join each blog in order to participate. It's a two-click process, but it does means accepting each blog's community guidelines. Just as you join each blog individually, you can be banned on each blog individually.

You can claim old accounts from multiple SB Nation blogs, and your new username will be retroactively attached to all your old comments and diaries. So now you'll be able to access all your writings from your single profile page... like magic.

To get started, click here to claim your old blog accounts and create a new SB Nation network account.

FanPosts (the Section Formerly Known as Diaries)

We changed their name. Why? Because we took this major upgrade as an opportunity to leave behind some vocabulary that never made much sense for a sports blog. SB Nation is the network of, by and for fans, and these are the blog posts we make. So we call them FanPosts. When you're at a bar telling someone to check out your online sports opinions, you don't have to suggest they read your diary.

FanPosts are displayed differently on the homepage - we include your avatar to give more credit for the time you spend writing great posts. The new post editor has a WYSIWYG view that provides easy formatting. It also auto-saves drafts so you don't have to worry about losing your work when you compose a post within the web browser. And you can now associate teams, players and games with your posts: these tools promote your FanPosts on our new team, player and game pages - across the entire network.

The new system does not work like the old diary editor. For example, in HTML mode the new editor doesn't auto-create a new paragraph from two line breaks. But it does offer a whole array of new features. Look for the blinking help button on the right side of the FanPost editor for quick tips, and take a look at our full guide to writing FanPosts on the new platform.

IMPORTANT - if you write your posts in Microsoft Word or some other off-line editor, you will get the most reliable behavior if you cut & paste your post into the HTML view of the FanPost editor. And if you do that, remember to wrap <p></p> tags around each paragraph so your text doesn't run together.

Visual Redesign

This one is probably the most obvious change of all. Like other major websites working to improve readability for their audience, we've adopted a fixed-width layout optimized for the 1024 x 768 resolution used by the majority of Rakes Of Mallow and SB Nation network users. Use the switcher below the user menu if you prefer the wider layout designed for 1280 monitors. We've introduced a top navigation bar with quick links into old and new sections of the site. We also polished a few edges, made some things larger, others smaller and moved a few boxes here and there. More changes and adjustments to come.

Search

We've completely replaced the old search engine with a new one. We're excited to make it easier to find old posts and comments, but we've only taken our first pass on the tools we're offering. We're focused on making search even better than what you had before, so please know that we're aware search is missing key features and we're working on it.

What's New

Schedule, Scores, Stats and Roster

Rakes Of Mallow now has all the basic information about the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and hundreds of other teams. During games you'll see a regularly updated line score, and as the season progresses we'll track team stat totals and leaders. This is just our first step, so look for us to publish more detailed and archival stats in the future. The best part about all this sports data is that we've integrated it directly into the blog so. We now have special pages that aggregate all blog posts written about games, players and teams.

Recommending FanPosts

Some writing deserves more attention and more conversation. If you want to bump a FanPost up to the top and keep it there for awhile, just click the 'Rec' link under the body of the post. When a FanPost receives enough recommendations it will make the recommended list.

Auto-refreshing Comments

You no longer need to refresh the page to see new comments. If you're logged in, new comments will automatically appear on the page every few seconds. When you post a comment, the page will not refresh either. If you want to quickly cycle through all the new comments, you can press the C key on your keyboard. Unmark a new comment after you've read it with the X key. And use the Z key if you want to umark comments as you're cycling through them.

As you use these shortcuts to cycle through comments, press the R key to reply to the current comment. All these helpful keyboard shortcuts are listed at the top of each comments section for reference.

Recommending Comments

Now you can reward those folks who take the time to look up stats and make smart arguments in the comments. Next to each comment there is an 'actions' link that you can click to find the recommend and flag options.

Flagging Comments

To help the moderators on a site, we've built-in tools that let you flag comments that are spam, trolling or just plain inappropriate. Only moderators can see those flags.

FanShots

Many members of the community just want to post that one link, video, photo or quote, but don't need a full FanPost. We've got you covered: FanShots let you share YouTube videos, Flickr or PhotoBucket photos, quotes from articles, portions of chat transcripts, top 5 lists and simple links. If it's a video or image we'll put a thumbnail on the homepage when you post it.

