‘23 VA ATH Brandyn Hillman (Michigan Verbal)

[PutuporShutup]

I wonder how much it had to do with him having a child.

 

[Luckylucci]

This always was the most plausible situation.

Freeman took Hillman’s commitment knowing what he needed to do. And, Hillman did as well. He just didn’t get it done.

Yet, we got these insane conspiracy theorist posts about the admin intentionally bombing Freeman’s tenure. Just some insanely stupid shit.

This is literally the exact same thing that happened to Markese Stepp. He just figured it out earlier in the process.

I think the most discussion worthy topic of this is why is Freeman not taking more S’s when one is a borderline qualifier and one is Peyton Bowen. The number should’ve been 5 or 6 the entire time. It was too important of a position to be handled this way.

 

[NDdomer2]

Kid didn't do the work needed means he likely wasn't going to be successful here anyways.

 

[dublinirish]

Kid didn't do the work needed means he likely wasn't going to be successful here anyways.

The academic support at ND for athletes is extremely good though just because he went to a bad HS and may have had middling grades does not mean he couldn’t have done well at ND


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[indianamouse]

This always was the most plausible situation.

Freeman took Hillman’s commitment knowing what he needed to do. And, Hillman did as well. He just didn’t get it done.

Yet, we got these insane conspiracy theorist posts about the admin intentionally bombing Freeman’s tenure. Just some insanely stupid shit.

This is literally the exact same thing that happened to Markese Stepp. He just figured it out earlier in the process.

I think the most discussion worthy topic of this is why is Freeman not taking more S’s when one is a borderline qualifier and one is Peyton Bowen. The number should’ve been 5 or 6 the entire time. It was too important of a position to be handled this way.

To add on to this freeman also said this won’t be the norm. Freeman is taking chances on borderline students, something some of the poster’s here’s hero Kelly stopped doing.

 

[Irishdrunk]

To add on to this freeman also said this won’t be the norm. Freeman is taking chances on borderline students, something some of the poster’s here’s hero Kelly stopped doing.

Freeman will learn ND's limitations. Don't try to get in a kid that the Admin will fuck you on. Its not a good look. He is now shopping down the same aisle even if he is busy with his shopping cart by just a little bit. The difference between Kelly and Freeman in the long run will be the coaching.

 

[indianamouse]

Freeman will learn ND's limitations. Don't try to get in a kid that the Admin will fuck you on. Its not a good look. He is now shopping down the same aisle even if he is busy with his shopping cart by just a little bit. The difference between Kelly and Freeman in the long run will be the coaching.

Not true. Freeman’s first recruiting class still brought in better athletes than 90% of Kelly’s classes. Kelly was a good coach, but an average recruiter.

 

[Irishdrunk]

Do you understand how NLI's work and how and why a kid would be let out of one?

He signed his national letter of intent because both he and ND thought he would come to ND. It was almost like he intended to come to ND. Unless a kid is an EE and has already graduated, they are all simply letters of intention because the kids haven't actually graduated from high school, have incomplete transcripts, and can't enroll in college. By and large, it works this way for the rest of the student body. If you are accepted into the school in December, then proceed to get 7 F's your second semester of your senior year, it may not work out at ND.

If a kid isn't even going to be accepted into the school, why wouldn't ND and MF let him out of his letter of intent? His intentions would never result in reality. You think it looks bad for ND now? Wait until ND makes a kid honor an NLI that can't even be accepted into the school- that will play out real well in the media and recruiting circles. And in this day and age of transfer rules, why on earth would ND not let him out as well?

You have this weird disdain for ND that seeps into every thread. Here, you're now further mad at ND for letting a non-non-qualifier out of his NLI. It never ends. Your anti-ND disposition knows no ends. Please explain to us the benefits of not letting Hillman out of his NLI and how that is rooted in any sense of reality or logic. If you can't do that, simply post less and read more.

Signed,
The Vast Majority of Irish Envy

I love ND for what it actually is not what fans think it is. I find humor in those fans that don't see the hurdles and think we are a program on level with the elites - but we are not. I guess I look at things more realistically than most.

Yes I know about an NLI Hog. But Freeman is now seeing why Kelly shopped in the Top 100 - Top 400 aisles and not tried for 5 stars or marginal academic kids. He also fought the University tooth and nail and came to the rightful concluding that there were too many obsticals to getting a Natty due to a lack of Admin Support so he left. Freeman will do the same...first he will recruit less and less Top 50 kids knowing that between academics, kids wanting to play in the SEC and NIL that its a low percentage close rate and will be in the same avenues as Kelly. Then he will have ongoing issues with Admin on staff and facilities - of which this Offseason was disaster.

