National Signing Day is less than a week away, and Notre Dame is still in scramble mode trying to fill out some of the holes still left in their recruiting class of 2017. The Irish had a handful of prospects on campus last week, but they’ve yet to receive a commitment from that group of visitors. Today we’re going to do a short review of how last weekend’s visits went and preview the guys that will be on campus this weekend.
Last Weekend’s Visitors
Heading into last weekend, Notre Dame seemed like a sure bet to land 3-star cornerback Tre Norwood. What we didn’t know going into that weekend was that Tre had already silently committed to Oklahoma earlier that week before even taking a visit to Norman. The Irish got burned here.
Notre Dame was also in good position with 3-star safety Evan Fields heading into last weekend. Evan loved the campus and just about everything else seemed to click with him. Everything, that is, except for the Notre Dame players. We’re not sure if something happened or what, but Evan mentioned to a couple of reporters that he wasn’t getting a very welcoming vibe from some of the player hosts. Definitely doesn’t sound good. Despite that, though, Notre Dame appears to still be in it as he genuinely seemed to love everything about the school. Evan makes his decision on the 30th.
We mentioned in the last update that 3-star safety and Cal commit Jordan Genmark-Heath is a guy to keep an eye on as a flip candidate. That is still the case. His visit to Notre Dame really seemed to resonate with him, and the Irish now hold all five predictions on the 247 Crystal Ball feature. This is not a lock, though. Jordan is from California, and distance remains a concern here.
Notre Dame put themselves in good position to flip 3-star rush end Kofi Wardlow from his Maryland commitment. While he has yet to pull the trigger yet, there remains a very good chance that Kofi backs off his Maryland pledge — although there’s a chance that even if he does de-commit, Notre Dame may not be where he ends up. It sounds like he wants to take a visit to Virginia Tech before he makes a decision, and he should be in Blacksburg this weekend.
The highest-profile guy on campus last weekend was 4-star cornerback Russ Yeast. The visit went extremely well, and sources seem to be split on whether he will stick to his Louisville pledge or not. After the visit, a Louisville writer asked him if he was still solid to the Cardinals, and he said that he was. However, when the writer then asked if he still plans on signing with the Cardinals next week, Russ didn’t respond. He seems to be thinking really hard about his options right now. The Irish went in-home with Russ yesterday making their final pitch, but we likely won’t find out his final decision until next week.
This Weekend’s Visitors
Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah — LB/S — .872
I’m trying not to feel too confident Jeremiah committing to Notre Dame while on campus today and tomorrow. Jeremiah was a Virginia commit at the time of receiving a Notre Dame offer last week, but he de-committed on Sunday. He now has a final two of Notre Dame and Michigan State, where he just had an official visit last weekend. All signs are currently pointing to the Irish for this one, though. I just hope the signs are right this time.
Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa — DE — .871
It looks like it will come down to Notre Dame, USC, and Vanderbilt for this Hawaii prospect. Honestly, I’m almost certain he ends up at Southern Cal if they have room for him (which isn’t a sure thing at this point). But the Irish have a shot if he enjoys this visit.
Jafar Armstrong — WR — .871
This speedy receiver out of Kansas is currently committed to Missouri, but everyone seems pretty certain that that is not where he will end up. He just had a visit to Minnesota last weekend, and they are sure to pose some competition as PJ Fleck just has a way getting kids to follow him. But the Irish could make a big move this weekend, and there are a couple of things that are sure to help ND here. Those two things are actually a couple of his teammates. Jafar’s quarterback is actually committed to Notre Dame to play baseball. Another of his teammates, offensive lineman Colin Grunhard, just committed to Notre Dame as a preferred walk-on. I’m sure those two are in his ear about the Irish.
Jalen Harris — DE — .870
Jalen is probably one of the most crucial visitors this weekend, but he’ll also be one of the toughest pulls. The 3-star rush end is currently committed to Arizona, where both of his parents attended. BK and Co. will need to knock this one out of the park.
