Brian Kelly Is The Key To Notre Dame Making A Jump In Recruiting

If Notre Dame wants to truly become an elite program on the recruiting trail it needs the head coach to be more involved.

Notre Dame is in the middle of arguably its best three-year stretch of recruiting of the Brian Kelly era, and the changes Kelly made to his staff after the 2016 season were a big part of that.

Former offensive coordinator Chip Long oversaw a complete overhaul of the skill talent on the roster and the defensive staff has done its job by bringing in talent, depth and boosting the athleticism of the roster.

Hiring Bill Rees on the back end was a tremendous move, and the work done by off-the-field staff like Aaryn Kearney has gone a long way towards making Notre Dame a major player on the recruiting trail.

My opinion is the last three years has been the most consistent we’ve seen from Notre Dame on the recruiting trail, and it has helped the Irish close the gap on the premier teams in the country. But there is still a lot of work to be done, and recently Kelly said he believes landing Top 5 classes is possible.

“We have some things in the works that we want to establish from a recruiting stand point that changes our view as it relates to national recruiting,” Kelly said during preparation for the Camping World Bowl. “We want to break out of the 15th-ranked or the 10th-ranked. We want to get into that next echelon. Philosophically, we have to do some things to get to that level.”

Stating that Notre Dame can and must recruit better is obvious, and Kelly saying that after 10 seasons was frustrating. Notre Dame has always been capable of recruiting better than it has. Many of the road blocks that kept it from having top classes in the past have been rectified. The staff has better individual recruiters, the operation is light years ahead of where it was early in Kelly’s tenure and the on-field success has been better.

But the biggest thing holding Notre Dame back from being a truly elite recruiting program isn’t a structural change, a technological change or a geographical change. It’s a chance at head coach. No, not that kind of change at head coach. It’s about Brian Kelly not making recruiting enough of a priority for him.

For years the biggest complaint from recruits, and some former Irish coaches willing to speak off the record, has been the lack of involvement from the head coach. When you think of Ohio State, Clemson, Oklahoma, LSU, Georgia and even Alabama from a recruiting standpoint and compare it to Notre Dame the biggest difference is the head coach. Those programs all have coaches who are heavily involved in recruiting. This is especially true at Ohio State, Clemson, Oklahoma, LSU and Georgia.

It’s a completely different story at Notre Dame, and it’s unacceptable. It’s all about priorities, and recruiting has not been a priority for Kelly for quite a long time.

Notre Dame was the runner up for Fresno (Calif.) San Joaquin Memorial wide receiver Jalen McMillan when he picked Washington during the summer. Long did not stop pushing for McMillan — who is a Top 100 recruit — and there was a time when flipping him was a legitimate possibility due to the work put in by the Irish assistant coaches. The problem, however, was when the window to flip him came about the head coach at Notre Dame was not involved.

“If (Kelly) would have texted me and my parents there probably would be a relationship established and I’d be able to see myself looking more into Notre Dame,” McMillan told Carter Karels of the South Bend Tribune. “That would have been a good situation.”

Talking to sources at Notre Dame during the fall this was a bone of contention. One source told me directly that if Kelly would have simply picked up the phone and made McMillan a priority the feeling was he would have ended at up at Notre Dame.

Karels had a similar story with 2020 Ohio State safety signee Lathan Ransom, who was the top defensive back on the board for Notre Dame. Safeties coach Terry Joseph worked hard to get Ransom, and for a time the Irish were considered the leader, but in the end he picked the Buckeyes.

When co-defensive coordinator and secondary coach Jeff Hafley left to become the head coach at Boston College it opened up a window for the Irish to get back in with Ransom, but once again the head coach was the difference.

“It definitely would have made a difference in my thinking at the end, that’s what I think the big difference was,” Ransom told Karels. “Coach [Ryan] Day was really talking with me a lot. Especially after the whole [Hafley] incident. He was calling me three times per day, making sure I was staying with Ohio State.

“After that incident, I heard from Coach Joseph, but I never heard from Brian Kelly.”

That’s inexcusable, and unfortunately, not surprising

Notre Dame would have had a much better shot at land Frankfort (Ill.) Lincoln Way East wide receiver AJ Henning had Kelly been more involved, but it was a challenge to get him to put in the work for Notre Dame that Jim Harbaugh put in for Michigan.

A source relayed a story to me this summer of how the Irish defensive staff tried to get La Habra (Calif.) cornerback Clark Phillips on campus during a specific July weekend, but the visit couldn’t happen when Phillips wanted it to because Kelly was out of town.

Henning and Phillips were also Top 100 recruits, and landing players like those discussed in this article makes a huge difference. If Notre Dame had landed just two of the four players discussed in the article it would have taken the class from No. 15 in the Rivals rankings to No. 7, and a third would have jumped the Irish up to No. 6.

Anyone that has covered the recruiting beat at Notre Dame the last number of years knows these are not isolated incidents. This has been going on for years, and comments like this are frequent from recruits, even many that Notre Dame has signed. it is simply unacceptable.

Notre Dame is not far away from being on the same level as the top programs, and the head coach working as hard on the recruiting trail as his counterparts at other top programs is the biggest difference.

Until that changes Notre Dame will continue to fall short of what it can be on the recruiting trail.

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