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'22 GA TE Holden Staes
WATCH: Four-Star TE Holden Staes Announces Notre Dame Commitment (247sports.com)
Film Don't Lie | Holden Staes | Irish Sports Daily
Tight end Holden Staes' commitment keeps Georgia on Notre Dame's mind | Notre Dame Insider Recruiting | ndinsider.com
New Offers
'23 FL WR Brandon Inniss
'23 MD DE Dylan Gooden
'23 DC ATH Nyckoles Harbor
'23 CA QB Malachi Nelson
Free Articles
2022 WR Joseph Griffin Jr. Talks Notre Dame Offer & More | Irish Sports Daily
New Notre Dame Offer | 2023 D.C. ATH Nyckoles Harbor | Irish Sports Daily
Film Don't Lie (irishsportsdaily.com)
- Jamie U at ISD put together all his FDL articles going back to 2016 and archived them here. Worth the time to go through some of the old evals.
Notre Dame Football Begins Recruiting Push | Irish Sports Daily
Top Performers: SoCal UC Report Elite Underclassmen Camp (247sports.com)
- Some familiar names looked pretty good over the weekend.
Meet the Notre Dame Football Committed Class of 2022 (247sports.com)
Watch Notre Dame commit Joey Tanona go through a spring workout (247sports.com)
Top 150 Sophomore Jalen Thompson Talks Notre Dame (247sports.com)
Notre Dame Fighting Irish Football Blitzing The Country With Virtual Recruiting Initiative (rivals.com)
Five-star Zach Rice locks in his June visit schedule (rivals.com)
Notre Dame Fighting Irish Football Offers 2023 Five-Star Quarterback Malachi Nelson (rivals.com)
Premium Articles
The Latest | Notre Dame & 2022 DE RJ Cooper | Irish Sports Daily
- Still planning to OV in June. Trying to get all 5 visits in during that month. On the board, Freeman mentions that Stanford has the lead back. It sounds like he'll be a casualty of the Hinish recruitment. And of all places going to Stanford. Gross. I'd like to put in a trade request, lol.
The Latest | Notre Dame & 2023 DE Jason Moore | Irish Sports Daily
- Looking to visit this summer and Kevin Winston could play a role in his decision. Not a package deal but friends. This is the first we're hearing of that.
2022 S Kevin Winston Jr. Hoping To Feel At Home At Notre Dame | Irish Sports Daily
- Talks with Coach O'Leary almost daily. Taking Michigan St., PSU, and Maryland OV's prior to this ND OV. Plans to decide before his Senior Season but no date as of yet.
2022 S Sherrod Covil Jr. Looking Forward To Notre Dame Official | Irish Sports Daily
- Freeman has picked up the interest here which could tell us a little bit about how he's moved up the board. No OV's locked in yet but will take them to ND, Clemson, PSU, and USC. Mentions USC's specific NIL program for athletes. If we lose this young man to USC, I'll lose my shit every year when we play him, lol. As I've said, he's a huge want for me.
Top247 LB Sebastian Cheeks's relationship growing with Texas (247sports.com)
- Texas and UNC are pushing really hard here. If I had a CB, mine would be on Foggy, Michigan, UNC, or Texas. But definitely not on ND. I could be wrong but he's going to be a casualty of scholarship space. And as big of a disappointment as that may seem, I thought his Junior Film was below my expectations. Not Bad but I expected that physique and athlete to look better. Wouldn't surprise me if the staff felt the same.
Four-star DE DJ Wesolak has a busy June planned including a couple official visits (247sports.com)
- Wesolak has OV's scheduled to Miami and USC. Other possible OV's are Bama, Florida, and ASU.
Catching up with Notre Dame DE Recruit Cyrus Moss (247sports.com)
- Freeman/Elston are still pushing here. This recruitment still seems like it has a long ways to go.
CB Jayden Bellamy goes in-depth on top six (247sports.com)
- Hard to get a read on this one. At one point this was ND's to lose but it seemed like as they waited to green light him, his recruitment picked up too much momentum for him to shut it down without visits. Now, NFL development of DB's is a trending topic.
(4) Recruiting - Couple ND recruiting nuggets, including a new FC pick | BlueandGold.com (rivals.com)
- Mike Singer puts in the futurecast for ND while also saying that he thinks there could be 2-3, '23 commitments before the football season is here. Singer really brings it at BGI. Since they got rid of Driskell I've really enjoyed their coverage.
