"ISD Intel"

[JughedJones]

My one criticism of ND recruiting is with the administration. Look at what Saban did with Tosh Lupoi. When he became available, he stashed him in some make-work invented role for a year where he could collect a salary while his NCAA issues sorted themselves out. Now that he is in the clear, he is promoted to a coaching role and I have no doubt that he will be absolutely lethal as a recruiter.

BK was interested in Lupoi last year, but the ND haters in the world would have exploded if the Irish had added a coach under NCAA investigation to their staff. Furthermore, although I dont know this for a fact, I'm sure BK just couldn't compete in terms of salary with what Bama could offer Lupoi.

We talk alot about missing out on 5 star difference making players, but this is a prime example of ND missing out on a difference making coach. If you were to substitute Elston for Lupoi or Orgeron, I think the whole complexion of this team is different. I honestly believe that ND is 2 elite D-lineman away from being a legitimate contender.

ND is never going to hire someone that's under investigation for paying players.

Come on man. ND's admin deserve most of the lumps we give them, but to say that only ' ND haters would have exploded' is crazy. Most of this board, (including me) would have as well. Just because Lupoi got a pass at Alabama doesn't mean the NCAA would have given him a pass here.

 

[ND NYC]

to sum up last couple posts:

"We are shopping in a different aisle..."
-Brian Kelly

 

[Wild Bill]

My one criticism of ND recruiting is with the administration. Look at what Saban did with Tosh Lupoi. When he became available, he stashed him in some make-work invented role for a year where he could collect a salary while his NCAA issues sorted themselves out. Now that he is in the clear, he is promoted to a coaching role and I have no doubt that he will be absolutely lethal as a recruiter.

BK was interested in Lupoi last year, but the ND haters in the world would have exploded if the Irish had added a coach under NCAA investigation to their staff. Furthermore, although I dont know this for a fact, I'm sure BK just couldn't compete in terms of salary with what Bama could offer Lupoi.

We talk alot about missing out on 5 star difference making players, but this is a prime example of ND missing out on a difference making coach. If you were to substitute Elston for Lupoi or Orgeron, I think the whole complexion of this team is different. I honestly believe that ND is 2 elite D-lineman away from being a legitimate contender.

Ishaq and a healthy Jarron Jones?

 

[GBdomer]

to sum up last couple posts:

"We are shopping in a different aisle..."
-Brian Kelly

Just like we only recruit RKG's? I don't think anyone is questioning why we offer some kids(well I do sometimes and others) but I think what everyone is fired up about is there recruiting approach and effort at times.

 

[Irish#1]

Frank and others may be "insiders", but in reality, they aren't involved in the coaches discussions when it comes to recruits. They are speculating off of what they hear from the recruit. We all know how much teenagers like to embellish and twist the facts for their own good.

 

[ThePiombino]

Ishaq and a healthy Jarron Jones?

I would say both have the potential, but neither actually qualifies as elite at the moment.

 

[Rizzophil]

Frank and others may be "insiders", but in reality, they aren't involved in the coaches discussions when it comes to recruits. They are speculating off of what they hear from the recruit. We all know how much teenagers like to embellish and twist the facts for their own good.

Good point but it doesn't help the mud slinging from ND fans

 

[woolybug25]

I would say both have the potential, but neither actually qualifies as elite at the moment.

I would both say they have the potential, and I would call Sheldon Day elite. So there is some hope there.

 

[Luckylucci]

Frank and others may be "insiders", but in reality, they aren't involved in the coaches discussions when it comes to recruits. They are speculating off of what they hear from the recruit. We all know how much teenagers like to embellish and twist the facts for their own good.

This just isn't true. The good ones Wiltfong, Sapp, Mike Frank, etc. have connections to the ND program where they get information from ND's side of things not just the kid and his parents.

 

[irishog77]

This just isn't true. The good ones Wiltfong, Sapp, Mike Frank, etc. have connections to the ND program where they get information from ND's side of things not just the kid and his parents.

