Tomorrow is the big day for the Irish, and every other Skybox team. Good luck to all! Only rumour going around these days is that Dieon Walker is going to not send in his LOI, that he'll go to Penn State instead. No confirmation, it just came out of the blue. The LA Times says Milton Knox will sign with UCLA. And I think everybody knows that we will pickup Kapron Lewis-Moore on signing day. There was some hope that Mike Martin a UM commit might come to ND, but his parents were adamant apparently that he not even visit ND since he was a UM commit. It would have been a good pickup if the staff could have gotten him to visit and commit, but it was a long shot at best. Sad thing (for us) is that he probably would have commited to us back in the summer but his spot was taken by Omar Hunter who later left us high and dry to go to UF. Oh well. Here's a good article by Bill Curry on Charlie Weis and recruiting
That's a good article. I think it's just a matter of semantics, but when Charlie says and then says there is no doubt that he is being a salesman. I've always heard that we are all salesmen, we are always selling ourselves and our ideas! As I said it's a good article and I'm one who believes that Charlie is going to be successful.
You're right Bill, even when I go to practice management meetings they emphasize that as much as we don't like to hear it, we have to be good salesmen to be successful. Now they also say that the best salesmen are so smooth that you don't really realize you are being sold!!
Next year's projected starting TE, Will Yeatman, was just indefinitely suspended from both football and lacrosse for unknown reasons. The good news is that next year we will be able to sign as many as 73 recruits! :lol:
Well the suspension is for a DWI that he recieved on Jan 28th according to a SBT article. I think it is entirely appropriate that he be suspended from all extracurricular activites, remain in school, deal with what ever the judical punishment is and go through appropriate counseling and community service. If he keeps his grades up, completes his punishment, then I see now reason why he shouldn't attend summer school and work with the team in their "voluntary" 7x7 drills that everybody does these days in the summer. He should be reinstated for fall camp. Of course in the past, hopefully not now, this probably would have meant that he would be suspended for the 2008 season as well. But Kyle McAlarney the basketball player who was caught with marijuana in a traffic stop, was dismissed from ND for the spring semester...ie he was not allowed to live on campus or attend class in additon to whatever judical punishment he recieved. But he was readmitted and of course is playing this year. I can't remember if he was readmitted for the summer or if his expulsion continued through the summer. Terry
One rumour is out, Dieon Walker faxed in his LOI. So it looks like this class will finish with 23 guys when Kapron Lewis-Moore faxes in his LOI. I'm very pleased. I think Alabama because of the sheer size of their class will finish #1, Fla supposedly has a couple of last minute decomits that will hurt them in the rankings. Also there are rumours the Omar Hunter has not faxed in his letter and may be jumping ship to Georgia, but I'll bet in the end he's a Gator. I wish we could have landed Knox and Wells, but with Knox his parents were supposedly dead set on him being at UCLA and not so far away at ND. And we were just too late with Wells, Tressel had been recruiting him hard for longer than the Irish and realisitclally given the OSU success esp on defense under Tressell it wasn't really a hard decision probably. Terry
With regard to Terrell Pryor, it's being reported all over that he still can't make up his mind and that he won't be signing with anybody today. I don't understand that myself. There is no more information that he can gather by waiting another day or two, his final 3 are UM, OSU, and PSU. All reasonably close to his home, all in the B10, all big State Schools with lots of social life, all with big alumni groups. He's familar with all the coaching staffs, what more could he need? The other thing is maybe he's manipulating this to have his own national signing on ESPN to get all the attention focused on him directly and not shared with the hubub of National Signing Day.
ND recruiting class <r>Terry,<br/> <br/> Looks like with Lewis-Moore on board the Irish finish with #1 class according to RIVALS. Finally a signing day that ends well for the Irish. <E></E></r>
Great Class Tim, esp under the circumstances. Can you imagine what it might have been like if we had been in the 7-5 range? To recruit this type of class after a 3-9 season (in the 3rd year, you can do it after the 1st year though)! Class size will be smaller next year less than 20 most likely, so it'll be nearly impossible to have another #1 class or even a top 5 the way the rankings are scored, but top 10 would not be out of sight. Irish offered 66 players and had 33 offical visits. I wonder how that compares with the rest of the top 10? Terry
I've heard that next year's recruiting class will be smaller. I'm curious about the 5th year senior potential for the 2009 team, which would come from the 4th year seniors on the 2008 team. Has anyone done an analysis of that?
