I understand that part of the reason why he delayed his announcement, is that ND came at him with more NIL $$$. While ND lost him (for now) this is encouraging to hear. I'd never thought I would see ND get so aggressive with investing the dollars needed to get and retain top tier coaches and NIL for recruits. They obviously love what Freeman is trying to do and his authenticity for his love of the entire school not just football. I could not imagine the admin doing this for Kelly.
With that said, it looks like on the field performance of the ND wideouts this year, will be their best recruiting tool for recruits to see what the possibilites are. May have to dip in the portal once again for the 2025 season until ND recruits WR better.
Great to see Deuce Knight still trying to recruit the guy.
That being said, if we want a chance to get him to flip, we'd better have better WR production this year.
Link: https://fanrecap.com/notre-dame-commit-deuce-knight-teases-new-twist-in-battle-for-star-wr-derek-meadows/
Fall”.
1) Kelly convinced them it was his offense, not Denbrock’s. Lol.
2) I most certainly hope that we have other wr’s by the late Fall.
To develop as a receiver assuming a new OC will make us look like LSU on offense last year?
How about u see it first.
What track record do we have with QBs that we've got Carr, Deuce, and Grubbs lined up?
Something different is happening at QB where it's being sold better (with no better track record) than WR is.
Could be luck, could be strategy, could be the position coach, or could be some other unidentified thing, but I think pinning it on recent WR development is just picking the low hanging fruit.
I agree with NDPhysics. We've done well at DB because of the success of Kyle Hamilton and others. Have to believe we've done well at LB because of JOK and others. We basically have Skowronek and Claypool since Will Fuller in 2016, when these kids were in grade school.
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I would actually argue that had Book been the starter full tine in 2017, Equanimeous St. Brown would have had a fantastic season, instead of almost having his neck broken several times trying to catch errant Wimbush passes.
I'd even guess that St. Brown would have stayed for 2018, which would have given us a much stronger WR corps.
As it was, in 2018 Miles Boykin had a nice season as a WR1, and got drafted in 4R. Claypool as a WR2 was a solid player, and Finke was a good WR3. This was a direct result of Denbrock having brought them up.
Chase Claypool had one of the best seasons as a WR1 and got drafted in 2R. What was unusual, though, is that Finke was our WR2. That right there showed terrible development of the recruited talent. Basically, most of the guys that Mike Denbrock had recruited and developed were gone by this time.
Del Alexander stunk as a WR coach, and the WR development degenerated once he was in full swing.
In 2020, Javon McKinley did what he could, and was a serviceable WR, but he didn't have much luck beating the better CB's. When Ben Skowronek, a transfer portal guy, basically beat out our home-grown talent (Lenzy, Keys, Wilkins) for that WR2 spot, it was once again an open sore on our WR recruiting and development.
I mean, look at what Tom Brady did in some of those years (not all) and what Mahomes did last year.
My hope is that with the QBs we have lined up, the WR position fixes itself.
Easier to sell a QB on early playing time. But for a WR, Minchey, Carr, Deuce, Stubbs should be a selling point.
Hey Kid, you're going to have a great QB throwing to you. But, yet, Kelly can point to draft picks and NFL success.
It might not click on all cylinders at first but if the o line can gel as the season goes along and with better WR play u would think u would become an attractive to some WR recruits.
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Link: https://www.statesman.com/story/news/state/2024/04/12/sec-schools-ranked-academically-us-news-2024-texas-football/73292047007/
me LSU had more Rhodes Scholars the ND, I lost! LSU 14
Link: https://lsufoundation.planmylegacy.org/lsu-impressive-record
Any state school is going to rank lower than private schools like Vanderbilt. They are required to fill in their student rosters with at least a high percentage of in-state students, even if more qualified students from out of state are applying.
And yes, those receiving such entitlements will tend to fail out more easily.
Take the upper echelon of students from LSU (or any other respectable state school), and they'll be on par with the upper echelon from Notre Dame.
We aren't talking about the cream of the crop from normal students...we are talking about the academic standards upheld by the football programs.
When a big time football player says they are making their choice largely based on academics and picks a Miami or LSU over ND, it's the correct response to raise the BS flag.