I am sorry but if you have a kid let out of NLI because he couldn't make it into ND but then Michigan scoops him up, one of two things happened: there was an error or communication issue on expectations or ND's admissions is tight like Stanford and Northwestern and that again is something that Freeman owns because stretching to get kids then fail publicly asking out of a Spring NLI during an active recruiting period isn't a great look Hog.

 

[Irishdrunk]

Not true. Freeman’s first recruiting class still brought in better athletes than 90% of Kelly’s classes. Kelly was a good coach, but an average recruiter.

Indiana Mouse his first class was this class and it slid from #1 to #3 to #5 and then #9. Its better than an average Kelly class. I recognize that. But its not elite. Its not shopping down a "different aisle". Its not very far from a Kelly class. The next issue is whether Freeman can get as much out of his recruits as Kelly got out of his recruits. If so, then CFP should happen but I doubt that will happen. Kelly does get a lot out of his players.

 

[indianamouse]

Indiana Mouse his first class was this class and it slid from #1 to #3 to #5 and then #9. It’s better than an average Kelly class. I recognize that. But it’s not elite. It’s not shopping down a "different aisle". It’s not very far from a Kelly class. The next issue is whether Freeman can get as much out of his recruits as Kelly got out of his recruits. If so, then CFP should happen but I doubt that will happen. Kelly does get a lot out of his players.

He did, but he didn’t recruit athletes, which is why you are now seeing barely any players drafted by the nfl. I think you’ll definitely see a shift in athleticism with freeman. Kelly can coach, there’s no doubt, but without the athletes he will always be second tier. Freeman can get the athletes, he’ll get the coaching thing down soon enough as well.

 

[NDdomer2]

The academic support at ND for athletes is extremely good though just because he went to a bad HS and may have had middling grades does not mean he couldn’t have done well at ND


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I'm guessing there's plenty of academic support available at his HS too.

HS IS NOT HARD

 

[NDFAN420]

prop 48 kids did well at ND, very very well. Those kinds of athletes give our admin the yuckies. Stop defending the ND admin, they know not what they do.

 

[dublinirish]

I'm guessing there's plenty of academic support available at his HS too.

HS IS NOT HARD

His HS was rated as one of the worst in VA I thought?


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[Crazy Balki]

This always was the most plausible situation.

Freeman took Hillman’s commitment knowing what he needed to do. And, Hillman did as well. He just didn’t get it done.

Yet, we got these insane conspiracy theorist posts about the admin intentionally bombing Freeman’s tenure. Just some insanely stupid shit.

This is literally the exact same thing that happened to Markese Stepp. He just figured it out earlier in the process.

I think the most discussion worthy topic of this is why is Freeman not taking more S’s when one is a borderline qualifier and one is Peyton Bowen. The number should’ve been 5 or 6 the entire time. It was too important of a position to be handled this way.

The admin isn't intentionally bombing Freeman's tenure. But one has to ask this.

Hillman had to get something done to get admitted to ND. That didn't happen.

Whatever that thing was that didn't happen wasn't an obstacle for virtually every other school that offered him.

So the question shouldn't be "why didn't Hillman get done what needed to get done?", it should be "Why is ND the only program going after Hillman requiring this to get done for admission?"

ND's administration may not be intentionally plotting to ruin Freeman's ability to win, but this is still an indictment of ND as a whole, and how they've operated for some time. Hillman is just one of many instances where ND's administration has (whether intentional or not) screwed things up for the football program, spanning decades.

ND should not have any more issue getting a student athlete into school than any other top 25 university. If this were Alabama or Ohio State we were talking about that's one thing. Michigan, Virginia and Vanderbilt are in ND's realm of prestige, if not higher in Vanderbilt's case.

What ND's administration should be figuring out is how this gets fixed. What happened with Hillman is just another example of ND's inability or downright refusal to accept change and adapt to it. This may be a small exception, but ND can't afford these "small exceptions" when they're already dealing with razor thin margins for error. The transfer portal, NIL, admissions, facilities, etc.

 

[Irish du Nord]

This always was the most plausible situation.

Freeman took Hillman’s commitment knowing what he needed to do. And, Hillman did as well. He just didn’t get it done.

Yet, we got these insane conspiracy theorist posts about the admin intentionally bombing Freeman’s tenure. Just some insanely stupid shit.

This is literally the exact same thing that happened to Markese Stepp. He just figured it out earlier in the process.