For those of you who are experienced internet hunter-gatherers of Notre Dame Fighting Irish material, install the bookmarklet onto the links bar of your browser and share FanShots with the community from wherever on the web you find that killer quote or photo.

Archives

It's much easier to find that post about a certain deadline trade or prospect retro feature. You can browse by year and month.

Avatars

Upload an image so folks can see your custom avatar on your profile, your FanPosts, and all your comments.

Network Profiles

Now that we have unified SB Nation network accounts, your profile will be your central hub for all of your activity on any blogs where you are a member.

Network bar

The top bar stays with you on all SB Nation blogs. It's a quick way to login and logout. When you're logged in, you'll see your avatar and screen name which links to your profile. The icon to the right leads to your Dashboard area where you can edit your settings, profile, account details and any FanPosts or FanShots you've published. As we add more blogs to the new SB Nation network, the My Blogs menu will be a handy way to navigate between the blogs you've joined.

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There are plenty more small changes and additions we've made, so please take a careful look around and explore this new system. We appreciate your patience and hope you'll help us improve the new platform for this and all the other SB Nation blogs.

And in case you missed it, you'll want to start by claiming your old blog accounts and creating a new SB Nation network account.

(I want to get to Buzz Bissinger's rancid comments about blogging last night on HBO when I can really fully form my thoughts - short hand: he's a douchebag - but for now, some easier to digest ESPN stuff.)

There's a piece on ESPN today about Phil Savage's handling of his quarterback situation, which now involves a number one draft pick who happens to be a hometown hero and a Pro Bowler who they just signed to an extension.  

I think one of the dumber things the Browns did was in the final game of 2007 when they chose not to take their new toy - Brady Quinn - out for a test drive.  They were playing in a game that meant absolutely nothing, as their playoff hopes were predicated on the results of the night's Titans/Colts game and nothing else.  Instead of splitting time, or giving Quinn at least a few series to see how he did in the face of a NFL defense (as real as the 49ers defense was last season), Romeo Crennel thought it somehow was a good idea to give him a few snaps when Anderson hurt himself and then place him on the bench.  Not that you could glean a whole lot about the sitaution from one game or one half, but it would certainly be better than the snaps Quinn had gotten in the preseason months earler.  

Anyway, a few interesting parts from the piece, including an excellent, "We just crossed our fingers and hoped it worked out" line from San Diego GM A.J. Smith.

Pointing out how rough their logic is will not make fans stop buying Number 10 jerseys and chanting "Brady."

Chargers fans must be thrilled to see Smith's pro-active approach to general managing.

So next time you see Brady on a float in a Subway commercial or running on a treadmill on the barren plains of some hell dimension, give him a break for doing the endorsements: He needs to get that cash.

With the 86th pick of the draft, the Baltimore Ravens selected Notre Dame safety and punt returner Tom Zbikowski.  A lot of people have questions about Zibby's ability to cover, but as we discussed yesterday while watching the draft, a lot of people would have said that about Chinedum Ndukwe prior to his first year with the Bengals, and he excelled.  There's the potential that the Notre Dame system was just that bad that members of the secondary were just constantly placed out of position, and that with some proper coaching, Zibby will be a potent weapon for the perennially bad-ass Ravens defense.

At the very worst, the post-Brian Billick, Joe Flacco Era will have a capable punt returner to trot out there.

While I was optimistic they maybe could creep into the end of the first round, the two most heralded Irish prospects going into this draft were off the board by midway into the second round. If you could survive all the inane yammering from the experts, a speedy but rather anti-climatic first day cruised right by.

John Carlson was taken at 38, the seventh pick in the second, by the Seattle Seahawks.  Just because he's almost unanimously regarded as a really nice, upstanding guy, he's immediately the opposite of Seattle's last high draft pick of a tight end, Jerramy Stevens, who might be one of the worst people who have ever played in the league.  Carlson joins a fellow ex-Irish player as Julius Jones signed with Seattle this winter.  The former Mackey Award finalist should become a pretty big-time target in the Matt Hasselbeck-led Seahawk offense, and while the folks over at Field Gulls are worried they may have reached for him, they're pretty pleased, referring to him as "a pick with no downside."  As far as second round picks go in the NFL draft, getting a tight end with decent blocking ability, good athleticism, good hands and a good head on his shoulders that played in a NFL-style offense the last two years of his college career is probably as good as you can get if that position is a need for you.

