Some very disappointing recruiting results for Irish fans today. Those bowl losses have a high price. The two players that I wanted most went somewhere else. LB Chris Donald chose home state Tennessee and LB Lorenzo Edwards chose home state Florida. Both of them had an excellent chance to walk into a starting LB job at Notre Dame this year, but both decided to stay home. Oh well. Edwards looked especially good today. This is good news for incoming frosh LBs Aaron Nagel and Steve Paskorz who will now have an even better opportunity to fill a glaring void... The Irish did pick up another player. Matt Romine 6'5" 275 from Tulsa, Oklahoma becomes the 4th OL in this class. The future of the OL now appears to be outstanding, with HSAAs in depth. The Irish now have 17 commitments to a max of 25... The following ND recruits looked excellent today and I'm glad we have them: Jimmy Clausen, Duval Kamara, Matt Romine, Justin Trattou, and Gary Gray. Trattou was a revelation. He's a very aggressive and fast defensive end. Gray is a true shutdown corner and looked like the best Dback in the game. Kamara presents major coverage problems for small Dbacks and he looked like the best WR in the game. Yes, much better than Arrelious Benn who was a disappointment. Illinois can have that guy. I'm very pleased with Kamara. He looks like a faster version of Mo Stoval and he doesn't have "the drops." Clausen looked super, as always. Clausen and Demetrious Jones are going to have an epic battle for that QB position in the Spring and I wouldn't be surprised to see Charlie play both of them this season... Now for the REALLY bad news... The two best players in this game...by far...were two defensive players going to USC: LB Chris Galippo and DE Everson Griffen. They were dominating and both have a chance to start right away. I've seen Galippo many times, down at Servite HS in Anaheim. He's the #1 player in the nation and he was the only player who went both ways in this all-star game. In fact, he played on all the special teams too and never came off the field. Both of these kids were unblockable for the East teams players and they pitched a shutout until the final minutes. I also liked a QB named Mallett who's going to Michigan. He's a big one and a good one. Sometimes you get lucky... I think Benn is overrated and the Irish dodged a bullet with Joseph Barksdale. That genius, whom Charlie dumped several weeks ago, announced that he's going to "The university of LSU." I wonder how many semesters it will take him to learn how to spell LSU? There was also a WR named Tolliver who dropped everything thrown his way. I think he was going to Texas. A TE named Gonzalez dropped everything too. Based on performances today I would say that the following schools are recruiting very well: Notre Dame, Florida, Tennessee, USC, LSU, Illinois and Michigan... Several players have still not made a decision. RB Robert Hughes is shopping himself around, because he wants to "play right away." I guess waiting one season behind Darius Walker or Michael Hart is just too much to stand... Marvin Austin and Lee Ziemba are still undeclared, if not undecided. Will Blackwell and Joe McKnight are already being counted for LSU, although they haven't announced that yet. Malcolm Smith is the younger brother of USC's Steve Smith, so I wouldn't count on him... You win some, you lose some... ...............JO'Co
Very disappointing to see both Donald and Ben Martin not come to Notre Dame, the rumours were that both had commited to Charlie several weeks ago and changed their minds after the Sugar Bowl fiasco. Lorenzo Edwards supposedly decided on UF because he wants to major in Architecture and the Fla program is only 4 years (of course you don't get a professional degree) while the Notre Dame program is 5 years (you get a professional degree). I thought Clausen looked pretty good as well, it's always hard to really tell much about these kids in an all-star game. The Irish class is very good on the offensive side of the ball, and very spotty on the defensive side of the ball. Right now the top defensive talent in the country don't see the Irish "system" as being a good one and places like Tenn and Fla have had strong defenses for the last 10 years. Even last year when the Irish layed the wood to Tenn it wasn't the Tenn defense that caused that, it was their offense or lack there of. Tolliver the WR from Texas wants no part of UTex, he want's to start as a freshman and Texas has 2 very good Sr's who would be ahead of him so he's looking elsewhere. I don't know if it's just me, but it seems to me that more than ever the "big name" HS stars are demanding that they start as freshman. Any hint of having to wait your time and they want no part of you. Terry
re: Tolliver He might want to try New Mexico State. He's not ready to see the field anywhere else based on what I saw today... re: Edwards This sounds like a Pastor Bobby deal without the pastor. How many years do ya think it will take him to figure out that he's not an architect? Maybe Urban will give him a "degree" like the one that the Cal coaches gave to Chuck Muncie many years ago...
So let me get this straight....a recruit decides that losing in a BCS bowl rules out ND so he goes to another school (Tenn.) who lost in a second tier bowl. Hey, that makes sense. If that's the reason, the recruit may not have passed admissions at ND.
8) Remember these are kids. Donald was the state Player of the Year in Tennessee and he was probably under some big-time pressure to stay home. It happens. Boys who've never been more than a few blocks away from their home want to stay home where their mamma and friends can see them. The only idea they have of being a hero is to be a hero to their friends. They want to show mamma what they can do...
8) So how important is it for a kid to be a hero to his friends and family? Boise State TB Ian Johnson lives in San Dimas, CA, 350 miles from the Fiesta Bowl in Phoenix. So how many free tickets did he provide for family and friends? 56.
Question <r>Terry,<br/> <br/> For my information, what is a <I><s></s>professional degree<e></e></I>??<br/> <br/> All-Gator</r>
Fla has a 4 year program that results in a Bachlors of Design or something like that, if you want to be a certified, licensed architect then you have to get a Masters degree. BTW: UF is not the only school who has that setup, I'm not really sure why schools do it to tell you the truth. There must be a reason, Texas A&M also has that same setup.
A "Professional" degree in Architecture is usually a 5 yr. program. The student graduates with a Bachelor of Architecture. A "non professional" degree is a 4 year program and the student graduates with a BA Bachelor of Arts in Architecture.
JO'Co.... <t>Good post and don't forget the Little kid from NC that I thought looked real good as well for ND. Claussen has a great presence and he can throw the football. <br/> I never had a feeling we would get Donald and Edwards from all the information I have read. Tenn is tough to beat and I'm just happy we landed Smith to get some legit prospects in this secondary we currently have.<br/> You are correct about CG. What a player and I liked the way he came off in his interview. Classy young man. The DE from Arizona is just sick in talent. That situation at USC is beyond belief in terms of quality talent and what they have coming back in coming in.<br/> I have a real good friend that is a big Texas guy and he called late Saturday and was livid over watching Mallett as Texas screwed his recruitment up royally. It was over Brantley which they ended up losing as well. I wish Mallet would have gone to Texas as he is off the charts throwing the football. My Irish better damn well find a way to rush the passer by the time he takes control up there or that could get real ugly. Mallet is something to see.<br/> I hear you on the genius that is going to the U of LSU. Sad part is they have so much talent in Baton R he will just be one of 6-8 they rotate.</t>
Larry I agree with you about Mallett. Big, super strong kid. I was also impressed with Fannuzi the 3rd string QB. I think he's headed to Miami. All three QBs on the West were far superior to the East QBs.