It's less about Allar, specifically, and more so the entire cycle.
Rees neither offered the top signal callers at a reasonable time or evaluated the underrated guys accurately. There is nothing about this that was done well. Rees failed to evaluate and build relationships with the class as a whole. Let's just eliminate names for a minute and go through them like this.
The present #1 QB in the country, per 247, visited campus on February 1st of 2020 for our Junior Day. He was the only 2022 QB on campus that day. In fact, he was the only QB on campus, in any class that day. This was a golden opportunity for Rees. And, to my knowledge, said prospect, didn't take any other P5 visits around this time. He was also only 1 of 2, top 25 QB's, from the current 247 rankings, to ever make it to campus before the pandemic. Read that again, he was one of only 2, top 25 QB's, in the entire 2022 cycle, that made it to campus prior to Covid. This is where we can first identify that Rees is behind in getting signal callers to campus. And, to make matters worse, Rees did nothing with this early opportunity. This was the perfect chance to be early, at the very worst, with consistent communication. At the very best, an evaluation and offer. Rees did neither.
The #2 QB in the country had several conversations and zoom calls with Tommy back around June of 2020. He also had a chance to be early here, as well. Though he had already been offered by Arizona State, Arkansas, Auburn, Baylor, LSU, Miami, NC State, Nebraska, Ole Miss, SMU, TCU, Texas State, Virginia Tech and Washington State. He had not truly "blown up" yet. This was the perfect time for an early eval. Rees never offered and eventually dropped the recruitment. I don't know, m
aybe he didn't know how wide a football field is? In the link provided below, Matt Freeman at ISD notes that, at this point, Tommy didn't have a single offer out to a 2022 QB. While during the previous cycle, Buchner had already been committed for 3 months. So, point number 2, it's become very very clear, that QB recruiting was behind. More on this at the end.
INTEL | New 2022 QB on the radar | Irish Sports Daily
The #4 QB is a little different of a situation. See, he's a stud and has always been a stud. Everyone, else, has treated him like a stud. In fact, most big time programs offered 1 year before we did. Bama offered him almost 1.5 years before ND and Rees did. He took over 20 unofficial visits during 2019. Including one to Michigan. Unsurprisingly, none were to ND. During that time, Rees was getting Brady Allen, Chase Harrison, and Gunnar Smith on campus. Look those last two up. Both were multiple visit guys. What do they both have in common? Neither are presently in the top 75 QB's in the country.
It should come as no surprise that we got none of the 3 elite signal callers mentioned above.
Fact #1, Rees was behind 2022 QB recruiting before the pandemic. Fact #2, he got even further behind with his insistence on in-person evals in the midst of the global pandemic.
When the time came for the QB dominoes to start falling, Rees was just too far behind in both his evals and relationships and was sent into scramble mode.
Several months later and they're still trying to recruit over Angeli, for the 2nd time.
There is a reason we are still going after 2022 QB's. There is a reason that the 2023 board has been expanded the way that it has. There is a reason that they offered 2024 QB's when they did. There is a reason it was so important to get those top 2024 QB's to campus when they did. There is a reason it's so important to get those guys back on campus which they are literally doing this weekend. Much like it should've been done in 2019. Everything that they are presently doing tells us with 100% certainty that 2022 was not good enough and it wasn't good enough from a long time ago.
Good news, it looks like they have identified this and made the necessary changes. But, it doesn't change the present.
Drew Allar is just one piece of the cluster f that was Tommy's 2022 QB recruiting.