Trevor Laws went only nine picks later, rejoining teammate Victor Abiamiri on the Philadelphia Eagles.  I love how Mel Kiper called Laws "arguably the best player on Notre Dame last year" when absolutely no one - not an avid Irish fan, not someone who watch only one Notre Dame game - would even begin to argue with you over the merits of big 98.  The Eagles representatives on SBNation are pretty pleased with the pick, as I think a lot of teams would be.  I think how well former trench-mate Derek Landri has fit in the big leagues bodes well for Laws, as they both had the same type of unstoppable motor - with bonus kick-blocking ability - in their time in South Bend.  I think the Seahawks and Eagles will be very pleased with their second round investments.

I've begun to get a little annoyed with football recruiting.  Partially because it has become a lot of work to follow all the guys, especially since it seems National LOI day was just yesterday.  It's also become a little sobering to remember that I'll be close to 25 years old before these guys ever step foot on the playing field.  That's just weird.  Good news is that my annoyance sure hasn't stopped Charlie Weis and the rest of the coaching staff from gaining some commits this off-season.  I was a bit scared at the recruiting for this year, mostly because of our success last year.  The last memory kids have of Notre Dame is a 3-9 football season.  That didn't effect last year's class since most of the players were already on board, but this year might prove differently.  Fortunately, Notre Dame has received commitments from 4 players.  Here's some thoughts on them:

Jake Golic, TE, Conn. - A name you might be familiar with, Jake is the brother of last year's commit Mike Jr. and is the son of former Irish star Mike Golic.  He was, like his brother, Notre Dame's first commit of the 2009 class and stars at tight end.  While he's a bit lanky (6-4, 225), he's got a great frame to build on.  He's got very good speed and that is probably what attracted Coach Weis.  Connecticut is not a football powerhouse, but he put up good numbers and had a number of other teams interested in him as well.  His commitment was expected if he was offered and when Coach Weis called him to offer a scholarship, Golic jumped on board immediately.  Notre Dame might still go after remaining TE's.

Cierre Wood, RB, Calif. - Get excited.  The nations #3 player and #1 running back is coming to South Bend.  We just have to wait a few years.  Only a week after narrowing it down to ND and UCLA, Wood visited South Bend for the Blue and Gold game and committed to the staff over the weekend.  At 6-0, 190 lbs., Wood is a shifty, smooth, and quick running back.  He's not in the mold of a Robert Hughes, but he has more size and frame than a guy like Armando Allen.  Some say that his competition is a bit suspect, but he's ranked so high mostly because of his efforts in the summer camps.  One thing that he should help with right away is the return game.  On film, he looks phenomenal.  This is a great, and even a bit surprising, pick-up for the Irish so early in the game.  As we've seen with a couple of guys over the past few years, the Irish will need to continue to recruit him just as hard as if he wasn't committed.  But don't let you get you down, Wood may be one of the best athletes we've had in a long time.

Tyler Stockton, DT, NJ - An early offer, Stockton is an important player at an important position.  He might not be the best at his position, but he had a solid offer sheet and has good size (6-1, 295) and strength (just check one of his photos).  He fits in perfectly as a nose guard in the 3-4 since his high school ran the same defense last year.  An All-State Prep player in his junior year, Tyler is a great pickup early in the game.  As an added bonus, his high school teammate, Anthony LaLota, was offered this past weekend and has Notre Dame high on his list.  

Theo Riddick, RB, NJ - Only 3 days after Cierre Wood joined the fold, New Jersey running back Theo Riddick made it official when he announced for Notre Dame on Wednesday.  He, along with Wood, is one of the two running backs to commit to Notre Dame this recruiting season.  An offer sheet that included Penn State, Virginia and BC, Riddick is a good athlete at the running back position and is rated as a 4-star player on Rivals.com.  He reminds me a bit of former Irish running back Munir Prince but with better running back skills.  He's extremely quick and shifty and is just a workhorse at running back.  This is a guy that can do a lot for Notre Dame in the next few years.  The Irish are likely done at the RB position until next year.

