Category: Notre Dame

Notre Dame’s first Junior Day is upon us

A group of 12 prospects will be in South Bend to visit with the coaches, players and see a basketball game.

It has long been commonplace for teams to host Junior days on Saturday’s that coincide with basketball games and Brian Kelly has done exactly that. Today marks the first Junior day of the year, where recruits get a chance to see the facilities, talk with current players, get to know the coaches more and obviously get to check out the Notre Dame vs Georgia Tech basketball game.

 

It has been reported by 247Sports that at least 12 players from the 2021 and 2022 class are currently on campus today, committed and uncommitted prospects. As for the commits from the 2021 class are: Indiana OT Blake Fisher and Missouri DT Gabriel Rubio. Uncommitted prospects from the ’21 class that hold offers also on campus are Illinois S Justin Walter, and Texas DE David Abiara.

 

Class of ’21 prospects on campus without an offer are Ohio OLB Adian Hubbard, Illinois DE Daine Hanson, Georgia S Cole Bishop, South Carolina S Dre Pinckney, and Illinois S Benjamin Perry.

 

Prospects from the class of ‘22 on campus with an offer is Wisconsin S Braelon Allen, while Ohio WR Kaden Saunders and Indianan OT Joey Tanona arrive without offers in hand.

 

What remains to be seen is if Brian Kelly and his staff are going to be able to turn any of these visits into commits, if certain players will be offered and if return trips are in order for them. It is a very exciting time of the recruiting calendar, with the second signing day on Wednesday, today’s Junior Day and future one’s to come, and plenty of offers out to top prospects. Who would you like to see in an Irish uniform from today’s visitors?

Irish offer top football prospect of ’22 class, DE Stewart

Notre Dame extends an offer to ’22 elite DE Shemar Stewart of Florida on Thursday.

Yesterday was the Irish’s turn to try and pry the number 1 player in the nation in the ’22 class out of Florida as Brian Kelly and his staff offered DE Shemar Stewart. Stewart already hold offers from 22 schools, most notably Florida, Michigan, Georgia, Miami and Penn State. From looking at Stewarts activity early on in his recruitment, you would have to believe that Miami is the leader, but proximity is playing a huge factor in that. His hometown of Opa Locka is just a few miles away from Coral Gables and the six-foot-six defensive end has very easy access to the Miami campus. Although Stweart weighs only 239 pounds, his speed and strength are more than impressive.

 

 

Take a look at his highlight package, Stewart is an absolute terror, often looking larger than everyone else on the field, and living in the backfield. He is a quarterback’s nightmare, disrupting plays before they are being able to begin. Defensive line coach Mike Elston would love to have Stewart in his meeting rooms come the fall of 2022 and I’m sure Irish fans would be pretty excited to see Stewart line up in the house that Rockne built.

Two members of the Notre Dame baseball team named Pre-Season All-Americans

Niko Kavadas and Joe Boyle were named to Baseball America’s pre-season All-American team.

New Notre Dame baseball coach Link Jarrett will have no shortage of quality players on his roster during his first season with the Irish. The 21st coach in program history will begin their season on February 14th with two preseason All-American’s on his roster. Joe Boyle, reliever, and 3B Niko Kavadas were both named 3rd team All-American  by Baseball American team prior to the start of the season.

Kavadas led the Irish last year in multiple categories, home runs, RBI, OBP and slugging while scoring the second most runs with the second-best batting average on the team. The junior coming off an impressive summer season in the well-respected Cape Cod League where he led the circuit in homers and was an All-Star.

Boyle brings the heat when he’s on the bump, registering 39 strikes out last year in only 25.2 innings. That comes out to a very impressive 13.87 K/9 which plays at all levels. Boyle joined Kavadas as a Cape Cod All-Star this summer, showing that he can improve from an average 5.96 ERA. Boyle was a bit wild last year with 6 errand pitches but held opponents to an impressive .157 batting average.

Last year the Irish finished a disappointing season with a 24-30 record, which led to former head coach Mik Aoki not getting his contract renewed. During his tenure with the Irish, he led them to one NCAA tournament appearance and an overall record of 248-253-1. Jarrett comes with high expectations, known for working well with his hitters, compiled a 215-166 record while the head man at UNC Greensboro. This upcoming baseball season should be an exciting one for the Irish.

No Irish players selected in latest CBS Sports 1st round mock draft

There were no Notre Dame players selected in CBS Sports most recent NFL mock draft.

Yet another first round mock draft without a Fighting Irish player selected. This time it was CBS Sports Chris Trapasso guessing what teams will do in Las Vegas between Friday, April 23rd and Saturday, April 25th. In previous mock drafts TE Cole Kmet and DE Julian Okwara have seen their names projected into the first round, although not in the upper portion of it. Both players will be selected at some point in the draft, but at this moment it is unknown at what point they will be.

Although their Notre Dame careers are over, where former Irish players are drafted is still very important. It is a huge recruiting tool when schools are able to help their players make it to the next level, as the majority of collegiate players are trying to get paid to play. Since Kelly has taken over the Irish program in 2010, he has produced first round talent in 6 of the 10 drafts prior to this year’s selections. The hope is that Kmet and/or Okwara are picked in within the first 32 and is able to tout those facts to perspective Irish players.

