Upshot for the Rest of the Class (2013 edition)

[irishff1014]

If we finish with out another recruit i will be disappointed. We talk about finishing strong and that is not the way it is looking.

However i am VERY happy with the 2013 recruiting class. I think we got a lot of very talented young men.

 

[Domina Nostra]

I'm out of the loop. Who is the potential transfer?

No one is really speculating too much.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

However i am VERY happy with the 2013 recruiting class. I think we got a lot of very talented young men.

Agreed. I'm not freaking out about any particular recruit, position of need, or the final class ranking. Regardless of how things shake out, this should be one of our strongest classes in years.

But I'm beginning to share in Lax's frustration. We just had our best season in ~25 years. We should be aiming for the fences on a couple 5 recruits with solid potential 5Ys ready to step in if we miss. But we're not.

Even after this dream season, there's a real possibility that we'll head into the 2013 season with fewer than 85 on the roster (which includes plenty of dead weight already). We ain't gonna close the gap with 'Bama that way.

 

[irishff1014]

Agreed. I'm not freaking out about any particular recruit, position of need, or the final class ranking. Regardless of how things shake out, this should be one of our strongest classes in years.

But I'm beginning to share in Lax's frustration. We just had our best season in 25 years. We should be aiming for the fences on a couple 5 recruits with solid potential 5Ys ready to step in if we miss. But we're not.

Even after this dream season, there's a real possibility that we'll head into the 2013 with fewer than 85 roster (which includes plenty of dead weight already). We ain't gonna close the gap with 'Bama that way.

You are exactly right! Couldn't agree more.

 

[IrishLax]

We'll see where we end up. Its a learning process for this staff. They were gambling on the fact that we could close strong after a big run.

I think the fact that is emerging is that ND truly is a different animal than other schools, as far as recruiting. All the extra stuff that ND offers is actually scary to a lot of the elite footbal talent who just want to play ball.

The lesson to me is that we should always add an exta Hooper/Matsuka-type to the DL early and then work on landing an elite kid later as a cherry on top, rather than a need.

This is exactly their issue. They swing for the fences FAR too often with their batting average. I would've thought they would've learned already. I think they take kids too much at their word. I mean, could they have predicted Anzalone being a sociopath? No, probably not. But they still made oodles of errors in this class that are kinda shocking.

You absolutely 100% need to take elite kids when they want in and then massage the numbers later. Look at 'Bama... filled up class early, still in it with about 10 players, will take every single one of them that wants in. They have no qualms taking Poggi and then dealing with it later if EV, etc. want in. There is no excuse for telling Dorian Johnson "sorry, we got our 5 OL" when one could decommit later OR you have Tate Nichols end up needing a medical. There is no excuse for telling Corey Clement "sorry, we're tight on numbers" when your RB committed is Jamel "Texas State" James. It's just textbook roster mismanagement and I wonder when they'll wake up to what they're doing wrong.

Last year's class was even worse though. Darboh, Bolden, Schutt, Rios, etc. and we ended up giving scholarships to a walk-on and Dan McCarthy.

I think the staff is incredibly over confident in their ability to close thanks to the Aaron Lynch/Stephon Tuitt/Ishaq Williams class where their batting average was so good they might as well have been playing tee ball. They need to wake up and realize how much their lack of over-recruiting is causing incredible depth issues. You know why we were good last year? Because KLM, Tuitt, and Nix all stayed 100% healthy. Our OL stayed 100% healthy. You CANNOT count on that. It's really time to wake up. What happens next year if Fox and Calabrese get hurt? It's not going to be pretty.

Meanwhile there are at least a half dozen players on this roster that will NEVER contribute and the staff feels comfortable giving John Turner a scholarship early in the process because he ran a solid 40 time. WTF?

 

[irishff1014]

This is exactly their issue. They swing for the fences FAR too often with their batting average. I would've thought they would've learned already. I think they take kids too much at their word. I mean, could they have predicted Anzalone being a sociopath? No, probably not. But they still made oodles of errors in this class that are kinda shocking.

