'25 CA WR Dylan Robinson (Washington Verbal)

[Riddickulous]

Maybe someone has messing it before, but wonder if the exodus of receivers this offseason has something to do with why we are getting the cold shoulder.

ND has a reputation as a run heavy offense. Until they actually field a dynamic passing attack, that won't change.

 

[a mike]

Again, blue chip ratio says otherwise. Top-end talent via recruiting is better than it was under Kelly.

You can acknowledge two things at one time: Freeman has elevated the overall talent pool, but needs to make sure WR follows suit to get this team to where it wants to go

That's a strawman

My premise/point was that Freeman has not elevated the talent level other than the bottom end of the classes

Bringing up the bottom is why the blue chip ratio has improved

But that ratio does nothing to distinguish between a 5-star recruit and the lowest tier 4-star recruit

He is not doing anything in the top 50/5-star space that Kelly did not do, nor the program's historical mean going back to the Davie Era

A program like ND will always attract a certain level of top end talent on its own regardless of coach

I'll give Freeman credit for Knight, Love, and Gray. Those were all tough pulls and great gets for ND

But the ledger is starting to move away from his favor--especially when he should frankly being starting to hit his strike here in his third year

Objectively, outside of Knight, oline (never an issue) and DB class (continued props to Mickens)--as things stand now, this class is a step back from his first two classes

 

[CanadalovesND]

Make sure you guys let Hartline know that it's impossible to get top flight WR prospects recruited to your program and developed into first round picks without an apparent prerequisite 25 year prior history of the school having previously produced first round draft picks

He must not have gotten the memo

The spin doctoring going on right now is next level

Only reason Freeman was hired was to produce/procure a paradigm shift in ND's recruiting and roster talent

Thus far, he's bringing up the bottom ends of his classes compared to Kelly--but doing absolutely nothing more at the top end

OSU had high picks at WR long before Hartline. Shit, Hartline played with most of them in NFL when he was active in the league.

While I appreciate your arguements, you are also spinning it.

ND can recruit as hard as they want, but for such a glamorous and polarized position at wide receiver, they are going to need to prove it in the field before we see WR recruiting take off.

We had a great WR recruiter ion Stuckey. For ND standards, he brought in the talent that would have helped to move the needle. But necessarily, wasn’t a great developer.

 

[NumbersGuy0520]

When you flush out the selling game:

ND boosts:

• Premier duality of football and academics: if you want your education to be respected and have a career outside of football, while playing for a top-25 team, there really is no better.
• Dominant OL and TE play, strong QBs and RBs to take the stress off the WR.
• Top10-20 defenses that consistently put us in the national championship race.
• Combine the two above to argue that, quite literally, we are about a stud WR away from winning it all.
• A unique campus environment that you really can’t find anywhere else. This isn’t true for every school - I’ve been to schools that feel like carbon copies of other schools.
• Summary: come to ND. Choose hard. Be the WR that brings us back to winning national championships.

Negative recruiting points:

• I mean… have you seen ND’s recent WR production?
• See point one. Seriously. ND wide receivers do not produce. Come to LSU and be Ja’Marr Chase or Justin Jefferson.
• You want to get to the NFL, right? Playing school sounds good and all, but come take our fake classes and live the life of a football player 24/7.
• South Bend weather sucks.
• Young coach still figuring it out.
• Summary: football factory go brr.

The lists can go on and on, but the reality is: we have great recruiting across other positions largely because they have produced on the field + there is enough stability to overcome some of the negative talking points. This is clearly not the case for WR. Aside from Will Fuller, what have our WRs done even going back to the Kelly years? Our playoff seasons were anchored on foundational defense, trench battles, and strong TE play - but we’ve never really had THAT guy at WR.

Hopefully, even if we don’t win it all this year, I hope we can have at least two WRs about 800-900 yards and we can get ourselves back in the mix. If we solve the WR problem (while maintaining other position groups), we start winning national championships.

