But the fact that most fans didn’t know assistant coaches 10 days ago is meaningless. Fans generally don’t know position coaches from other teams, with some “high-profile” exceptions. When they come on ND’s radar, they educate themselves. To the extent there is skepticism over Stuckey, it is clearly based on lack of experience and on-field performance to measure. Most ND fans didn’t know Mason “10 days before he was hired.” Yet I thought you wrote a great article about what an “impressive hire” he was. That article was based mostly on Mason’s experience and the production he coached on the field. Some fuel was added by all the pre-hire commentary about how important the WR coach hire was due to ND’s situation.
If your comment here was in any way directed toward me (I don’t know honestly), let me correct: I’m not “hand-wringing” about it. I’m good with Stuckey, as I’ve stated, and I am trying to focus on his positives. My comments down the board are only about my view of how the hiring went down. I apparently have a minority view on how things went down. No big deal as far as I’m concerned.
I will disagree with your last point a little. I think the WR coach both has to get elite talent to ND but also has to develop it. And definitely has to develop the non-elite talent (not every schollie is going to a top 50 player). Your recent article about Quinn and Hiestand underscores the point, I think. Not exactly sure what you meant about Bell & Moore. Both were 4*. Bell was in the Colzie-Styles-Merriweather range of ranking at 247. Agree, though, that neither Shephard or Stuckey has proven they can land a guy like Tate.