Don, I think Kelly is a good not great recruiter. Right now the great recruiters in College football are Urban Meyer and Nick Saban and the results on the field are proof of that. Harbaugh is likely to join that duo after this season. It seems to me that the great ones really like it and leave no stone unturned and work it 24/7 (or have staff working it). Kelly has been up and down with his effort according to many of the guys who have websites following the Irish. But it could be that he's turning a corner so to speak and could be headed towards being a great recruiter.
Bleacher Report article on Hainsey: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...e-dame-fighting-irish-land-4-star-og-prospect
Well right now the Irish are solidly in the top 10 of recruiting, but there is a lot of time left. I guess the class size will be somewhere over 20 so we could get 5 or more players. Right now we have according to Rivals we have 10 offensive players and 5 defensive players. Now a few of those guys on offense could end up on defense, but I hope the final class is more balanced. We are in on a couple of 5* players and it would be very nice to get one or two of them in this class. Here are some recent 5 *, Mant'i Teo was an exception for sure we don't get many like him on Nat'l Signing Day or close to it. There was Tuitt and Ishaq both 5* kids in 2011, Gunner Kiel in 2012, now 2013 was bonanza on signing day with Eddie Vanderdoes, Jaylon Smith, Greg Bryant and Max Redfield. 2014 had Quentin Nelson, and a shutout in 2015, with Daelin Hayes being the only 5* guy in the 2016 class. So we should get 1 if history runs true but we're going to have to pull an upset to get one this year, Rivals has 26 five star players and I don't think we are in on any of them. I hope that we have a great season and somebody decides on ND.
ND/Michigan. <iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mqOKkJy-XJ4" frameborder="0"></iframe>
Odd Stat: Purdue has played Notre Dame 84 times 26-56-2 record They have only played Michigan 54 times 14-44-0 They have only played Ohio State 56 times 14-40-2 That is by far the fewest games they have played vs any Big 10 opponent other than Penn State who hasn't been in the Big 10 that long. So why so few times vs the top 2 teams in the Big 10?
Terry, Re odd stat: Interesting observation Terry, I have no idea. Seems like in recent years they have always been on our schedule and given us fits at times, especially in West Lafayette. Maybe our chief scholar (Sid) has an idea?
Terry and Don, I couldn't find the teams' old schedules, so I don't know why Purdue played 30/28 less games vs. Michigan and OSU than they played vs. ND. What I do know re: Michigan - which we've discussed here in the past - is that Purdue scheduled ND every season when the rest of the Big10 was shunning us because of Michigan's bigoted coach, Fielding Yost. A more plausible reason would be that with 9-game schedules, which were prevalent for so many years, existing out-of-conference commitments, and traditional conference rivalries, it was not possible to schedule every conference team, which also could explain the lesser number of games vs. Ohio State. One interesting thing I discovered about the origin of the conference: Seven schools met at the Palmer House in Chicago in 1896 and formed the Intercollegiate Conference Athletic Association.known in the media at the time as the Western Conference. The seven original members, included the U. of Chicago. Iowa and Indiana joined in 1899 (9 total), Michigan withdrew in 1908, Ohio State joined in 1912 (back to 9), and Michigan returned in 1917 (10). The media started referring to the conference as the Big Ten, and the name stuck. However it wasn't until 1987 that the name was incorporated. Chicago withdrew in 1946, and Michigan State joined in 1949. We all know the rest of the story.
I guess I always assumed that like the old SWC that each team played the rest of the conference every year. I guess in the old Big 10 that wasn't so, that there was some min number of conference games you had to play but you got to chose who you played. The old SEC was that way for years, I think you had to play a min of 5 conference games, and if you look at the series records teams didn't all play each other every year. Of course now with expansion that is understandable.
Michigan had some teams it played every year such as MSU and Ohio St. That meant that the others rotated in and out of their schedule.
I guess my question is why didn't they play each other every year, why did the Big 10 allow them to not play a round robin schedule. That's what we did in the old SWC.
ND <t>We seem to do well every year now on Oline recruiting since Hiestand has been there. If we could just get a recruiter/coach half as good as he is on the Dline we would be just fine.</t>
Remember Hunter Smith, Hunter the Punter? Here's a nice article on his successful career as a singer and songwriter and how one his songs was chosen as the anthem for Indiana's bicentennial celebration. http://www.indystar.com/story/sport.../?hootPostID=f9db204718dffe9852c8cee04e448025