Posted: Friday, February 18, 2011, 3:07 PM | 20 comments |
 
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  Notre Dame comes to visit Philadelphia for an Oct. 11 date with Temple at Lincoln Financial Field in 2014, assuming the Mayan calendar is wrong.  And the biggest loser that day could be Penn State.

  In the press release announcing the three-game series with Temple, Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly said: “We’re looking forward to bringing the Fighting Irish back to Philadelphia and providing our strong East Coast fan base another opportunity to see its team in person.”

   What he really meant was: “We are ecstatic that we will be able to tell our top-shelf recruits from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland that you can get as many tickets for your family to watch you play.”

   Last month, Notre Dame assistant coach Charley Molnar visited Archbishop Wood High School in Warminster, setting up meetings with top 2012 recruits Colin Thompson, Desmon Peoples, Frank Taylor and Brandon Arcidicano and invited them to Notre Dame’s Junior Day on Feb. 26.

   Notre Dame will be aggressively recruiting prime Penn State real estate. The big prize could be Allentown Central Catholic star quarterback Brendan Nosovitch, who had 602 total yards in the Pennsylvania Class AAA 49-27 win over Wood, running for 182 yards and passing for 420.  He had five TD passes and ran for two more.

   And recruiting will be key for Temple, too, because the key players in the games that will be played in 2013 (tentative) 2014 (definite) and Sept. 26, 2015 (in South Bend) will be new coach Steve Addazio’s first crops. He came late on the scene this year, trying desperately to keep those who had already committed to Temple before coach Al Golden left for Miami.

   Addazio did well, with only one top lineman leaving, but he was so good that he went with Golden to become a Hurricane.

   Not everyone is sure how good a head coach Addazio will be on the collegiate level, and he struggled at times as offensive coordinator at Florida last year (just ask Penn State). But if anyone saw him at the Philadelphia Sports Writers dinner on Jan. 31, they sure know one thing. He can get you pumped up in a hurry. Phillies manager Charlie Manuel was so impressed, he had a hard time following him at the microphone, but sources say he is out of eligibility anyway. Comedian Joe Conklin, who brought the crowd to tears of laughter with  his impressions of Manuel and Allen Iverson, no doubt is working up his Addazio right now.  But Addazio and his crew will have to take it up a few notches because his star players are heading to the NFL Combine this week (Muhammad Wilkerson, Peanut Joseph  and Jaquan Jarrett).

   However, it is Penn State’s recruiting base just got invaded by the crew that somehow talked stud linebacker Ishaq Williams from leaving his Brooklyn home (I wonder how far away he lived from where JoePa grew up) and skip a final visit to State College, instead giving an oral commitment to the Irish. A few days later, he was enrolled in school in South Bend.

  So the stakes just got raised for Penn State. Notre Dame is in the house, Joe Paterno isn’t making house calls and Steve Addazio just got someone he doesn’t even know to do 25 one-armed pushups while listening to Temple’s fight song. (Parts of the preceding sentence were facetious.)

   Maybe Penn State will get its share of players from Archbishop Wood. Maybe Brendan Nosovitch will battle Rob Bolden for the starting QB job in 2013. Maybe Tom Bradley won’t interview for any more head coaching jobs. But one thing seems certain, Brian Kelly may not be a great game coach, but his staff sure can recruit.

  And at Happy Valley, it will déjà vu all over again, all over again.

