When Is It Too Early to Offer?

[TinyT]

I just read on Blue and Gold that Kelly offered a sophomore RB. Can he even do that?

I thought it was like pulling teeth to get the early offers out on juniors.

No Access

The kid is already a giant running back. Good lord.

 

[D-BOE34]

YouTube - Derrick Henry (2013 RB) Freshman/Sophomore Highlights - Elite Scouting

 

[NDinL.A.]

I just read on Blue and Gold that Kelly offered a sophomore RB. Can he even do that?

I thought it was like pulling teeth to get the early offers out on juniors.

No Access

The kid is already a giant running back. Good lord.

Lane Kiffin offered a 13 year-old last year. So yes, you can offer younger kids; it just can't be in writing yet.

As for pulling teeth to get early offers out to juniors...you have the wrong coach. Coach Kelly has put out way more earlier offers to juniors than Weis did. Weis went more for the big catch and had less offers out, but BK has taken a different approach.

 

[Kak7304]

6'3 220 lbs as a sophomore in high school and decent speed? I'm interested to see how he grows and what position he ends up at over the next few years. He might end up being a 6'6 270 lbs RB.

 

[irish4ever]

He can sure get to the outside edge pretty quickly! Looks damn good for a Soph.

 

[ThePiombino]

Our next Hughes plus a few inches?

 

[TinyT]

Lane Kiffin offered a 13 year-old last year. So yes, you can offer younger kids; it just can't be in writing yet.

As for pulling teeth to get early offers out to juniors...you have the wrong coach. Coach Kelly has put out way more earlier offers to juniors than Weis did. Weis went more for the big catch and had less offers out, but BK has taken a different approach.

I remember Kiffin offering babies, I just can't recall Notre Dame offering this early. I thought the school insisted on having more data on the students academic performance.

 

[Ben E.]

wow!!! that kid didnt even get hit on 75% of those runs!

 

[Kingbish01]

Comments on youtube say he is a 17 year old soph playing against scrubs....Just sayin

 

[dshans]

I thought the school insisted on having more data on the students academic performance.

That will be the case in due time. In the meantime, is it a bad thing that the kid has a bit of motivation to get his educational house in order?

 

[TinyT]

That will be the case in due time. In the meantime, is it a bad thing that the kid has a bit of motivation to get his educational house in order?

Not at all. I just worry about the ethics of the offer. If he happens to really like Notre Dame, but is unable to get his grades high enough for acceptance I would be disappointed in the University, more specifically Coach Kelly, for allowing and giving the offer.

I never attended but I hold the University in very high regard, for its athletics, academics and for its reputation for doing things the right way. If he is unable to attend because of grades, this offer would not have been the right way.

 

[NDinL.A.]

Not at all. I just worry about the ethics of the offer. If he happens to really like Notre Dame, but is unable to get his grades high enough for acceptance I would be disappointed in the University, more specifically Coach Kelly, for allowing and giving the offer.

I never attended but I hold the University in very high regard, for its athletics, academics and for its reputation for doing things the right way. If he is unable to attend because of grades, this offer would not have been the right way.

But before you even think about getting disappointed in Kelly and the University, I would say I'm 99% sure that all of the offers are conditional on the students taking care of business in the classroom. Case in point: Davaris Daniels. Last year he had an offer, everyone knew he had an offer, and he wanted to commit. But he couldn't commit because he had to take care of things educationally. He even famously almost committed to Miami, but then he put the work in in the classroom, did what he had to do and then committed.

So be assured that when they told this kid they were offering him, they told him the conditions of the offer. Some kids are down with it...others not so much. But I wouldn't worry about the ethics of Brian Kelly on this one - the Davaris Daniels case should put your mind at ease...

 

[Old Man Mike]

Robot still won't let me rep you LA, but "phantom reps" anyway. Some of our posters spend way too much time thinking of how things put ND in the worst light. Thanks to you and a few others for "gently" [when allowed] putting proper light on these things. The lack of trust in the University often staggers me.

 

[TinyT]

Perhaps I wrote my feelings poorly.

I question the whole meaningless verbal offer. It used to be, coaches and recruits would make comments about having to wait for transcripts to get approved through University admissions. It might have been annoying and inconvenient, but at that point I was sure that ND was doing the honorable thing.

With Coach Kelly offering a sophomore it certainly should make all those posters ripping Kiffin and other coaches for offering very early take a step back and ask, where is the University heading now?