I am a firm believer that if a player, like Kmet, declares early for a draft, they need to be selected in the first two rounds to justify leaving before their eligibility runs out. Kmet may go in the first round, as all you need is one team to fall in love, see Tim Tebow and Denver, but he will most likely see his named called in the second. Where do you see Kmet and Okwara landing in the NFL Draft?

Midweek Irish recruiting update, offers out to ’21 and ’22 prospects

Notre Dame has been busy offering prospects from the ’21 and ’22 recruiting classes.

It has been a busy week for Brian Kelly and his staff on the recruiting trail. There have been numerous offers heading out to a variety of different prospects. The majority of offers have been for the rising junior class, but also to rising sophomores as well.

Coming off of his offer last week, junior Texas DE David Abaira will make a visit to South Bend this weekend, getting an opportunity to visit the campus along with more face time with the coaches, specifically Defensive Line coach Mike Elston and Defensive Coordinator Clark Lea. Abaira checks in at six-foot-four and has a solid offer list which includes Oklahoma, Baylor, Utah, Texas A&M among others.

Over to the other side of the ball where Offensive Line coach Jeff Quinn offered a scholarship to Virginia OT Tristan Leigh. Leigh is six-foot-five and tipping the scales at 275, which is impressive size for a high school junior. The battle to win Leigh commitment won’t be easy, as he reports offers from Alabama, Clemson, LSU, Ohio State, and plenty of others. Leigh is just coming off a visit to Clemson, his second one in the past 4 months, so it may be hard to wrestle him away from Dabo Swinney and the Tigers.

Ohio athlete Devonta Smith was offered this morning as well, currently projected to the defensive side of the ball, but could potentially end up splitting out wide as well. At an even six-feet tall and weighing 185 pounds, the body type for an elite corner is there. Schools from across the country are trying to secure Smith’s commitment as Oklahoma, Penn State, Louisville and West Virginia are some of his reported offers.

Moving to the 2022 class, the Irish went out west and offered Ephesians Prysock of California. The sophomore safety stands at six-foot-three and weighing a solid 170 pounds is being recruited primarily by his would be position coach, Terry Joseph, and at this early juncture Prysock is building an impressive offer list. He has USC, LSU, Florida along with the Irish all chasing him down at this early stage in his recruitment.

Joseph was busy offering 2022 California safety recruits, as another offer went out to Kamari Ramsey. The impressive underclassmen is an even six-feet and already 190 pounds, has early offers from Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, Oregon, and USC. At this early junction in Ramsey’s recruitment he is already looking like a top prospect.

It’s great to see the Irish get in early with multiple prospects in the upcoming 2021 and 2022 classes. Establishing early relationships with recruits will be big keys to their commitments and hopefully for Brian Kelly and the Irish the early offers pay off.

Fighting Irish’s Football Facilities ranked among best in nation

Notre Dame’s football facilities ranked among the best in the country

There are many reason’s why a recruit may want to commit to your school, wither it be tradition, playing time, culture, proximity to home, a certain coach, a myriad of reasons. One big reason could be facilities and just recently, as they do every year, 247Sports ranked the best facilities among college football programs.

Although there is nothing overly gaudy about Notre Dame’s facilities, they still ranked 14th overall nationally and Brad Crawford had a glowing review of what Brian Kelly and the Irish offer to their players:

“Notre Dame’s simplistic look had quite a dazzling facelift prior to the 2017 season with a new-look locker room for players. The Irish stopped short of bucking tradition however and still walk down the steps to touch the iconic “Play Like A Champion Today” message before heading out to the field. Notre Dame’s new 111,400-square-foot Irish Indoor Athletics Center, which will serve as an indoor practice facility for the football and men’s and women’s soccer programs, opened in July 2019.”

Teams are always upgrading their locker rooms, indoor facilities, pretty much everything, and to be at the cutting edge to “keeping up with the Jones” is always a pricey endeavor. Earlier last year the Irish updated their indoor facilities and released this video for fans to get an inside look at the new digs.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rfmw7dL6mK4&w=1143&h=643]

Although you mainly see the Fighting Irish performing on Saturday’s, the majority of time the athletes spend are inside the facilities, so making sure everything is state of the art is very important for the future of the program. Just three years ago the locker room was updated and it’s clearly appealing for recruits and current players to be comfortable with their surroundings as they spend 3-5 years roaming around the facilities.

An explanation for RB Tyree’s drop inside yesterday’s recruit rankings update

A detailed explanation as to why RB Chris Tyree dropped significantly in the recent recruiting update.

Yesterday 247Sports released their final update to the 247 best high school prospects in the country. For Fighting Irish fans to see RB Chris Tyree take a huge fall from 61st nationally, all the way down to 137th was difficult. It was a tough pill to swallow seeing one of the best prospects in Brian Kelly’s class take such a large tumble.