 

[Irish#1]

That's a strawman

My premise/point was that Freeman has not elevated the talent level other than the bottom end of the classes

Bringing up the bottom is why the blue chip ratio has improved

But that ratio does nothing to distinguish between a 5-star recruit and the lowest tier 4-star recruit

He is not doing anything in the top 50/5-star space that Kelly did not do, nor the program's historical mean going back to the Davie Era

A program like ND will always attract a certain level of top end talent on its own regardless of coach

I'll give Freeman credit for Knight, Love, and Gray. Those were all tough pulls and great gets for ND

But the ledger is starting to move away from his favor--especially when he should frankly being starting to hit his strike here in his third year

Objectively, outside of Knight, oline (never an issue) and DB class (continued props to Mickens)--as things stand now, this class is a step back from his first two classes

Mike Frank--literally the biggest hand-wringing worry wart pessimistic on the face of the planet has stated now at least two separate times he has no issues or concerns with ND being restricted/limited in any way with upfront money structures to recruits anymore since the recent ruling on NIL was passed down

Thank you for perfectly encapsulating the characture/example of the type of Freeman-Simp poster I was talking about

The rationalizing, blame shifting, cognitive dissonance, crying.....AMAZING

View attachment 3056005

Make sure you guys let Hartline know that it's impossible to get top flight WR prospects recruited to your program and developed into first round picks without an apparent prerequisite 25 year prior history of the school having previously produced first round draft picks

He must not have gotten the memo

The spin doctoring going on right now is next level

Only reason Freeman was hired was to produce/procure a paradigm shift in ND's recruiting and roster talent

Thus far, he's bringing up the bottom ends of his classes compared to Kelly--but doing absolutely nothing more at the top end

Your primary premise/defense for why we lost two of three targets gets shot down and this is what you respond with?

Piuos inane filler word salad?

You also listed three situations with three recruits

What's your defense for all the other WR misses/blunders in the class before these three?........I'll wait

Someone needs a hug.

 

[Jiggafini19Deux]

 

[IrishLion]

That's a strawman

My premise/point was that Freeman has not elevated the talent level other than the bottom end of the classes

Bringing up the bottom is why the blue chip ratio has improved

But that ratio does nothing to distinguish between a 5-star recruit and the lowest tier 4-star recruit

He is not doing anything in the top 50/5-star space that Kelly did not do, nor the program's historical mean going back to the Davie Era

A program like ND will always attract a certain level of top end talent on its own regardless of coach

I'll give Freeman credit for Knight, Love, and Gray. Those were all tough pulls and great gets for ND

But the ledger is starting to move away from his favor--especially when he should frankly being starting to hit his strike here in his third year

Objectively, outside of Knight, oline (never an issue) and DB class (continued props to Mickens)--as things stand now, this class is a step back from his first two classes

It's not a strawman, it's semantics and interpretation.

The reality for me is that Freeman has elevated the overall talent level of the team. The more top-150 guys they sign, the more likely it is that they hit, and the more likely it is that someone elevates to "winning playoff games" caliber.

I see it as raising the ceiling because there is more roster density in terms of highly-rated guys.

You see it as raising the floor because those highly-rated guys are taking the places of some of the extra late-cycle grabs that BK loved.

Again, both things can be true.

 

[Big23Head]

Not ND. Prister pretty much said as much in his article today.

Yeah, every 247 guy (ND or not) has said Washington just no CBs going in.

 

[irishnd31]

This never gets old😂😂😂😂

 

[Jiggafini19Deux]

This never gets old😂😂😂😂

Applies to a lot of the dudes that make themselves available to these threads.

 

[Jiggafini19Deux]

OSU had high picks at WR long before Hartline. Shit, Hartline played with most of them in NFL when he was active in the league.

He was also promoted to interim WR coach when they had to fire Zach Smith and that entire shit show. Not many people realize that. If Pope Urban Ohio had his way, he'd have kept Smith on the staff until word got out that Smith liked to beat up his wife.

Hartline got the job full time the December after that season.

The guy just seems to be very highly thought of for nothing more than being a good recruiter at Ohio State, the school he attended, and coaching the same position he played. Started 73 games in The League.

I'm not saying Ohio State recruits itself, but they've had a pretty long run of recruiting classes that stretches back to Tressel. Too many ND fans are looking over the fence at Hartline like he's this shiny thing that we just have to have, but in reality, it is more than fair to question how he'd do away from his alma mater in a situation like Notre Dame when it comes to recruiting. Zero guarantee he's a success away from Ohio State.