So the person inside the program is telling theses guys how they, themselves, do a crappy job?

 

[Wild Bill]

I would say both have the potential, but neither actually qualifies as elite at the moment.

I would both say they have the potential, and I would call Sheldon Day elite. So there is some hope there.

Agreed.

 

[IrishLax]

Frank and others may be "insiders", but in reality, they aren't involved in the coaches discussions when it comes to recruits. They are speculating off of what they hear from the recruit. We all know how much teenagers like to embellish and twist the facts for their own good.

Fairly untrue, they have direct connections and receive much more information than you think from certain coaches. It'd shock you how much of a two-way street information is between "analysts" and coaches.

 

[NDinL.A.]

Frank and others may be "insiders", but in reality, they aren't involved in the coaches discussions when it comes to recruits. They are speculating off of what they hear from the recruit. We all know how much teenagers like to embellish and twist the facts for their own good.

Fairly untrue, they have direct connections and receive much more information than you think from certain coaches. It'd shock you how much of a two-way street information is between "analysts" and coaches.

Yeah, I know with 1000% certainty that guys like Mike Frank and Steve Wiltfong are getting a lot of info from coaches. Hell, I went to a bball game a few years ago and Wiltfong walked in with Alford and they sat near each other and talked half the game.

(Excuse me while I name drop) I've never asked Mike Frank who his sources are and I never will, but it doesn't take a genius to know he knows members of the coaching staff. I know Sean Mele, formerly of ISD, played for Kelly (wasn't a source of his) and Denbrock (I think he was a source) and BVG (BVG loved Mele; one time Mele, Frank and I were in line together early to get into the coach's clinic, and BVG walked by, stopped bc he saw Mele and gave him a big bear hug), and Coach Martin used to recruit Mele's students/players in Chicago when he was a coach and a dean. In fact, when Mele wrote something critical about Martin's offense, Martin stopped talking to Mele cold turkey LOL.

I won't mention names, but a reporter told me last year that a kid once claimed through twitter that ND had offered him. So another reporter, who shall remain nameless (but he works for BGI and his name rhymes with Roy...but that's ALL I'm giving you!), immediately reports that the kid has an offer and to stay tuned for the full story. So the reporter I was talking with watches the kid's film and sees that he's not very good. He then calls up an ND coach and asks if it was true. The coach was stupefied by the offer claim and asked the reporter to get the word out that the kid did NOT indeed have an offer.

THAT story above says all you need to know about reporters and their relationships with some coaches...and this happens at all schools. The coaches use the reporters as well ("hey, what did Kid X say about the visit to Alabama?")...coaches get a lot out of having relationships with reporters.

 

[anarin]

Ishaq and a healthy Jarron Jones?

Ugh...

 

[NDRock]

(Excuse me while I name drop) I've never asked Mike Frank who his sources are and I never will, but it doesn't take a genius to know he knows members of the coaching staff. I know Sean Mele, formerly of ISD, played for Kelly (wasn't a source of his) and Denbrock (I think he was a source) and BVG (BVG loved Mele; one time Mele, Frank and I were in line together early to get into the coach's clinic, and BVG walked by, stopped bc he saw Mele and gave him a big bear hug), and Coach Martin used to recruit Mele's students/players in Chicago when he was a coach and a dean. In fact, when Mele wrote something critical about Martin's offense, Martin stopped talking to Mele cold turkey LOL

Good post. This is why I'm surprised Mike "called out" the staff (I've not listened to it yet). I personally feel it's in Mikes best interest be be on the more positive side of things so when he's critical, I believe him.

 

[greyhammer90]

I thought they beat the subject to death (what'd they spend 45 minutes alone on ND's "effort"?) and are using a couple of examples (that aren't as cut and dry as they make it seem) as an indictment on said effort by Kelly & Co.

Frank has become unbearable at times this season. Regurgitates the same 5 or 6 negative talking points endlessly on every single podcast.