There has been good reason for some of us to doubt or question recent decisions involving Notre Dame, and those of us who root for the University not because of wins and losses, but because we think Notre Dame stands for something better have every right to gather as much information as possible to ensure that our hopes, beliefs and values aren't compromised.

 

[NeuteredDoomer]

That will be the case in due time. In the meantime, is it a bad thing that the kid has a bit of motivation to get his educational house in order?

BINGO

 

[dshans]

Not at all. I just worry about the ethics of the offer. If he happens to really like Notre Dame, but is unable to get his grades high enough for acceptance I would be disappointed in the University, more specifically Coach Kelly, for allowing and giving the offer.

I never attended but I hold the University in very high regard, for its athletics, academics and for its reputation for doing things the right way. If he is unable to attend because of grades, this offer would not have been the right way.

Not at all. Much depends on how the offer is framed. If it's along the lines of "We want you for you physical skills and will do anything and everything we can [get away with, regardless of your academic standings] to get you enrolled" it would be unethical.

If the offer is more along the lines of "You show promise as a football player at ND. If your academic record is up to Notre Dame's standards then we will love to talk with you and do all we can to support your acceptance," it is very much "the right way."

I have the feeling that Kelly and staff's approach is the latter.

This reminds me of my time looking for any "wedge" I could find to get into the college of my choice. I exchanged a few letters with the Dartmouth swim team coach – my brother was a student there and on the team. He said he'd love me there and on the team, but that he couldn't help me get accepted or a scholarship until I passed muster with admissions. I wound up at Notre Dame (Do the math), not a bad "fall back" at all.

I realize that comparing D-1 football to Ivy League swimming appears to be apple to oranges, but the point of my rambling is that an expressed interest/offer with academic contingencies from ND, a motivation, is a far cry from a shyte-load of what goes on "out there."

 

[TinyT]

If the offer is more along the lines of "You show promise as a football player at ND. If your academic record is up to Notre Dame's standards then we will love to talk with you and do all we can to support your acceptance," it is very much "the right way."

I realize that comparing D-1 football to Ivy League swimming appears to be apple to oranges, but the point of my rambling is that an expressed interest/offer with academic contingencies from ND, a motivation, is a far cry from a shyte-load of what goes on "out there."

I have no problem with you comparing Dartmouth to Notre Dame.

I don't like the idea of a verbal offer being extended with contingencies. I feel that an offer should be extended with no catches, no "but wait", only...you meet our criteria as a person, as a student, and as an athlete.

I simply don't like the idea of contingencies on college scholarships, you either give the offer or you don't. There is too much "if" in the world for me.

I also realize this limits the recruiting options of the University and could impact on field performance; this is something that I am willing to accept as a fan of the football program and the University.

 

[NDinL.A.]

I have no problem with you comparing Dartmouth to Notre Dame.

I don't like the idea of a verbal offer being extended with contingencies. I feel that an offer should be extended with no catches, no "but wait", only...you meet our criteria as a person, as a student, and as an athlete.

I simply don't like the idea of contingencies on college scholarships, you either give the offer or you don't. There is too much "if" in the world for me.

I also realize this limits the recruiting options of the University and could impact on field performance; this is something that I am willing to accept as a fan of the football program and the University.

The ND might as well not even field a team or you should root for some NAIA school. Because there is no way you can operate a D1 football program on the premise of "We're not going to offer you a scholarship until you have EVERYTHING in order." By the time most of these guys get everything in order, they've already committed to another school or they've built relationships with other schools and we're too late either way.

Are you happy that we have Tee Shepard as a verbal? How about Ronald Darby? What if they fail 3 classes next year...you wouldn't want them accepted to ND right? Well, right now their offers are conditional on them passing their classes. Do you think that is wrong? If you do, like I said, we might as well not even have a team, because VERY FEW athletes will want to come to ND if we couldn't offer them until we approved their transcripts in like October or November. And I see nothing wrong with telling a student-athlete, "We have a scholarship for you, but you have to take a foreign language class to fulfill that requirement. Pass that class and you can commit." There's absolutely NOTHING shady about it.

I really don't see your point at all actually. You want to offer kids once we thin they are qualified, but if they mess up afterward, we can't rescind the offer? Make no mistake, EVERY offer at ND is contingent on the student athletes taking care of business in the classroom and not getting into trouble off of it. It's what we love about ND. How is that a bad thing?

