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.