 

[a mike]

Yeah I definitely don't see how anyone could possibly conclude that Brian Hartline has upped the WR quality at OSU during his tenure

They were basically considered WR U even before he got there and produced tons more quality WR draft picks than ND

He's basically just some kind of glorified scrub

 

[PutuporShutup]

Yeah I definitely don't see how anyone could possibly conclude that Brian Hartline has upped the WR quality at OSU during his tenure

They were basically considered WR U even before he got there and produced tons more quality WR draft picks than ND

He's basically just some kind of glorified scrub

View attachment 3056006

View attachment 3056007

Boykin was drafted 3rd round in 2019, and claypool 2nd round in 2020

 

[TorontoGold]

That's a strawman

My premise/point was that Freeman has not elevated the talent level other than the bottom end of the classes

Bringing up the bottom is why the blue chip ratio has improved

But that ratio does nothing to distinguish between a 5-star recruit and the lowest tier 4-star recruit

He is not doing anything in the top 50/5-star space that Kelly did not do, nor the program's historical mean going back to the Davie Era

A program like ND will always attract a certain level of top end talent on its own regardless of coach

I'll give Freeman credit for Knight, Love, and Gray. Those were all tough pulls and great gets for ND

But the ledger is starting to move away from his favor--especially when he should frankly being starting to hit his strike here in his third year

Objectively, outside of Knight, oline (never an issue) and DB class (continued props to Mickens)--as things stand now, this class is a step back from his first two classes

How do you measure this? Freeman has a higher avg rating for each of his classes than Kelly had since 2013?

If a program like ND always attracted a certain level of top talent, what words would you use to describe Freeman's worst year's BCR ratio (56%) being still higher than Kelly's last two years (53% and 44%) coming off a CFP berth?

If the ledger is sliding away why is the talent accumulation moving in a more positive direction than it was in Kelly's last years?

 

[HouseofPain]

That's a strawman

My premise/point was that Freeman has not elevated the talent level other than the bottom end of the classes

Bringing up the bottom is why the blue chip ratio has improved

But that ratio does nothing to distinguish between a 5-star recruit and the lowest tier 4-star recruit

He is not doing anything in the top 50/5-star space that Kelly did not do, nor the program's historical mean going back to the Davie Era

A program like ND will always attract a certain level of top end talent on its own regardless of coach

I'll give Freeman credit for Knight, Love, and Gray. Those were all tough pulls and great gets for ND

But the ledger is starting to move away from his favor--especially when he should frankly being starting to hit his strike here in his third year

Objectively, outside of Knight, oline (never an issue) and DB class (continued props to Mickens)--as things stand now, this class is a step back from his first two classes

Not meaning to argue here but what makes you possibly think this will change or can change? Face it, athletes have traditionally not been the most academic of all students, double that for top athletes. What makes you think kids, that have been told they are so great and had multiple doors opened for them all their life based on their athletic abilities alone, want to come to an elite academic school and have to actually work? Is it possible that SOME do? Sure, but very few. Couple that with the fact that today's generation is more lazy and more entitled than ever before, and you have a recipe that doesn't really show much of an avenue for ND to rack in 5 star players.

Hey I want ND to win big too. I just dont see it happening.

 

[a mike]

How do you measure this? Freeman has a higher avg rating for each of his classes than Kelly had since 2013?

If a program like ND always attracted a certain level of top talent, what words would you use to describe Freeman's worst year's BCR ratio (56%) being still higher than Kelly's last two years (53% and 44%) coming off a CFP berth?

If the ledger is sliding away why is the talent accumulation moving in a more positive direction than it was in Kelly's last years?

The ledger comment was strictly centering around Freeman's performance irrespective of Kelly. As it stands now, this class will be a step back from his previous two, not a step forward.

The value proposition on Freeman was that he was going to bring in more of the top tier talent (top 50 or 5-stars) than Kelly could to catch us up with the Bama's, Georgia's, and OSU's of the world

Everyone here always gets into an irrational mental breakdown whenever it's pointed out that Freeman is a lot closer to recruiting at Kelly and ND's historical mean than he is close to recruiting where the top programs are currently at

Then everyone has to juke stat, pivot, etc when they start to compare Kelly and Freeman's recruiting

You can't really count Kelly's 2013 class because Greg Bryant ended up transferring

The 2022 class was really actually Freeman's class

Kelly didn't have to deal with NIL

Blah blah blah

Inevitably they obtain the needed data set to support their argument

Whilst I'm over here saying how about you put up Freeman's numbers against what Georgia or Bama is doing right now

If it's not there, or closer to them than the historical mean--there isn't too much value proposition to hiring a head coach with no experience

Then it's

That's not fair to expect Freeman to recruit at that level

That's not realistic--South Bend is cold and the players have to go to class

Blah blah blah

So then I simultaneously at every turn have to listen to how amazing a recruiter Freeman is and how much better he is than Kelly but also while hearing about how it's never his fault if recruiting is not on par with the top programs, his hands are tied by NIL, it's out of his control because Kelly didn't have any 1st round draft picks, etc

People want to have their cake and eat it too on the argument

At the end of the day, he either is good enough to circumvent the recruiting obstacles and delivers the goods on the trail or he just some type of a little better version of the ND historical mean of recruiting coupled with limited coaching experience and underwhelming on the field results to date

 

[a mike]

Not meaning to argue here but what makes you possibly think this will change or can change? Face it, athletes have traditionally not been the most academic of all students, double that for top athletes. What makes you think kids, that have been told they are so great and had multiple doors opened for them all their life based on their athletic abilities alone, want to come to an elite academic school and have to actually work? Is it possible that SOME do? Sure, but very few. Couple that with the fact that today's generation is more lazy and more entitled than ever before, and you have a recipe that doesn't really show much of an avenue for ND to rack in 5 star players.