Overall, a very nice start for the Irish.  May evaluation period is coming up and you should expect a few more offers over the next month or so.  The summer is filled with unofficial visits and is a frequent time for players to commit.  I think the start of the season is huge for Notre Dame.  If we struggle, you can kiss some of the big-time players we are after goodbye.  If we surprise some people, watch out: it could be another top 10 class.

From Stewart Mandel:

So there you go, folks: In the occasion that Notre Dame is bowl eligible but somehow not selected by anybody else, we'll always have St. Petersburg, although the approval of these new, very necessary games is still pending.

Due to the NFL's plan to alienate everyone who enjoyed rolling out of bed hungover at noon on Saturday to see the first pick of the draft, they've bumped it back until 3:00 in the afternoon.  To counter that unneeded delay (they want the first round to reach primetime and get that cash), they are mercifully cutting the amount of allotted time in the first round down to ten minutes.  The previously allowed fifteen minutes per pick was absurd, and while I understand teams need that time to try and maneuver their way up and down, it was one of the most dragged out affairs in sports.

Last year we saw some Notre Dame-related drama as Brady Quinn tumbled out of his presumed top ten position into the twenties thanks to the Worst Draft Pick Ever Of Any Kind by the Miami Dolphins, who took Ted Ginn, Jr., a punt returner and sometimes wide receiver, because Cam Cameron loves the Ginn family.  (That was actually his argument.  If Brady ends up being a top-notch NFL quarterback - which could go either way, who knows at this point - that really might be the actual Worst Draft Pick Ever of Any Kind.)  Quinn handled himself with class in an extremely tough situation, but made the mistake of holding out into training camp, which put him in the position behind Derek Anderson that he remains in today.

This year's draft doesn't have any sure-fire first round picks coming from the Irish.  I know what you're thinking: After a 3-9 season, how aren't our upperclassmen all NFL prospects?  But apparently NFL teams just don't "get it," so we'll be looking forward to the late first round and early second round to hear the names called of the following:

Trevor Laws, DT The heart and soul of the team last year, and a guy that would have made a lot of award lists if not for the fact the team was so abysmally awful everyone stopped watching after the Michigan game.  He would usually take on two or three blockers and still end up chasing the quarterback around, and his tackle total was absolutely absurd for a defensive lineman.  I've mostly seen him going in the second round, but our SBN Mock Draft had the Jacksonville Jaguars snagging him with the 26th overall pick.  If Laws ended up in Jacksonville, reunited with Derek Landri, that would provide a jersey combo for every pair of Irish fans. For more on Laws, check out his great site.

John Carlson, TE I don't think I've seen Carlson falling out of the second round in any of the drafts, but he hasn't been creeping into the first round in many either thanks to a bad 40-time.  After all, nothing is more important to how you'll transition to the professional level than how fast you run in shorts while a bunch of guys stand around with stopwatches.  I've read in a few places (Monday's Chicago Tribune for one) that Carlson is a great blocker, but that's simply not true.  He's a capable blocker, but in no way is he dominant in the running game.  Instead, you're getting a guy capable of really spectacular catches (see his 2006 highlight reel for proof) who would have won the Mackey Award that season if not for a late season injury.  If you're in need of a tight end, you could do far worse than adding Carlson to the ranks.  SBN's own mock draft has Carlson going 55th to the Seahawks.

Tom Zbikowski, S Really interesting proposition for a team when taking Zibby: he could be a really, really good special teams player in the NFL, but I'm not sure how he would translate to actually playing safety.  The success of Chinedum Ndukwe after leaving the Notre Dame secondary's "system" should give teams some hope, but the fact of the matter is that Zibby was not really a great safety.  He did a lot of other things well - return punts, box - but was woefully out of position so many times on deep passes with a tendency to go for the spectacular tackle instead of just wrapping up on run support.  I've seen him floating around in the third or fourth round, but I think it's somewhat of a gamble for NFL teams, despite the massive rewards awaiting the franchise that can craft this killer athlete into the player he could potentially be.

Joe Brockington, LB Did you just do a double take?  I don't think many people thought Brockington would have his name called by a NFL team this weekend, but in Todd McShay's latest full mock draft at ESPN, there he is at 235 going in the waning moments of the 7th round.  