I think the most discussion worthy topic of this is why is Freeman not taking more S’s when one is a borderline qualifier and one is Peyton Bowen. The number should’ve been 5 or 6 the entire time. It was too important of a position to be handled this way.

I’d feel a lot better taking 2-3 Safeties if we had more than two corners in the class. It doesn’t give us very much flexibility to have 4 DBs in total

 

[Te'o4Heisman]

The admin isn't intentionally bombing Freeman's tenure. But one has to ask this.

Hillman had to get something done to get admitted to ND. That didn't happen.

Whatever that thing was that didn't happen wasn't an obstacle for virtually every other school that offered him.

So the question shouldn't be "why didn't Hillman get done what needed to get done?", it should be "Why is ND the only program going after Hillman requiring this to get done for admission?"

ND's administration may not be intentionally plotting to ruin Freeman's ability to win, but this is still an indictment of ND as a whole, and how they've operated for some time. Hillman is just one of many instances where ND's administration has (whether intentional or not) screwed things up for the football program, spanning decades.

ND should not have any more issue getting a student athlete into school than any other top 25 university. If this were Alabama or Ohio State we were talking about that's one thing. Michigan, Virginia and Vanderbilt are in ND's realm of prestige, if not higher in Vanderbilt's case.

What ND's administration should be figuring out is how this gets fixed. What happened with Hillman is just another example of ND's inability or downright refusal to accept change and adapt to it. This may be a small exception, but ND can't afford these "small exceptions" when they're already dealing with razor thin margins for error. The transfer portal, NIL, admissions, facilities, etc.

Admin did not screw this up for the football program. Brandyn screwed this up. If ND is clear and up front about what it takes for admission, they do not need to lower the bar for kids who have the opportunity but fail to do their part to meet the standard.
As much as I would love for them to win a natty again soon, you need to come to grips that you are cheering for a football program that has high academic and admission standards and wont compromise. Its as simple as that and I am sure MF understood that when he took the job. People need to stop acting like he is some sort of victim here.

 

[NDdomer2]

His HS was rated as one of the worst in VA I thought?


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There's always help if you seek it.

If he chose not to do the work the university should grant him an exception because they have good support in place?

 

[PutuporShutup]

The academic support at ND for athletes is extremely good though just because he went to a bad HS and may have had middling grades does not mean he couldn’t have done well at ND


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This, plus he has a child with most likely minimal support

 

[PutuporShutup]

I'm guessing there's plenty of academic support available at his HS too.

HS IS NOT HARD

I have a child, I can’t imagine having a baby towards the end of HS.

I don’t know what role child played, my guess is a lot. It may have been opportunity for ND to not be so black and white for a very unique situation, if you believed in him.

 

[irishff1014]

This, plus he has a child with most likely minimal support

That’s not the universities fault he decided to have kid in high school. And if that affected him there than it will affect him here.

I am not knocking the young guy but he didn’t have to get her pregnant. There’s way for this to not happen. And even at Michigan it’s gonna be hard. He’s away from his young child and he is going to miss things that happen. It’s unfortunate but 💯 preventable.

I am glad he owned up to his part that shows he is maturing. This is when you will really see him grow.

 

[stlnd01]

Indiana Mouse his first class was this class and it slid from #1 to #3 to #5 and then #9. Its better than an average Kelly class. I recognize that. But its not elite. Its not shopping down a "different aisle". Its not very far from a Kelly class. The next issue is whether Freeman can get as much out of his recruits as Kelly got out of his recruits. If so, then CFP should happen but I doubt that will happen. Kelly does get a lot out of his players.

A team's recruiting ranking in June matters about as much as its AP poll ranking in August.

As for Hillman, I do wonder how much of this can be traced to his being a late bloomer. We - and pretty much everyone else - didn't offer him until September of his senior year. That doesn't leave much time to get his coursework in order, compared with the kids we are on when they are juniors or even sooner. Just one semester, really, and it's easy for something to go sideways.

 

[Irishdrunk]

A team's recruiting ranking in June matters about as much as its AP poll ranking in August.

As for Hillman, I do wonder how much of this can be traced to his being a late bloomer. We - and pretty much everyone else - didn't offer him until September of his senior year. That doesn't leave much time to get his coursework in order, compared with the kids we are on when they are juniors or even sooner. Just one semester, really, and it's easy for something to go sideways.

Well I agree about the final rankings matter. 2024's class will likely be similar to 2023 when all is said and done. Top 8 - 15 as the Top 100 kids choose later and many programs like Bama, LSU, USC, OSU, Florida will land these kids. Freeman is not this elite recruiter as initially thought. He may be more active than Kelly but he still can't out-recruit ND's limitations.

