re: Niklas This is the one that I wanted. I never thought that he would go to USC. Follow my reasoning here... Servite, like Bishop Amat and Mater Dei is a direct pipeline into USC. He could have given a verbal to USC right off the bat, (he was one of the most sought-after players in the nation,) but he gave a verbal to Stanford instead. This is no minor thing. Stanford is generally hated at Servite (and Bishop Amat and Mater Dei) and Jim Harbaugh was regarded as the devil himself. A Servite kid who gave a verbal to Harbaugh definitely did NOT want to go to USC! I'm sure he breathed a big sigh of relief when Notre Dame called after Harbaugh left for the NFL... Niklas is a huge (6'6"), fast and skillful player. Some schools recruited him as a DE; others as a TE; while still others wanted him as a OL. He can play all three equally well. The Irish don't have any depth problems at the end of their lines with Niklas around and I expect him to become a starter eventually. He's one of the best prospects in this state... re: Mater Dei uniforms Bright scarlet red uniforms with stripes everywhere. The old saying at MD is "stripe it up!" The helmets have three stripes that join together, both front and back. That's not the Michigan style, which UM copied from Princeton. The Mater Dei Monarchs wear the Mater Dei Monarch Butterfly style helmet...and yes I know this all sounds like BS, but don't blame me. ALL of my high school coaches came from Mater Dei and that's the explanation that they gave to me... Niklas will really help...
ND <r>JO'Co,<br/> <QUOTE><s> </e></QUOTE> ....and he will look great it Blue and Gold!<br/> <br/> P.S. I'm pretty sure ND took a running back from Mater Dei back in the 90's and I can never remember his name...didn't pan out so well at ND as I recall but had the best recruiting highlight tape I ever saw!</r>
:idea: Mater Dei has produced a ton of college and NFL players over the decades. Notre Dame's Heisman Trophy QB John Huarte was from Mater Dei. I met his brother a long time ago up at St. Mary's of California...
ND <t>JO'Co,<br/> <br/> I think the player I was thinking of was Mike McNair a RB from Mater Dei (amazing what a good nights sleep will do for your memory).</t>
ND <t>Well it looks like ND has a concensus top 10 class. Looking at 5 of the ranking services it looks like this:<br/> <br/> Rivals #9<br/> Scout #8<br/> ESPN #9<br/> MaxPreps #1<br/> Tom Lemming #6<br/> <br/> If you would have told me after the Tulsa game we would end up with a class this good I would have asked you what you were smoking! <br/> <br/> I was surprised at ESPNs ranking but maybe the addition of Niklas at the very end pushed ND up. ESPN usually sems to rank our class lower than other services. <br/> <br/> Great class!<br/> <br/> Go Irish!</t>
Mike McNair, I wonder what he's doing now? He and CPA were a couple of the biggest busts in ND history. To be fair McNair had injury issues, but still he was as big a California recruit as there was as a Sr.
Didn't know that Troy Niklas was Bruce and Clay Matthews nephew and that both his parents went to USC. If he's got Matthews in him, he will be a great player.
I'm thinking JO'Co's boy Niklas really fits the mold of a Notre Dame football player. Although he looks a little skinny to me, more like a basketball player. I hope he makes his uncles Bruce and Clay proud!! <object id="flashObj" width="320" height="240" classid="clsid27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,47,0"> <param name="movie" value="http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9/23589110001 ?isVid=1&publisherID=987209017"> <param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF"> <param name="flashVars" value="@videoPlayer=776411472001&playerID=23589110001 &domain=embed&"> <param name="base" value="http://admin.brightcove.com"> <param name="seamlesstabbing" value="false"> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"> <param name="swLiveConnect" value="true"> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"> <embed src="http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9/23589110001 ?isVid=1&publisherID=987209017" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" flashVars="@videoPlayer=776411472001&playerID=23589110001 &domain=embed&" base="http://admin.brightcove.com" name="flashObj" width="320" height="240" seamlesstabbing="false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullScreen="true" swLiveConnect="true" allowScriptAccess="always" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash"> </embed> </object>
re: Niklas He IS a basketball player and yes, he has all kinds of USC connections, which is why I never believed that he would end up there. He could have just verballed to the Trojans months ago. Instead, he announced a "final four" of Stanford, UCLA, Notre Dame and USC. Now take a good, long, look at those four. If you were a USC guy, and you made up a list of the schools that you hated most in the entire world, it would look like this: 1. UCLA 2. Notre Dame 3. Stanford There aren't any other teams on your list. Those are the three that you want to slap down hard, every year, because you can't stand the thought of them. IMHO- there is no such thing as a "USC guy" who would consider those three particular schools as his alternate choices. I think USC was the alternate choice if he got desperate! re: McNair All the McNairs were great players at Mater Dei. His brother was an All-Pac10 LB at Oregon. Mike McNair was ruined by Boob Davy. He was a HSAA LB, who also ran the ball as Mater Dei's TB. The only thing he couldn't do well was block. So of course, Boob put him on offense, instead of defense and used him as a goal line wingback where his only job was blocking... There's a thousand reasons why Davie has never been offered another coaching job and Mike McNair is only one of them...