(4) Recruiting - Lucky Charms: Update On Key Notre Dame LB Target Jaylen Sneed | BlueandGold.com (rivals.com)
- Jaylen Sneed has locked in an Oregon OV for June 4th. Singer doesn't seem concerned about ND's position here. Neither am I. As I've mentioned before, I do not think it's a coincidence that ND is getting the last OV for so many guys. This all seems pretty telegraphed to me.
(4) Recruiting - The Latest On Notre Dame WR Target CJ Williams | BlueandGold.com (rivals.com)
- Change of plans for CJ Williams. No longer taking all his visits in June as he's running track. This more than likely pushes back his decision timeline and other OV's until the Fall.
Let's Discuss
Last week I planned on doing a different topic for this piece but the Malachi Nelson offer really got me thinking. So, I'm going to dive into the last 12-16 months(ish) of Rees's QB recruiting. Let me start by saying the results are not bad. I'm not calling for his job. In fact, the place where this comes from is the opposite.
I really like Rees and I want him to be at ND for a long time. I think he's a really good offensive mind. And, I think he will have a bright future in this profession. However, recruiting is part of the gig and right now I think the process is lacking or at the very least confusing. And, not just confusing for fans but for prospects as well (more on that later). In recruiting, like with sales, it's important to have a repeatable process.
It's important because it ensures that you'll hit on a higher number of prospects that you should be getting. Guys aren't falling through the cracks because of the process. And, should, being the key word. I'm not frustrated with Rees that he has no current shot at Malachi Nelson. Likely, nobody but OU does. It doesn't make them all bad recruiters. But, those programs will end up with another guy they are extremely high on. I'm frustrated with his process that has him offering a top 10 player 2 months before a decision. Because, if Malachi was a different player, maybe one that ND would naturally have a better shot with, this process would still suck and leave the chances of missing much higher than they should be. For example, what happened with Drew Allar (more on that later).
Think of it like this. If we offered all 10, top 10 QB's on Rees's board, at the same time no matter what Rees did he wouldn't get all 10. I think we can all agree on that and it's not the issue. Some of those guys won't want what ND is and will go to Bama, Clemson, OU, etc. Again, this isn't about results, at least not yet. But, if he did do that, he'd have a much better shot at making sure he got one that he really wanted as the board changed and the prospects progressed. I think we can all agree on that as well. And that last part is key. The correct answer is not to keep the board small. It's the opposite. Have a large diverse board of prospects that all know the stakes. This way, as they develop and things change you already have that relationship established and you can make a more realistic push when the time comes.
Here is how it played out with how Rees did it. We'll have to go back to the beginning of the '22 cycle. First of all, due to the pandemic Rees didn't send out a single '22 offer until August of 2020. That is super late so he and the staff should've identified, immediately, that in the midst of the pandemic they were behind and needed to get on it. Those first two offers went to Angeli and Wimsatt. Now, remember that Rees never saw either throw in-person, before offering them scholarships. We heard for several months that more tape was going to be evaluated, they really wanted in-person throwing sessions, and this was the hold up on offers. But, it wasn't a hold up for these two. Why was Rees comfortable giving Wimsatt and Angeli offers without in-person evals but literally nobody else in the entire class? Honestly, I have no idea and don't care to speculate because it doesn't really matter. What matters is, that he did and that's what we know as fact. And, all other QB prospects in the 2022 class also know this as fact. Also, important. So, without in-person evals only Angeli and Wimsatt are good enough and that's the board. Not Simpson, Not Klubnick, not Allar.
That remains the board from Aug of 2020 to January 22nd of 2021 when he ultimately offers Ty Simpson. Simpson, who happens to be a top 75 QB, has held offers from Clemson (as of Aug 2020) and Bama (June of '19) for a long time now. In-between those two dates we hear of contact with prospects such as Cade Klubnick but he too isn't good enough to warrant an offer. Only good enough to commit to Clemson later on. But, back to Ty Simpson. Rees offers Simpson and does the proverbial "all-in" to get Simpson. But here's the kicker. Simpson is going into decision mode. So, now, we've identified a couple things. 1.) Rees is not happy with Angeli and Wimsatt being the guys. Well, it's either that or he likes to waste his own time and that seems unlikely. 2.) After 6 months we're now starting to progress the board forward and we're choosing to do so with a guy that is in decision mode. Really? Ok, ok. Tommy go shoot your shot, we're here to cheer you on. But, let's see what the rest of the board looks like. Well, if we miss here, we're back to Angeli and Wimsatt being the only guys and QB dominoes are starting to fall. But, there is this guy Drew Allar that is blowing the F up. He's grown, about to skyrocket up the rankings, cannon for an arm, has a ton of workout footage online, and his Junior season was pretty darn good. Let's get started with this guy too, right?
