Trattou next in line for a new jersey Weis cultivating a Garden State presence on ND roster. BOB WIENEKE Tribune Staff Writer For years, Lou Taglieri couldn't figure it out. Oh sure, every once in awhile during his 11 years as an assistant football coach in New Jersey, Notre Dame would swoop in and recruit a Jersey player. But it wasn't often. "It was frustrating because we sent a lot of kids to colleges all over the country, and Notre Dame was rarely around," said Taglieri, now entering his second season as head coach at Hoboken High School. "We were saying to ourselves, 'What are we doing wrong? Why aren't our kids getting there?' It seemed like they were elite and we couldn't get our kids there. "It's changed. He comes in and he's basically taken over New Jersey." "He" is Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis -- Jersey native Charlie Weis. And the takeover continued Friday when Don Bosco Prep (Ramsey, N.J.) defensive lineman Justin Trattou verbally committed to Notre Dame. The 6-foot-4, 255-pound Trattou, a high school defensive end who has been projected as a college defensive tackle, joins as Irish commitments Garden State stars Mike Ragone, a tight end from Camden Catholic High in Cherry Hill, and Duval Kamara, who plays wide receiver for Taglieri at Hoboken. Ragone is ranked as the nation's top tight end and Kamara is a top-five receiver. Trattou is the seventh player to commit to a group that is expected to reach 25 players. Trattou's commitment won't become official until Feb. 7, the first day players can sign a national letter-of-intent. NCAA recruiting rules prohibit Weis or members of his staff from publicly commenting on a player until signing day. "Notre Dame has the best tradition in college football, and I just want to be part of it," Trattou told The Record of Hackensack, N.J. "It's a great atmosphere. I got along with everyone really well, the players and the coaches. I really believe I'm in a great spot, the right spot for me to succeed." Don Bosco assistant Joe Cutrona lauded Trattou's ability to get off the ball, his quickness and athleticism. As a junior, Trattou recorded 95 1/2 tackles and 9 1/2 sacks for an 11-1 team that lost in the state finals. "If you're going back to pass, the quarterback's sacked," Cutrona said. "He'll make the tackle look silly." Trattou selected the Irish over Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan and Florida. His commitment gave ND three of the top four players in the state. Notre Dame's class of 2006, Weis' first full group, included 28 players, but none from New Jersey. Weis did sign Cherry Hill, N.J. linebacker Steve Quinn in 2005, but Quinn played his high school ball in Philadelphia. Early results from Jersey may have trickled in, but the groundwork to build the pipeline was being laid early in Weis' tenure. Recruiting analyst Tom Lemming recalls a conversation he had with Weis shortly after he was hired in which New Jersey recruiting came up. "He goes, 'It's my state,'" Lemming recalled. "And he goes, 'And I'm going to make it Notre Dame's state.'" Weis' approach, according to Taglieri, hasn't involved razzle-dazzle or been overly complicated. "He puts you at ease right away. Some people come in with the holier-than-thou attitude, and the New Jersey kid's not going to take well to that," Taglieri said. "The first thing Charlie says is, 'Hey, you already have something going for you. You're from New Jersey.'"
I read another article where the Hoboken coach said we have had several good players come out of here the last few years and ND never even visited. Thanks Ty, stay on the west coach you bum.
Charlie seems to be working hard to re-establish a recruiting base in the Northeast and Midwest. I think it's a good move, to these kids the weather at ND isn't really a factor, it's what they've grown up with. That also somewhat takes the distance factor out of the equation. Then he can look for players in Calif, Texas and Fla or wherever to fill out the class. Ara did it that way and Holtzes best teams had a decidedly midwest flavor and mixed in a few guys from the west and south. One of the advantages that Mack Brown has is that he basically only has to recruit Texas, his staff isn't spread coast to coast, they establish ties with the HS coaches. I don't know the combined size of Illinois, Ohio,Penn and N.J. compared to Texas but I would guess that they combined produce as many top players as Texas. So if he works that area he can establish the Irish with the HS coaches plus success on the field and we'll be back to having a good solid base that we can count on every year. Go Charlie!!
Charlie's doing it the right way: rule your home base, then cherry-pick stars out of other teams backyards. Coaches who don't hoard the talent in their base area will see that area raided by every coach with a clipboard. I don't think Ty or Boob Davie ever understood exactly where Notre Dame's recruiting base was supposed to be... .............JO'Co
JO'Co, Davie never understood ND recruiting period and Ty seem to understand it in the beginning but somehow lost his way. :?
I'll tell you this; Weis is Greg Schiano's worst nightmare. The moment he starts breathing life back in the Rutgers program and here comes Charlie stealing all the home grown talent.
George, I was thinking the same thing about Rutgers, but if I remember correctly wasn't Greg Schiano doing well recruiting in Florida? :?
I think Davie was a better recruiter than Ty. Davie problem was that he didn't assemble a good staff to start with, mainly because he didn't have the stature in the coaching community to attrack a good staff. Plus he was way too much a stooge of Wadsworth and Beauchamp who forced him to hire Donut Jim as an OCoord. His hiring of his buddy Mattison turened out to be a big mistake, and that was his best hire at least to start. But he brought in a great class his 2nd year. But he was done in by C.J. Leake and then the next year he got 3 guys who didn't fit his offense. I think that if Davie had been able to get a great staff, he'd have done just fine with recruiting. But he wasn't ready to have that job, never really got organized, he didn't arrive with a plan. He just reacted to problems. Charlie had a plan, Holtz had a plan , Ara had a plan, Davie was just amazed that one day he was a DCoord looking for a job at a midlevel conference school to get his HC career going and found himself in the biggest job on the planet. Ty was a whole different deal. He was recruiting on the cult of Ty Willingham. He was an arrogant recruiter, he also had 1 good class but the magic wore off very fast for him. His arrogance turned off many recruits, Brian Brohm was truly interested in ND and he'd been offered by just about everybody. Ty wouldn't offer him until he came to SB to "compete" for the QB offer. Plus Ty never had a plan B, he was lazy, Davie wasn't lazy. If Ty hadn't been fired after the season in 2004 the class he would have brought in would have been the worst in history. Things weren't gettting better for him, they were getting worse. We were competing with mid and low level conference schools for players, the studs didn't really care that he proposed to "mould" them into men. That and everybody could see how lazy his staff was, do you think Charlie would tolerate a guy who wouldn't get off his ass to recruit off campus ..his OCoord wouldn't recruit off campus. Terry -
He does recruit well in Florida, Tim. When I drive bacxk and forth from ny place in Hobe Sound to the West Palm Beach airport I see Rutgers football billboards on the Florida Turnpike; team photos, Schiano's picture and of course, Tony Soprano. But he knows the key is to lock down the top talent here in Jersey.