You absolutely 100% need to take elite kids when they want in and then massage the numbers later. Look at 'Bama... filled up class early, still in it with about 10 players, will take every single one of them that wants in. They have no qualms taking Poggi and then dealing with it later if EV, etc. want in. There is no excuse for telling Dorian Johnson "sorry, we got our 5 OL" when one could decommit later OR you have Tate Nichols end up needing a medical. There is no excuse for telling Corey Clement "sorry, we're tight on numbers" when your RB committed is Jamel "Texas State" James. It's just textbook roster mismanagement and I wonder when they'll wake up to what they're doing wrong.

Last year's class was even worse though. Darboh, Bolden, Schutt, Rios, etc. and we ended up giving scholarships to a walk-on and Dan McCarthy.

I think the staff is incredibly over confident in their ability to close thanks to the Aaron Lynch/Stephon Tuitt/Ishaq Williams class where their batting average was so good they might as well have been playing tee ball. They need to wake up and realize how much their lack of over-recruiting is causing incredible depth issues. You know why we were good last year? Because KLM, Tuitt, and Nix all stayed 100% healthy. Our OL stayed 100% healthy. You CANNOT count on that. It's really time to wake up. What happens next year if Fox and Calabrese get hurt? It's not going to be pretty.

Meanwhile there are at least a half dozen players on this roster that will NEVER contribute and the staff feels comfortable giving John Turner a scholarship early in the process because he ran a solid 40 time. WTF?

Damn Lax right on nice post.

 

[Domina Nostra]

This is exactly their issue. They swing for the fences FAR too often with their batting average. I would've thought they would've learned already. I think they take kids too much at their word. I mean, could they have predicted Anzalone being a sociopath? No, probably not. But they still made oodles of errors in this class that are kinda shocking.

I'm not sure if they are "shocking," but I hear what you are saying.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

You absolutely 100% need to take elite kids when they want in and then massage the numbers later. Look at 'Bama... filled up class early, still in it with about 10 players, will take every single one of them that wants in. They have no qualms taking Poggi and then dealing with it later if EV, etc. want in.

'Bama can do this because they're able to freely transfer kids from athletic to academic scholarship, thereby removing any dead weight from their roster. NCAA rules apparently prevent ND from doing this since most of our athletes can't qualify for academic scholarships vis-a-vis the regular undergraduate population. That's a huge disadvantage in recruiting for us.

This is primarily what we've been discussing in this thread.

 

[Emcee77]

This is exactly their issue. They swing for the fences FAR too often with their batting average. I would've thought they would've learned already. I think they take kids too much at their word. I mean, could they have predicted Anzalone being a sociopath? No, probably not. But they still made oodles of errors in this class that are kinda shocking.

You absolutely 100% need to take elite kids when they want in and then massage the numbers later. Look at 'Bama... filled up class early, still in it with about 10 players, will take every single one of them that wants in. They have no qualms taking Poggi and then dealing with it later if EV, etc. want in. There is no excuse for telling Dorian Johnson "sorry, we got our 5 OL" when one could decommit later OR you have Tate Nichols end up needing a medical. There is no excuse for telling Corey Clement "sorry, we're tight on numbers" when your RB committed is Jamel "Texas State" James. It's just textbook roster mismanagement and I wonder when they'll wake up to what they're doing wrong.

Last year's class was even worse though. Darboh, Bolden, Schutt, Rios, etc. and we ended up giving scholarships to a walk-on and Dan McCarthy.

I think the staff is incredibly over confident in their ability to close thanks to the Aaron Lynch/Stephon Tuitt/Ishaq Williams class where their batting average was so good they might as well have been playing tee ball. They need to wake up and realize how much their lack of over-recruiting is causing incredible depth issues. You know why we were good last year? Because KLM, Tuitt, and Nix all stayed 100% healthy. Our OL stayed 100% healthy. You CANNOT count on that. It's really time to wake up. What happens next year if Fox and Calabrese get hurt? It's not going to be pretty.

