'13 NY DE/OLB Ebenezer Ogundeko (Clemson Verbal)

ALLGATOR

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people that cover Florida recruiting feel pretty confident he is going to be a Gator
 

NDdomer2

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As they should IMO. He wanted to announce right after his visit, only to push it back to beginning of next month with no planned visits til then.
 

Irish Man3

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people that cover Florida recruiting feel pretty confident he is going to be a Gator

What else is new?

That being said, I'd be shocked if he wasn't a gator when he makes his first and probably not last decision before NSD.
 

NDPhilly

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Kid is looking for a football factory, somewhere that can get him to the NFL. Will take probably take his official visits anyway but I'd bet he isn't coming to ND.
 

ALLGATOR

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Kid is looking for a football factory, somewhere that can get him to the NFL. Will take probably take his official visits anyway but I'd bet he isn't coming to ND.

Dont most kids want that? What major program would want a kid who didn't aspire to be in the NFL?
 

Emcee77

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I think Philly is saying that it's all that matters to him, or it's by far the most important factor. We tend to look for and draw interest from kids who aspire to the NFL but who are also looking for strong academics as a fallback/post-football plan.
 

NDPhilly

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I think Philly is saying that it's all that matters to him, or it's by far the most important factor. We tend to look for and draw interest from kids who aspire to the NFL but who are also looking for strong academics as a fallback/post-football plan.

This.
 

ALLGATOR

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I think Philly is saying that it's all that matters to him, or it's by far the most important factor. We tend to look for and draw interest from kids who aspire to the NFL but who are also looking for strong academics as a fallback/post-football plan.
Not trying to start anything but how would you know this? Every kid in the country mentions academics.
 
G

GBdomer

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Its just one kid. No ND mods feel confident in Ebenezer all Florida mods do. Give the dude a break hes been nothing but respectful and honest. And hes right.
 
G

GBdomer

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Someone find our Gator friend the video of Jaylon after committing

38644_o.gif
 

STLDomer

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ALLGATOR ( just noticed it wasn't Alligator haha), I have forgotten in the offseason does Florida run a 3-4 or 4-3 and where does Florida see him playing DE/OLB?
 
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Cackalacky

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Not trying to start anything but how would you know this? Every kid in the country mentions academics.

They are recieveing a scholarship to a school after all. So I would think that academics would be mentioned. Some kids think acdemics is simply obtaining a degree (any degree....General Studies from Michigan comes to mind). Some think academics means getting a degree from the #1 business school in the nation. Kids are not totally clueless and neither are we. Kids that come to ND know they will be academically challenged and rewarded for their efforts afterwards. Others choose to go to other schools, get their degrees and hope for the NFL.
 

ALLGATOR

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They are recieveing a scholarship to a school after all. So I would think that academics would be mentioned. Some kids think acdemics is simply obtaining a degree (any degree....General Studies from Michigan comes to mind). Some think academics means getting a degree from the #1 business school in the nation. Kids are not totally clueless and neither are we. Kids that come to ND know they will be academically challenged and rewarded for their efforts afterwards. Others choose to go to other schools, get their degrees and hope for the NFL.

Its not that black and white. We both know a kid can go to Michigan and get an excellent education if they want to. I don't want to get into all of this though, people are going to believe what they want to believe.
 

NDdomer2

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Its not that black and white. We both know a kid can go to Michigan and get an excellent education if they want to. I don't want to get into all of this though, people are going to believe what they want to believe.

Probably a good decision.
 

IrishLax

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Its not that black and white. We both know a kid can go to Michigan and get an excellent education if they want to. I don't want to get into all of this though, people are going to believe what they want to believe.

That's a good call. FWIW, this topic has been discussed ad nauseum on here. There are a couple undeniable facts though that might better explain what people are getting at:

1. Yes, you can absolutely get a good education at just about any top 50 school in the country. Exceptions to the rule (see: Myron Rolle) have proved that. But most football factory schools tend to encourage their athletes away from focusing on a valuable degree/education in order to instead focus on football. I'll give you three quick examples:

-Michigan football players being encouraged to enroll in worthless degree programs despite Michigan's strong academic reputation.

-As noted during in one of those exposes during the whole Cam Newton pay-for-play scandal, former Auburn players went on camera and spoke extensively on how coaches told them explicitly that football was their #1 priority and not academics.

-Cal's incredibly weak admissions standards and horrid graduation rate despite being a top 20 school.

The emphasis at all of these schools is keeping kids eligible. Only at a very select few schools do football players get pushed to get a valuable degree that will help them post-graduation in a career field. So... to re-quote what you're saying... "We both know a kid can go to Michigan and get an excellent education if they want to." is completely true. But statistics show very clearly that if you put someone in an environment where education isn't priority it is highly unlikely that will happen.
 

IrishLax

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2. There is a spreadsheet floating around somewhere here that clearly shows that not all colleges and degrees are created equal. Notre Dame graduates tend to earn more in their lifetimes than most Ivy League graduates... and more than every single other BCS school not named Stanford. So while you can get a good education "anywhere"... it's quite clear that not all degrees/schools are created equal. A degree from Harvard is greater than a degree from Arizona State. And a degree from Notre Dame is greater than most schools Notre Dame recruits against.

3. This is the most important thing to understand where people are coming from... Brian Kelly's main selling point is Notre Dame's education and the value of selecting Notre Dame over another school. So when people say "kids that select ND tend to be focused on academics" it's not just a flippant statement. They mean that we tend to not win many recruiting battles for kids who only care about football. Because that's not what we sell to prospects. We tend to win a lot of battles for kids looking at a more broad picture for what they want in college. The proof is in the pudding, go look at the last class we signed and see how many kids you would classify as only interested in playing ball.
 

Emcee77

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I think Philly is saying that it's all that matters to him, or it's by far the most important factor. We tend to look for and draw interest from kids who aspire to the NFL but who are also looking for strong academics as a fallback/post-football plan.

Not trying to start anything but how would you know this? Every kid in the country mentions academics.

and I don't want to seem combative either ... this is a fair point. But there's definitely a difference between a kid who is really looking for a good education and a kid who is just paying it lip service or is just looking for a major that he thinks will be a relatively painless way through school. Some kids have well-defined educational and professional goals or have shown themselves to be motivated students in high school. Even though we didn't get him, Josh Garnett from the 2012 class comes to mind as an example (final three of Stanford, ND and UMich, right? We fell behind the other two pretty quickly but that's the kind of kid I'm talking about, that we draw interest from and are interested in). But I shouldn't have used academics as the only example of things that get kids interested in ND ... some kids also just like the unique environment and tradition we offer. Jaylon Smith seems to be one of these (although admittedly distance was the major factor with him).
 

Classic Irish

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But there's definitely a difference between a kid who is really looking for a good education and a kid who is just paying it lip service or is just looking for a major that he thinks will be a relatively painless way through school. Some kids have well-defined educational and professional goals or have shown themselves to be motivated students in high school.

Well said. A lot of schools have majors like "Leisure Studies," "PE," and "Health, Human Performance, and Recreation" primarily for the purpose of keeping athletes happy and eligible.
 

Whiskeyjack

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Lax do you believe ND is the only school like this?

Only school? No. Stanford also ensures that its football players graduate with valuable degrees. But outside of Stanford and ND, there are no BCS-caliber programs that even come close.

Take Ogundeko. ND is offering him roughly 4x the degree value that UF is. So it's fair to say that if education was a serious concern for him, there'd be no contest.
 
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