Mac Hippenhammer — WR — .862
You may remember reading about Mac as one of the top performers at Irish Invasion this year. If he had earned an offer after that visit, he would surely be Irish right now. However, he had to wait until mid-January to receive that offer, and he’s having a tough time backing off his Penn State pledge. He was scheduled to take this official visit to Notre Dame this weekend, but that may not be the case anymore. Just thought I’d add him in here until we hear anything concrete. The Irish definitely slow-played this one thinking they could flip him at anytime, and it may have burned them in the end.
Colin Grunhard, Tim’s kid, I assume?
Seems ND just didn’t give themselves enough time with some of these kids.
Yes. Colin’s dad, Tim, played on the 1988 National Championship team.
Or at least, that’s what I’ve been told. That was a little before my time.
Quick note: It sounds like Owusu will be making his announcement on NSD, so don’t expect to hear about a commitment from him this week.
We should hear about JGH’s decision sometime before then, though.
I’m actually pretty impressed with this list considering it is a mad scramble after a 4-8 season. All these .87 are top 500 kids.
Yep, good group of guys we are in on right now.
I think the only thing holding us back at this point is how late we were to the party. We are in good-but-not-great position with most of these guys that have taken a visit or will take a visit. If we’d gotten involved maybe a month or two earlier I think we’d already have a few of these guys in the fold.
During a 4-8 season, at what point do coaches start thinking, oh crap, I better start recruiting lower guys. Must be an extremely hard thing to determine when expectations are so high, and you go into the season in great shape with commits and potential commits.
I guess you can’t just start recruiting replacements when guys are still committed. But you have to know this scramble is coming. Not a good situation any way you slice it.
Isn’t there a former player who is an assistant coach at Armstrong’s HS or something?
Ah, yes. That’d be Tim Grunhard. He coaches OL at Bishop Miege.
He also has a couple of friends who are already ND students. Far from a done deal, of course, but the Irish seem to still have the lead for him after last week’s official visit to
FlecktownMinnesota, which is big news. Kelly and Alexander just visited him yesterday too, and got the official to ND locked in. Hard not to feel some positive vibes here.Not that I picked up the vibe from this post too much, but a lot of headlines have the “well, considering they went 4-8, a top-20ish class is quite good.” (Irish Illustrated especially has had this Pollyanna-ish thrust in a couple stories and podcasts). On some level that’s true, perhaps (i.e., by no metric other than S&P+ were we a top 20ish team last year, and recruits certainly could not care less about S&P+), but in 2008 we finished with the 247 Composite #1 class after going 3-9. I certainly think that’s exceptional, but it goes to show how momentum affects recruiting (in Feb. 2008, there was still hope that Weis was The Man despite that 3-9 season, whereas after 5/7 meh or worse years that pretty clearly is not the case for BK).
Wait, so Louisville lost a verbal in Norwood and may lose another in Yeast from the same position too? That’s really tough, but also a reminder for around here that even in a good season (historic, really, with a Heisman winner and all) that recruiting is a tough and merciless biz tied to the whims of 17-18 year olds who are capable of changing their minds. (Obligatory: can’t wait for all the puns if Yeast chooses ND.)
Sounds like a mad scramble now, happy to see all this activity and focus on anyone with a pulse on defense and now a couple WR’s as well.
https://twitter.com/SwedishBlackGuy/status/824708714741407744
Hey we got one. Also, that is a sweet Twitter handle; like this dude already.
I’d love to land like 6 or 8 of these dudes, but, gun to my head, I’d really want
Myron
Yeast
Harris
The Virginia de-commit looks good, too.
I think Owusu and Armstrong are the best bets right now. Still have to see how Armstrong likes his visit, though.
I could see Myron, IF USC doesn’t have room for him.
Yeast is too tough to read right now.
Harris, we’ll see after this weekend.
Oliver Martin is a take for Michigan again. He’s probably gone.
I’m leaning towards us not landing Wardlow, but it wouldn’t surprise me either.
Landing Fields would surprise me, though.
And Hippenhammer is out. Cancelled his visit.
I’m guessing we get about 3 more. A lot would have to go wrong for ND to end up with less (but honestly at this rate it wouldn’t surprise me).
@Should of told Hippenhammer the last PSU verbal WR who flipped to Notre Dame ended up pretty OK.@
(But in seriousness thanks for the specific updates!)
So, ‘crooting-wise, do you think keeping Kelly around was a good idea? Seems like, for this year at least, the answer is pointing to no.
