Not a "who's next post", but at least on the topic of 2014 recruiting: as many of us have been carping about, we see a deficit in D-Line numbers for the 2014 season after Big Lou And Stephon go. More worrisome is the specific deficit in "jumbos" [NTs and DEs who can slide in a play DT like KLM and Tuitt]. My reading of the board seems to indicate that most IE posters now believe this and are aware of the need. So, what does 2014 look like in this area?
1). 247 has 27 jumbos on their list. Ten of these are in the top 50, showing the general advanced value of such players. One more is at 59, and then there is a marked gap to 103 and on down. Whether this is anywhere close to reality, who knows, but the top rated players are usually pretty good bets. Both #1 and #2 are jumbos, by the way.
2). On these top eleven, Kelly has done his due diligence. Three of them were already committed [FSU, FL, WI]. Two others are interested only in SEC, mainly Bama. Of the other six, Kelly offered all of them.
3). Of the six offered, three seem to have no interest at all. Two of the others are at least interesting enough to keep in touch with [Andrew Brown and Nifae Lealno] if they have the other ND quality stuff. Lealno surely must as he is a Stanford lean. One of these elite six favors Notre Dame and Michigan. This is Malik McDowell, the 24th rated player. McDowell is 6'6" and 265 as a junior, and could be the next coming of Stephon Tuitt. He could turn out to be our most important recruit in the whole cycle. There is of course loads of time for things to change.
4). Of the other 16 jumbos in the 247 list, there are three offers and one guy listed as visiting. [Peyton Newell]. Of the three other players offered, all show top interest in Notre Dame. Jay Hayes is 6'5" and 270 [rated #114], Andrew Trumbetti is 6'5" and 250 [rated #194], and Enoch Smith is 6'2" and 263 [rated 228]. Trumbetti and Smith seem to favor us over anyone else. Hayes has Michigan in his set of 4 preferred schools.
5). If McDowell and Hayes and Trumbetti and Smith all wanted to come, my prejudices would be to take all four of them. Smith seems built like an Ian Williams and McDowell [as said] like a Stephon Tuitt. Trumbetti and Hayes could both develop into SDE/DTs. This would restock the area of deficiency our team has, and perhaps not only McDowell but others could help right away, as they appear to be that good.
6). Should we, God forbid, strike out on two or more of these guys, Scout lists six other DTs ranked either 3* or NR, who have significant interest in Notre Dame. Since these are juniors we're talking about, there is a lot of time for one to several of them developing into elite jumbo monsters. These guys' last names are Nnadi, Mustipher, Harris, Dziak, Khoury, and Saunders. Bama is interested in Mustipher and Harris; Michigan is interested in Dziak and Khoury, for instance, so these are apparently really good prospects.
I haven't yet done my analysis of likely number of scholarships available, but unless that number is REALLY low, I think that I'll stick with my idea of four jumbos. I expect no one to agree with this, but maybe the board will think 3 not out of the question.