Well we've had Graduation, the only game left is baseball at the Illinois regional and that's a summer sport so I thought it time for a new topic! Matt Hegarty announced he's transferring to Oregon, with Golson going to FSU that's two of our biggest transfers in a long time. Of course we've had kids leave for all sorts of places, but our graduate transfers have mostly gone down a level of competition in hopes of reviving their careers or getting one more year of football. As far as I know there are no big stories in recruiting about to happen, so I expect a relatively quiet June. Several players are in South Africa on that summer program, but they'll be back in time for summer sessions and the obligatory 7x7 drills and weight training. There are 102 day's till the kickoff with Texas.
:idea: Both Hegarty and Golson were on the verge of losing their starting positions. They graduated so good luck to them.
Rumors that Zaire will head to Calif for a QB Guru, but not George Whitfield, Tom House instead. FSU QB Everett Golson will also go to Calif to have more training with George Whitfield. What did QB's do before there were Guru's?
They played catch with receivers and maybe practiced holding onto the football and running at the same time.
ND again leads the way with 17 athletic programs achieving a perfect score. http://www.und.com/genrel/052715aab.html
Part 1 Q&A with Jack Swarbrick on ND Athletics Nothing revealing, I didn't know that NCAA part of the Academic Scandal that caught up 5 players last year was still ongoing. I have seen any number of places that Ishaq Williams is still in hot water with the NCAA and most speculate that he will not be readmitted to ND. Also the Univ had a task force to review the whole process for Student Athletes and how to help them do well off the field as well as on the field. Obviously from recent NCAA data showing us to have one of the top academic results across the board means that we do a lot right to start with, but there is always room for improvement. One thing I didn't know is that athletes take 15 hours in the fall, like the rest of the students. I think the NCAA mandates that you get a min of 24 hours credit towards graduation each year, and that included Fall, Spring and Summer Sessions, so you easily could talke 6-12 hours in the fall and 12 in the spring and 6-12 in the summer to meet that requirement. ND kids are on a track to be ready for graduation in 3 1/2 years, that's a good thing allows some wiggle room to graduate in 4 years. But I have seen where Kelly has asked if they could dial the fall back to 12 hours given that they all (or most) take 12 hours in the summer. They easily can have 36 hours of credit by their Fall semester of the Soph year. 72 by the start of their Jr year and 108 by start of their Sr. Year.
Still not clear if Ishaq is going to be on scholarship or what. I've seen post's quoting his father (Eric Hansen) confirming that he'll enroll for summer school and that he's 27 credits from graduation and that the family is prepared to pay his tuition if necessary inorder for him to graduate. We're still a player or two over the 85 limit. Nicki Barratti and Chase Hounshell are probable medical scholarship candidates.
Re: medical scholarships. Notre Dame for as long as I can remember (which is pretty long :wink: ), does not pull scholarships for medical reasons. The school always honors the balance of full scholarships in the event a student-athlete no longer can participate due to injury or illness, which is the case for Barratti and Hounshell. I'm guessing that the NCAA provides an exemption to the limit in this type of situation, which makes perfect sense.
Well ND doesn't "Pull Scholarships" for medical reasons. But kids who are not able to participate due to medical reasons are moved to medical scholarship. I can think of any number of kids who were taken off of football scholarship at ND and continued on scholarship till graduation. There is no dishonor for the school to move a kid to a medical scholarship who can no longer participate. But SEC schools and Alabama included have been criticized for over signing to the max on purpose and then managing the roster by using subtle pressure to force kids to transfer, to move them to medical scholarship for imaginary injuries, etc. All to get players who after a year they can see they won't be productive and to make room for new players. All is done with in the rules and no violations. But as has been argued here and other places for a long time, it gives them an advantage to sign more kids every year than teams in other conferences. The Irish always have to look at the numbers during recruiting, and try to figure out who will be back the next year. Now one thing the Irish do is that there is no automatic 5th year, so they can "manage" the roster by not inviting back kids for their 5th year. The academic plan they have has most if not all kids set to graduate by Dec of their Jr. year, and some might need the spring semester credits like Everett Golson did to graduate on time. I'm sure also that the coaches know who might transfer. Any way it's a numbers game and you have to figure out how to manage the numbers. We've had some years where we ended up short of the 85 man limit and that's how guys like Joe Schmidt get scholarships.
Terry I think you meant to say that the kids were set to graduated by Dec. of their Senior year (redshirt Junior) Another difference is that ND usually prequalifies recruits so that the class that they sign in Feb. is actually the class that hits the field in Aug. How many times have we seen recruiting rankings that have one school's class highly rated and yet some of their top recruits never qualify for admission.
You're right gip, I did mean Dec of Sr. Year. Also you're correct about the class, we don't sign non-qualifiers. We've had a few not make it over the years, but not many. Everybody remembers Eddie Vanderdoes, but he didn't have academic problems, and this year we've got a kid from Louisiana who won't make it, Bo Wallace, who reportedly has some issues with his test score. Then there was the Sheppard kid who was actually attending class as an early entry for a couple of weeks when he was booted because of problems with his HS academics that they didn't figure out till after they'd let him enroll. There have been others, but not many. It's another one of those legal and in many cases smart strategies. Frequently the kid who is a non-qualifier is a relatively highly ranked and boosts your recruiting classes profile, and nobody really remembers that the #7 class only had 70% of the kids actually eligible to enroll in August. The kids who are allowed to sign, probably feel some allegiance to the coach/school and after Jr. Colllege might come back to that school.
I guess it's all a matter of perspective. Every time Alabama has a player go on a Medical Scholarship, they are accused of "roster management". I don't know how often it happens at Notre Dame but it seems people pay a lot of attention to it when it happens elsewhere. 8)