ND lands a nice class #10 or #11 depending on the service. The O-line recruits are really impressive in this class and they are all early enrollees. If you Irish fans haven't seen them check out some of the signing day videos from this class on YouTube and elsewhere, they're pretty cool. Check out Quinn Carroll, OL. You can't get more Irish than this kid, red hair and all! Good Day for ND.
There's been a trend under Kelly lately where year after year we are loading up with massive 4 star OLs. We have the gritty local kid. We have some hard hitting safeties... but the one thing he's really nailed down the last few years is big, nasty OLs. I know some people lament the lack of 5 star players, but when we're pulling down that kind of OL haul year after year and the team itself is virtually all 4 stars, I'll take it.
Its a very good class. There are a lot of players we will never get; they could not cut the academic side of Notre Dame. That is a fact of life. Speaking of nasty O-Linemen, I see Quentin Nelson is making the Pro Bowl as a rookie. I don't watch the NFL anymore but I caught a You Tube highlight film of him with the Colts. He is manhandling NFL defenders just like he did at ND. He is easily one of the most consistently dominant linemen I have ever seen.
Something that is getting some comment, is that with the Irish not taking a single player from the state of Florida this year, Kelly said that is by design that they find the ND profile in Georgia more than Florida. So maybe that's true this year but to publicially state that you are not recruiting the State of Fla by design is not something I'd recommend. It'll be used against him if and when he does go back and recruit a kid from Fla. Believe me there are plenty of kids in Florida who can flourish at ND, we've had some failures recently but that's on the staff to have not evaluated the fit well enough. But Deion McIntosh and Kevin Stepherson shouldn't be the reason you give up on Florida and you certainly shouldn't say that publically.
Also Chris Petersen of Washington apparently is not too happy with Notre Dame and Asa Turner, saying he longs for the old days when a recruit committed to a school other schools backed off and left him alone. Of course the Irish have continued to recruit Turner even after he committed to Washington. But then that's the way things are in CFB these days, Ian Book was committed to Washington State when Mike Sanford convinced him to come to Notre Dame. We have had our share of kids who flipped on us at the last minute as well, Lo Booker is famous as is C J Leak.
Some people just gotta bitch. You get the best guys that fit your system and you play the cards you're dealt. Washington is still out there still trying to flip kids. ND makes a good punching bag because there's always a large portion of college football fans who just hate ND.
Still waiting on Asa Turner to make up his mind. Washington interests claiming his 7 on 7 coach is on the ND payroll and trying to influence him to go to ND.
bitch in one hand, **** in the other. If ND held a public whine fest over every time we lost a kid to a flat out lie, or negative recruiting tactics, we'd be whining for a long time. There's no proof that we're even recruiting negatively here. We're just not backing off the kid.