Meanwhile there are at least a half dozen players on this roster that will NEVER contribute and the staff feels comfortable giving John Turner a scholarship early in the process because he ran a solid 40 time. WTF?

But we absolutely cannot massage the numbers later, not when we are trying to maintain a top GSR.

I still kind of like the staff's strategy, which seems to be:
1) avoid oversigning so you can still sell that we are THE GOOD GUYS in recruiting -- "Young man, come to ND and you will play elite football AND get an elite degree ... no funny business if you get hurt or underperform"; and
2) recruit VERSATILE athletes to alleviate any depth issues that may arise.

When you recruit guys who can play multiple positions, you can make do with fewer guys. When you recruit guard/centers and tackles, you are in trouble if you sustain too many injuries at one group or the other. But when you recruit at least some versatile OL who can play either guard/center or tackle, such as Bivin, Lombard, Nick Martin, etc., then you can make do with fewer because if a number of your tackles get injured, you have not just the other tackles but myriad versatile backup linemen, whether listed at tackle or guard, available to fill in. We are doing the same thing at linebacker ... Yeah we only got three linebackers in the class so far, but two (Randolph and Smith) can play either inside or outside, and we are working on a third who can play both inside and out (Hollins). That flexibility effectively doubles your depth. Defensive backfield, same deal. We get physical corners who can play safety (Butler) and nimble safeties who can play corner (Redfield).

I'm not saying I wouldn't love to be able to oversign, but I'm excited about this experiment and I still have faith in this strategy.

 

[Me2SouthBend]

This is exactly their issue. They swing for the fences FAR too often with their batting average. I would've thought they would've learned already. I think they take kids too much at their word. I mean, could they have predicted Anzalone being a sociopath? No, probably not. But they still made oodles of errors in this class that are kinda shocking.

You absolutely 100% need to take elite kids when they want in and then massage the numbers later. Look at 'Bama... filled up class early, still in it with about 10 players, will take every single one of them that wants in. They have no qualms taking Poggi and then dealing with it later if EV, etc. want in. There is no excuse for telling Dorian Johnson "sorry, we got our 5 OL" when one could decommit later OR you have Tate Nichols end up needing a medical. There is no excuse for telling Corey Clement "sorry, we're tight on numbers" when your RB committed is Jamel "Texas State" James. It's just textbook roster mismanagement and I wonder when they'll wake up to what they're doing wrong.

Last year's class was even worse though. Darboh, Bolden, Schutt, Rios, etc. and we ended up giving scholarships to a walk-on and Dan McCarthy.

I think the staff is incredibly over confident in their ability to close thanks to the Aaron Lynch/Stephon Tuitt/Ishaq Williams class where their batting average was so good they might as well have been playing tee ball. They need to wake up and realize how much their lack of over-recruiting is causing incredible depth issues. You know why we were good last year? Because KLM, Tuitt, and Nix all stayed 100% healthy. Our OL stayed 100% healthy. You CANNOT count on that. It's really time to wake up. What happens next year if Fox and Calabrese get hurt? It's not going to be pretty.

Meanwhile there are at least a half dozen players on this roster that will NEVER contribute and the staff feels comfortable giving John Turner a scholarship early in the process because he ran a solid 40 time. WTF?