Coach D even caught him in a contradiction of how his complaining doesn't make much sense. That is, Kelly needs to put in more work and call recruits but Kelly calling recruits doesn't have the same impact it does when Meyer and Saban pick up the phone.

The whole effort angle is so vague, and largely tied to hindsight bias on a few recruits among literally dozens of prospects.

And getting so angst filled about 'not getting over the hump' and beating Meyer and Saban on the recruiting trail feels like a waste of time to me. Literally no one is going to beat those two, especially while coaching at Notre Dame.

I thought the podcast was too emotive and hard to listen to while repeating the same tired things over and over for so long.

Mike Frank in four sentences:

"Run the ball"
"Try harder"
"If we beat x, some exciting stuff will start to happen"
"Kids today are instant gratification brats" ("I'm old")

 

[ColinKSU]

Mike Frank in four sentences:

"Run the ball"
"Try harder"
"If we beat x, some exciting stuff will start to happen"
"Kids today are instant gratification brats" ("I'm old")

You forgot:

"X recruit has a lot of potential."

 

[Rocket89]

Mike Frank in four sentences:

"Run the ball"
"Try harder"
"If we beat x, some exciting stuff will start to happen"
"Kids today are instant gratification brats" ("I'm old")

Haha, pretty much.

Also, the short bit on Trumbetti in the recent Power Hour was a great example of twisting past events if not blatantly ignoring them, and more importantly, no matter how things play out you can come up with ways to criticize a coaching staff on recruiting.

Days after completing his sophomore year of high school Trumbetti camped at Notre Dame. He said we were his dream school. He left with an offer--one of the earliest scholarships we gave out for 2014.

A few months later during the 2012 season, during Trumbetti's junior year, the positive vibes were flowing after a visit from the staff & spurred by a couple of articles--by ISD no less--that led to a couple of the following comments on this here site:

In the article he did make it seem as tho diaco was trying to get him to commit early, love how aggressive these guys are.

I was getting that vibe as well. Diaco is such a good recruiter, don't ever want him to leave.

In mid-January of 2013 BK and Diaco were back to see Trumbetti in Jersey. Three weeks later, he was locked up for a Junior Day visit.

In early March, he visited Florida. Two weeks later Trumbetti came to ND's Junior Day and committed. His official visit came for the BYU game in November and he was an EE in January 2014.

Now, listening to Power Hour they put forth the proposition that we ignored Trumbetti for a long time and how it was ridiculous we could have lost him to another school. Koon said this a couple pages back:

Also, we got Trumbetti because he loved ND. Staff put in almost zero effort and Diaco never even made a call. What the ****? Sure, Diaco's gone, but how does BK let that happen? I'd fire everyone if that's the effort they show.

Frankly I'm surprised so many people eat up those words like they are the Holy Grail. Trumbetti's recruitment wasn't even that long ago, plenty should remember it, and there are archives of content to look back on across several sites. The BS detectors should have been going off for anyone who follows recruiting.

This is how you create friction and drama in recruiting...

A) If we shower Trumbetti with a ton of attention there will be criticisms that we're wasting valuable recruiting resources on a "ND lock" and not hustling after targets x,y, and z who need more effort in communication.

B) If we don't shower Trumbetti with attention, knowing he's locked up, there will be accusations the staff 'almost blew it' with someone who was handed to them on a silver platter.

When you look at things this way, the staff can never win. When you have hindsight and can resort to vague notions of "effort" as a main culprit you can paint a damning picture, but in reality it's a very shallow criticism. I mean for chrissakes, Trumbetti was about as drama-free and easy of a recruitment as you're going to find!

There is plenty of other eye rolling comments from the podcast too. Alford needs to do more work outside of Florida? Well, he does and wrapped up Wimbush and Adams in addition to his other duties. We could have nabbed Ross with an extra phone call or two? Come on, now.

Don't get it twisted that I'm saying the staff is perfect. But no staff is perfect and the criticisms from this podcast were mostly ridiculous. Everyone should expect better from ISD and not be so quick to take their comments at face value.