I think keeping or firing him this year were probably a wash. We would’ve lost the same guys* and almost certainly a few more if he was fired, so the new staff would’ve used that new staff bump to get back to even and been in just as much of a struggle down the home stretch. Keep in mind that even Jim Harbaugh couldn’t resurrect Michigan’s transition class – they ended up close to 40th, I think, with 14 or so recruits.
The real gamble is with the 2018 class, not this one – if Jack bet wrong, we’ll be much worse off with 2018.
* Reviewing once again… Jeter was never coming. He didn’t have the classes to enroll early and didn’t want to wait. Adebo would’ve bailed on Awesome New Coach X too once he got the Stanford offer. Hicks was similar to Jeter, as it turns out, but in his case he never even told our staff that he was graduating early, he was basically just going to show up at Cal. Really weird situation. Maybe Werner would’ve stayed, but I doubt it – the story that caught hold courtesy of Coach D at Rivals isn’t what actually happened, Elston and Kelly were both in constant communication with Werner. He always liked Ohio State and when he got the offer he was gone. He was legitimately concerned about our staff’s future, which is fair, but even if we were stable I don’t think he would’ve stuck.
Great analysis; thanks! I too am worried about 2018 (and, if we have New Coach, that New Coach is going to be hamstrung with kinda meh 2015/2016/2017 classes + a transition class). Seems like a big bet by Swarbrick that Kelly is going to get 10+ wins next year and turn the thing completely around. Bold strategy Cotton; let’s see if it pays off for him.
Welllll… Yes and no. It is a bold strategy, agreed. I think keeping Kelly has the highest immediate ceiling, and that’s what Jack decided to balance against the risk. It also has a lower floor, in that if we repeat last year (which is phenomenally unlikely, but still) we’ll crater for a bit.
No in that I would disagree that the 2015 and 2016 classes were meh, so I don’t think a new coach would face all that much of a talent burden. Even the 2017 class I think will end up pretty decent. Clemson gets the occasional five star, which obviously makes a huge difference, but their class rankings have been right around ours or slightly ahead for a while now. There’s enough raw material on our roster to be successful, provided someone’s making the right decisions about how to develop and use it.
OK, “meh” was probably the wrong word. But this will be our fourth straight class outside of the top 10, which is concerning (though, to be fair, the last two years were on the cusp of the top 10).
I checked up on the Clemson comparison, and you’re right that the main differences is in the 5-stars: over 2014-2016 Clemson signed 5 composite 5-stars, whereas ND signed one (amazingly, Deshaun Watson is not one of those 5 5-stars; he was a very very highly ranked 4-star). And, among those 5-stars were Christian Wilkins and Dexter Lawrence, who have been immediate impact defensive linemen. It seems we don’t get the Christian Wilkins’s and Dexter Lawrence’s of the world (at least not since the Lynch/Tuitt class). /sad face emoji
Thanks for the insight, Tyler.
I’d gladly welcome commitments from any of these guys, especially on defense. Only thing left to do at this point is #trustthestaff in a major way.
I know people have really fond memories of that 2009 class, and for good reason. But Weis (a good and relentless recruiter by all accounts) did not actually recruit good classes. They were extremely top heavy and offensively focused. Despite the obvious holes in places on defense, I would say outside of 2012, almost every class has been better overall than 2009.
Here is EVERY defender in that class and their composite score. 6 players, one 5 star, two 4 stars
Te’o – .99
Stockton – .95
Motta – .92
Calabrese – .88
Banks – .88
Fox – .86
Here are the number of 4+ star defenders, and total defenders, for each class since 2011
2011 – 6/14
2012 – 3/7
2013 – 6/9
2014 – 7/12
2015 – 5/11
2016 – 5/13
So while there is lots of room to improve, Kelly has even shown ND can sign 5 star defenders, it is far from a sure thing that a new coach would even improve recruiting at all.
I’m of the opinion that the only (realistic option) coach who would be a guaranteed upgrade to recruiting is PJ Fleck.
Good call. He recruited individual prospects well, but didn’t have any discernible strategy for building a cohesive class and, as you note, was overly focused on offensive skill positions. So he tended to pull in well-rated classes that had major holes in them.