Neutral Game Sites

[MuckFichigan2011]

I was thinking back on the WSU game last year in San Antonio, and was wondering if that improved our recruiting of Texas at all. I would assume with the coaching change that it wouldn't, and with the lack of recent success. I was looking at future schedules and noticed we play a lot of neutral game sites and wondered if that was intended to help recruiting in that state specifically..

 

[IrishLax]

Yes, it is intended to increase exposure and help recruiting. We did the same thing in lacrosse over spring break travelling to play games at neutral sites so we could show off the team and start building pipelines in other areas of the country. A lot of times coaches will use the travel to meet with recruits in that area. It can work great or it can completely backfire.

If my memory serves me correctly we picked up a DB recruit in Texas last year after the game. And we walloped Washington State. That is an example of it going well.

Our lacrosse team played 3 games in 5 days travelling well over 3000 miles. We beat a highly ranked Loyola team at a neutral site in Baltimore, before losing a tough one in Philly to Drexel in OT... and then headed all the way down to Houston to play a neutral site game against Fairfield that we ended up losing 10-8 I think solely because of the fatigue and travel. That is an example of a neutral site game going very poorly. You try to get the younger kids (think Freshman and younger) to come out to the games and leave with the feeling that they want to play for Notre Dame because of the awesome performance they just saw. And you want to have current kids you're recruiting that might not get to see you live because of the travel take a good look at how awesome it can be to play for your team.

When you end up losing that game in embarrassing fashion it all totally backfires. That's why I'm a big fan of playing a team like Army in Yankee stadium but not a fan at all of playing a team like Miami in soldier field. We have nothing to gain from recruiting playing in Chicago whereas there is huge upside for Miami to come win a big game like that at a neutral site in the Midwest.

 

[NDPhilly]

Yes, it is intended to increase exposure and help recruiting. We did the same thing in lacrosse over spring break travelling to play games at neutral sites so we could show off the team and start building pipelines in other areas of the country. A lot of times coaches will use the travel to meet with recruits in that area. It can work great or it can completely backfire.

If my memory serves me correctly we picked up a DB recruit in Texas last year after the game. And we walloped Washington State. That is an example of it going well.

Our lacrosse team played 3 games in 5 days travelling well over 3000 miles. We beat a highly ranked Loyola team at a neutral site in Baltimore, before losing a tough one in Philly to Drexel in OT... and then headed all the way down to Houston to play a neutral site game against Fairfield that we ended up losing 10-8 I think solely because of the fatigue and travel. That is an example of a neutral site game going very poorly. You try to get the younger kids (think Freshman and younger) to come out to the games and leave with the feeling that they want to play for Notre Dame because of the awesome performance they just saw. And you want to have current kids you're recruiting that might not get to see you live because of the travel take a good look at how awesome it can be to play for your team.

When you end up losing that game in embarrassing fashion it all totally backfires. That's why I'm a big fan of playing a team like Army in Yankee stadium but not a fan at all of playing a team like Miami in soldier field. We have nothing to gain from recruiting playing in Chicago whereas there is huge upside for Miami to come win a big game like that at a neutral site in the Midwest.

Tony Hurd jr. He decommited after the Weis firing and went to Texas A&M.

 

[irishtrain]

I believe these nuetral site games are of great value and give the air of 'historic' when its a quality opponent. No other team down through the years has played the neutral site games to their benifit like Notre Dame. Like Kelly said anybody anywhere anytime-it adds to the mystic and Notre Dame travels like no other team and is national. This is what Notre Dame is, its the very fiber of the mystic.