You’ll notice we didn’t have a lot of (any) coverage of spring practices this year, including limited mention of Saturday’s Blue-Gold game.  The main reason for this is that there was a lot of other stuff going on (March Madness, Frozen Four, weather getting nicer) and a ton of other sites covering the twenty minutes of practice that were open each day.  If you’d like me to try and prognosticate on the upcoming season due to how well someone there said Duval Kamara was stretching, I can try, but it would be a waste of everyone’s time.  As Pat at BGS said, there were just an obscene amount of outlets covering the goings-on that there was a very limited amount of what we could have added to the conversation.

As far as Saturday’s game went, spring scrimmages are a fun return to football but somewhat useless in evaluating the team.  It is a zero-sum game, as nearly every positive you see from one side of the ball comes at the expense of somebody else on the team.  Short of a spectacular catch or pick, or a perfect, indefensible throw, there isn’t much that can just be chalked up to a great play by one side of the ball without knocking someone else.  Yes, I’m really glad Robert Hughes and Armando Allen had good games, but I’m also sort of concerned that an offensive line that was as inept as any unit could be last season was opening up any kinds of holes.  Are talent and size (Chris Stewart and Sam Young are monsters) finally coming together, or is our defensive line just that small?  I’d like to think it’s the former, but until San Diego State and Michigan come to town, we won’t really know.

It’s great to see that the secondary pieces recruited by Weis over the last few years are finally coming together, as Kyle McCarthy, Darrin Walls, Raeshon McNeil and Gary Gray should all see a lot of time this autumn.  I don’t think Terrail Lambert’s "experience" should warrant him a lock at a starting spot going into fall camp, because unless Weis wants to continue rewarding him for the 2006 Michigan State game, there was nothing during the 2007 season that makes me think we’re that much better off with him instead of Gray or McNeil.  Speaking of secondary pieces, special teams captain and starting safety David Bruton had a great quote about the Irish’s new defensive style and the man that brought it to them.

If Tenuta’s system is to work, we’ll need corners that can function on islands (Walls, McNeil and Gray are hopefully those players) and multi-faceted players who can cover, offer support in the running game and get to the quarterback (seems like the perfect role for Blue-Gold Defensive MVP and apache lobo rover linesafety Harrison Smith, for starters).  Tenuta’s "charm" seems to have had a big-time effect on the team, as one of the prevailing themes of the day from all attendees was how much more physical and inspired the team seemed.  Even ESPN picked that up:        

After going through a season where most players responded with apathy to the mounting list of horrible things going wrong, seeing some fire in everyone is a most welcome change.  Weis was making the transition before Tenuta got there, but I imagine having someone who might be clinically insane with their level of intensity around certainly helps in the transition.

On offense, I think there’s the potential for a very good, deep receiving corps with offensive captain David Grimes, Duval Kamara, Golden Tate and Michael Floyd, along with Mike Ragone and Kyle Rudolph at tight end.  It’s a shame Floyd and Rudolph couldn’t enroll early, as I think the extra few months of practice could have made a world of difference, but from all accounts, they’ll be quite capable of contributing as freshmen anyway.  For a team that went from far too many tight ends to barely eking back in that position, quick development by Rudolph would be another welcome surprise.  

As far as Jimmy Clausen goes, I think every single thing I’ve read about Saturday’s game contains the line "That’s a throw he couldn’t make last year."  Whether this is or true or not, I have no idea, but it only makes sense that a healthy, bigger, more seasoned quarterback would be more accurate along with some more zip.  I’d like to know if he’s adjusted away from the "Running out of bounds behind the line of scrimmage with the ball still in his hands instead of just throwing it away" habit, but the ability to perfectly place fade and fly routes is also of serious interest to me.  The team will have to cut down on drops – a sometimes overlooked problem in last year’s cavalcade of woe and despair – but there’s some hope for the 2008 offense, if only because it’s almost statistically impossible for things to get any worse.

For the best recap of the game I’ve read, check out ND alum John Walters over at NBC Sports and look here for the final box score.  If you weren’t excited for Irish football going into the weekend, the performances in the Blue-Gold game as well as commitments of mega-back Cierre Woods and defensive tackle Tyler Stockton should have your blood pumping.  Pick up the new Shirt and start researching the Aztecs, as we’re a scant four and a half months away from kickoff.

With the spring game tomorrow, Mike Golic was at the bookstore to reveal this:

I like it, although I wish it was green.  Thoughts?