Hey I want ND to win big too. I just dont see it happening.

If a person is resigned to your prescribed facts and believe there is a certain ceiling to ND recruiting that is more than fine by me and I can't really fault their logic--even if I were to disagree a bit

But then that said same person should not being particularly enamored with the Freeman hire nor his results on the field to date

If you're resigned to the ceiling argument then you would want ND to skew much more to having a very good and experienced HC vs an inexperienced one who's top trait is recruiting. The top trait would be inherently wasted on him and the program. It'd be a bad fit for both parties.

 

[T-Boone]

Try to get Golden to the offense or is he a RB on offense?

 

[Rocketman84]

It only looks so bad because they willingly eliminated over half their board to get down to three when they wanted three. Running the inside straight was always a long shot

It looks bad because it is bad...If you look at the last legitimate 10 prospects on the board we have the #9 and #10 guy committed to ND. Under no circumstances is that acceptable at any top 25 school but especially at Notre Dame.

 

[Rocketman84]

ND has a reputation as a run heavy offense. Until they actually field a dynamic passing attack, that won't change.

Hasn't been consistently WR friendly since Weis left, besides two years of Will Fuller stretching the field w/Golson and Kizer throwing bombs.

 

[Rocketman84]

He's going to UW

 

[NDMD]

It's official, UW

 

[Deirishpisser]

so far, stuckey has smoked brown on the recruiting trail

 

[Ophiocordyceps]

Composite Rankings

Cam Williams #12
Braylon James #22
Jaden Greathouse #23
Rico Flores #31
Micah Gilbert #41
KK Smith #78
————————
Elijah Burress #93
Jerome Bettis #136

 

[INLaw]

It's totally fair to question Freeman on WR recruiting right now, both for continued results, and for his two WR coaching hires. If he is a relentless recruiter, he needs to figure out how to close on the one problem position that has plagued ND for years now.

(Blue Chip Ratio is good; overall returns on Freeman as a recruiter still overwhelmingly positive otherwise, imo)

I don't think we can judge Brown fully until we see how the '26 class shakes out. He does have a good track record of developing guys that have particular skill sets. I have hope for better on-field results both with improved QB play, and with Brown actually coaching guys.

Having said all that:



Denbrock is in the crosshairs as soon as we call a timeout to avoid a delay of game to start our first offensive series.

While we are at it the weak side edge vyper whatever they wanna call that position…lets say I have questions

 

[INLaw]

I mean this is just so fucking stupid.

Okay, yeah—It falls to him because he’s the HC, but what he’s really potentially guilty of is making a questionable hire for his WR coach in terms of hiring a guy that tracked decently as a developer and was questionable as a recruiter. Okay fine. I’ll agree with that.

Then you look at our biggest three WR targets. One was offered a bag *allegedly* in the realm of ridiculous and committed to USC.

One possibly wants to play defense, but ND is recruiting him as a WR and isn’t going to lie to him in order to gain his commitment.

The last is going to go to LSU who are dropping huge bags for incoming recruits.

What you choose not to acknowledge in your entire asinine post is that while ND doesn’t have an NIL problem, we still don’t play the game for incoming freshmen by giving them upfront money, rather it is projected what they could expect to earn in NIL. But again, you either don’t get that or choose to ignore it because it doesn’t fit your narrative.

Going 0/3 on these dudes sucks, but really only one of them I’ll chalk up to a true whiff by the staff. And no, Freeman going to Alaska for X days probably wouldn’t have made a difference with at least two of them.

Also it’s mid July.

Some of you guys fucking suck.

