DE Ronald Talley leaves team

Ronald Talley, who started two games this year at defensive end before being premanently replaced by Chris Frome, has left the team.

There isn't any information on why this is, and I won't even begin to speculate.

However, this is a disturbing trend from Ty Willingham's last full recruiting class.

Here is a list of that class:

Darius Walker, starting tailback
Maurice Crum, starting linebacker
Terrail Lambert, backup cornerback / starting nickel back
Anthony Vernaglia, backup/starting linebacker
Leo Ferrine, backup defensive back
Junior Jabbie, on team, not playing
Darrin Bragg, on team, not playing
Justin Brown, on team, not playing

Abdel Banda, left team
Tregg Duerson, left team
Justin Hoskins, left team
Chauncey Incarnato, left team
John Kadous, left team
Brandon Nicholas, left team
Chris Vaugn, left team
David Wolke, left team
Ronald Talley, left team

Now, as I said before, I'm not going to speculate as to why any individual players have left the team.

But, I would like to point out that of the players that have left the team, nearly all of them would not be starting because of more athletic players that have been recruited by Coach Weis. While I personally think it is a low-class move to abandon the team instead of pushing yourself harder, I think most of the kids that have left from this class simply realized that they had no business being on the Notre Dame football team, as they are not big enough, strong enough, fast enough, or quite simply good enough to cut the mustard at Notre Dame.

That class was the 32nd ranked class in the country by Rivals.com, 30th by Scout.com.

The year after, during the transition from Willingham to Weis, was ranked 40th and 27th, and had only 15 players.

Last year's class had 28 players, and was ranked 8th and 5th.

This year's class is already up to 9 - dead even with USC in terms of talent and numbers.

I guess they are just reading the writing on the wall.