Notre Dame May Get Late Recruiting Boost

Notre Dame has been recruiting quite well since the arrival of Charlie Weiss, and their upcoming class may have inched a step closer to adding another top-flight player recently.  LB Brian Smith of Overland Park, KS, had verbally committed to Iowa, but in recent days, it appears that he may have some interest in heading to South Bend to play for the Irish.  Smith’s father, Chris, was a FB for the Irish in the early 1980’s, and it’d be quite a coup to add a sought-after defender of this caliber this late in the game.

If you’d like to see how the Irish’s recruting class performs this fall, all you need to do is log onto StubHub.com and choose from the available Notre Dame football tickets.

What Next for Notre Dame?

Every season, Notre Dame is the most polarizing team in college football.  No matter what’s happening during the season, there are factions of fans who praise the team as the schedule plays out and other groups who denounce them as overrated.  Unfortunately for Irish fans, the way the season ended provided a lot of fodder for those who look forward to tearing the Irish down.

Notre Dame was destroyed in the Sugar Bowl by LSU, 41-14, and the team is losing two of its best players in QB Brady Quinn and WR Jeff Samardzija.  However, not only are these two great players leaving, but the Irish may need to make other changes in order to improve their recent performances against top-echelon teams.

Charlie Weis himself expressed displeasure with recent results, and it’s now commonly known that Notre Dame needs to add speed to its lineup if it hopes to compete with and ultimately defeat teams like Michigan, USC and LSU.  Luckily, Notre Dame has another top-flight recruiting class coming in, but the Irish really need to make a statement in 2007 to show that they truly belong among the nation’s elite college football teams.

If you’d like to see how this plays out live, head over to StubHub.com and choose from the inventory of Notre Dame football tickets today.

Notre Dame Fighting Irish looking for upset in Sugar Bowl

Though critics have already written off the Notre Dame Fighting Irish as the underdogs in the January 3 Sugar Bowl against the LSU Tigers, the Irish are still hoping to turn some heads and turn things their way. Sugar Bowl Tickets remain available through Stubhub.com but time is running out. Notre Dame tickets to the Sugar Bowl cost upwards of $165. Credit must be handed to Charlie Weiss who really turned the Notre Dame program around. This year is the first time the Irish are making a back-to-back Bowl appearance since 1994-95. What the Irish are hoping to do is stop their Bowl losing skid at 8. A win in the Sugar Bowl would give the Irish their first 11-win season since 1993. The Tigers though are a 9 ½ - point favorite to win what will be, in essence, a home game.

Irish TE Carlson Is Back and Ready to Go

Notre Dame TE John Carlson is one of those under-publicized but inherently invaluable players whose presence tends to be felt most when he’s not in the lineup.  Carlson suffered a knee injury in the Irish’s game against Air Force and missed the following games against Army and USC.

A piece published in the South Bend Tribune today was quite insightful in pointing out that Carlson’s absence was a huge blow to Notre Dame’s third-down offense against USC, as the Irish failed to convert on 11 third-down opportunities.  Like with any competitor, it drove Carlson up the wall to have to sit out, but he’s back and ready to go as the Irish make final preparations for the Sugar Bowl game against LSU.

Fans can still grab Sugar Bowl tickets from StubHub.com to see just what a difference Carlson can make.