I have seen a projection of 5th years and I think it's a pretty small bunch. Charlie want's out of the 5th year business. He wants the freshman to play in liimited roles and graduate in their 4 years. He doesn't want them to be starters as freshman but he want to be able to play them. I don't know how that jives with devlopement of the lines as we all know OL's esp benefit from a 5th year. He's encouraging all of them to set their schedules so that after 3 1/2 years they are ready to graduate, that way those who have NFL options can spend the spring doing combine, workouts, etc and not have to worry about classes.
Don't blame him. We now have some juniors leaving early for the pros. 5th year seniors who haven't been injured are those that weren't good enough for the draft after 4 years of ball. Unless you're in a real experience crunch like ND was this year, you'd just as soon go with the four year players.
I would really like to see the redshirt year eliminated myself. At most schools it's a 5 year scholarship anyway. Why not let them play all 5 years if they stay that long. I don't see the reason anymore for not allowing them to play. It would change anything in terms of giving some schools an edge, if a kid isn't ready to play as a freshman he won't play, just like it is now. I would eliminate things like when you have a kid who is ready to play late in the year and you need him having to decide to "take off his redshirt" for one or two games. Terry
nd recruiting <r>Terry,<br/> <br/> You are right about how the recruiting rankings are done. I see now that Alabama is ranked #1 by Rivals but they have a class sized of 32. Miami has about the same while ND is only taking 23. <br/> <br/> We know one thing for sure. Those teams like Miami and Alabama with 32 and 33 man classes....some of them will never see the playing field for those or any other DIV 1 teams(grades). Something you don't worry about with an Irish commit. <E></E></r>
EPI, I wish we could keep all 33 but obviously we can't. We signed 8 DL's and we need each one of them. All of our 5 stars are already academically qualified I think. Anyway we needed DL's and we got them.
Those of you Irish fans who haven't either watched Charlies press conf today or read the transcript need to do so. It's a new Charlie Weis. 1. he's giving up playcalling like Mark Richt did. 2. he's going to Va.Tech to talke to Frank Beamer about Special Teams 3. he's named the much criticised Brian Pollian as the ST coach and he will be the assistant. 4. he talked about Jon Tenuta and how it all came about. 5. he said Darrell Hand and Bartley Webb are through as football players but will remain in school on full scholarship, but won't count againt the 85. 6. he addressed the baseball players on the team and how it will work (Sharpley, Tate, Maust). 7. he talked about trying to be more of a head coach, be more approachable. 8. he also brought up that the AFCA passed a new rule that head coaches could not go on the road during the May evaluation period. Something that Charlie had been doing since he arrived at ND. To tell you the truth I think you might as well call this the Charlie Weis rule, for the most part HC at major programs were not doing this until Charlie arrived and started doing it and I don't think they liked it and thus we have the rule. 9. he said he's going to take the month of May and go around and visit a lot of Notre Dame Alumni Clubs and present the awards they have won. I will call this the Bob Kuchenberg Corollary. If you remember Bob said nobody liked him and that he was aloof with the Alumni. This counters that, Mike Malloy met him at an alumni function and Mike liked him and we all know how hard Malloy is to get along with!! Here's the link to the transcript Charlie Weis Press Conf
Thanks, Terry. I read about it and watched the press conference, but you have provided a nice outline of what happened. By the way, Charlie told me he thought Mike was OK. :lol:
Nice summary TOK. The Tenuta hire puzzles me. I think that Charlie likes his ability and maybe he thinks that Brown is going to be hired away soon. Tenuta could fill in taking over the defense with no problem but CB strikes me as a super recruiter. We'd miss him big time. Charlie and his staff are still a work in progress. Starting from the OC position to HC and having no staff to bring put him a step behind. I still think he'll be just what we need in the long run.
Interesting read, thanks Terry. I am not a Notre Dame fan but I have felt ever since Weis was hired that he will be a good coach for you guys. The rooster is almost all his now and I believe he has recruited very well. So good luck to the new Charlie!!!