Well, we all know how this plays out. Rees spends the next month or so only recruiting Simpson and Simpson chooses Bama. Only then does he offer Allar. And, is prepared to do the proverbial "all-in" with him as well. However, Allar too is getting into decision mode and it doesn't seem like ND is getting the traction people expected. Why is that? Is it because Drew didn't like ND from the start. Seems very unlikely considering his only unofficial visit in 2019 was to ND for a game that Fall. Therefore, I think we can reasonably assume it's because of the relationship and process. The relationship that Tommy was not cultivating for the last few/several months. So, Tommy spent 6 months cultivating 2 relationships with guys thatultimately didn't make up the top of his board, while he waited for all other prospects to do the same with other coaches. To only then decide he needed to expand the board. This really is utter non-sense. If Angeli was the guy all along then there never would've been a need to go all-in after Simpson or Allar. The reality is, Rees got behind in the cycle and couldn't make up for it so we got the fallback option. What happens if we offer all 4 at the same time? Or at the very least offer Simpson and Allar at the same time? A lot of questions we'll never know the answer too but I don't see why it shouldn't be asked.
The issue now is, we see this same process playing out in '23. Rees has only 2 offers out to Dante Moore (Michigan lean) and Archie Manning (SEC lean) And now, Rees is offering Malachi Nelson as he enters decision mode. Was it really that he needed to see more from Nelson? But, didn't from Moore or Manning? I think we can cut through the crap on that one. Is Rees going to spend the next 2 months going all-in on Nelson and forget about the rest of the board? Like he did with Simpson. Are we going to miss out on the next Drew Allar while we wait for a decision from a QB we have absolutely no chance with? Is Brayden Dormen the next Drew Allar? Again, we don't have the answers to these questions but they certainly should be asked. Does Rees really think he and ND have the cache to enter these recruitments this late and win them? Or is there something going on with Rees's process that needs to change? Whatever it is, hopefully we get to see a more functional recruiting process for the most important position on our team. Because, if I'm being honest, this doesn't feel like it.
As I said before, if Rees wants to go all-in on some next level ballers, I think that's great. Then he should probably do so when the other elite programs are doing the same. While also creating a realistic recruiting board that allows us a better chance of success should we miss on those guys. It doesn't seem like a stretch for Rees to be cultivating a board with 5-7 on the top targets, all on the same schedule, does it?
'22 GA TE Holden Staes
WATCH: Four-Star TE Holden Staes Announces Notre Dame Commitment (247sports.com)
Film Don't Lie | Holden Staes | Irish Sports Daily
Tight end Holden Staes' commitment keeps Georgia on Notre Dame's mind | Notre Dame Insider Recruiting | ndinsider.com
New Offers
'23 FL WR Brandon Inniss
'23 MD DE Dylan Gooden
'23 DC ATH Nyckoles Harbor
'23 CA QB Malachi Nelson
Free Articles
2022 WR Joseph Griffin Jr. Talks Notre Dame Offer & More | Irish Sports Daily
New Notre Dame Offer | 2023 D.C. ATH Nyckoles Harbor | Irish Sports Daily
Film Don't Lie (irishsportsdaily.com)
- Jamie U at ISD put together all his FDL articles going back to 2016 and archived them here. Worth the time to go through some of the old evals.
Notre Dame Football Begins Recruiting Push | Irish Sports Daily
Top Performers: SoCal UC Report Elite Underclassmen Camp (247sports.com)
- Some familiar names looked pretty good over the weekend.
Meet the Notre Dame Football Committed Class of 2022 (247sports.com)
Watch Notre Dame commit Joey Tanona go through a spring workout (247sports.com)
Top 150 Sophomore Jalen Thompson Talks Notre Dame (247sports.com)
Notre Dame Fighting Irish Football Blitzing The Country With Virtual Recruiting Initiative (rivals.com)
Five-star Zach Rice locks in his June visit schedule (rivals.com)
Notre Dame Fighting Irish Football Offers 2023 Five-Star Quarterback Malachi Nelson (rivals.com)
Premium Articles
The Latest | Notre Dame & 2022 DE RJ Cooper | Irish Sports Daily
- Still planning to OV in June. Trying to get all 5 visits in during that month. On the board, Freeman mentions that Stanford has the lead back. It sounds like he'll be a casualty of the Hinish recruitment. And of all places going to Stanford. Gross. I'd like to put in a trade request, lol.
The Latest | Notre Dame & 2023 DE Jason Moore | Irish Sports Daily
- Looking to visit this summer and Kevin Winston could play a role in his decision. Not a package deal but friends. This is the first we're hearing of that.
