Midweek Musings
Thoughts on Notre Dame football, its recruiting efforts and college football.
SUCCESS WITHOUT A CHAMPIONSHIP
Notre Dame is still trailing programs like Clemson, Ohio State and Alabama, and the gap has grown over the last two seasons despite the on-field success for the Fighting Irish. Of course, winning a championship would be a recipe needed for the Irish to start bringing in the kind of recruits that would allow them to close the gap.
I won’t be putting any money on the Irish to win a championship this season, but another 10+ win season should be the expectation.
But what non-championship scenario would result in the most success for Notre Dame, and is there a result that would allow the Irish staff to ride a hot recruiting wave into the offseason?
A question for this past weekend’s Irish Breakdown mailbag got me thinking about that. Irish Breakdown subscriber irish4life2 asked this question:
“For the 2020 ND season would you rather: 1. Go 10-2, beat Clemson, win NY6 bowl or 2. Go 11-1, lose to Clemson, lose in College Football Playoff?”
In the past my answer would have been a no-brainer, go 11-1 and make it back to another College Football Playoff, even if it means losing. You want to be on the big stage, right?
At this point my answer is different. For all of Brian Kelly’s success over the last decade, a case could be made that Notre Dame still lacks a “marquee win” under the veteran head coach. In ten seasons under Kelly, Notre Dame has just two wins over programs that finished the season in the Top 10, and those teams - Stanford (2012) and Michigan State (2013) - aren’t needle moving programs when you beat them.
The win over Oklahoma in 2012 is probably the closest to a program changing win as Notre Dame has had since the 1990s, but that was a three-loss Sooner team that finished that season ranked No. 15.
The first scenario would provide Notre Dame with two program changing win opportunities. Going 10-2 would mean Notre Dame once again falls short of a national title, but that’s nothing new in the last quarter century. Sometimes you need that program changing win in order to make a big enough statement to land the recruits needed to compete for and win that title.
Beating Clemson would certainly be the biggest win of the Kelly tenure and would be arguably the program’s biggest home win since knocking off #1 Florida State back in 1993. It’s the kind of victory that could put Notre Dame over the top with some other top recruits.
If Notre Dame then follows it up with a New Year’s Six bowl victory it would mean an 11-2 finish and two monumental victories. A win over Clemson and a New Year’s Six victory over a program like Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma or Penn State (as examples) would give Notre Dame a tremendous amount of momentum on the recruiting trail.
From a recruiting standpoint, Notre Dame has not capitalized on its 23-3 run over the last two years like it should have, but those two victories would give Notre Dame a level of credibility it hasn’t had in decades. It would finally put Notre Dame on the map as a program that can actually beat one of the nation’s elite teams, at least one that carries more national cache than Stanford or Michigan State.
OFFENSIVE LINE RECRUITING MUST REBOUND
Notre Dame went into the 2021 recruiting cycle expected to have an elite offensive line haul. There were three big reasons for that. One, it’s a great year nationally along the offensive line. Two, it’s a great year in pro-Notre Dame regions. Three, the Irish staff got off to an early start when it comes to recruiting the class.
Notre Dame got off to a great start when it landed in-state blocker Blake Fisher, who is one of the top offensive linemen in the entire nation.
Since that start, however, things have trended in the wrong direction for the Irish staff, led by line coach Jeff Quinn.
Notre Dame missed out on or fell behind with some of the top targets it went after, and the strategy to not emphasize a wider board early put the staff in scramble mode after those big misses. The “next in line” players like Caleb Johnson (Auburn) and Matthew Wykoff (Texas A&M) have since chosen other schools.
That leaves Notre Dame in scramble mode in its attempt to salvage the line class. Despite things not trending in the right direction, there is still hope for the Irish staff, but they need to get back on track in a hurry. There are three things Notre Dame must do to repair the damage done by the poor early strategy and lack of effectiveness and still land an elite offensive line class.
1) Close On Spindler — I don’t see a path to an elite class that doesn’t include Spindler, who was once considered a lock to pick Notre Dame. The Irish are still in great position, but there is more closing needed now than there was a month ago, and the staff needs to put the full court press on Spindler to ensure he gets into the class.
2) Recruit Nolan Rucci HARD — Notre Dame trails Clemson, Penn State and Wisconsin for the five-star offensive tackle, and the Irish are finally getting around to putting on the full-court press. If Notre Dame is going to overcome the three programs ahead of it at this time the staff needs to come up with a new strategy with Rucci.
That strategy needs to involve Rucci becoming priority number one for not only Quinn, but offensive coordinator Tommy Rees and head coach Brian Kelly as well. Irish Illustrated recently reported that Rucci was on the phone with Kelly recently, and I’m going to avoid going down the path of focusing on why this hasn’t happened sooner. The reality is, at this point what matters is what the staff does moving forward.
Kelly, Rees, Quinn, and everyone else affiliated with the program must develop a strategy that does everything it can within the rules to get Rucci into the class. What they have been doing up to this point has them within striking distance, but still trailing other programs. More is needed, and it’s going to be hard to make that happen without Kelly and Rees making Rucci a top - and frequent - priority.
Landing Spindler and Rucci won’t be easy, but if the staff adds those two to the class that already has Fisher and Patrick Coogan then Notre Dame is back to being on pace for an elite class. Missing out on either one puts the Irish behind again.
3) Don’t Quit — Notre Dame will need to do something it often doesn’t do, and that is recruit committed players and other prospects they are way behind.
Let’s be honest, if Wyatt Milum or Trey Zuhn committed to Notre Dame, other programs wouldn’t stop recruiting them. Notre Dame missed a golden opportunity in the 2020 class when it failed to stay on Jimmy Christ after he committed to Virginia. Christ ultimately flipped to Penn State.
Players like Milum and Zuhn need to remain targets, Milum especially. Not prioritizing Milum more prior to his West Virginia commitment was a mistake in my view. I graded Milum out as an even better prospect than Landon Tengwall, who was part of the staff’s early “dream class,” and prioritizing Tengwall was a double whammy because they not only missed on him (he picked Penn State), the late push on Milum also cost them a chance to land him.
Notre Dame needs to not take no for an answer and really grind with a prospect like Milum. The same thing is true when it comes to players like five-star Tommy Brockermeyer and Top 100 standout Tristan Leigh, two elite-level prospects. Notre Dame isn’t even close to being in the ball game with those payers, but they need to have the dog mentality that top recruiting staffs have, and that is never backing down and never backing off.
That is something that hurts the Irish staff in many ways, not just offensive line recruiting, and that’s a big issue that will be addressed down the road. But there’s time to fix that, and fixing that will be the difference between Notre Dame having a decent line class or an elite line class. And when you are the University of Notre Dame, two straight line classes that fall short on numbers and/or talent is unacceptable.
TWEET OF THE DAY
Notre Dame held a virtual graduation recently and a number of former and current Irish players received their graduation. The Irish staff had a pretty cool virtual "congrats" for all the graduates.
FILM OF THE DAY
Notre Dame's linebacker and safety recruiting remains a major question mark, but the staff made a pair of offers at both positions that could be game changers at both positions if they are able to made in-roads.
The linebacker/rover recruit is worth watching, because his film is outstanding. That prospect is Jonesborough (Tenn.) Crockett athlete Prince Kollie. Check out his film, I think you'll enjoy it.
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