'14 FL OT K.C. McDermott (Miami Verbal)

peoriairish

peoriairish

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OL MVP of the Rivals event today. Earned an invite to the 5:s: challenge.

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Ironman8

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Tidbit from the Rivals challenge:

On the flip side of the line, K.C. McDermott of Wellington (Fla.) Palm Beach Central plans to follow in the footsteps of his older brother -- Shane McDermott -- in enrolling early.

McDermott is the No. 50 player in the Rivals100 and said that he plans to make his college pledge next week after he visits Notre Dame. He is between the Fighting Irish and Miami -- where Shane plays center. His other brother, Tyler, played at Colorado State and is now a graduate assistant at Notre Dame.

With a relative on both campuses, it will be the intangibles that tip the scales of the 6-foot-6, 285-pound tackle.

"I am going to try to go in early," McDermott said. "My brother (Shane) did it at Miami and he felt like it was a great thing and helped him. He is going to graduate in May and he's only a redshirt sophomore."

The plan to get on campus early was no shock to Codrington.

"K.C. is a very heady player," Codrington said. "His smarts translate from the class to the field. You can look at him and see that he has the size and frame to be a starting tackle right now and if he is able to get into a school early he could compete for the early time."

McDermott said that his parents put a premium on academics and had he not had his grades in order, he would lose the chance to play.

It is a parental lesson that will carry over to the next level.

"I'm not even allowed to be out here if I have a C," McDermott said. "They definitely push the books and I push myself to work harder every day - not only on the field but in the classroom."

McDermott is an imposing figure with a college-ready body. The quiet confidence that is usually displayed by the No. 50 player in the Rivals100 was quickly transformed once the Rivals Camp Series presented by Under Armour started.

Rivals.com Southeast regional analyst Woody Wommack took notice.

"He had great reps today," Wommack said. "He had a mean streak that I don't think we have seen before and that was a very good thing.

"He treated this like a business trip and performed very well."

His performance left him as the only player from the camp to receive an invitation to the series-ending Rivals Five-Star Challenge to be held in June.

McDermott said that he played to his potential today.

"I did everything they asked of me and more," he said. "I went out and dominated."

McDermott took home the offensive lineman MVP award and in the one-on-one session fared well against Miami (Fla.) Booker T. Washington defensive end Chad Thomas.

Thomas took home the defensive line MVP, but McDermott took home the bragging rights.

The two lined up head to head and McDermott fared better.

"I won," McDermott said.

Wommack said the battles between McDermott and the No. 207-ranked Thomas were intense but the willingness to take on the challenge is what helps separate McDermott and pushed him into the Rivals Five-Star Challenge.

"They probably split the reps, with K.C. winning the last one," Wommack said. "But really it was really great to see the willingness to compete and take on whoever was sent out there against him.

"K.C. looked really good today and played his way into the event."
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GoldenDomerDJ

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I feel like if we can snag a couple top O-Line men it will get the ball rolling for another big class! Hood and Michel would love to have Smith and KC blocking for them I'm sure.
 
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irishff1014

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I am so tired of hearing about these academics. Because it seems like we get left at the altar.
 
drake29

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Why? Some schools are very highly regarded in areas that interest other recruits. Sure, ND graduates 99 percent of it's players, but a recruit could end up with a really good degree from Miami, Michigan, USC, etc. If a kid decides he wants to go into sports broadcasting, should we be upset if he picks the top rated school in his major?
 
Luckylucci

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If I was a recruit and I wanted to go to Miami but there were other schools that were close, I would just wait until further along in the process to commit. Maybe nothing happens with sanctions but why not just wait.

So I just watched the interview on rivals and KC said that he'll be deciding in the next week. ND Tuesday-Wednesday, Miami a day or two after that, and then a commitment a couple days after that. So this should be decided by this time next week
 
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IrishLax

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Circular academics debate again? Really? Not sure if to just copy and paste what I put in the other thread or start tossing out neg reps.

EDIT: Re-posting from the other thread... in the vain hope it saves us this round of being circular....

As to the ND > all debate that these threads always devolve into... it's pretty tiresome because the facts don't change.