2022 S Kevin Winston Jr. Hoping To Feel At Home At Notre Dame | Irish Sports Daily
- Talks with Coach O'Leary almost daily. Taking Michigan St., PSU, and Maryland OV's prior to this ND OV. Plans to decide before his Senior Season but no date as of yet.
2022 S Sherrod Covil Jr. Looking Forward To Notre Dame Official | Irish Sports Daily
- Freeman has picked up the interest here which could tell us a little bit about how he's moved up the board. No OV's locked in yet but will take them to ND, Clemson, PSU, and USC. Mentions USC's specific NIL program for athletes. If we lose this young man to USC, I'll lose my shit every year when we play him, lol. As I've said, he's a huge want for me.
Top247 LB Sebastian Cheeks's relationship growing with Texas (247sports.com)
- Texas and UNC are pushing really hard here. If I had a CB, mine would be on Foggy, Michigan, UNC, or Texas. But definitely not on ND. I could be wrong but he's going to be a casualty of scholarship space. And as big of a disappointment as that may seem, I thought his Junior Film was below my expectations. Not Bad but I expected that physique and athlete to look better. Wouldn't surprise me if the staff felt the same.
Four-star DE DJ Wesolak has a busy June planned including a couple official visits (247sports.com)
- Wesolak has OV's scheduled to Miami and USC. Other possible OV's are Bama, Florida, and ASU.
Catching up with Notre Dame DE Recruit Cyrus Moss (247sports.com)
- Freeman/Elston are still pushing here. This recruitment still seems like it has a long ways to go.
CB Jayden Bellamy goes in-depth on top six (247sports.com)
- Hard to get a read on this one. At one point this was ND's to lose but it seemed like as they waited to green light him, his recruitment picked up too much momentum for him to shut it down without visits. Now, NFL development of DB's is a trending topic.
(4) Recruiting - Couple ND recruiting nuggets, including a new FC pick | BlueandGold.com (rivals.com)
- Mike Singer puts in the futurecast for ND while also saying that he thinks there could be 2-3, '23 commitments before the football season is here. Singer really brings it at BGI. Since they got rid of Driskell I've really enjoyed their coverage.
(4) Recruiting - Lucky Charms: Update On Key Notre Dame LB Target Jaylen Sneed | BlueandGold.com (rivals.com)
- Jaylen Sneed has locked in an Oregon OV for June 4th. Singer doesn't seem concerned about ND's position here. Neither am I. As I've mentioned before, I do not think it's a coincidence that ND is getting the last OV for so many guys. This all seems pretty telegraphed to me.
(4) Recruiting - The Latest On Notre Dame WR Target CJ Williams | BlueandGold.com (rivals.com)
- Change of plans for CJ Williams. No longer taking all his visits in June as he's running track. This more than likely pushes back his decision timeline and other OV's until the Fall.
Let's Discuss
Last week I planned on doing a different topic for this piece but the Malachi Nelson offer really got me thinking. So, I'm going to dive into the last 12-16 months(ish) of Rees's QB recruiting. Let me start by saying the results are not bad. I'm not calling for his job. In fact, the place where this comes from is the opposite.
I really like Rees and I want him to be at ND for a long time. I think he's a really good offensive mind. And, I think he will have a bright future in this profession. However, recruiting is part of the gig and right now I think the process is lacking or at the very least confusing. And, not just confusing for fans but for prospects as well (more on that later). In recruiting, like with sales, it's important to have a repeatable process.
It's important because it ensures that you'll hit on a higher number of prospects that you should be getting. Guys aren't falling through the cracks because of the process. And, should, being the key word. I'm not frustrated with Rees that he has no current shot at Malachi Nelson. Likely, nobody but OU does. It doesn't make them all bad recruiters. But, those programs will end up with another guy they are extremely high on. I'm frustrated with his process that has him offering a top 10 player 2 months before a decision. Because, if Malachi was a different player, maybe one that ND would naturally have a better shot with, this process would still suck and leave the chances of missing much higher than they should be. For example, what happened with Drew Allar (more on that later).
Think of it like this. If we offered all 10, top 10 QB's on Rees's board, at the same time no matter what Rees did he wouldn't get all 10. I think we can all agree on that and it's not the issue. Some of those guys won't want what ND is and will go to Bama, Clemson, OU, etc. Again, this isn't about results, at least not yet. But, if he did do that, he'd have a much better shot at making sure he got one that he really wanted as the board changed and the prospects progressed. I think we can all agree on that as well. And that last part is key. The correct answer is not to keep the board small. It's the opposite. Have a large diverse board of prospects that all know the stakes. This way, as they develop and things change you already have that relationship established and you can make a more realistic push when the time comes.