 

[tussin]

Good post Rocket.

I agree with you and actually unsubbed from ISD (albeit for unrelated issues). I like Mike a lot but holy cow is he a Negative Nancy.

 

[Domina Nostra]

Haha, pretty much.

There is plenty of other eye rolling comments from the podcast too. Alford needs to do more work outside of Florida? Well, he does and wrapped up Wimbush and Adams in addition to his other duties. We could have nabbed Ross with an extra phone call or two? Come on, now.

Don't get it twisted that I'm saying the staff is perfect. But no staff is perfect and the criticisms from this podcast were mostly ridiculous. Everyone should expect better from ISD and not be so quick to take their comments at face value.

I don't think Mike Frank is trying to create drama. I think that he is just more like a mega-fan than your average media guy. And for most fans it all comes down to "what have you done for me lately." Reality is whatever happened in the last 4 weeks. I say this a lot, but for most fans, the only argument that matters in the end of the day is "scoreboard---scoreboard---scoreboard."

It's not that people are stupid or disingenuous, its that they are emotive. They fail to realize how much our reasoning is influenced by emotions. Try as they might to fight it, the objective reality of the game's score and the team's record are just too much to overcome when the 5-word-post, "no excuses" crowd eventually wears people down and wins most arguments.

Q: How hard does the staff work at recruiting?
A: Let me check our record... 12-0: the staff recruits great!

one year later...

Q: How hard does the staff work at recruiting?
A: Let me check our record... 8-4: the staff is lazy.

Contrast Mike Frank with Coach D. I like both, and a lot of times I agree with Mike over Coach D (establish the run early), but Mike goes with his gut a lot more. Some of the guys on the other podcasts are a little more balanced too. They refuse to get quite as high up or low down. Still, I feel like Mike runs the most enjoyable site in the market. I think he does an excellent job overall. None of this is a knock on him, just giving my opinion that he is purposefully more like a super-fan than a journalist.

Now I bet that some of NDs coaches aren't great recruiters, but I guarantee you this is the case everywhere. Saban is amazing recruiter primarily because he wins, not the other way around. And a lot of those schools get a jump start in recruiting (and winning) by straight up cheating.

All of this is why a loss to LSU would have killed us. All the objective reasons that ND is good place to go get an education and compete for NCs would have been out the window. Other schools would have been trashing us and our own fans would have been agreeing with them.

 

[Rocket89]

Good post Rocket.

I agree with you and actually unsubbed from ISD (albeit for unrelated issues). I like Mike a lot but holy cow is he a Negative Nancy.

I don't mean to shoot too many arrows at Mike, but in this case it was deserving. All the recruiting sites have their positives and negatives. I would never advocate dropping a sub from a site because of stuff like this. It's just sometimes you have to realize that not everything you hear is Gospel, and critical thinking with common sense needs to be thrown on the fire of criticism.

 

[Irish#1]

Fairly untrue, they have direct connections and receive much more information than you think from certain coaches. It'd shock you how much of a two-way street information is between "analysts" and coaches.

Yeah, I know with 1000% certainty that guys like Mike Frank and Steve Wiltfong are getting a lot of info from coaches. Hell, I went to a bball game a few years ago and Wiltfong walked in with Alford and they sat near each other and talked half the game.

(Excuse me while I name drop) I've never asked Mike Frank who his sources are and I never will, but it doesn't take a genius to know he knows members of the coaching staff. I know Sean Mele, formerly of ISD, played for Kelly (wasn't a source of his) and Denbrock (I think he was a source) and BVG (BVG loved Mele; one time Mele, Frank and I were in line together early to get into the coach's clinic, and BVG walked by, stopped bc he saw Mele and gave him a big bear hug), and Coach Martin used to recruit Mele's students/players in Chicago when he was a coach and a dean. In fact, when Mele wrote something critical about Martin's offense, Martin stopped talking to Mele cold turkey LOL.

