'14 FL WR Isaiah McKenzie ( Georgia ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

[GoldenIsThyFame]

Per Loy, the staff is more optimistic then it was last month though they have not received the test scores back. If McKenzie qualifies for another school but doesn't meet the ND admission requirements they will try and make the case to the admissions office for an exception, citing his significant improvement over the last year.

 

[irishroo]

MCKENZIE INTERSTED IN THE VOLS

It was a big week for Isaiah McKenzie as the 5-foot-8, 165-pound athlete from Plantation, Fla., at times put on a show.

In the game he finished with four carries for 24 yards and added a 75-yard kickoff return as well as a 25-yard punt return.

The exciting athlete has heard from Tennessee the last several days and is excited for the new attention.

"It's an SEC school and that's always exciting," McKenzie said.

Tennessee seems to be a school that could become a factor if they decide to push harder and they aren't the only school looking to get into the mix. After having a Rutgers official visit set up earlier this week McKenzie is thinking more and more and his visit schedule.

"I don't know about Rutgers right now," McKenzie explained. "It depends on where else I want to go right now.

"Right now, I'm just trying to see some schools and see who I like and make a move from there."

One school that will likely be in the mix is Florida after the Gators contacted him on Thursday.

"I know a little bit about them. They have some good players that went on to the NFL like Percy Harvin and Tim Tebow and I know it's a good program," McKenzie said.

Wake Forest, West Virginia, Kentucky, Notre Dame as well as Tennessee, Florida and Rutgers are still all in play and McKenzie said he feels like he's starting anew with his process.

"I feel like I'm starting over again," McKenzie added.





bye,bye,bye

He'd be number 34 in this class for the Vols and they still have 5-7 guys left on the board. How is that even possible?

 

[Brooklyn]

Per Loy, the staff is more optimistic then it was last month though they have not received the test scores back. If McKenzie qualifies for another school but doesn't meet the ND admission requirements they will try and make the case to the admissions office for an exception, citing his significant improvement over the last year.

Really hope McKenzie can make it here. Electric player and he wants to be here bad enough to fight to be here.

 

[yankeeND]

This actually makes tons of sense to me. We have an answer to our punt return problems but he is having a difficult time qualifying. This equals we are cursed in our PR woes. I've seen some posts pro and con on Isaiah and his academic struggles but, being athletically gifted does merit some accept ions whether some of you want to admit it or not. Notre Dame is a great school for a reason but, to compete at the highest level you have to take some risks here and there and this would be one to consider. At least the kid wants to be here and is giving it his best shot. Still holding out hope he can get in and prove he can be successful.

 

[wizards8507]

He would have to pay his own way.

Is that true, though? "Regular" (non-athlete) students at Notre Dame still get piles of need-based financial aid. I'm not sure what his family's finances look like, but he'd still probably get the same financial aid package that a normal student would get even if he were ineligible for an athletic scholarship. My family was far from dirt poor but I went to ND just about for free (with the exception of $25K in loans over four years).

On that note, do the NCAA rules apply to academic scholarships, or to the ability to compete? In other words, is it possible that he's ineligible for a scholarship but he IS eligible to compete as a walk-on?

 

[dublinirish]

He'd be number 34 in this class for the Vols and they still have 5-7 guys left on the board. How is that even possible?

gray shirting etc. their roster depth is so shallow atm they will take as many 3/4 star kids they can get and then worry about it after

 

[Emcee77]

Per Loy, the staff is more optimistic then it was last month though they have not received the test scores back. If McKenzie qualifies for another school but doesn't meet the ND admission requirements they will try and make the case to the admissions office for an exception, citing his significant improvement over the last year.

I love that they're fighting for him. By all accounts he's a great kid who has seen the error of his former ways and is trying like hell to get into ND.

 

[dublinirish]

it still boggles the mind that IM was on scholarship at a private school and dominating on the field and winning championships for them but took them so long to get him academically up to speed..

