Take Five: Quarterback Recruiting, Quarterback Transfers, New Vibe At Notre Dame
My take five looks at the transfer portal, quarterback recruiting at Notre Dame and the welcome changes that Marcus Freeman has brought.
1. Do you want to feel utterly deflated right before Christmas? College football is rigged. For Alabama. The Crimson Tide are the house, and every other school that thinks they can somehow be in their realm is just trying to find a small sliver of hope to compete against one of the greatest dynasties ever. That thought crept over me when the news hit that Georgia Tech’s Jahmyr Gibbs announced he was transferring to Bama. It wasn’t a surprise, but it still hits you like thousand bricks when it's official. Gibbs was literally the only reason to watch the Yellow Jackets. He was the top dual-threat running back on the market, averaging 5.2 yards per carry and catching 36 passes for a truly bad Tech team that finished 3-9. It’s impossible to blame him. Doesn't make it easy to stomach, though. The best just keep getting better.
2. No, thanks. That’s my initial reaction to the news that Notre Dame reached out to USC quarterback Kedon Slovis after he dropped his name in the transfer portal. And yet, I completely understand the coaching staff has to keep its line in the water at that position. The Trojans had committed to true freshman Jackson Dart. Dart started the last five games of the season. He was hurt against Notre Dame. As it stands, the depth chart at QB next year for Notre Dame is Tyler Buchner, Drew Pyne and incoming freshman Steve Angeli. You can’t have enough quarterbacks so adding a fourth wouldn’t hurt. Slovis obviously won't be that player since he has committed to Pitt, but expect other names to pop over the next few months.
3. The wrap on former Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly was that he could never recruit that can’t miss, highly-rated quarterback out of high school. It was true to a degree. The two best quarterback recruits in terms of rankings during the Kelly era were Gunner Kiel in 2012 and Brandon Wimbush in 2015. Kiel was the only five-star QB that played at Notre Dame for Kelly. He was ranked as the 26th best player in the country by 247Sports and the top quarterback. He left after one season when he started 2013 as the backup to Everett Golson and Tommy Rees. Wimbush ranked as the nation's No. 46 overall player according to 247Sports.
Aside from Tyler Buchner, who was ranked as the 71st best player in the country in 2021 and the 11th best quarterback, only Phil Jurkovec, a 2018 recruit, ranked in the Top 100. Jurkovec was a four-star recruit who was slotted as the fourth-best QB in the country and 83rd overall by 247. Ian Book, the most productive quarterback under Kelly, was the lowest-ranked. He was rated as the 517th best player and the 20th best QB in 2016. If Marcus Freeman can consistently recruit high-level quarterbacks, which Notre Dame should be able to do, the national championship talk will become more real.
4. There is a new vibe with the Freeman era, and it doesn’t all have to do with the structure of practices, which place more emphasis on real-time competition. Freeman’s style reminds me of how former USC coach Pete Carroll coached and ran his program. Practices were open to the media. He was a defensive guy first who was into competition and he let players and coaches speak for themselves for the most part. Practices will never be fully open to the media at Notre Dame but it’s a new era of transparency. The messages will be less controlled. This is a long way of saying that it was refreshing to hear tight ends coach John McNulty talk on Monday. McNulty was funny and disarming. He worked as a golf caddie in Florida before landing a job as a graduate assistant for four years at Michigan. McNulty joked that they might put Michael Mayer in plastic wrap for spring practices. And he realizes that Notre Dame is perhaps the best college in the country to be a tight ends coach. The assistants were rarely available under Kelly. It’s better for everyone to get to know the personalities behind the scenes that have helped elevate the program.
5. One last word on Kelly. It’s natural to point out the former coach's weaknesses. Kelly wasn't as warm, fuzzy, energetic and accessible as Freeman. He told bad jokes, and he was more self-consumed than anyone imagined. It’s all blather. Kelly still has the record for the most wins at Notre Dame, and he left the program in a position where Freeman has a chance to win a national title. There are a lot of different ways to win. It’s entirely possible that there could be two happy endings here. Freeman and Kelly both get their national championships. The race is on. We should all enjoy it. It's what makes college football so entertaining.
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