You've got some of the best hindsight I've ever seen. Perhaps you should send your resume in and ask Kelly to consider you as a replacement to Alford as Director of Recruiting (or whatever his title is). Dude, chill out. This is going to be a top 5 class. For every point you make above, there could easily be a counter point. For instance, if they took Clement, does Bryant jump on board? I understand there appear to be some scenarios that likely could have played out differently and didn't, so be it. Don't start comparing what ND does to what Bama is doing. It's tiring hearing about $EC "schools" and what they do. Please remember this is part of what makes ND who they are. You can't blast $aban, Meyer and Miles in one breath for being the scumbags they are just to praise them for having dozens of kids lined up on NSD because of their recruiting acumen in the next breath. You make a crack at John Turner, but not Farley so you must have been on board with Mathias Farley when he was offered? He's turning out ok. It's not all about 5 stars, although we all like landing them. Look at the stat that came out yesterday about the number of 3 star recruits that Bama has put into the league in the last x number of years. It's all about player development. By your measure, if Collinsworth was healthy this year and Farley didn't play, you'd be taking a shot at him which would be unwarranted. Nuff said, I'm cool w you but ripping the staff as you do at times just gets to me. Have a good one. Go Irish!

 

[irishff1014]

You've got some of the best hindsight I've ever seen. Perhaps you should send your resume in and ask Kelly to consider you as a replacement to Alford as Director of Recruiting (or whatever his title is). Dude, chill out. This is going to be a top 5 class. For every point you make above, there could easily be a counter point. For instance, if they took Clement, does Bryant jump on board? I understand there appear to be some scenarios that likely could have played out differently and didn't, so be it. Don't start comparing what ND does to what Bama is doing. It's tiring hearing about $EC "schools" and what they do. Please remember this is part of what makes ND who they are. You can't blast $aban, Meyer and Miles in one breath for being the scumbags they are just to praise them for having dozens of kids lined up on NSD because of their recruiting acumen in the next breath. You make a crack at John Turner, but not Farley so you must have been on board with Mathias Farley when he was offered? He's turning out ok. It's not all about 5 stars, although we all like landing them. Look at the stat that came out yesterday about the number of 3 star recruits that Bama has put into the league in the last x number of years. It's all about player development. By your measure, if Collinsworth was healthy this year and Farley didn't play, you'd be taking a shot at him which would be unwarranted. Nuff said, I'm cool w you but ripping the staff as you do at times just gets to me. Have a good one. Go Irish!

First Farley is ok and that's about the best he will be.

Secondly we got smoked against Bama if our class dont get better then we will Never win a NC again. FACT!!

 

[Me2SouthBend]

First Farley is ok and that's about the best he will be.

Secondly we got smoked against Bama if our class dont get better then we will Never win a NC again. FACT!!

Strong rebuttal. Thanks for playing.

 

[CraigKrenzel]

First Farley is ok and that's about the best he will be.

Kid was playing soccer full-time, what, 3 years ago? Starting at safety at ND?

Seems like it's hard to say what "the best he will be" given that trajectory.

 

[FLDomer]

OMG!!! The sky is falling, the season was a failure, and this recruiting class is a failure!! FIRE BK.....AND FATHER JENKINS!!!

 

[Pa Golden Tate Fan]

I believe it has been alleged that Kelly wants the academic standards for the football players similar to when Lou Holtz was the coach.

 

[IrishLax]

You've got some of the best hindsight I've ever seen. Perhaps you should send your resume in and ask Kelly to consider you as a replacement to Alford as Director of Recruiting (or whatever his title is). Dude, chill out. This is going to be a top 5 class. For every point you make above, there could easily be a counter point.

OK go. Make the counterpoints.

For instance, if they took Clement, does Bryant jump on board?

Maybe, maybe not. That's not the point. The point is the logic they apply to accepting or turning away commitments at the time they want in needs to be revamped.

I understand there appear to be some scenarios that likely could have played out differently and didn't, so be it. Don't start comparing what ND does to what Bama is doing. It's tiring hearing about $EC "schools" and what they do. Please remember this is part of what makes ND who they are. You can't blast $aban, Meyer and Miles in one breath for being the scumbags they are just to praise them for having dozens of kids lined up on NSD because of their recruiting acumen in the next breath.

