Jimmy Clausen: Failure to Launch

But most good quarterbacks know when to throw the ball away, how to make reads on the defense, and recognize blitz packages—Clausen failed to really make any headway in those three departments. Sure the O-line was a giant sieve, but Evan Sharpley, who played in eight games, had better stats. And less hype.

Sharpley had a 106.65 quarterback rating, completed 55 percent of his passes, and had a 3-5 pass ratio. With the same offensive line that Clausen did. So now what?

Is it Weis' fault? This writer believes some of the fault lies squarely on the shoulders of the head coach. Weis, the offensive guru, was exposed as one with too much hype, much like his young quarterback.

The reverberations of Spygate and his possible involvement only add fuel to the fire as to how qualified he was to be a head coach. It's easy to look like an offensive genius if you know the defensive play signals in advance, isn't it?

Weis, whether he participated or not, didn't have the benefit of videotapes to help him call the right offensive plays at Notre Dame.

He couldn't adjust his offense to counter the blitzes (Why weren't more rollouts and draw plays used?) and quite possibly jeopardized Clausen's future by starting him when he wasn't healed completely.

But while Clausen was young and inexperienced, so were Tim Tebow and Colt McCoy. They both had better records. The biggest problem for Clausen, however, was escaping pressure from the D.

Amazingly, Clausen's resume had some superlative qualities from scouts that somehow just didn't seem to materialize last season.

His Oaks Christian High School coach is quoted as saying, "I've seen a lot of them and I've coached a lot of them, and I've never seen a finer high school quarterback anywhere.

"He has all the throws. The long ball. The short ball. He can put the steam on. He can take it off. He can move around the pocket. He gets rid of the ball extremely fast. And he's a good leader. If there's a freshman who could ever start at a four-year school like Notre Dame, it would be Jimmy Clausen."

He can move around the pocket?

According to Scout.com, Clausen's "speed would be the only question, though he has good mobility."

The irony is there. Clausen simply didn't move well around the pocket last season and was sacked. A lot. 

Did Clausen's stock get too much press?

While you can blame Notre Dame's porous O-line, it's hard to believe that Oaks Christian High School had a better O-line than one of the most elite football programs in the nation. You also can't help but put some of the blame on the quarterback when it takes him four games to score his first touchdown.

While Weis may have put Clausen in the starting position prematurely, and possibly to quell the inevitable "put in the best quarterback recruit in the nation" chants from boosters, the bottom line is that Clausen had a failure to launch.

He was a complete dud.

And despite glimmers of optimism from the Irish faithful, the O-line returns four starters.

Despite visions of 2008 BCS bowl bids dancing in leprechaun's heads, Clausen showed little sign of having made a lot of progress—except for lack of soreness on his throwing arm—during Spring Game, according to some Irish's fans on Internet message boards.

His over-the-top announcement day arrival at the Hall of Fame now is the fodder for Internet photo satires, and is a solemn reminder to all those recruits who think they are the end-all to college football.

Ryan Perrilloux, Stephen Garcia, and others have all learned their lessons the hard way. High school is a world apart from college.

And Jimmy Clausen is now about to find out if the previous year was just a fluke, or a sign of things to come.

I'm betting on the latter. I'm a realist.

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