I won't mention names, but a reporter told me last year that a kid once claimed through twitter that ND had offered him. So another reporter, who shall remain nameless (but he works for BGI and his name rhymes with Roy...but that's ALL I'm giving you!), immediately reports that the kid has an offer and to stay tuned for the full story. So the reporter I was talking with watches the kid's film and sees that he's not very good. He then calls up an ND coach and asks if it was true. The coach was stupefied by the offer claim and asked the reporter to get the word out that the kid did NOT indeed have an offer.

THAT story above says all you need to know about reporters and their relationships with some coaches...and this happens at all schools. The coaches use the reporters as well ("hey, what did Kid X say about the visit to Alabama?")...coaches get a lot out of having relationships with reporters.

I agree, and I was in a rush when I posted, so I should have elaborated. They do have their connections and get a lot of their info from the coaches. My point was meant to be that they don't sit in on the meetings and discussions, so they don't hear things verbatim. While they get their info, I'm of the belief that there is also info they are not privy to.

 

[Domina Nostra]

I don't mean to shoot too many arrows at Mike, but in this case it was deserving. All the recruiting sites have their positives and negatives. I would never advocate dropping a sub from a site because of stuff like this. It's just sometimes you have to realize that not everything you hear is Gospel, and critical thinking with common sense needs to be thrown on the fire of criticism.

He can be negative at time (when ND loses a game in whihc Kelly refuses to stick with the run), but at least he is not a serial contrarian like one of the other podcast hosts.

I agree, and I was in a rush when I posted, so I should have elaborated. They do have their connections and get a lot of their info from the coaches. My point was meant to be that they don't sit in on the meetings and discussions, so they don't hear things verbatim. While they get their info, I'm of the belief that there is also info they are not privy to.

And sometimes coaches are pretty biased sources.

 

[Rocket89]

I don't think Mike Frank is trying to create drama. I think that he is just more like a mega-fan than your average media guy. And for most fans it all comes down to "what have you done for me lately." Reality is whatever happened in the last 4 weeks. I say this a lot, but for most fans, the only argument that matters in the end of the day is "scoreboard---scoreboard---scoreboard."

It's not that people are stupid or disingenuous, its that they are emotive. They fail to realize how much our reasoning is influenced by emotions. Try as they might to fight it, the objective reality of the game's score and the team's record are just too much to overcome when the 5-word-post, "no excuses" crowd eventually wears people down and wins most arguments.

Q: How hard does the staff work at recruiting?
A: Let me check our record... 12-0: the staff recruits great!

one year later...

Q: How hard does the staff work at recruiting?
A: Let me check our record... 8-4: the staff is lazy.

Contrast Mike Frank with Coach D. I like both, and a lot of times I agree with Mike over Coach D (establish the run early), but Mike goes with his gut a lot more. Some of the guys on the other podcasts are a little more balanced too. They refuse to get quite as high up or low down. Still, I feel like Mike runs the most enjoyable site in the market. I think he does an excellent job overall. None of this is a knock on him, just giving my opinion that he is purposefully more like a super-fan than a journalist.

Now I bet that some of NDs coaches aren't great recruiters, but I guarantee you this is the case everywhere. Saban is amazing recruiter primarily because he wins, not the other way around. And a lot of those schools get a jump start in recruiting (and winning) by straight up cheating.

All of this is why a loss to LSU would have killed us. All the objective reasons that ND is good place to go get an education and compete for NCs would have been out the window. Other schools would have been trashing us and our own fans would have been agreeing with them.

I don't disagree at all.

I think Mike is mostly just frustrated that Notre Dame hasn't gotten over the hump--and a lot of the podcast kept coming back to that point. Where I would disagree is the lengths he went to trying to prove this and that about the coaching staff's effort--it was extremely over the top and suspect.

You said it was emotive and that's exactly what I said in my first comment on the topic. It's very true for many fans.

 

[Irish#1]

Haha, pretty much.