 

[dshans]

I don't like the idea of a verbal offer being extended with contingencies. I feel that an offer should be extended with no catches, no "but wait", only...you meet our criteria as a person, as a student, and as an athlete.

Contingencies are a part of life when it comes to acceptance into and continued enrollment in college. I'll use my personal experience as an example (my apologies to those who might have read and remember this boring story from another, earlier thread):

As a junior in high school I was accepted at Notre Dame. The first semester of my senior year I "blew off" studies (to an extent) to concentrate on extra-curricular activities and a part-time job. The ND admissions office, after receiving my first semester transcript, notified me that I wouldn't be a student there if I didn't get my grades up. I quit my job, dropped all extra curricular activities (other than senior class president and swimming) and brought my grades up to snuff.

For all I know ND might well have "made me an offer" at the end of my sophomore year of high school, had I crossed their radar for whatever reason, rather than at the end of my junior year. No scholarship, athletic or academic, was involved.

At the end of freshman year at ND I was placed on academic probation and was facing expulsion if I didn't get my *** in gear. I found the right gear.

My rambling point? There are always "hooks" to any expression of interest or acceptance of offers.

I agree that it's a two way street and shouldn't be entered into lightly or rashly.



Offers are a sign of hope. Contingencies are the name of the game.




I'll be in Seattle for a niece's wedding in late July. Maybe we can get together to have a beer or three by The Troll in Freemont ... or maybe near Lenin's statue.

 

[TinyT]

As I understand it, the Office of Admissions usually says yay or nay to the potential acceptance of a particular student athlete after they look at what he/she had done in the classroom thus far. I also was under the impression that Admissions did this for juniors in high school. If a sophomore is offered, was this step taken? Is there enough information to make an educated decision? If ND relaxes this standard, what else will they do to gain advantage in recruiting?

I like the idea of sticking to your offer, your word. Do your homework on an individual, if you offer, then use the four years to mold that person into a quality human being and maybe along the way a damn fine football player. I don't love that ND would drop an athlete that accepted an offer because of a mistake they made, barring extreme circumstances, this is not why I am so passionate about the school.

My point is quite simple, I have a serious problem with giving a verbal scholarship offer to a sophomore in high school, and I thought that the university did as well. I am trying to understand how Notre Dame came to this point. Is it the fact that verbal offers mean squat? Is it because everyone else is doing this? Why now? Does this young man have a legitimate shot of earning acceptance? Is there enough data to determine this? I can't think of an instance of this happening before, maybe it has. I simply do no like it!

 

[NDinL.A.]

As I understand it, the Office of Admissions usually says yay or nay to the potential acceptance of a particular student athlete after they look at what he/she had done in the classroom thus far. I also was under the impression that Admissions did this for juniors in high school. If a sophomore is offered, was this step taken? Is there enough information to make an educated decision? If ND relaxes this standard, what else will they do to gain advantage in recruiting?

I like the idea of sticking to your offer, your word. Do your homework on an individual, if you offer, then use the four years to mold that person into a quality human being and maybe along the way a damn fine football player. I don't love that ND would drop an athlete that accepted an offer because of a mistake they made, barring extreme circumstances, this is not why I am so passionate about the school.

My point is quite simple, I have a serious problem with giving a verbal scholarship offer to a sophomore in high school, and I thought that the university did as well. I am trying to understand how Notre Dame came to this point. Is it the fact that verbal offers mean squat? Is it because everyone else is doing this? Why now? Does this young man have a legitimate shot of earning acceptance? Is there enough data to determine this? I can't think of an instance of this happening before, maybe it has. I simply do no like it!

I guess we'll just agree to disagree. I see absolutely no problem with ND looking at a kid's grades, looking at his course load, seeing if he is an "RKG" (sorry, had to go there), and then offering a scholly if he is athletically gifted enough. And while giving that offer, telling the kid the classes he has to take and the grades he needs to have in order to get into ND. I can't for the life of me see why that is wrong. If they just looked at the kid's film on youtube and offered him, then yeah, I could see why you'd have a problem with that. (One of these days I need to tell you guys my Lane Kiffin/recruiting story. Shady to say the least, but I don't want to out the kid at the same time.) But I highly doubt BK is doing that, knowing what it takes to succeed at ND as a student.

And if a kid chooses to eschew going to class or doing homework his senior year and his grades plummet, well, as dshans said, he better get his *** in gear or he will lose his offer. If it happens to regular students, then it should happen to football players as well...

