O.K. for all those who were in a hurry to see CW leave SB I know that many didn't think to much about how it would effect recruiting THIS year. Yeah, I know we have our share of talent on hand but it's the future I'm worried about. I like what I have seen from Kelly in his past coaching experience but we are just now getting to see what he can do on recruiting(which was about the only real stong point for CW). Thus far we have lost a 5* TE which in reality we probably would have lost anyway(kid seems to change his mind everyday). We also lost a DB who was also on the fence for a while to. We picked up a good looking DT who committed without knowing who the new coach would be and Kelly's first offer and commitment was a 3* WR/Safety. Over the past few days we have a couple of players who had ND high on their list but commited elsewhere(DT and OT). Looks like the majority of the current class will stick with ND but we may lose 1 or 2 more there. Hopefully not. Not the way I wanted to start out. We gotta get a couple more OLs and another DT and DE for sure. I don't know about the kid Collinsworth and I hope I'm way wrong but seems to my untrained eye we could get kids like this all day long but are we wasting a scholie here. I'm the one who wanted Kelly so bad so I guess for now I should trust him but on evaluating talent but I don't see it. I mean he's a nice kid but.....whatever. He'll probably turn out to be better than his day now that I've doubted him. Hopefully so. Anyway, Kelly needs to get busy and show me he can do it on the recruiting front. Not much time left.
Well transition classes are typically not that great. He's probably not going to lose anybody else unless it's the Hendrix kid who seems to be a little skittish, some have speculated that he doesn't like Kelly because Kelly offered Luke Massa at QB before he offered him. For most coaches it's their next class that shows you what they can do, that class they have the whole year to develope relationships with the kids and really go through the whole recruiting process. With this class Kelly has no relationsihp with the guys already verbaled, those guys don't know who their position coach will be and the guys that are targeted have year long relationships with our competition and none with us (or at least the new staff) This would have been an excellent class if Charlie had won out after the USC game. Everything was looking good, it would have been top 5, I think he would have held Chris Martin, might have even brought in Henderson and/or Linder. But that's not the way it went and those kids are now going with other teams that they have build relationships. Lou Somogyi has a good recruiting article that I think is a free article. ND recruiting I'm a little bit worried about the staff he will bring in, while as Sid has pointed out Ara's staff was very under qualified by the standards we talk about today, still I'd feel a lot better if he brought in a staff that was heavy on big time assistants from major programs. In the end it won't matter though if they have good chemistry, can coach, and we win on the field. A lot of ND guys laughed at the staff Meyer put together at UF his first year, a lot of old ND guys. Mattison who nobody thought could coach worth a flip, Addazzio who they thought was a lousy coach, and even Mullen who was a GA at ND wasn't highly thought of as a coach by ND fans. Turns out Meyer was right, ND fans wrong. So we'll wait and see how things work out. Terry
The five star was a DE, not a TE and he has been waivering since last summer. Who cares? I don't even know who the DB is who left. And if the Collinsworth kid is just a pimple on his daddy's butt then he is still a good pick up. I do not discount recruiting but if Kelly can coach talent then we will be better next year if he has zero recruits.
I agree, Terry, it's a good article. He makes effective use of the facts and results attributed to the different classes. I have always been reluctant to get worked up over the recruiting process, but I am swayed by Somogyi's convincing analysis that the perceived quality of the recruit via the rating process does make a difference. On the other hand, I agree with George's contention that we need someone who can coach the talent on hand to produce results on the field. I recall how great some of Gerry Faust's recruiting classes were thought to be, but it never translated to wins. Of course, the same has been true for the past 15 years, save for a few decent regular seasons over that span. Somewhere in this morass of quality analysis, coaching effectiveness, and recruit rankings lies the answer to returning ND to college football's elite. I hope it's in the person of Brian Kelly.
I think the big point that Lou made was that coaching is important, but when the team on the other side not only has better raw material but coaching that is as good or better than you then there is a problem. Kelly I believe has proven that he can coach, in the Big East it would be a stretch to say he dominated it with his coaching. But he was 33-6 with 2 Big East Championships. So clearly in that league where he had talent most likely equal to the other top teams, he did extremely well. So against most of the ND schedule he should do extremely well also, I believe we are done losing to Syracuse, Navy, etc. But what about when USC or Michigan comes to town. That's the rub. He'll need his share of those 4* and 5* players to consistently win against those teams.
ND <t>George, <br/> You are correct, it's the DE Martin I was talking about. Unless I miss my guess we won't miss him.</t>
This is just a guess. With all the recruiting information available, he now can identify and approach the 4 and 5 star kids who never would have given Cincy a second glance. If coaching is a stair-step profession, he's proven he can recruit and coach on the steps leading up to ND. Now he'll be doing the same things he's always done but with greater tools at his disposal.
I know nothing....absolutely nothing about Kelly's character and ethics but if those two aspects are clean and strong then this guy will win a national championship at Notre Dame within 5 years in my most humble opinion. He has proven himself at three different levels and has been a huge winner at all three. He wins football games and ND will be no exception. There......now that I have had my "Beano" rant you guys have fun. Oh....I do know with certainty that they absolute hate him in Cinci now so that leaves no choice but to conclude he must be a scumbag..... :wink: :lol: 8) .
I'm just devastated about the loss of Martin. Here we had a chance for another lineman from the same school as Young and Wenger. Well we'll just have to go on.
It it's Martin the DE you are talking about gipper, he's from California and for some reason played high school ball in Colorado (I think Colorado). Wenger and Young are from Florida. They did not go to the same high school.
Sorry Bill meant to say OT Linder. Chris Martin the DE has been probably gone for quite some time. Now Chuck Martin, he's still a possibility.
Yeah, the Gators thought we might get Chris Martin, but Charlie Strong leaving to be the head coach at Louisville seemed to negatively affect that. Seems his mom wanted him home to California and that's where he's going. I don't know much about Linder or the other Martin.
I think this blurb on Beau Allen sort of shows us how important it is to these kids to have a relationship to the coaches and why it's hard for a coach to come in Dec and do very much with regard to recruiting. What Kiffin did at Tenn was really amazing he single handedly resurrected Tenn recruiting last year, in most cases though if the old coach had a good class going then the new guy can probably hold on to that and add a few more.
I saw a posting over on NDN the other day about Ty's last team that went 6-6... That team was made largely up of Bob Davie players who were suppose to be talent deficient. Anyway, there were like 15 starters or regular full time players in the NFL from that 2004 club. I choked on that number.. Sometimes its not about bringing in the talent, it's about what you do with it.
Good interview in the South Bend Trib with Kelly. This thought posed by the writer is what gives me hope for the future. That and with his lower rated recruits he beat Pitt and UConn while Charlie lost. He'd have beaten Navy and Stanford as well I'll bet. Kelly
kELLY <r>Kelly certainly does appear to be a coach who gets the most out of his players that is for sure. <E>8)</E></r>
Coach <r>Looks like ND(Kelly) just hired one hellava DB coach. Nice..<br/> <br/> Grand Valley State's Chuck Martin joining Brian Kelly at Notre Dame as defensive backs coach<br/> <br/> <URL url="http://www.mlive.com/lakers/index.ssf/2009/12/grand_valley_states_chuck_mart_1.html"><LINK_TEXT text="http://www.mlive.com/lakers/index.ssf/2 ... art_1.html">http://www.mlive.com/lakers/index.ssf/2009/12/grand_valley_states_chuck_mart_1.html</LINK_TEXT></URL></r>