Also, the short bit on Trumbetti in the recent Power Hour was a great example of twisting past events if not blatantly ignoring them, and more importantly, no matter how things play out you can come up with ways to criticize a coaching staff on recruiting.

Days after completing his sophomore year of high school Trumbetti camped at Notre Dame. He said we were his dream school. He left with an offer--one of the earliest scholarships we gave out for 2014.

A few months later during the 2012 season, during Trumbetti's junior year, the positive vibes were flowing after a visit from the staff & spurred by a couple of articles--by ISD no less--that led to a couple of the following comments on this here site:





In mid-January of 2013 BK and Diaco were back to see Trumbetti in Jersey. Three weeks later, he was locked up for a Junior Day visit.

In early March, he visited Florida. Two weeks later Trumbetti came to ND's Junior Day and committed. His official visit came for the BYU game in November and he was an EE in January 2014.

Now, listening to Power Hour they put forth the proposition that we ignored Trumbetti for a long time and how it was ridiculous we could have lost him to another school. Koon said this a couple pages back:



Frankly I'm surprised so many people eat up those words like they are the Holy Grail. Trumbetti's recruitment wasn't even that long ago, plenty should remember it, and there are archives of content to look back on across several sites. The BS detectors should have been going off for anyone who follows recruiting.

This is how you create friction and drama in recruiting...

A) If we shower Trumbetti with a ton of attention there will be criticisms that we're wasting valuable recruiting resources on a "ND lock" and not hustling after targets x,y, and z who need more effort in communication.

B) If we don't shower Trumbetti with attention, knowing he's locked up, there will be accusations the staff 'almost blew it' with someone who was handed to them on a silver platter.

When you look at things this way, the staff can never win. When you have hindsight and can resort to vague notions of "effort" as a main culprit you can paint a damning picture, but in reality it's a very shallow criticism. I mean for chrissakes, Trumbetti was about as drama-free and easy of a recruitment as you're going to find!

There is plenty of other eye rolling comments from the podcast too. Alford needs to do more work outside of Florida? Well, he does and wrapped up Wimbush and Adams in addition to his other duties. We could have nabbed Ross with an extra phone call or two? Come on, now.

Don't get it twisted that I'm saying the staff is perfect. But no staff is perfect and the criticisms from this podcast were mostly ridiculous. Everyone should expect better from ISD and not be so quick to take their comments at face value.

Great post.

 

[tussin]

I don't mean to shoot too many arrows at Mike, but in this case it was deserving. All the recruiting sites have their positives and negatives. I would never advocate dropping a sub from a site because of stuff like this. It's just sometimes you have to realize that not everything you hear is Gospel, and critical thinking with common sense needs to be thrown on the fire of criticism.

Yeah, I want to make it clear that I did not drop the sub because of the issues you described. In most cases, Mike's negativity is well-directed and generally on-point. He runs a good operation and is definitely honest/realistic with the overwhelming majority of his analysis.

 

[IrishLax]

Now, listening to Power Hour they put forth the proposition that we ignored Trumbetti for a long time and how it was ridiculous we could have lost him to another school. Koon said this a couple pages back:



Frankly I'm surprised so many people eat up those words like they are the Holy Grail. Trumbetti's recruitment wasn't even that long ago, plenty should remember it, and there are archives of content to look back on across several sites. The BS detectors should have been going off for anyone who follows recruiting.

This is how you create friction and drama in recruiting...

It's just floors me that you actually believe Mike Frank is trying to "create" drama and manufacture something juicy to talk about. That's not the case, at all. He reports what he hears, and 95% of that is either coming from an assistant coach or player.

The truth is the Trumbetti stuff about being "ignored" or whatever is overstated... but it came privately from Trumbetti himself after the fact. He talked about how there was a period of time where he was hearing from ND analysts much more than he was hearing from ND coaches, and really wasn't sure where he stood with them in terms of "want" because other coaches were contacting him more frequently than ND and going with a harder sell. This is pretty explicable when you consider what all was going on in the winter of 2012/13, but it's the truth per Trumbetti. Obviously, after the season once Diaco decided to stay put and then we made a stop at his HS it all wrapped up pretty quickly after that and all is well that ends well.