 

[Old Man Mike]

As dshans has wisely said, everything in life comes with contingencies and almost all of us understand that once we reach the age of reason. "You can plan on having the car Saturday night as long as you keep your nose clean between now and then". "You can have this job offer as long as you don't commit a crime in the meantime". "You can have this scholarship offer as long as you don't let your grades fall below 'xyz' and don't acquire a rap-sheet in the meantime."

Parents are continuously at work at this with their children; teachers and coaches are also. It's fundamental and even proper unless one ascribes to a philosophy of "total acceptance no matter what the behavior". The inability to assent to this means that something very specific is separating this offering-of-scholarship from everything else in life, that the rest of us do not see.

Surely the goodness or badness of any human exchange depends not on some "category" or label, but on the clarity, wisdom, and trustworthy follow-through on that exchange. It is at this stage that I am perfectly willing to trust Notre Dame to clearly communicate [to student and parents] the reason/wisdom of the offer and its contingencies, and to trustworthily follow through on our end. Apparently such is not a trust shared by this conversant. Well ... OK, I guess.

 

[TinyT]

I will try to explain myself better with an example.

When I decide to propose marriage to whomever I love, I envision it something like this:

"I want to spend the rest of my life with you, will you marry me?

I don't see myself saying:

"I like you a lot...if you can lose 10 pounds and promise to keep it off, finish your degree, and keep my house clean and me well fed, I would like to spend the rest of my life with you, will you marry me?"

I should do my homework before making the offer. I should know about her character, her morals, her attitude,...etc. If I make my proposal without having gathered all of my needed information and she accepts, then I get what I deserve. It could be great, it could be terrible and require a lot of patience and hard work, but either way I stand by my word. (The only exception that immediately comes to mind is for infidelity)

I believe that colleges should be held to this standard. Build the relationship, assess the character and academic ability and then make the offer. If you have done your homework then everything should be OK. If not, you have a responsibility to help the individual become a better student and a better person. No cutting and running when things get tough.

Perhaps in an effort to become a better person, the individual needs to be separated from athletic activities, perhaps not. The main point is that the school and coach keep their word and help the individual. (I realize that there are extreme circumstances where this doesn't work)

For situations where student-athletes are removed from school for "personal reasons", I see that as a failure. Remove them from athletic activities, help them get their lives back on track and then reinstate them to the respective team. For a student-athlete that has a drinking problem, remove them from athletic activities and help them with their problem, when they show that they can control consumption reinstate them to the team.

A University gives all of its students a lot and it takes tuition and hard studying in return. For scholarship athletes it doesn't take tuition, but it does seem to take more work than your average student. University's get a whole lot from student athletes in return for tuition.

I think that if a University offers it should have compiled whatever knowledge it needs about the individual offered. It should stand by the offer, comfortable and confident that the student-athlete will do right by the University. If the student-athlete turns out to be a little different than what you expected, then you should have done more homework and you should expect to have your work cut out for you molding this individual into a quality human being.

On a side-note. NDinL.A., could you change the name of this title so that anyone reading this doesn't think we are talking about Derrick Henry. We have gone far beyond him in this thread and I would hate for someone to come to the conclusion that I don't think he is a quality human being.

 

[MacIrish75]

As a teacher, I can tell you first hand that motivation is crucial for student success. If this kid is motivated to succeed by our offer, then it's already done it's job, regardless of whether he commits to ND or not.

It's a verbal offer. It's not binding. Hopefully it lights a fire under this kid's but, so that whoever ends up getting him receives a stud not only on the gridiron, but also in the classroom and in the community.

I don't get the beef with this.

 

[PigtownIrish]

2014 Rb Offer?

2014 Rb Offer?

Anyone heard anything about this? I have to think we will never stoop to USC's level and offer a junior high kid, but this is pretty close. Kid must be one incredible freshman.

 

[rtrn2glory]

Heard Iowa just offered a freshman as well.

 

[NDinL.A.]

Anyone heard anything about this? I have to think we will never stoop to USC's level and offer a junior high kid, but this is pretty close. Kid must be one incredible freshman.

The kid is insanely good. He has offers from some big schools, like Alabama, Florida State, and Miami.

I sincerely hope we don't stoop to Kiffy's level and offer 7th graders. That would be indefensible.

 

[rtrn2glory]

this really turns into simply opening the lines of communication and maybe getting the kid to start thinking about you...anymore you gotta keep up with the majorityso you don't fall behind