 

[SoJerseyIrish]

To me that is the beauty of ND football, to give kids a chance to attend ND. I know some purist will disagree but I think giving kids who truly want to be here a shot it a great thing. I know the Admissions and Administration look at graduation rates, grades and GPAs but I really wish they would take more of a chance on some borderline kids. Selfishly, sure it benefits football.....but it also benefits those kids and families that normally would not have this opportunity.

 

[KyfightingIrish36]

https://twitter.com/annahscout/status/419122975799930881

 

[Emcee77]

It's funny to see soooo many people on here acting like they fully know the situation. Specifically, people saying "This is the type of kid we should want at ND" and "look how hard he's working"...

The only thing we know is that at one point, his commitment was not very shaky. The staff laid out clear guidelines of what Isaiah had to do to meet the MINIMUM requirements.

AND GUESS WHAT!

He didn't meet them...

Spare me the he tried so hard bullshit... It's a joke. Tons of kids works their asses off and don't get anything out of it. In this case, there is 0 evidence that he worked hard at all. Actually, the circumstances indicate the opposite, that he did not put the work in even when he knew what was required of him. The fact of the matter is the Isaiah had an incredible opportunity to receive a full scholarship to ND if he met the lowest standards possible, and he didn't meet them.

The reporters who cover ND recruiting and are acquainted with McKenzie personally all seem to think that he's working his ass off, and are reporting the same. I'll admit that we don't "fully know the situation," and I think it's fair to point out that if Isaiah had worked harder earlier in his academic career he wouldn't be in this mess, but the suggestion that he isn't working hard at present is positively rebutted by the reporting of people close to the situation.

 

[PANDFAN]

https://twitter.com/annahscout/status/419122975799930881

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>WR Isaiah McKenzie went more in-depth last night on what's next to happen in order for him to qualify @ ND ($): <a href="http://t.co/DVYYajyaKL">http://t.co/DVYYajyaKL</a></p>— Anna Hickey (@AnnaHScout) <a href="https://twitter.com/AnnaHScout/statuses/419122975799930881">January 3, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

[wizards8507]

https://twitter.com/annahscout/status/419122975799930881

Cliffnotes for the impoverished among us?

 

[KyfightingIrish36]

Sorry I can't embed from my phone.

 

[stlnd01]

it still boggles the mind that IM was on scholarship at a private school and dominating on the field and winning championships for them but took them so long to get him academically up to speed..

He hasn't been at American Heritage that long, right? Maybe a year or two?

 

[Emcee77]

That's what I thought. In which case he'd still get the same financial aid package as a "regular" Notre Dame student after filling out the FAFSA and all that nonsense. Cost isn't really an issue because he wouldn't have to "pay his way" no matter what. ND has a very strong financial aid program. If he got in, it's not like he'd have to write a $60,000 check.

Can it be this simple though? If it were, what would stop schools from using their general financial aid machinery to circumvent the 85 scholarship limit?

I know we've discussed in other threads (Marquis Dickerson, maybe?) whether you can accept a preferred walk-on who is getting a full "academic" scholarship , and I can't remember exactly where we landed but I believe we discovered that, depending on the circumstances, a walk-on receiving non-athletic institutional financial aid still counts toward the 85 limit if he gets playing time. Not that that would prevent us from doing it with McKenzie (we could either save a spot for him or just redshirt him and hopefully get him on a football scholarship in year 2) but it just makes me suspect that it wouldn't be kosher to take him as a walk-on just to avoid the problem of his failure to qualify for athletic aid. I mean, does it pass the smell test for you guys?

 

[KyfightingIrish36]

Florida offered.

 

[wizards8507]

Can it be this simple though? If it were, what would stop schools from using their general financial aid machinery to circumvent the 85 scholarship limit?

I know we've discussed in other threads (Marquis Dickerson, maybe?) whether you can accept a preferred walk-on who is getting a full "academic" scholarship , and I can't remember exactly where we landed but I believe we discovered that, depending on the circumstances, a walk-on receiving non-athletic institutional financial aid still counts toward the 85 limit if he gets playing time. Not that that would prevent us from doing it with McKenzie (we could either save a spot for him or just redshirt him and hopefully get him on a football scholarship in year 2) but it just makes me suspect that it wouldn't be kosher to take him as a walk-on just to avoid the problem of his failure to qualify for athletic aid. I mean, does it pass the smell test for you guys?