Fine. FWIW, I've been pretty consistent in saying if we can't beat 'em, join 'em... to a degree. I hardly rip on Meyer except to make fun of the "next Percy Harvin". I've never ripped on Miles except over Gunner Kiel comments. And I do rip Saban for his use of "scholarship not renewed" and phantom medicals because he uses them to a degree that far exceeds anyone else in the country. That Doesn't mean I don't think ND could take a small page from their book and try to overshoot the number of kids by a couple each year. 99% of the time there'd be no issue and the 1% of the time there would be you'd be putting a chronically injured an incapable of competing guy like Massa on medical. Is that the end of the world? No.

You make a crack at John Turner, but not Farley so you must have been on board with Mathias Farley when he was offered? He's turning out ok.

Yeah... I actually was on board with Farley. Because I think mining "diamonds in the rough" among elite athletes is a great idea and Farley was so new to football he had very high upside. You can go check the posts. Turner I was always on the fence with... because I trust the staff offering someone they see in camp, but I didn't like how we already had so many safeties and how he made comments at the time of "having his best camp ever" because it seemed like maybe his performance was over-achieving and not indicative of his total skill set. More to the point, I didn't understand taking him with how many safeties we had but not taking other prospects at other positions.

It's not all about 5 stars, although we all like landing them. Look at the stat that came out yesterday about the number of 3 star recruits that Bama has put into the league in the last x number of years. It's all about player development. By your measure, if Collinsworth was healthy this year and Farley didn't play, you'd be taking a shot at him which would be unwarranted.

This makes no sense. Go back and see what I said on Farley, but more importantly what I'm talking about is NOT swinging for 5 players when you can grab other good prospects. I'm saying the exact opposite of what you're implying I'm saying. I think the staff should take more kids that want in when they want in if they're a very good fit or an elite prospects and NOT try to hit homeruns late in the cycle.

Nuff said, I'm cool w you but ripping the staff as you do at times just gets to me. Have a good one. Go Irish!

I just think the blind loyalty to the staff is ludicrous. Yeah, they are the best recruiters we've had since Weis. And they are BY FAR the best coaches we've had in a very long time in developing talent and putting in sweat equity. But that doesn't mean I have to trust their decisions on everything.

They've shown over the past two classes that there are things they could improve or otherwise do differently. I don't think it's even necessarily all their fault... I think a lot of the angst is caused by ND admin. What if we could just have AQM signed up? Completely changes complexion of the class and our needs going forward. I'd love to see top down changes be made in how we approach recruiting that will allow us to have less volatile classes and a stacked roster year in and year out.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Lax makes some good points. The SEC has so many recruiting advantages over us that we can't afford to go through a season with fewer than 85 on scholarship. Thus, he suggests we recruit under the assumption that we'll lose 2-3 guys to attrition every year (which is probably close to the average) in order to fill up on NSD.

But doing so raises some uncomfortable questions. What do we do in those years when we lose fewer than 2-3 guys to attrition? Do we force a kid like Luke Massa onto a medical scholarship? Do we pull someone's scholarship offer at the last minute? Doing so would be unethical, and it may also hurt our recruiting sales pitch that we do things the right way.

There are legitimate issues worth debating here, but it will be very difficult (maybe impossible) to close the recruiting gap with 'Bama while maintaining the program's integrity. There's no obvious solution here.

Conventional wisdom holds that roughly 1/3 of your roster contributes (either on offense, defense or ST), 1/3 provides quality depth, and 1/3 will never see the field in any meaningful capacity. The SEC's advantage is in being able to freely transfer a large portion of that bottom 1/3 to academic scholarship every year. That's what gives them the freedom to oversign while maintaining respectable GSR figures and the appearance of proprietary (such kids still get a free education, or can transfer to pursue playing time elsewhere).

See this post by NOLAIrish for why it's possible. In short, it's because the standard for qualifying for an academic scholarship at big state schools is pretty low, so most football players can make it. Here's the specific rule:

Honorary Academic Award
This is an award for a continuing student and must meet the following criteria:

• The award or grant is a standing scholarship or established research grant;
• The basis for the award is due to the candidate’s academic record at the institution;
• The candidate is competing among other students of a particular class or college to receive the award.

