FrontRowSportsReport.com: Sports Blog

Notre Dame Fighting Irish head coach Charlie Weis, the offensive genius who helped the New England Patriots win 3 Super Bowls, is not going to be calling the plays next season. Weis has handed over the offense responsibilities to offensive coordinator Mike Haywood.

Weis felt that he needed to focus more on being the head coach “I think that when you’re play-calling on offense, you might not necessarily be the best head coach. So what I’m trying to do is I’m trying to be a better head coach,” Weis said today. “It means that all the offensive coaches now won’t have to worry about the head coach breathing down their neck all the time, when you have a number of good coaches sometimes they get stymied or stifled a little bit when you have a very domineering presence as head coach that’s also involved in the offense.”

On the defensive side, Weis is going to give defensive coordinator Corwin Brown and assistant head coach for defense Jon Tenuta the ability to run their own show as well.

Weis was given some coaching advice from New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick before the Super Bowl and has reached out to other coaches for advice as well. The Irish are coming off their worst season in a very long time, finishing 3-9.

With national signing day past us it is time to see who did the best job at getting top High School prospects to come to their school. Below are the top 10 schools with the best recruiting classes - the rankings are based on two factors: 1) How many top prospects they signed and 2) how well they did at filling gaps.

Top 10 2008 College Football Recruiting Classes

1. Clemson Tigers - The Tigers surprised a lot of people on signing day, they were able to get a bunch of players who verbally committed to other schools to switch. Top recruits: tight end Dwayne Allen, offensive tackle Antoine McClain and running back Jamie Harper.
2. Alabama Crimson Tide - New coach? So what! The Tide rolled with top wide receiver Julio Jones and offensive tackle Tyler Love.
3. Miami Hurricanes - The hurricanes joined Clemson is getting a ton of defensive talent, including linebackers Arthur Brown, Sean Spence and Ramon Buchanan.
4. Ohio State Buckeyes - The Buckeyes have the best class in the Big Ten, their class is heavy with top defensive talent including linebacker Etienne Sabino.
5. USC Trojans - The Trojans lost a couple prospects who verbally committed but, as usual, have their share of talent like top cornerback T.J. Bryant and defensive end Nick Perry.
6. Florida Gators - Like USC, the Gators lost a couple prospects but also like the Trojans they were able to get big time players like wide receiver T.J. Lawrence and safety Dee Finley.
7. Notre Dame Fighting Irish - The Irish and Charlie Weis are coming off a horrible season and needed a big recruiting class, they got it. The Irish are bringing in top receivers Michael Floyd and Deion Walker as well as top quarterback prospect Dayne Christ.
8. Texas Longhorns - Texas is great at recruiting people who will fit need, not just going after the top player at a position - this recruiting class is no different.
9. LSU Tigers - Rolling with their BCS title the Tigers got top wide receiver Chris Tolliver and tight end Tyler Edwards, plus defensive end Chancey Aghayere.
10. Oklahoma Sooners - The Sooners have a class that could get better once a couple key prospects  decide where they are going, so for Oklahoma signed top prospects Jameel Owens at wide receiver and defensive tackle Stacy McGee.

Today is the day that the top High School prospects can officially sign with their chosen college.  Most of the athletes will stay with the schools that they verbally committed to - however things can change. Here is our first run down of who signed where and who has yet to make a official decision.

• Top quarterback recruit, and the player with the most buzz this year, Terrell Pryor did not commit anywhere and said that he needs more time to think this through.
• Top wide receiver prospect Julio Jones (ESPN #2 overall) signed with Alabama.
• Running back Jamie Harper (ESPN #3 running back) signed with the Clemson Tigers.
• Defensive End Robert Quinn has chosen North Carolina.
• Running back Joe Adams has switched from USC and signed with Arkansas.
• Top Tight End prospect Dwayne Allen switched from Georgia (who he verbally committed to) and signed with Clemson.
• Running back Jermie Calhoun has signed with Oklahoma.
• Shockingly, Al-American wide receiver Martin Bayless is going to play at non-BCS powerhouse Northwestern.
• Notre Dame Fighting Irish have signed 10 ESPN 150 players - including defensive end Ethan Johnson and quarterback Dayne Crist.
• Defensive End Nick Perry has chosen USC over Michigan.

Ok that is it for now, we will post another update from College Football Signing Day later.

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish came off their worst college football season ever. However, that sub-par performance by the Irish apparently didn’t hurt their recruiting efforts. The Irish are ranked #1 for their 2008 college football recruiting class with 11 of the top 100 High School recruits coming to South Bend (pending the soon to come national signing day of course).

Notre Dame’s 2008 recruiting class is headlined by quarterback Dayne Crist from Sherman Oaks, California, wide receiver Michael Floyd from St. Paul, Minnesota, tight end Kyle Rudolph from Cincinnati and linebacker Darius Fleming from Chicago. As usual the top Irish recruits are on the offensive side of the ball, however the Irish are bringing in a good about of defensive help.

Here is the full list of Notre Dame’s 2008 football recruits:

Source: CSTV.com

The US Army All-American Bowl, where all the top High School seniors play,  is going to take place today at 1pm in San Antonio. With that I thought it would be a good idea to look at the complete roster of players, their position ranking and which schools they plan on attending - you can find the list of top recruits at Rivals.com.

Take a quick look at the roster and what stands out? First off there are a great number of players who are committed to the major schools, as usual, but look at how many players are committed to playing at Notre Dame, 15 in total, that is a huge number. In comparison the other top football schools are considerably less - Ohio State (8) and USC (7) being two examples. Of course you cant go on number of commitments alone, you have to look deeper to see where those players are ranked. Of their 15 players, Notre Dame has only one player who is ranked #1 at their position (TE).  Notre Dame needs to get better at not just getting players to commit but getting top players away from schools like Texas, USC and Miami. Having the 9th ranked OLB coming in is great but will that really make the impact Notre Dame needs?

The Patriots, like only a few other teams in professional sports can do, are able to draw a large crowd of viewers based on 2 factors - you either love them or you hate them. Saturday night’s game between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants was no exception. Like the New York Yankees or Notre Dame Fighting Irish Football, the New England Patriots brought out people from all sides of the fence to watch their bid at a perfect regular season. On average 34.5 million viewers watched the game, that is the largest audience for a NFL non-playoff game since the 1995 Thanksgiving Day game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Dallas Cowboys (which drew in 35.7 million).

The NFL, which wanted to capitalize on the importance and interest in the game, allowed the game to be shown on CBS, NBC and local stations - a first for the NFL. Of course the numbers were also helped by the fact that both teams play in huge markets, but it is fairly certain that most football fans - regardless of where they live had some interest in watching this game.