Hell if I know. I'm no expert by any means. I'm guessing that the big difference is that most schools DON'T offer financial aid in the amount of "100% of demonstrated financial need" to their regular students. The only "national universities" that do this are:

Boston College
Brown
CalTech
Columbia
Cornell
Darmouth
Duke
Georgetown
Harvard
MIT
Princeton
Rice
Stanford
Tufts
Chicago
North Carolina
Northwestern
Notre Dame
Penn
Yale

Take out all the non-FBS programs and it's pretty much only Rice, Northwestern, ND, Duke, Stanford, BC, and North Carolina who would even have the option.

 

[Emcee77]

Hell if I know. I'm no expert by any means. I'm guessing that the big difference is that most schools DON'T offer financial aid in the amount of "100% of demonstrated financial need" to their regular students.

That's a really good point.

P.S. Northwestern should be on that list, right? I wanna say when I visited that they told me they meet 100% of financial need.

 

[irishog77]

Can it be this simple though? If it were, what would stop schools from using their general financial aid machinery to circumvent the 85 scholarship limit?

I know we've discussed in other threads (Marquis Dickerson, maybe?) whether you can accept a preferred walk-on who is getting a full "academic" scholarship , and I can't remember exactly where we landed but I believe we discovered that, depending on the circumstances, a walk-on receiving non-athletic institutional financial aid still counts toward the 85 limit if he gets playing time. Not that that would prevent us from doing it with McKenzie (we could either save a spot for him or just redshirt him and hopefully get him on a football scholarship in year 2) but it just makes me suspect that it wouldn't be kosher to take him as a walk-on just to avoid the problem of his failure to qualify for athletic aid. I mean, does it pass the smell test for you guys?

I've wondered about this too. In a numbers crunch, several people have mentioned Joe Schmidt going off of scholarship. If he could do that, and still play, then it seemed to me like schools everywhere would get players to drop their scholarship and pay their own tuition. I mean it's not like there would be 25 kids at every school doing this, but I'd almost guarantee that virtually every school could get 2,3 parents to pay the way for their son. ND is more difficult to have this happen at though, with tuition being a whole helluva lot more than state schools.

 

[wizards8507]

That's a really good point.

P.S. Northwestern should be on that list, right? I wanna say when I visited that they told me they meet 100% of financial need.

Yessir. List updated.

Northwestern University offers financial assistance to students on the basis of demonstrated need. Northwestern is among a small group of private institutions that continue to meet the full demonstrated institutional financial need of our aid applicants.

 

[gkIrish]

Notre Dame literally gave me money on top of tuition junior and senior years because I was so poor.

 

[wizards8507]

Notre Dame literally gave me money on top of tuition junior and senior years because I was so poor.

Same. When I moved off campus, I got a check from the University each semester to pay my rent.

 

[gkIrish]

Same. When I moved off campus, I got a check from the University each semester to pay my rent.

I had a lot of money left over. It was awesome. (Threw a bunch of parties using ND money)

 

[md_bennett]

I had a lot of money left over. It was awesome. (Threw a bunch of parties using ND money)

Don't let that get out. I got kids who will one day need that ND money lol.

 

[wizards8507]

Don't let that get out. I got kids who will one day need that ND money lol.

That's why I write them a check every year.

It has nothing to do with football tickets.

 

[EuropeanDomer]

Maybe i'm late but Florida offered.

 

[STLDomer]

Set an OV to Florida, direct quote from McKenzie on that OV:

"I'm pretty sure it won't be as good as Notre Dame"

 

[wizards8507]

Set an OV to Florida, direct quote from McKenzie on that OV:

"I'm pretty sure it won't be as good as Notre Dame"

Wow this kid's for real, huh?

LET THE BOY PLAY!

#RKGs

 

[IrishLax]

Just wish ND would let him sign on the dotted line and work with him over the summer to get qualified. That is what Tennessee, Florida, Rutgers, etc. will do.