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After Jimmy Clausen committed, he spent part of his trip talking to recruits such as receivers Duval Kamara and Arrelious Benn and tight end Mike Ragone, trying to convince them to join him at Notre Dame.
It makes for a great start. All those superstars that were here have Notre Dame in their top three, including defensive tackle Marvin Austin and defensive back Major Wright. Now Notre Dame has a bead on a core group of great players that could make it No. 1.
Charlie Weis will be going to visit ND's top targets. He'll also be visiting camps and he's going to the high schools of all the great players. Ragone's coach told me that Weis will be at the school on May 1. Weis is telling Ragone that he can help make Ragone the next Jeremy Shockey, so Ragone is really interested. Weis will then make his way across the country over the 20 days he's allowed to be on the road.
Not many head coaches are doing that. The only two I saw last year out nationally were Urban Meyer and Weis. I think it'll be the same story this year when it comes to the coaches at the 15 major powers.
At the end of May they start getting ready for their summer camp. Their one-day camp will put the finishing touches on who Notre Dame will have as its top priorities going into the fall. They'll get these kids out to the one-day camp, and 99 percent of the time the kids they want to offer are offered within a day of leaving the camp. They'll tell them they're going to offer and they'll pull the trigger the next day.And that will be almost the entirety of their offers. They'll add a couple later in the year just because kids pop up, but they'll know who they're going to zoom in on.
In July the coaches can take a bit of a break, but there will be kids making unofficial visits with their parents. The coaches need to be aware of that.
Notre Dame has two outstanding on-campus members of their recruiting staff in Ron Powlus and Dave Peloquin. They're both Notre Dame grads and they know every nook and cranny of the campus. Those two are the unspoken heroes during the slow summer months. They take kids on the tours and they're a main ingredient in this class.
After the one-day camp there will be some curious recruits that Notre Dame will in turn be curious about. That's where Powlus and Peloquin come in. Then the coaches come back in earnest.
I think Notre Dame is so far ahead and I believe they'll have almost all of their offers out right after the one-day camp is over in June. Marginal students are the kids they won't offer. They'll be told that Notre Dame wants them, but admissions has to accept them.In my opinion, it would be great for Notre Dame if they had between 12 and 15 of their 25 commitments before the start of the season.
There will always be kids who are going to wait. It doesn't matter how much they like you, they're going to wait. Notre Dame's coaches did everything well last year, but they learned their lesson on the Gerald McCoy situation. They were waiting on McCoy and couldn't pull the trigger on Butch Lewis. Lewis ended up at USC and McCoy went to Oklahoma.
This year I think they'll have more players in reserve. A lot of times, patience brings you a No. 1 class. Pete Carroll and Mack Brown always seem to land a great player or two at the end because of patience. They know the great players cannot be pushed or bullied into a commitment. So patience can be the key.
If Notre Dame learned a lesson on patience, this could be the best class since 1990. The groundwork has to be completely laid before the coaches take off for vacations in mid-June. July is probably the least important month except for text messaging and hand-written letters.
Some great assistant coaches have made their marks during July with letters. From the mid-'90s on, Notre Dame suffered during the summer and by the time September rolled around they were out of the race for a lot of players and they didn't even know they were out of the race. They were dead in the water and didn't even know it.That's not going to happen now. The recruiting atmosphere and the recruiting mindset and their approach to it has been set up completely by recruiting coordinator Rob Ianello and Weis. Everything has been set in place for them to finish close to No. 1 every year as long as Weis keeps his energy.
A lot of people say a certain school does well because of two or three great recruiters. That's true. But without a doubt Notre Dame does it because of Charlie Weis.
They can't afford to get complacent. A staff may think it is doing great and it's got 40 targets and it'll get 25. It almost always never works that way. You've got kids you're going to lose and all of a sudden you've got to find someone. They've got to have backups to those 40, at least 35 kids. You've got to keep the B-list guys thinking they're A-list guys. They've got to be strung along until the A-list guys make their decisions, which normally come later in the year.
It's important to have 75 guys on the list so you can get one of every three. If they take the 75 best players in the country and they get 25 of them, how could you help but not be No. 1 in the country?
But some kids you can't read. Sometimes you lose them. Some kids know how to play all the coaches and everyone thinks they're going to get him. That's why it's so important to keep evaluating tape and to keep offering guys you really like and stockpiling offers. I'm a firm believer that even the powerhouse schools should offer 75 to 100 quality guys, members of the top 200.Notre Dame is a little different than the other schools because of academics. Out of the top 100 nationally, they can normally go after only 50 or 60 of them. So for them it would be 75 of the top 150. If they had any weaknesses last year, they didn't have a ton of backup plans, particularly at defensive tackle and linebacker. That was the big bugaboo.