Posted by John Quinn @ 3:07 PM  Permalink | 20 comments
20
Comments   
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 3:21 PM, 02/18/2011
    Temple is just another patsy on the Notre Dame 2014 schedule. Nothing more, nothing less. Having the game in Philly helps the city financially. By the way, Penn State is not a loser because it will sell out whether Notre Dame or Ohio University is in their building. Notre Dame wants an easy win so they schedule Temple instead of Penn State. I wouldn't be surprised Notre Dame negotiated a better gate receipt payday in Philly than they would of had in Happy Valley. More money and an easy opponent are the only factors drawn from this article.
    RunningTheBases
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 8:49 AM, 02/19/2011
    ND does not play a "patsy" schedule. Try 2012 since 2014 is not complete. Not many schools these days willingly play a schedule like this:
    Sept. 1 Navy (Dublin, Ireland)
    Sept. 8 PURDUE
    Sept. 15 at Michigan State
    Sept. 22 MICHIGAN
    Sept. 29 Open Date
    Oct. 6 MIAMI (Soldier Field, Chicago)
    Oct. 13 STANFORD
    Oct. 20 BYU
    Oct. 27 at Oklahoma
    Nov. 3 PITTSBURGH
    Nov. 10 at Boston College
    Nov. 17 WAKE FOREST
    Nov. 24 at USC
    no_weak_schedule_here
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 2:04 PM, 02/22/2011
    WAAAAAAAAAAAH, PSU sucks and we won't be good until JoePa dies, WAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!
    lasalleguy
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 3:48 PM, 02/18/2011
    "RunningTheBases" seems to be "RunningTheExcuses". Face it...PSU is on the way down. Tom Bradley, a great guy, sees the handwritting on the wall and wants out. Expect Temple to crush PSU at the Linc this upcoming year. (What do you expect from a team that belong to a conference that can't count above TEN?)
    pugrat
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 3:51 PM, 02/18/2011
    Seriously? Another post about trashing PSU. Saints alive, there have to be other ND topics to write about other then to dump on a team you don't even play regularly.
    DrewP
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 4:23 PM, 02/18/2011
    DrewP.......keep on drinking the PSU cool-aide. Hope Jo Pa stays forever, love him a bunch, but the times they are a changing.
    pugrat
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 4:24 PM, 02/18/2011
    PSU whiners ! Now that ND is playing Temple they r a "patsy" ? Take a look at your past sched, see a lot of Temple, Akron etc there... PSU is on the way down, thats all. WAKE UP
    IRISHHAG
  • Comment removed.
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 4:26 PM, 02/18/2011
    How about this for another Notre Dame Football topic. How come this blog covering all things Notre Dame hasn't touched the Elizabeth Seeberg tragedy. Apparently the football player faced no discipline what so ever

    http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-11-21/news/ct-met-notre-dame-story-20101121_1_sexual-attack-campus-police-sexual-assault
    sdotdebow
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 4:28 PM, 02/18/2011
    PSU's been slowly circling the drain. No national recruitment and other teams encroaching and picking off OH, PA, NY, NJ territories. I'm not a PSU "hater" but's it's time for Paterno to move on and get a high profile head-coach in there who can ramp up recruitment and bring some life to the program.
    DennyP
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 4:29 PM, 02/18/2011
    I was reminded of that due to the new story that came out that the ND campus police were too busy with a home football game to deal with another woman who claims that she was sexually assaulted
    sdotdebow
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 4:33 PM, 02/18/2011
    link : http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-notre-dame-20110217,0,4917455.story?page=1
    sdotdebow
  • Comment removed.
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 4:45 PM, 02/18/2011
    hahahaha Notre Dame hasnt been relevant since the early 90's. What a joke.

    rooooooollllllll tide!
    randall0012
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 5:07 PM, 02/18/2011
    Gee -- And here I thought Charlie Weis was going to be "the be all and end all" for ND, resulting in Penn State being losers for sure. How did that work out? Now, it's Temple? (Penn State Forever)
    Calvinesq


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About John Quinn
John Quinn, 57, is sports editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer and is a third generation member of the Subway Alumni.

His grandfather used to listen to the radio and yell out to his son playing on the hardscrabble streets of Corona, Queens: “Bill Shakespeare just threw another touchdown pass!”
His father used to listen to the transistor radio and yell out to his son playing for Stony Brook on Long Island: “Joe Montana just threw another touchdown pass!”
He listens to the radio and yells out to his son watching Phineas and Ferb on a 46-inch HDTV: “Dayne Crist just threw another touchdown pass!” Meanwhile, Jack, 9, will not be a fourth generation member of the Subway Alumni.
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