With Gilliam specifically or overall? With Gilliam, they did not make a large enough offer to lock him down and there are too many administrative boxes with how they approach admissions, contracts, etc. It's a cumbersome process relative to the other places. They could still land him, I don't think it's a done deal, but everywhere else is just "sign here, enroll in your online classes next week."
Overall:
1. ND has ample access to funds. It's not like they don't have access to enough money to buy a singular defensive tackle.
2. They did some back channeling with guys pre-portal but not enough. Martin thought he had multiple guys "committed" who fell through. It's an error in execution, and that falls on the GM because no HC anywhere is talking to agents / tampering pre-portal.
3. There are some positions -- like WR -- where ND intended to spend a bunch of money on someone like Marsh but really had no "big spend" contingency plans after that because there are only a handful of guys that they considered difference makers and only some of those guys were interested in ND. Small venn diagram.
4. There are other positions (like DT and kicker) where they knew they MUST get guys. With some, like kicker, they went full tamper mode but then somehow missed anyways because they took someone at their word. At DT, they simply did not do enough to be at the front of the pack for anyone. Not enough pre-portal work, no push to have "first visits," no outbidding competition, no strike while the iron is hot mentality. It just is what it is, they are scrambling now with guys hadn't done enough background on and while ND has adjusted some of their administrative stuff to be "easier" it's still not as smooth as it could be. The works are all gunked up. Everything is being done on the fly "oh this guy entered the portal? are we interested? can we get him into school? how much is he looking for?" Just totally disorganized.
5. Some of this is a product of ND not really wanting to be a portal team. They focus on HS recruiting and player retention. With that being said, you still need to have the means to go into the portal and get guys to plug holes. But they are just not very adept at winning the portal because that's not how they build their team.
6. Some of the narratives are batshit. Both positive and negative. No, Marcus Freeman being considered by the NFL does not matter, that was a completely ridiculous statement I saw put out by a paid site. USC is signing guys without coaches even being in place. No, Bruce Straughn and whoever else make loud twitter proclamations ... ND is not on the verge of announcing a bunch of signings and there is no master plan.
I expect when the dust settles that ND will have gotten a handful of quality transfers and not be left completely screwed here. But the process needs to change for 2027, and I expect that it will. You can point the finger a lot of different directions but Mike Martin is being paid a lot of money to do a job that he frankly did half-awesome (recruiting) and half-WTF? (portal).
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