Notre Dame offered the 6-foot-5, 283-pound Nuss a scholarship soon after his summer camp visit to South Bend, which the Stone Bridge High School standout accepted less than a month later during a return visit to the Irish program this week, according to coach Mickey Thompson. "He did commit to Notre Dame," Thompson said. "I had a feeling he was going to do it when he went back. He just wanted to take one last look instead of doing it over the phone." In Nuss the Irish have picked up their first commitment along the offensive line, although the Notre Dame staff has at least floated the idea of working the Virginia prospect at defensive tackle, arguably the biggest need position in the 2007 recruiting class. Thompson said most programs recruited Nuss as either an offensive tackle or offensive guard. "Probably half of them were talking about moving him inside to guard while the other half liked him outside at tackle," Thompson said. "He's got great feet. Especially if he's in a system that throws the ball a lot, I'd think you'd want the guys with the best feet outside pass blocking." While Notre Dame wasn't the first program to offer Nuss, Thompson said the Irish might have been the most diligent. Nuss held early offers from Boston College, Georgia, North Carolina State, Maryland, Purdue, Virginia, Virginia Tech and West Virginia among others. Instead of rushing to join that group, Notre Dame asked Nuss to camp at Notre Dame in order to set up a first-person workout, which also gave the Irish time to make sure everything was in order with admissions. "Honestly, it's tough because kids look at it as if they want me and really need me, they think it's about the teams that are the first ones to offer," Thompson said. "I kept telling him that people have different time tables. A lot of people jumped on him early but from Day One he wanted to hear from Notre Dame. "I like the process Notre Dame went through to make sure everything was correct before offering. I wish they would all be like that. Everybody tries to beat each other with these offers." Nuss didn't start playing organized football until his freshman year at Stone Bridge, working under the radar on the program's freshman squad. The next season he moved up to varsity as a starter, giving Thompson the first clue that he had a future college football player on his hands. Nuss finally blossomed last season working at offensive tackle and defensive tackle, although Thompson said there's still plenty of work to do for his standout. "He's growing into his body and we're just now starting to see where he can go," Thompson said. "It's about physical maturity and a mentality. He's the star now. Now that he's the center of attention you start to see his game change a little bit because he feels like more of a leader. That's all kind of new to him, and talking to him he feels the pressure of us doing well next year and that this is his team and he's got to lead it."
From everything I read Charlie is going to have another nice OL class this year. I think the most impressive thing is that we didn't offer till recently but once we did we jumped to the front of the class. Terry