I'm as guilty as anyone of living in the moment and drawing conclusions/making overreactions off limited information. And recruiting is always very fluid. And I'm wrong about stuff probably much more so than I'm correct.

But one thing I'm definitely not wrong about is whether Mike Frank is pulling BS out of his ass here for just for sake of talking points. He's not, and it's truly uninformed and laughable to say he is. As I posted earlier in this thread, I strongly disagree with a lot of his opinion that I find has -- at best -- inconsistent logic. However, the dismissive attitude towards what he knows or hears is a joke. For every anecdote he brought up, there is another on guys like Weishar, etc. that I know of. And the amount of information I know almost surely pales in comparison to the people who do this professionally.

 

[Sherm Sticky]

This is all very concerning to me.

Is this something we should be concerned over?

 

[TheTurningPoint]

I tend to side with Mike Frank on matters such as this. He has been covering Notre Dame longer than anyone and understands what goes on at Notre Dame and not just recruiting. He has a grasp of how selective they are and he has a grasp on what it actually takes for a kid to commit to Notre Dame.

Is he wrong sometimes, sure. Everyone has there good and bad moments in the recruiting business. But, I can respect Mike Frank for always telling his opinion. Some reporters have an opinion but report things to get hits, views, etc. Mike is a straight shooter. I dont think he is negative, I just think he says things that no one likes to hear, or quite frankly don't understand fully.

Fans see the articles everyday, the crystal balls and the tweets. What guys like Loy, Mike, Christian, Pete, etc have is actual conversations with the parents, recruits, coaches of the recruit and people that work inside The Gug. They get every side of the story and base their opinions off that. Now, some sites may be bolder with predictions, but thats their marketing. Mike is one that is conservative with his info and how he tells it. He just simply doesnt report rumors or gossip to say "Irish Sports Daily addressed it". So, if he is talking about some adjustments that need to be made on the recruiting front, I tend to believe that there is something that could immediately get better.

I think everyone is pretty stoked about this recruiting class, but at the same time Notre Dame shouldnt have to scramble for running backs or safeties. Those are two positions that Notre Dame has guys in the NFL and positions where talent isn't hard to find.

 

[Luckylucci]

I tend to side with Mike Frank on matters such as this. He has been covering Notre Dame longer than anyone and understands what goes on at Notre Dame and not just recruiting. He has a grasp of how selective they are and he has a grasp on what it actually takes for a kid to commit to Notre Dame.

Is he wrong sometimes, sure. Everyone has there good and bad moments in the recruiting business. But, I can respect Mike Frank for always telling his opinion. Some reporters have an opinion but report things to get hits, views, etc. Mike is a straight shooter. I dont think he is negative, I just think he says things that no one likes to hear, or quite frankly don't understand fully.

Fans see the articles everyday, the crystal balls and the tweets. What guys like Loy, Mike, Christian, Pete, etc have is actual conversations with the parents, recruits, coaches of the recruit and people that work inside The Gug. They get every side of the story and base their opinions off that. Now, some sites may be bolder with predictions, but thats their marketing. Mike is one that is conservative with his info and how he tells it. He just simply doesnt report rumors or gossip to say "Irish Sports Daily addressed it". So, if he is talking about some adjustments that need to be made on the recruiting front, I tend to believe that there is something that could immediately get better.

I think everyone is pretty stoked about this recruiting class, but at the same time Notre Dame shouldnt have to scramble for running backs or safeties. Those are two positions that Notre Dame has guys in the NFL and positions where talent isn't hard to find.

This is where I come out at on this topic. There was clearly a disconnect somewhere in the system/plan that caused us to be scrambling or unprepared at the end. This also isn't the first time this has happened during the Kelly era and its left gaps, at different times, at various positions. I think Mike's only mistake was they seemed to talk about it at too much length which some took the wrong way.