Not sleeping just getting a little old Gipper, Brauntae Johnson, Nice INDIANA pick up for the Irish.
His high school, North Side, is a traditionally mediocre program but has produced some outstanding athletes in multiple sports. I trust the recruiting evaluations and I expect that the training table will add roughly 20-30 lbs. to his frame - without sacrificing speed - to enable him to withstand the punishing tackles at the D-1 level. George....hilarious!
From ISD, sounds like he has a lot of upside. Johnson is one of those prospects that is perfect for the “athlete” category in recruiting. He’s a more experienced and slightly better receiver right now, but I believe Notre Dame has it right projecting him to the other side of the ball because his ceiling is higher as a defensive back. The safety position is a difficult one to master. There are more Max Redfields than Kyle Hamiltons. There are very few who are naturals there, but he has the speed, length, and range to develop into an outstanding player in the secondary. Johnson has the raw tools that could translate to become a multi-year starter at the position, but his impact isn’t likely to be immediate.
Nothing to do with Notre Dame or Summer, but I took a glance at the NHL Mock Draft and was surprised that even with the rise in popularity of College Hockey, that only 2 collegians are projected to be drafted in the 1st round. A kid from Michigan is projected as the #2 pick and a kid from UConn is projected as the #9 pick. The rest are juniors from Canada or Euros. Oh in an Observer article Irish Coach Jeff Jackson said we'd have 2 grad transfers from the Ivy League and 7 freshmen lacing up the skates this fall.
Some minor news on the WBB front. The Irish will go to Knoxville to play the Vols in the SEC/ACC Challenge this fall. Also Irish freshman, Cassandra Prosper, will be on the Canadian National Team for the upcoming FIBA AmeriCup for Women in Mexico early July. Also likely to be at the U19 World Cup team that goes to Madrid later in July. Irish freshman, Hannah Hildalgo, will be on the US team.
We had one our best recruits decommit, Isiah Canion. He's a 4 star WR with a lot of promise. He's from Georgia, so I won't be shocked if he ends up @UGA or another SEC team. Sucks, I was really liking our WR class and reportedly had stopped recruiting the position. It be tough to get back into the game with players we had previously been recruiting.
Just saw this article and wonder how you all feel about it. Finally Joining The Big Ten?: Notre Dame Seeks To Triple TV Contract | Fan Recap
Terry seems to have a better handle on media matters but my own view is that ND does not offer a network the same volume of airtime that the conferences do. Conference contracts offer networks games every Saturday of the football season. ND's contract only covers it's home games. This does dovetail nicely with NBC which traditionally has other sports presentations in the fall on Sat. that it covers ie. The Breeders Cup, and the Ryder and President's Cup. The conferences offer games in two or three time slots on Sat. while ND has only 1 game to offer. I believe ND offers good ratings for it's games and it should see a substantial increase in it's value but from a network point of view, it doesn't offer near the air time.
There's a lot of the usual speculation, but who knows how the negotiations will turn out? Certainly not I. Maybe NBC will pony up. The term "committed partner to our message" could relate to the apparel sponsor negotiations. I don't know if there's significance relating to topic of the article in the hiring of a prominent NBC exec as our new AD following Swarbrick's retirement next year. As I always say in situations like this, time will tell.
Jon Bon Jovi has homes here in Colts Neck NJ and in Palm Beach. These days he is most famous locally for his Soul Kitchens which offer free meals to the needy in exchange for doing chores. Here's a photo of him on the boardwalk somewhere. Note his t shirt......
Been a lot of angst on ND boards regarding recruiting, some have questioned Freeman not so much for effort but how he's going about it. I like this as a rational view of the effort, instead of he's not recruiting like Saban or Smart. Like most you, I’m pretty tired of talking about Notre Dame recruiting these days. I’m definitely tired of having to explain to people that Marcus Freeman has recruited better than Brian Kelly. Not landing Justin Scott striking out on some other top targets this cycle doesn’t change that. If things ended today, Freeman would have signed 50 blue-chip prospects (4 or 5-stars) in the last three cycles. In the previous three classes Notre Dame signed 40. The average rating in these Freeman classes is 91.41. The average of Kelly’s best three year run of classes (2012-2014) was 90.94. Freeman and the staff haven't landed enough of the top of the board prospects, specifically in this class. That’s true and they still are recruiting better and upgrading the overall talent on the roster. LINK to non-paywalled article. 6 Thoughts on a Thursday
Notre Dame is firmly entrenched in the #6-15 range in the polls. That is where we are more than likely to end up at the end of any season. We are going to win 8-11 games every year. Are you satisfied with that? Probably not. If the answer is No then we have to get real. The rules never favored a school that fancies itself as holding old time values in a modern era. Our TV contract advantage has been neutralized by streaming. The South Bend area is not on anyone's travel destination bucket list. If the Irish wish to compete they are going to have to ravenously embrace the NIL bribery system with religious fervor. They are going to have to accept JUCO and undergrad transfers. They will have to re-evaluate their academic requirements for athletes. I hate all of these things but we need to **** or get off the pot. We have the coach but we lack the system. Take that 40 year plan and put it in the archives. These kids want it here and now.
Here's a Twitter link to an article that might be of interest to some ND folks. I checked it out and can confirm it's NOT subscriber-only (I'm not a subscriber):
Some talk that Ohio State fans will be in South Bend in droves this fall, something like Georgia in 2017. I won't be shocked, ND fans have developed a habit of selling their tickets on the various ticket agencies for a profit, that includes faculty fans who are the first in line to sell when there is high demand. The fact that the school colors are in the red spectrum will make them more visible like the Georgia fans and the Nebraska fans back in the Bob Davie days.
Short road trip from Columbus and a great many alums in the Chicago/Indy area will def put in on the radar as well, assuming the tickets are available. If you're gonna sell 'em Buckeye Nation will def buy 'em and travel. Tho I went to the game in 96 and just don't remember an unusual number of Buckeye fans. Perhaps with the convenience of online secondary markets for tickets these days things are bit easier to acquire
I fully expect to see at least half the stadium in red. I learned years ago that some ND fans, including some staff and some alums, not the majority, are whores when it comes to selling their tickets to the highest bidders. When Nebraska came to ND in 2000, there ended up being a "sea of red" in the stands. I was there, and I was livid. Through the luck of the lottery draw, I had two tickets halfway up on the visitors' side between the 40 and 50. I refused to sell them. It happened again at the Georgia game in 2019. I wasn't there but saw it on TV. ND prides itself on its football history and tradition and rightly so, but there are fan-based shortcomings like those I just described that exclude us from the company of elite programs where ticket-whoring doesn't happen. Ohio State is one of those programs. I sure hope I'm wrong and that the excitement of the Marcus Freeman era will encourage those whore-fans to change their ways. We'll see.
One of the problems that we used to have were the season ticket holders who lived in the South Bend area and who were not really ND fans. These individuals would market their tickets through a number of outlets including the local motels. As the prices of tickets went up, many ND fans who were season ticket holders found that the cost of a full season of tickets was too high for their budget especially those living quite a distance from the school. Their solution was to sell tickets to the high demand games to pay for the season. Then there are the faculty. Some are big football fans, but many don't care about football or the school for that matter. Then you have ND fans who know fans of other schools and they do a home and home with their friends. Unlike some places, visiting fans can wear their school colors without serious intimidation. It all adds up to some embarrassing and frustrating occasions.