What coursework wasn't good enough for ND but was good enough - immediately - for Michigan? Love to know what happened.

 

[Jiggafini19Deux]

Yet, we got these insane conspiracy theorist posts about the admin intentionally bombing Freeman’s tenure. Just some insanely stupid shit.

 

[IrishLion]

Well I agree about the final rankings matter. 2024's class will likely be similar to 2023 when all is said and done. Top 8 - 15 as the Top 100 kids choose later and many programs like Bama, LSU, USC, OSU, Florida will land these kids. Freeman is not this elite recruiter as initially thought. He may be more active than Kelly but he still can't out-recruit ND's limitations.

What coursework wasn't good enough for ND but was good enough - immediately - for Michigan? Love to know what happened.

I think he is. The Blue Chip Ratio from the last class backs that up.

Landing "High" 4-star guys makes a huge difference in that regard, and Freeman does that at a better rate than BK.

BK was a master of grabbing RKG's that were borderline 3/4-star kids, that would get the ND bump to 4-star status with reasonable projections.

Freeman is grabbing guys that are more firmly entrenched as 4-star guys, trending closer to the 5-star category.

So even though the class numbers/rankings appear to be similar, Freeman's class is weighted with guys a bit more likely to pan out and be difference makers.

The questions remains: can he learn on the job fast enough to avoid the Marshalls and the Stanfords. It took BK 7+ years to figure out how to consistently avoid letdowns against less-talented teams.

 

[Huntr]

I appreciate all the middle-aged White dudes in this thread describing the complexities, or lack thereof, of navigating life as a young Black man as he tries to qualify for entrance to one of the most prestigious universities in the nation.

Thanks for telling us all how it is.

 

[PutuporShutup]

I appreciate all the middle-aged White dudes in this thread describing the complexities, or lack thereof, of navigating life as a young Black man as he tries to qualify for entrance to one of the most prestigious universities in the nation.

Thanks for telling us all how it is.

Is this 1950?

Also this is more about ND than Hillman.

 

[Crazy Balki]

Admin did not screw this up for the football program. Brandyn screwed this up. If ND is clear and up front about what it takes for admission, they do not need to lower the bar for kids who have the opportunity but fail to do their part to meet the standard.
As much as I would love for them to win a natty again soon, you need to come to grips that you are cheering for a football program that has high academic and admission standards and wont compromise. Its as simple as that and I am sure MF understood that when he took the job. People need to stop acting like he is some sort of victim here.

I repeat.

If ND is requiring a player do something to gain admittance that no other peer program is requiring, that is a problem.

If Vanderbilt, Michigan and Virginia can find a way to make it work, then ND can. And by all accounts they could have and chose not to.

Also, this notion that ND won't compromise is nonsense. They compromise all the time. If they didn't, nearly all of the football players wouldn't get in.

I'm not going to pretend like we know Brandyn's situation. Given the timeline, since he was a late offer, he could've had minimal time to complete what he needed. What we do know based on what was reported, is ND's admissions could have made it work but didn't want to.

So yeah, ND doesn't get a pass here. Virtually every other elite university recruiting Hillman found a way. Hillman's an 18 year old. ND is a multi-billion dollar entity with immense resources. They can and should have made it work.

 

[Irishdrunk]

I appreciate all the middle-aged White dudes in this thread describing the complexities, or lack thereof, of navigating life as a young Black man as he tries to qualify for entrance to one of the most prestigious universities in the nation.

Thanks for telling us all how it is.

So there is a racial component that I didn’t know??? So white kids are more likely to get their course work in compliance but black students less so….

Thank for letting me know. Michigan Admissions probably understood this as well.

 

[allenm5333]

I repeat.

If ND is requiring a player do something to gain admittance that no other peer program is requiring, that is a problem.

If Vanderbilt, Michigan and Virginia can find a way to make it work, then ND can. And by all accounts they could have and chose not to.

Also, this notion that ND won't compromise is nonsense. They compromise all the time. If they didn't, nearly all of the football players wouldn't get in.

I'm not going to pretend like we know Brandyn's situation. Given the timeline, since he was a late offer, he could've had minimal time to complete what he needed. What we do know based on what was reported, is ND's admissions could have made it work but didn't want to.

So yeah, ND doesn't get a pass here. Virtually every other elite university recruiting Hillman found a way. Hillman's an 18 year old. ND is a multi-billion dollar entity with immense resources. They can and should have made it work.

Those schools could be throwing schollys at him to get in the game before they review transcripts...

 

[Free Manera]

Lloyd is still on his soapbox saying ND could have and should have admitted him.