That last one is the killer for schools like Stanford and ND. Our football players can't compete with the general student population for academic scholarships, so we have to carry that bottom 1/3 of our roster for all four years as "counters" against our 85. That makes our margin of error in recruiting extremely thin.

Unless the NCAA changes that rule, I don't see how ND can close the recruiting gap without compromising the program's integrity (and hurting our stellar GSR figures in the process).

 

[IrishLax]

'Bama can do this because they're able to freely transfer kids from athletic to academic scholarship, thereby removing any dead weight from their roster. NCAA rules apparently prevent ND from doing this since most of our athletes can't qualify for academic scholarships vis-a-vis the regular undergraduate population. That's a huge disadvantage in recruiting for us.

This is primarily what we've been discussing in this thread.

OK here is what I don't understand... what NCAA rule are you referring to? And why can't we do it?

I know for a fact that ND does not give "merit" scholarships because I had discussions with them about applying my national merit scholarship coming out of HS and they flat out said "NOPE! We don't do any merit/academic scholarships whatsoever. They are all need based."

Isn't there an easy workaround by either...
1. Putting kids on medical who tear ligaments and can't compete.
2. Endowing a scholarship fund to specifically address this potential need. There are tons of "academic" scholarships you can apply for while at ND through different societies and endowments.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

OK here is what I don't understand... what NCAA rule are you referring to? And why can't we do it?

See above.

I know for a fact that ND does not give "merit" scholarships because I had discussions with them about applying my national merit scholarship coming out of HS and they flat out said "NOPE! We don't do any merit/academic scholarships whatsoever. They are all need based."

I was told the same thing. In my 7 years on campus, I never once met someone on academic scholarship.

Isn't there an easy workaround by either...
1. Putting kids on medical who tear ligaments and can't compete.

Yes, but the problem here becomes one of volition. You have guys like Roberson who realize they can no longer compete and voluntarily take a medical for the good of the team. Then you have other guys (Massa?), who don't do that, for whatever reason. To what extent should the staff be able to force that on someone?

2. Endowing a scholarship fund to specifically address this potential need. There are tons of "academic" scholarships you can apply for while at ND through different societies and endowments.

See the post by NOLAIrish I linked above. It seems that athletic scholarships can only be transferred to academic ones if the academic scholarship is available to everyone. Short of abolishing tuition at ND, that ain't happening.

The reasoning behind it pretty obvious. If wealthy boosters could set up special scholarship funds for washed out football players, all of the big programs could oversign without limit. Well, big state schools like those in the SEC are able to do exactly that because the standards for qualifying for an academic scholarship are so low, while schools with higher academic standards cannot. Perverse incentives, but that's business as usual for the NCAA.

 

[IrishLax]

But we absolutely cannot massage the numbers later, not when we are trying to maintain a top GSR.

As long as you keep them on a scholarship of some sort and they graduate or they graduate from wherever they transferred to this is a non-issue.

I still kind of like the staff's strategy, which seems to be:
1) avoid oversigning so you can still sell that we are THE GOOD GUYS in recruiting -- "Young man, come to ND and you will play elite football AND get an elite degree ... no funny business if you get hurt or underperform"; and
2) recruit VERSATILE athletes to alleviate any depth issues that may arise.

Here's my question on the versatile athlete thing...

At what point is having versatile athletes "quality depth" versus just "depth"? For example, Jarron Jones can play either DL or OL. But if he spends two years developing at DL and then we have a rash of injuries on the OL... can he actually step in and give quality depth? I think versatility is nice as high school prospects but after you get someone on campus it is darn near impossible to have them give quality depth at two positions at the same time.

 

[IrishLax]

See the post by NOLAIrish I linked above. It seems that athletic scholarships can only be transferred to academic ones if the academic scholarship is available to everyone. Unless you're going to abolish tuition at ND, that ain't happening.