Source: Irish Sports Report
It makes for a great start. All those superstars that were here have Notre Dame in their top three, including defensive tackle Marvin Austin and defensive back Major Wright. Now Notre Dame has a bead on a core group of great players that could make it No. 1.
Charlie Weis will be going to visit ND's top targets. He'll also be visiting camps and he's going to the high schools of all the great players. Ragone's coach told me that Weis will be at the school on May 1. Weis is telling Ragone that he can help make Ragone the next Jeremy Shockey, so Ragone is really interested. Weis will then make his way across the country over the 20 days he's allowed to be on the road.
Not many head coaches are doing that. The only two I saw last year out nationally were Urban Meyer and Weis. I think it'll be the same story this year when it comes to the coaches at the 15 major powers.
At the end of May they start getting ready for their summer camp. Their one-day camp will put the finishing touches on who Notre Dame will have as its top priorities going into the fall. They'll get these kids out to the one-day camp, and 99 percent of the time the kids they want to offer are offered within a day of leaving the camp. They'll tell them they're going to offer and they'll pull the trigger the next day.And that will be almost the entirety of their offers. They'll add a couple later in the year just because kids pop up, but they'll know who they're going to zoom in on.
In July the coaches can take a bit of a break, but there will be kids making unofficial visits with their parents. The coaches need to be aware of that.
Notre Dame has two outstanding on-campus members of their recruiting staff in Ron Powlus and Dave Peloquin. They're both Notre Dame grads and they know every nook and cranny of the campus. Those two are the unspoken heroes during the slow summer months. They take kids on the tours and they're a main ingredient in this class.
After the one-day camp there will be some curious recruits that Notre Dame will in turn be curious about. That's where Powlus and Peloquin come in. Then the coaches come back in earnest.
I think Notre Dame is so far ahead and I believe they'll have almost all of their offers out right after the one-day camp is over in June. Marginal students are the kids they won't offer. They'll be told that Notre Dame wants them, but admissions has to accept them.In my opinion, it would be great for Notre Dame if they had between 12 and 15 of their 25 commitments before the start of the season.
There will always be kids who are going to wait. It doesn't matter how much they like you, they're going to wait. Notre Dame's coaches did everything well last year, but they learned their lesson on the Gerald McCoy situation. They were waiting on McCoy and couldn't pull the trigger on Butch Lewis. Lewis ended up at USC and McCoy went to Oklahoma.
This year I think they'll have more players in reserve. A lot of times, patience brings you a No. 1 class. Pete Carroll and Mack Brown always seem to land a great player or two at the end because of patience. They know the great players cannot be pushed or bullied into a commitment. So patience can be the key.
If Notre Dame learned a lesson on patience, this could be the best class since 1990. The groundwork has to be completely laid before the coaches take off for vacations in mid-June. July is probably the least important month except for text messaging and hand-written letters.
Some great assistant coaches have made their marks during July with letters. From the mid-'90s on, Notre Dame suffered during the summer and by the time September rolled around they were out of the race for a lot of players and they didn't even know they were out of the race. They were dead in the water and didn't even know it.That's not going to happen now. The recruiting atmosphere and the recruiting mindset and their approach to it has been set up completely by recruiting coordinator Rob Ianello and Weis. Everything has been set in place for them to finish close to No. 1 every year as long as Weis keeps his energy.
A lot of people say a certain school does well because of two or three great recruiters. That's true. But without a doubt Notre Dame does it because of Charlie Weis.
They can't afford to get complacent. A staff may think it is doing great and it's got 40 targets and it'll get 25. It almost always never works that way. You've got kids you're going to lose and all of a sudden you've got to find someone. They've got to have backups to those 40, at least 35 kids. You've got to keep the B-list guys thinking they're A-list guys. They've got to be strung along until the A-list guys make their decisions, which normally come later in the year.
It's important to have 75 guys on the list so you can get one of every three. If they take the 75 best players in the country and they get 25 of them, how could you help but not be No. 1 in the country?
But some kids you can't read. Sometimes you lose them. Some kids know how to play all the coaches and everyone thinks they're going to get him. That's why it's so important to keep evaluating tape and to keep offering guys you really like and stockpiling offers. I'm a firm believer that even the powerhouse schools should offer 75 to 100 quality guys, members of the top 200.Notre Dame is a little different than the other schools because of academics. Out of the top 100 nationally, they can normally go after only 50 or 60 of them. So for them it would be 75 of the top 150. If they had any weaknesses last year, they didn't have a ton of backup plans, particularly at defensive tackle and linebacker. That was the big bugaboo.
Source: Irish Sports Report
