So would that mean Kelly is not allowed to offer unless he checks with admissions about the student first? If not, how did Utupo commit before he stepped on campus to check if he could even attend ND?
No, he can offer scholarships based upon guidelines/understanding with the ND Admissions Department BUT all ND offers are conditional upon Admission's O.K.
ND's Admission requirements have been tougher than the NCAA's long as I can remember. Most fans including a lot of ND fans assume if a recruit meets NCAA Clearinghouse requirements for the core course GPA and Test Score on a sliding basis they approved for any school. Not so. ND, Stanford, Vanderbilt, and a couple of others require more.
The NCAA used to require 12 cores courses while ND, Standford and Vanderbilt required 16. That goes back to the Holtz days. Cerrato and Holtz use to play the time/pressure game supposedly holding transcripts on questionable prospects until close to National Signing Day. The purpose was to force acceptance. Admissions cried foul and finally put their foot down in '95 when two recruits in sent in Letters of Intent were rejected outright by ND Admissions as they had never been approved to receive scholarships. Both were HS All American difference makers.
Davie tried to work with Admissions to get in questionable recruits. He got some but by and large didn't. Davie moaned and groaned over it but didn't fight very hard. Willingham caved almost completely. He also got some academically marginal recruits in but if Admissions said no he generally rolled over. One of Weis's smartest moves was meeting with Admssions staff (Saracino) and establishing where the grey area was and where the hard lines were. He didn't waste Admissions time with a kid clearly not qualified to compete in ND's classroom environment. Weis passed this information unto this staff. When they looked at underclassmen that expressed interest in ND they were capable of looking at a kid's transcript and telling him you a sophomore with a weak math background IF you want to go to ND you'll need to take 3 math courses in your next 3 semesters to show ND Admissions you can handle the math workload at ND. As a result Weis was more effective in getting academically marginal recruits like Paddy Mullen approved.
When a prospect makes an Offical Visit to ND the recruit tours the campus, meets the coaches, and meets with Admissions and faculty members in their field of interest. It's a two way eyeball. Admissions/faculty get to see the recruit in person rather than just perusing a transcript. The recruit (and parents) get to ask questions about qualifications, coursework, expectations, ND's Tutorial Program, etc. It's a win/win situation.
Brooks has had his transcript at least screened, possibly throughly reviewed by Admissions at this point but they haven't had the opportunity to meet with him to evaluate him. That's the key point. A large part of life is showing up. With ND Admissions it's crucial. If you look back historically, ND had few recruits on campus late in the reruiting cycle. South Bend weather is part of the reason but the biggest reason is that Admission's needs time to do their thing.