Interesting. I do think that you could endow a scholarship that has a holistic selection criteria and give it to football players. Hell, one of my roommates was a great student and is in med school now... he applied for a scholarship and didn't get it. His sister was a PWO for soccer... applied with the same essay he used and got it. Things that make you go hmmmmm....

So if you established a scholarship... let's say endowed by a former football player... and the selection criteria was "blah blah blah combines academic success with character blah blah blah athletics blah blah"... then a football player who does a bunch of charity work could DEFINITELY be eligible for it even without a high GPA.

Plausible? Maybe not. But I think there are workaround if ND wanted to get serious. You'd probably only need to tap into such a scholarship for a football player as we described above once out of every 3-5 years so it would be on the up and up for the general populous in other years.

 

[gkIrish]

I received nearly a full ride junior and senior year based on financial need. I can tell you that I definitely did not earn it academically. I know 99% of scholarships at ND are need-based and the other 1% are usually something very unique.

I can't understand why a football player with financial need (I would imagine a large percentage of them would qualify) can't just be placed on need-based aid if we need to do it to create more scholarships. Obviously they would not be able to play anymore, but that's the point

 

[Emcee77]

As long as you keep them on a scholarship of some sort and they graduate or they graduate from wherever they transferred to this is a non-issue.

True, but we aren't sure whether we can do this.

Here's my question on the versatile athlete thing...

At what point is having versatile athletes "quality depth" versus just "depth"? For example, Jarron Jones can play either DL or OL. But if he spends two years developing at DL and then we have a rash of injuries on the OL... can he actually step in and give quality depth? I think versatility is nice as high school prospects but after you get someone on campus it is darn near impossible to have them give quality depth at two positions at the same time.

You are right that switching between OL and DL is too much to ask. The positions require that the athlete develop physically and mentally in very different ways. But switching sides of the ball is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about OL, DL, LBs and DBs (and probably other position groups that I just haven't thought through yet) who can play both inside and out. We get guys with the right body type and physical attributes to play both, and they are developing similar instincts and learning a related position so they don't lose much in the transition.

None of which is to say that you don't still have a point. Ideally we would be able to recruit 8 true ILBs and 8 true OLBs without worrying about whether we were oversigning and massage the numbers later. Versatility is great, but you risk recruiting jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none type players. Hollins may be one such player ... not a lot of experience at ILB or in coverage, so not sure he has the instincts to play ILB for us, but also doesn't have ideal size for an OLB.

But, unless we can solve the problem of not being able to move dead weight players to non-athletic scholarship, adopting the oversigning model would require us to compromise our principles, and I don't want to do that, certainly not until I'm certain there is no other way, and I'm not yet certain of it. I want to see if the strategy the staff seems to be employing will work.

but again, that's all assuming we can't move unproductive players off an athletic schollie which counts toward the 85 limit and on to some non-athletic scholarship. It looks like we can't, but if we could that would be the best of all possible worlds.

 

[Bogtrotter07]

So, did you guys work something out?

I just think the blind loyalty to the staff is ludicrous. Yeah, they are the best recruiters we've had since Weis. And they are BY FAR the best coaches we've had in a very long time in developing talent and putting in sweat equity. But that doesn't mean I have to trust their decisions on everything.

They've shown over the past two classes that there are things they could improve or otherwise do differently. I don't think it's even necessarily all their fault... I think a lot of the angst is caused by ND admin. What if we could just have AQM signed up? Completely changes complexion of the class and our needs going forward. I'd love to see top down changes be made in how we approach recruiting that will allow us to have less volatile classes and a stacked roster year in and year out.

Weis never recruited this well. Proof is that his rings did most of the recruiting, that is why he could draw in O-guys, and didn't do so well with D-guys. One exception is Manti, but that was all boots on the sand, and a message from God, as an answer to Manti's prayer. Nix was worked on by Alford, but Alford as a recruiter hit his stride with no staff in place or under Kelly.

Player development, the last guy that moved people around to such positive result was Ara. Lou knew what he wanted and balanced out his classes, so he didn't have to move them around quite so much. Both were the last where you saw 110% player development, until Kelly. Longo is his edge, in evaluation and player shaping over four or five years.