ND <t>JO'Co,<br/> I hear what you are saying about Niklas but in a small interview he said that going into his ND visit last weekend he didn't think he was going to chose ND. After his visit it's a done deal. Maybe the visit was was the little nudge he needed. Regardless, It's great to have him. <br/> <br/> Even after all these years I forget sometimes that one of the BEST recruiting tools ND has is the Notre Dame Campus itself! <br/> <br/> This kid is from sunny California and he visits when SB it has a foot of snow on the ground and temps in the teens and single digits and still picks ND!! Wow! Same feeling I had about Manti whos visits was in the middle of a snowy cold day and he spent the second half of the game in the heat and still chose ND!!<br/> <br/> I like the Niklas kid already(and I liked him better after I saw his game videos), but these are the kind of kids you always like to get in your recruiting classes. Great athletes and a quality person also.</t>
re: Niklas I've been hoping that we could get Niklas to flip from Stanford all season. I've seen him play and he's the real deal. He's listed at 6'7" around here and he may be that big. He's a superior athlete, with exceptional skills, who will play somewhere. He refused to play "the hat game" at his announcement on TV, but reading between the lines I think his 2nd choice was UCLA, so Neuheisel's problems and Harbaugh's exit up north helped us out in this one. As you say, Notre Dame's campus was probably the clincher... BTW- I can't remember a Notre Dame class that contained this many players in the 6'5"-6'7" range who could also run well. BK's recruiting is astounding. He's building a program with size, speed and skills in depth. What a contrast to the previous ten years where we often ran out of QBs or DEs or DBs or OLs. This will work. Like Corey, I don't really like his offense, but I have to admit, this will work.
ND <r>For the ND fans here, if you haven't seen it yet there is a very good article over on ISD concerning the recruitment of Aaron Lynch. The way everything went down between him, his mother and the coaching staff at FSU is really disgusting. You want to believe stuff like this doesn't on with recruits but unfortunately it does. Hopefully ND will have a chance to play FSU in a couple of years and maybe Aaron can give them a little payback on the field. <br/> <E>:?</E></r>
Tim Coach D did a great job with the article. When I finished I was left wishing we could have Aaron's mom on our recruiting staff. I bet she could do a great job selling ND.
The best part was Aaron's mom saying that the money she was saving on food was helping her to buy some new shoes and other stuff for his 8 y/o sister! That's the first time I ever heard somebody comment on the money saved on food!!! I'm sure it's true though, no doubt big bodies like what Aaron or other big OL's and DL's consume is a considerable strain on the family food budget!!
Also Irish picked up another recruit...non-scholarship but still a kid who apparrently was a heck of a football player from Mater Dei in So.Cal He was supposedly a little short and a little slow for a scholarship, but a lot of teams wanted him to walk on. His Coach, Bruce Rollinson, says he thinks he's the perfect ND kid. Interestingly Rollinson is a USC homer but I read he married a ND gal and one of his kids went to ND. I imagine JO'Co knows a little about this kid.
You have the story right. Bruce Rollinson played at Mater Dei when I played at Damien and he teaches U.S. History, but for all of that, we've never met. He's a USC homer, but his daughter went to Notre Dame, so he's not completely clueless... The player is Joe Schmidt. He's a 6'2" LB who's also a big-time hitter and a very good student who qualifies to get into any school he wants. His situation reminds me of Sid's son. The kid had offers from Air Force, Villanova and some Ivy League schools, but he's a friend of Troy Niklas and he wants to go to Notre Dame. He had visits from the Notre Dame coaches, but in the end, they only offered him a walk-on status. This is a good player...not a tackling dummy. I can see him playing on special teams early, because of his tackling ability and maybe eventually earning a scholarship. He's an inside LB with very similar size and ability to Carlo Calabrese...
Here's a picture of Schmidt bringing the heat down on Bishop Amat QB Jerry McClanahan (who's a drafted catcher in baseball.) http://www.ocvarsity.com/sections/article/gallery/?pic=10&id=18309