Should Notre Dame Recruit More Like Texas?
As the 2007 recruiting campaign drew to a close it became clear that Charlie Weis and his staff would need to make some drastic changes in how they recruit players. Looking at the Texas model would be a good start.
Texas is setting a new standard for recruiting. They did it last year with the number 5-ranked class in the country and they are already laying the foundation for their 2008 class. At the time of this post Texas had already locked up 8 commitments for the class of 2008(Notre Dame has zero.) This includes the highly-coveted 6′5″ WR Dan Buckner who the Irish were hot on the trail for. Buckner is locked down with Texas now. He’s not going anywhere. He won’t even get a chance to visit Notre Dame, because Mack Brown enforces a no-visit rule. Buckner won’t even be able to explore other options.
As Notre Dame was scrambling all over the country to plug leaks in its 2007 recruiting class, Texas was busy working on the 2008 class. This has allowed Texas to get a head start on 2008 recruiting and will allow for it to start working on the 2009 class before any other team does. Weis and the rest of college football need to play catch-up. If the Irish had secured its 2007 class sooner, would they have been able to spend more time working on Dan Buckner?
Texas benefits from recruiting a talent-rich area. They make the most of it. 100% of the 8 verbal commitments they have received are from Texas. The Irish should take note. Charlie and his staff would be well served to find and offer 8-10 Aaron Nagel/Brian Smith type of players and offer them early. This builds a solid foundation from which to work with guys that… wait for it…”want to be here.” It would help prevent last second de-commitments, portray a high-demand program, increase the value of a Notre Dame scholarship, and allow for the staff to spend more time working on younger recruits.
Charlie said in his latest press conference that he’ll have to re-evaluate how to handle recruiting. It will be interesting to see how he handles the 2008 campaign. ND has 25 schollies to give out and a lot of holes to fill.
February 11th, 2007 at 6:22 pm
Make that 9 commits for Texas now.
February 12th, 2007 at 5:55 am
One of the tough things for Mack et all is to evalute these kids with one less year of high school. Texas makes up for it by having an established base and great connections with the TX high school coaches. It doesn’t get much play outside of Austin but UT’s annual high school football coaches convention/clinic is huge down here. That pipeline virtually sends kids to Mack.
If we can create something similar with Chicago, the rest of IL, IN, and parts of OH/MI we would be set – but Mack has been at this for a decade down here.
February 12th, 2007 at 5:55 am
I think Charlie has started this already. Offering Mcdonald, Long and some other big time guys for 08. This kid from Philly Jewhan Edwards is a guy we need to land for the new 3-4 personnel D.
I like the don’t take a visit somewhere else and your gone approach. Make a kid decide and stick with it. Unless something unforseen happens (coaching change, fund exchange from Illinois bank etc.) the kid should commit now.
We do have a lot of holes to fill on the D side, but charlie has done well on the OL and RB position.
I can see us getting between 22-24 with 15 on the D side of the ball.
As we wait for the 08 season, i am becoming more optomistic with a better year for the young team. We have guys that are top recruits and the changes of Nuss and Nwankwo to the DL will help out tremendously.
Good post guys, nice take.
March 4th, 2007 at 1:37 pm
[...] The IRT has recently jumped on the Texas recruiting bandwagon. Texas is setting the standard for locking up commits close to home early and keeping them locked in until National Signing Day. [...]