Inarguable facts:
1. ND graduates players at a rate as good or better than any school in the country; all the while without "joke" majors for the athletes.
2. The degree value for ND is better than just about every school not named Stanford... by virtue of that fact and point #1, you know that if you send a kid to ND they will graduate with an elite and valuable education. Very, very few schools in the FBS can say that.

Completely subjective factors where we go in circles:
1. ND being "better" than another school or another school being "better" than ND. You can't really put "better" in a box. Too many factors, and there are certain programs at almost every school where a degree is pretty valuable. For example, a computer science degree from Illinois or Georgia Tech is, if you're looking to be a programmer, more valuable than a degree from Notre Dame.
2. Another school being "bad"... UNC, Michigan, USC, etc. are all quite good academic institutions where you CAN get a very good education but where certain factors allow a very large chunk of their students to go through 4 years with little to no emphasis on school... and then there are all of the big state schools where subjectively you can say the quality of education given to each student doesn't add up to a Northwestern, Duke, ND, Vandy, Stanford, etc. but at the same time it might "fit" what the kid is looking for. For instance, my parents always complain about how much Penn State sucks at the way they handle certain things (because it's a big school, more than anything) relative to ND... but my brother loves it there, will graduate, and probably get a pretty good job.
3. Kids touting "academics" as a factor and then listing a top 5 that goes FSU, Alabama, LSU, Ole Miss, Ohio State. Just understand it is lip service and move on. The kid cares about football. The end.
 
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drake29

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I get what you're saying LAX. But another thing to consider is not every degree at ND is better than the degree at scool 'x'. Ifmy son wanted to major in business you bet I'd push him to go to Mendoza. But maybe he wants to go into engineering or broadcast journalism or fine arts. Maybe he wants to go pre-med. Is ND number 1 across the board? Sure, ND graduates just about all of their players, but every kid that has a list of schools not including ND isn't disinterested in school. It could mean they just aren't into ND.
 
IrishLax

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drake29 said:
I get what you're saying LAX. But another thing to consider is not every degree at ND is better than the degree at scool 'x'. Ifmy son wanted to major in business you bet I'd push him to go to Mendoza. But maybe he wants to go into engineering or broadcast journalism or fine arts. Maybe he wants to go pre-med. Is ND number 1 across the board? Sure, ND graduates just about all of their players, but every kid that has a list of schools not including ND isn't disinterested in school. It could mean they just aren't into ND.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's precisely my point and almost exactly what my post says:

You can't really put "better" in a box. Too many factors, and there are certain programs at almost every school where a degree is pretty valuable.
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I amended it to make it even more clear with an example about computer science. You could just easily do communications and list Syracuse, journalism and list Northwestern, etc. It's darn near impossible to define "better" and that's what ALWAYS happens on these stupid circular debates.

The solution is simple... accept that on a macro scale looking at a gross cross-section of student athletes that Notre Dame is about as good as it can possibly get student athlete academics; at the same time accept that for any specific individual with personal goals that none of us on the outside can really hope to comprehend that there is no one size fits all for "academics" and the concept of "better" is inherently subjective.

The end. I just get annoyed see the same circular debate in every single recruits thread when I click it looking for news. It's almost as irksome as the ****ing oversigning debate.
 
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md_bennett

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IrishLax said:
The solution is simple... accept that on a macro scale looking at a gross cross-section of student athletes that Notre Dame is about as good as it can possibly get student athlete academics; at the same time accept that for any specific individual with personal goals that none of us on the outside can really hope to comprehend that there is no one size fits all for "academics" and the concept of "better" is inherently subjective.
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I thought that the simple solution was making sure we have top notch journalism, medical, communications, engineering, and programming degrees available too, so that nobody could deny our awesomeness. But for the time being I'll go with your plan:razz:
 
STLDomer

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Told 247 he is going to ask every question he needs to know when he visits ND particularly if Kelly is going to leave and about NDs engineering program. Feels he already knows every thing about Miami.
 