We are now giving up front bags

 

[INLaw]

How can you say he has had more than enough time. When other schools are telling our top targets we haven't had a draft pick since 2020 that isn't Browns fault, how do you suggest he overcome that? Nothing is going to change until players start seeing the product on the field this year. We need 1-2 WR's to go off

Same way every successful recruiter does when he has a shit position group…you sell you are guy you are the one to fix it. The obvious fuck up was having too small a board and cutting it too down too damn quick

 

[HouseofPain]

If a person is resigned to your prescribed facts and believe there is a certain ceiling to ND recruiting that is more than fine by me and I can't really fault their logic--even if I were to disagree a bit

But then that said same person should not being particularly enamored with the Freeman hire nor his results on the field to date

If you're resigned to the ceiling argument then you would want ND to skew much more to having a very good and experienced HC vs an inexperienced one who's top trait is recruiting. The top trait would be inherently wasted on him and the program. It'd be a bad fit for both parties.

I think it comes down to accepting that ND isnt going to win the NC. Probably never. Being a ND fan is being happy with 10-2 and not really in the play for the biggies. And thats okay. In a world that is going to crap quickly, there are worse things to be concerned about rather than a college not being the best at football.

 

[INLaw]

0 for 3 and you said thanks but no thanks to the Hoosier receiver from a military family who was straight real about academics by committing to stanford just as he started blowing up. Maybe we can pry him back but we kind of deserve him to tell us to pound sand and ball out like Ayomanor. Year three a little long in the tooth for rookie learning lessons and the sell was significant up recruiting for maybe rookie bad coaching. The coaching has been worse than expected and Lions numbers are correct but also its a raising the floor not the ceiling situation. We aren’t worse off than Kelly but need some on field luck to start feeling better off. TAMU is as big a game as we have had in a long time for the feels elements

 

[TorontoGold]

The ledger comment was strictly centering around Freeman's performance irrespective of Kelly. As it stands now, this class will be a step back from his previous two, not a step forward.

The value proposition on Freeman was that he was going to bring in more of the top tier talent (top 50 or 5-stars) than Kelly could to catch us up with the Bama's, Georgia's, and OSU's of the world

Everyone here always gets into an irrational mental breakdown whenever it's pointed out that Freeman is a lot closer to recruiting at Kelly and ND's historical mean than he is close to recruiting where the top programs are currently at

Then everyone has to juke stat, pivot, etc when they start to compare Kelly and Freeman's recruiting

You can't really count Kelly's 2013 class because Greg Bryant ended up transferring

The 2022 class was really actually Freeman's class

Kelly didn't have to deal with NIL

Blah blah blah

Inevitably they obtain the needed data set to support their argument

Whilst I'm over here saying how about you put up Freeman's numbers against what Georgia or Bama is doing right now

If it's not there, or closer to them than the historical mean--there isn't too much value proposition to hiring a head coach with no experience

Then it's

That's not fair to expect Freeman to recruit at that level

That's not realistic--South Bend is cold and the players have to go to class

Blah blah blah

So then I simultaneously at every turn have to listen to how amazing a recruiter Freeman is and how much better he is than Kelly but also while hearing about how it's never his fault if recruiting is not on par with the top programs, his hands are tied by NIL, it's out of his control because Kelly didn't have any 1st round draft picks, etc

People want to have their cake and eat it too on the argument

At the end of the day, he either is good enough to circumvent the recruiting obstacles and delivers the goods on the trail or he just some type of a little better version of the ND historical mean of recruiting coupled with limited coaching experience and underwhelming on the field results to date

Has Freeman not moved the program towards the upper echelon of talented teams? I think Lanning has a great perception of buying his way to top teams. Well, Freeman has taken the team talent up from Kelly and Lanning has maintained it since Cristobal has left. (This is not about on field performance at all, because Lanning has done a ton and that's a different discussion).

In terms of overall team talent per 247's team talent

2021 - Kelly's last team was 89.79 avg and 853.74
2023 - Freeman's most recent team 91.16 avg and 870.70

2021 - Cristobal's last team was 90.60 avg and 885.75
2023 - Lanning's most recent team 90.29 avg 874.74

You're upset because Freeman hasn't radically changed the team talent to match that of those three programs. I think we would all agree that Oregon is a recruiting powerhouse under Lanning, and Freeman is literally right there with him in building a talented roster.

ND does not have the NFL production outside of a few positions, ND does not have the public perception of being a big NIL player, and ND has the academic constraints that most other serious CFB schools do not - and yet, Freeman is right there.

I agree it sucks to not win individual recruitments of high profile recruits, and to have let down games so far, but you can not say that Freeman has not delivered on the promised talent acquisition. If you truly expected him to come in and be on par with Saban/Smart/Day right off the bat with ND's known limitations that's on you. Look at Lanning, he's got a bigger NIL budget and no academic constraints and he hasn't gotten Oregon to the same talent levels as Bama/UGA/OSU.