When it comes to recruiting, nothing is certain until it happens. That uncertainty paid off for Notre Dame as the Irish benefited from an 11th hour change of heart by Hialeah, Fla., running back Armando Allen. The 5-foot-9, 181-pound speedster was all but locked up to Florida before Notre Dame reconsidered its stance on early enrollment. On Friday Allen made a verbal commitment to the Irish. “Having that option decided it,” Allen said. “Florida and Duke were recruiting me really hard, but deep down it was Notre Dame.” Initially, Notre Dame declined Allen’s request for early enrollment. It wasn’t a question of getting into Notre Dame or not, but Allen said the admissions department preferred he take a higher-level math class before enrolling at the University. “I told them my situation, that I couldn’t just get into the math class in the middle of the semester because I’d be lost,” he said. “They understood and they ran it to the office and got it approved. They told me late last week.” Though early enrollment sealed the deal, there were plenty of other reasons for Allen’s decision to attend Notre Dame. “It’s a great opportunity,” he said. “There’s a lot of great players on the team and I think it’s a great environment. I can see myself there for the next four years.” Allen suffered an ankle and leg injury that prevented him from playing during his senior season at Miami Lakes. His local rehab ends on Dec. 12 and he’ll work with the Irish medical staff once he arrives on campus. Allen said he’s confident he’ll be ready for spring practice. “By the time spring rolls around I think I’ll be full-go,” he said. “It’s getting closer to where I need it to be. When I step on the field I don’t want to have to worry about it.”
Wow, I thought for sure he would go to Fla. I guess he finally looked at how many caries a RB gets at UF. Tremendous pickup for the Irish, this kid has a lot of speed. Not to mention it's always nice to go into Fla and take away one of their top recruits. I looked at the Swamp Gas recruiting and they are all pretty stunned that they lost on this kid.
allen <r>This is great news for the Irish and it really tells the difference beteween the past 2 coaches recruiting styles and CW. Charlie went the extra mile and got the schools' admission depart. to take a common sense approach on this kid and get him in early. Results are that today he is headed for SB instead of being a "gator". CW stayed with this kid to the end and got him. #2 all-purpose back in the nation and with 4.3 speed. Very nice Charlie, very nice!!! <E></E></r>
Hopefully Charlie has a few more surprises for us now that the season is over and he's out beating the bushes. Jahvid Best is supposedly comming for the banquet this weekend, that kid has spectacular speed and moves, although it's snowing pretty heavy in the midwest so there is a possiblity that OHare will close and he can't make it. Also they are still working on Robert Hughes the kid from Illinois. I saw that Charlie offered Taylor Dever the OL from California as well, and he's said that he's grown up a Notre Dame fan. Hopefully we can start reeling in the OL's to block for these RB's!! The only area I really worry about still is DL recruiting, for some reason the kids who play DL seem to be the ones with the worst grades! Terry
Well..... <t>Of course this is good news if it comes off as the kid will enroll in January. <br/> <br/> Coaching change will hurt Miami as looks like it already has as it hurt Mich St yesterday losing their QB recruit to Stoops at OU.<br/> <br/> I hope the news is true the Irish will also land the true free safety Harrison Smith from Tenn. We need defensive players.................</t>
Good pickup for Notre Dame. Gator fans had him as an early enrollment Gator until everything changed yesterday. It's obvious he wants to go to Notre Dame and I wish him well. Congratulations.
Bill I am hopefull that we can also get Lorenzo Edwards to leave the Sunshine State for South Bend!! Terry
Terry, and as I am sure you already know we are hopeful that you don't! I do hear that Allen and Edwards are friends which might help your cause. Apparently what got Allen to go to Notre Dame is that admissions decided he could enroll for the spring semester after all. Seems Charlie might have some pull. :0 I think that is the only reason we had an advantage anyway, he wants to early enroll. That seems to me the new trend and we have a lot of early entrees declared to us, not quite a half, but not far off.
Early Entry is rising all over college football. In the past we lost kids who wanted to be early entries, now we can take them. You are correct that Charlie went to bat for the kid. He has the course work/grades/etc to qualify for early entry at pretty much any school. The ND issue was that they wanted him to take another Math course and that wasn't possible unless he stayed another semester in high school which he didn't want to do. Charlie got the ND admissions people to waive that and it he jumped on the opportunity. It does seem odd to me that early entry is so important to these kids. At Texas none of the early entry kids really contributed much, even Jevan Snead wasn't really helped by EE since he didn't win the job from Colt McCoy. At Notre Dame none of our EE contributed very much, we had 4 and 3 of them did get to play but their contribution was minor. I guess they are all eager to see if they can start as freshman, have great years and get setup to go to the NFL after their Jr. year. Can't wait to get the money...not that I blame them. But that last semester of HS can be fun, for most the pressure is off and you have the Prom and all that Sr. stuff. It was fun being the cock of the walk if you know what I mean. BTW rumours are rampant that Snead is transfering and that Brantley is wavering on his commit to the Longhorns. Of course Fla is the school, although Stoops has worked on him as well that is probably over now that Stoops got another Elite 11 QB who had verbaled to Mich State to change his commitment. Spurrier is also still working on him.
I think the early entry helps even if they don't play that much the next season as it's one more spring under the belt to lean the system. In the Gators case it did help with Tim Tebow if no one else.