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koonja

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STLDomer said:
Told 247 he is going to ask every question he needs to know when he visits ND particularly if Kelly is going to leave and about NDs engineering program. Feels he already knows every thing about Miami.
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Smart kid. Maybe I'm bias, but I feel Kelly is the type of guy to be honest with kids about his own intentions. As a rule of thumb though, this kid shouldn't be putting much weight into what coaches tell him about whether or not they're leaving. They're full of it 80% of the time and it's been proven over and over.
 
Emcee77

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drake29 said:
I get what you're saying LAX. But another thing to consider is not every degree at ND is better than the degree at scool 'x'. Ifmy son wanted to major in business you bet I'd push him to go to Mendoza. But maybe he wants to go into engineering or broadcast journalism or fine arts. Maybe he wants to go pre-med. Is ND number 1 across the board? Sure, ND graduates just about all of their players, but every kid that has a list of schools not including ND isn't disinterested in school. It could mean they just aren't into ND.
Click to expand...

I hope this isn't beating a dead academic horse, but there's one thing I want to add about this: while it's 100% true that every kid has to make an individual decision and only he can really know where the best place for him is given his own personal goals, it's important to take account of the fact that a kid's goals can change while he's in college. Not every kid knows at 18 where he will be at 22, much less 25 or 35 or beyond.

In my first week at ND, I'd estimate more than 2/3 of the people I met said they intended to major in pre-med or engineering. By the beginning of our sophomore year, I would estimate that half of those had gotten poor grades in their science/engineering courses (and/or felt overworked and/or just lost interest in the field) and decided to give up on medicine/engineering and enroll in the school of business. If you are a pre-professional kid looking to go to college in order to learn a profession in order to make money some day, and the Mendoza school of business is your BACKUP PLAN, that's pretty good.

That's not to quarrel with the proposition that a kid who has a strong interest in fine arts or journalism or whatever should go to whatever school is best equipped to help him develop that interest, which may or may not be ND. I wholeheartedly agree with that logic.

But if you aren't totally sure what you are interested in, ND is a great option, thanks to certain general qualities that impact the experience no matter what you major in, such as the institution's commitment to excellence in everything, even in the the support students get from the administration, the environment of talented, driven kids who will push you to excel, and the strong alumni network.

To me, that's the argument for taking the macro perspective that Lax was taking. Who knows how any individual kid's college experience will go. He might change majors 4 times while he is there. But if he goes to ND, at least he can be pretty certain that he will graduate with a great education.
 
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dublinirish

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You gotta think some kids define the word "academics" in different ways to how we may do.

To some the academic attraction to a school may be how easy it is to graduate and/or the laxness they apply to student athlete attendance in class.

No kid is going to come out and say Im going to School X because i can just concentrate on football and not have to bother with classes and whatnot. This is sometimes the way they communicate it though by preaching "academics" and then attending some schools we would scoff at the reputation of.
 
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koonja

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The majority of the time, having an elite recruit say academics are important is like having a stripper say she's looking for a nice/caring guy. Grain of salt, gentlemen. Grain of salt.

But by the way this kid seems to be handling it, I wouldn't be surprised if academics are in fact important. And like GB alluded to, he can't go wrong. ND is obviously a great school but Miami is elite too in certain programs. Although I'm not sure about engineering?
 
clashmore_mike

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http://www.irishsportsdaily.com/rec...-recruiting/8945-mcdermott-ready-for-nd-visit

Excited to spend more time with BK this time. On his last visit he only saw him for 10 minutes. Also is looking forward to meeting the other players, since they weren't around the first time. As mentioned above, he wants to check out the engineering school, and "finalize" academic things. He again said his brother's job with ND won't have an impact on his decision, but he did tell how the opportunity came about. Alford was talking with his dad who said Tyler played at CSU and was looking to get into coaching. Alford asked for his number and called him up.

After his two days in South Bend, he will visit Miami for a practice. He expects to make his decision next week, probably Monday or Tuesday.
 
Luckylucci

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I think we have a very good chance here as well. He is going to get a significant amount of attention and Kelly seems to do very well in one on ones with players and parents. What a great group of lineman to be around as well. Martin, Watt, Lombard, Elmer, etc.
 
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