UHND.com - Notre Dame Football, Basketball, & Recruiting

The only "Kelly kids" left were Mills, Cross, Kiser, Watts. The rest of the defense was all brought to Notre Dame after Freeman arrived in 2021.

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In prior years the Irish early recruiting rankings were based on numbers -- they took a lot of good players early. This year the approach is to work for super-high-end talent and not load up on good players early.

I think Freeman knows he can get good players through the portal. He's working now on getting great players, which takes more time.

You will notice that SC is now recruiting like ND did under Bowden, and that class will suffer the same fate.

It's already springing leaks.

Go for the big fish, MF.

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We are still in the mix for many good players.

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The fact that we could lose arguably the best cornerback in the nation (Ben Morrison), and have a three star true freshman step in (Leonard Moore), while experiencing no dropoff at all, shows that he knows his stuff.

We were also playing two true sophomores at safety and field cornerback (Adon Shuler, Christian Gray), along with a lot of young talent at linebacker (Bowen, KVA, Ausberry, in addition to Jaylen Sneed finally stepping up his game).

There was also something about Bryce Young stepping in as a true freshman, and playing like a polished veteran, despite not having even a year of strength and conditioning under Loren Landow.

Also, even the "Kelly kids" who were seniors last year, were developed under Marcus Freeman as DC, and later, as HC.


Brian Kelly had virtually nothing to do with the amazing stable of running backs we have, and the WR production last year was done with transfer portal guys, along with Jaden Greathouse finally finding his groove as a true sophomore. The only WR he could potentially get credit for would be Jayden Thomas, but even then, it was Marcus Freeman and co. who developed him into a guy who became a pretty good WR3.

The offensive line was developed by Harry Hiestand and Joe Rudolph. Brian Kelly's buddy, Jeff Quinn, wasn't very good at all when it came to being the OL coach. If anything, Joe Rudolph's tutelage finally brought Rocco Spindler to become a solid player, along with Pat Coogan and Aamil Wagner showing what they were capable of doing.



In the end, player development looks much better under Marcus Freeman than it did under Brian Kelly. Coach Freeman will let the best players available play, and isn't going to have his "right kind of guys" automatically be granted the starting spots.

Yes, extremely weak schedule but when it mattered we won (playoffs).

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Game has changed. Now, if we lose all those high quality DL he picked up AND whiff in the portal, I’d say we have a problem.

We've found some in-effect 4- and 5- star talent. Freeman is good at that.

Schools can find plenty of good players through the portal. I think Freeman this year is focusing on superior high-end talent for his incoming freshman class, instead of the "good" players he took in prior years.

People get themselves all hyped up for whatever prospect they think is the next big thing, and if ND doesn't land him, the world is on fire. None of this matters until signing day. People flip all the way up until then. Much ado about nothing.

That's not good enough to consistently compete for title but if we're able to land game-breakers (Finley) and guys with elite speed (Robinson, Warren) at WR, them do the same at DB with O'Brien and Adams it would be 3 huge steps in the right direction. Problem has been missing on these guys and then compensating with lower profile 3* "project" guys who never see the field or transfer out.

The biggest change I notice about his recruiting is that the kids who are supposed to be difference makers end up on the field making a difference. But I agree with koreasam, outside of better productivity Freeman's class rankings aren't anything to jump up and down about. I don't believe he's yet to land a consensus top 10 class. He's shown a bad habit of being unable to close on 5 stars. Not taking anything away from his accomplishments, but the idea that he's a top recruiter doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

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