Here is how it played out with how Rees did it. We'll have to go back to the beginning of the '22 cycle. First of all, due to the pandemic Rees didn't send out a single '22 offer until August of 2020. That is super late so he and the staff should've identified, immediately, that in the midst of the pandemic they were behind and needed to get on it. Those first two offers went to Angeli and Wimsatt. Now, remember that Rees never saw either throw in-person, before offering them scholarships. We heard for several months that more tape was going to be evaluated, they really wanted in-person throwing sessions, and this was the hold up on offers. But, it wasn't a hold up for these two. Why was Rees comfortable giving Wimsatt and Angeli offers without in-person evals but literally nobody else in the entire class? Honestly, I have no idea and don't care to speculate because it doesn't really matter. What matters is, that he did and that's what we know as fact. And, all other QB prospects in the 2022 class also know this as fact. Also, important. So, without in-person evals only Angeli and Wimsatt are good enough and that's the board. Not Simpson, Not Klubnick, not Allar.
That remains the board from Aug of 2020 to January 22nd of 2021 when he ultimately offers Ty Simpson. Simpson, who happens to be a top 75 QB, has held offers from Clemson (as of Aug 2020) and Bama (June of '19) for a long time now. In-between those two dates we hear of contact with prospects such as Cade Klubnick but he too isn't good enough to warrant an offer. Only good enough to commit to Clemson later on. But, back to Ty Simpson. Rees offers Simpson and does the proverbial "all-in" to get Simpson. But here's the kicker. Simpson is going into decision mode. So, now, we've identified a couple things. 1.) Rees is not happy with Angeli and Wimsatt being the guys. Well, it's either that or he likes to waste his own time and that seems unlikely. 2.) After 6 months we're now starting to progress the board forward and we're choosing to do so with a guy that is in decision mode. Really? Ok, ok. Tommy go shoot your shot, we're here to cheer you on. But, let's see what the rest of the board looks like. Well, if we miss here, we're back to Angeli and Wimsatt being the only guys and QB dominoes are starting to fall. But, there is this guy Drew Allar that is blowing the F up. He's grown, about to skyrocket up the rankings, cannon for an arm, has a ton of workout footage online, and his Junior season was pretty darn good. Let's get started with this guy too, right?
Well, we all know how this plays out. Rees spends the next month or so only recruiting Simpson and Simpson chooses Bama. Only then does he offer Allar. And, is prepared to do the proverbial "all-in" with him as well. However, Allar too is getting into decision mode and it doesn't seem like ND is getting the traction people expected. Why is that? Is it because Drew didn't like ND from the start. Seems very unlikely considering his only unofficial visit in 2019 was to ND for a game that Fall. Therefore, I think we can reasonably assume it's because of the relationship and process. The relationship that Tommy was not cultivating for the last few/several months. So, Tommy spent 6 months cultivating 2 relationships with guys thatultimately didn't make up the top of his board, while he waited for all other prospects to do the same with other coaches. To only then decide he needed to expand the board. This really is utter non-sense. If Angeli was the guy all along then there never would've been a need to go all-in after Simpson or Allar. The reality is, Rees got behind in the cycle and couldn't make up for it so we got the fallback option. What happens if we offer all 4 at the same time? Or at the very least offer Simpson and Allar at the same time? A lot of questions we'll never know the answer too but I don't see why it shouldn't be asked.
The issue now is, we see this same process playing out in '23. Rees has only 2 offers out to Dante Moore (Michigan lean) and Archie Manning (SEC lean) And now, Rees is offering Malachi Nelson as he enters decision mode. Was it really that he needed to see more from Nelson? But, didn't from Moore or Manning? I think we can cut through the crap on that one. Is Rees going to spend the next 2 months going all-in on Nelson and forget about the rest of the board? Like he did with Simpson. Are we going to miss out on the next Drew Allar while we wait for a decision from a QB we have absolutely no chance with? Is Brayden Dormen the next Drew Allar? Again, we don't have the answers to these questions but they certainly should be asked. Does Rees really think he and ND have the cache to enter these recruitments this late and win them? Or is there something going on with Rees's process that needs to change? Whatever it is, hopefully we get to see a more functional recruiting process for the most important position on our team. Because, if I'm being honest, this doesn't feel like it.
As I said before, if Rees wants to go all-in on some next level ballers, I think that's great. Then he should probably do so when the other elite programs are doing the same. While also creating a realistic recruiting board that allows us a better chance of success should we miss on those guys. It doesn't seem like a stretch for Rees to be cultivating a board with 5-7 on the top targets, all on the same schedule, does it?