 

[IrishLax]

So, did you guys work something out?



Weis never recruited this well. Proof is that his rings did most of the recruiting, that is why he could draw in O-guys, and didn't do so well with D-guys. One exception is Manti, but that was all boots on the sand, and a message from God, as an answer to Manti's prayer. Nix was worked on by Alford, but Alford as a recruiter hit his stride with no staff in place or under Kelly.

Player development, the last guy that moved people around to such positive result was Ara. Lou knew what he wanted and balanced out his classes, so he didn't have to move them around quite so much. Both were the last where you saw 110% player development, until Kelly. Longo is his edge, in evaluation and player shaping over four or five years.

Ugh, I meant to type since Lou. Since Weis doesn't even make sense lol.

 

[FrankieIrish]

Hello Gentlemen, decided to add my two cents to this post after reading the comments in reference to the introductions and welcomes.

At any rate, all of you make some excellent points about the disadvantages ND has when it comes to recruiting. My brother class of '87 and I have often discussed this and we seem to agree that ND does a great disservice by not allowing at least some Juco transfers. I think allowing some Juco transfers could solve many of the concerns previously outlined if ND would allow for a few exceptions each year. Then, when we lose a guy like Prestwood or Lynch to transfer or a Folston to a last second defection we could immediately replace them with a kid who has worked his tail off and wants to be at ND.

 

[IrishLax]

Hello Gentlemen, decided to add my two cents to this post after reading the comments in reference to the introductions and welcomes.

At any rate, all of you make some excellent points about the disadvantages ND has when it comes to recruiting. My brother class of '87 and I have often discussed this and we seem to agree that ND does a great disservice by not allowing at least some Juco transfers. I think allowing some Juco transfers could solve many of the concerns previously outlined if ND would allow for a few exceptions each year. Then, when we lose a guy like Prestwood or Lynch to transfer or a Folston to a last second defection we could immediately replace them with a kid who has worked his tail off and wants to be at ND.

Great first post! That is probably the simplest solution to everything. The only issue seems to come from JUCOs potentially hurting our grad rate.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Hello Gentlemen, decided to add my two cents to this post after reading the comments in reference to the introductions and welcomes.

At any rate, all of you make some excellent points about the disadvantages ND has when it comes to recruiting. My brother class of '87 and I have often discussed this and we seem to agree that ND does a great disservice by not allowing at least some Juco transfers. I think allowing some Juco transfers could solve many of the concerns previously outlined if ND would allow for a few exceptions each year. Then, when we lose a guy like Prestwood or Lynch to transfer or a Folston to a last second defection we could immediately replace them with a kid who has worked his tail off and wants to be at ND.

Great first post! That is probably the simplest solution to everything. The only issue seems to come from JUCOs potentially hurting our grad rate.

To be more specific, those football recruits who end up in the JuCo ranks are usually there because they couldn't pass the NCAA clearinghouse, which is a much lower bar than ND admissions. Thus, it would be a very rare JuCo prospect who could get past admissions at ND. Doesn't make sense for ND to allocate precious recruiting resources to a certain class of recruits who are very unlikely to be admitted.

And yes, being unable to either push out dead weight or back-fill holes with JuCo transfers compounds our recruiting disadvantage.

 

[FrankieIrish]

Thanks for the reps Lax.

You'll have to enlighten me though on how graduation rates are calculated. How much would it hurt if say 2 or 3 Juco transfers were allowed on a yearly basis?

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Thanks for the reps Lax.

That was a pretty wimpy rep, Lax. Are you still using the Unlimited Reps mod?

You'll have to enlighten me though on how graduation rates are calculated. How much would it hurt if say 2 or 3 Juco transfers were allowed on a yearly basis?

JuCos lowering our GSR isn't the real issue (at least not directly). It's getting them past admissions in the first place. Oh, and welcome to the board!