Thankfully, the experts at 247Sports weren’t shy about why they dropped Tyree so far in their final rankings. National Analyst Charles Power was blunt with his assessment saying that Tyree’s “output is on the low end among the backs who are in and just outside the top 100.” Power wasn’t all negative his assessment of Tyree explaining that “we’re still high on Tyree’s skill set and expect him to be an impact player for the Irish, but we’d like to see a little more sustained consistency on the field throughout high school for a top 50-100 back with his physical skill set.”

Barton Simmons, the National Director of Scouting, didn’t go into as much detail but gave a similar explanation as to why Tyree dropped as “we felt there were other guys that had a more complete skill-set as a true running back. When you compare the production of Tyree to most of the other guys we put him up against, we really felt that it was hard to give a smaller, less-productive back the nod over some of the others that we believe in.”

Simmons does still believe that Tyree will be a solid player, “Don’t get me wrong, we still like him a lot as a player, but we believe he’s more limited than some of the others.” What makes me wonder is what kind of limitations Simmons is talking about. He does not go further into his evaluation and only time will tell what kind of player Tyree ends up as while wearing Blue and Gold.

Irish commit Mayer becomes a 5-Star in final 247Sports recruit rankings update

With 247Sports final rankings being released this afternoon, the Irish faithful will be happy to see yet another 5-Star on the way to South Bend. Michael Mayer, the committed 6’4″ 232-pound tight end has been elevated into the upper-echelon of high …

With 247Sports final rankings being released this afternoon, the Irish faithful will be happy to see yet another 5-Star on the way to South Bend. Michael Mayer, the committed 6’4” 232-pound tight end has been elevated into the upper-echelon of high school prospects. Mayer jumped from his previous rankings of 69th overall in the country to inside the top 32, now sitting as the 23rd best prospect in the nation.

The 247Sports collective group of analysists had some very good things to say about the talented tight end. National Director of Scouting Barton Simmons said Mayer “is such a complete player” and his explanation for making Mayer a 5-Star was that “When you consider the season Mayer had as the Gatorade Player of the Year in Kentucky and add that to his obvious physical traits and his standout performances in every major event he’s attended, five-star seemed obvious” Steve Wiltfong, National Director of Recruiting sees Mayer as “an instant impact player” who could replace the productivity of NFL early-entry TE Cole Kmet.

With the updated rankings Brian Kelly’s 2020 recruiting class took a little hit, as they dropped from #14 nationally to #16. It isn’t much of a move, but what was a bit concerning was multiple Irish commits dropped in the rankings. Aside from Mayer, WR Jordan Johnson was the only other commit to move up, while everyone else dropped, with RB Chris Tyree dropping the most, down 76 spots.

 

TE Michael Mayer – 23, up 46

OT Tosh Baker – 56, down 12

WR Jordan Johnson – 61, up 2

ILB Jordan Botelho – 64, down 21

RB Chris Tyree – 137, down 76

OT Michael Carmondy – 148, down 39

Book’s odds among best with chance to take home the Heisman

Notre Dame’s QB Book’s odd among the best to take home college football most prestigious award.

Las Vegas is referred as the city that never sleeps and they were at it again, with Westgate’s Superbook updating their 2020 Heisman odds 7 months prior to the start of the season. It should not come as a surprise to see Irish QB Ian Book having the 4th best odds, 20/1, to win college footballs highest honor.

Last years winner, national champion QB Joe Burrow from LSU, has exhausted his eligibility, but two of the other four quarterback that were represented in the College Football Playoff return, Ohio State’s Justin Fields and Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence, top the list with 4/1 odds. Newcomer Spencer Rattler having the second-best odds after backing up Oklahoma’s graduating senior Jalen Hurts is behind them at 12/1.

Obviously, the Irish have to battle Clemson and Lawrence on November 7th in South Bend, with RB Travis Etienne having the same odds as Book to win the trophy. Notre Dame will also face USC’s QB Kedon Slovis, who checks in right behind Book with 25/1 odds. The favorites don’t always win the trophy, but the Irish having to face 4 of the heavier favorites in the regular season will provide a tough test for Brian Kelly and crew this coming season.

One Notre Dame star projected among the top 32 players in 2020

One Irish star ranked among the nations elite.

As one season ends and another is on the verge of beginning, there is always a time to look ahead at which collegiate stars could dominate this level and make their move to the next. CBS Sports Barrett Sallee did just that a few days ago, ranking the top 32 NFL draft eligible NCAA stars. Sallee made it know that his list was not in any way a very early 2021 NFL mock draft or a “big board”, rather a collection of the best players who could move on to the next level next year.

There was only one Fighting Irish on Sallee’s list, offensive tackle Liam Eichenberg, who landed just outside the top 10 best projected players in the NCAA for next year at 11. Sallee had some very high praise for the Notre Dame lineman saying:

“The Fighting Irish have become known for churning out great offensive linemen, and Eichenberg is the next in line to make a splash in the NFL Draft. He’ll be an anchor of one of the best offensive lines in the country in 2020.”

It is very well known that the Irish will return all 5 starters on the offensive line, along with QB Ian Book, while having to replace the rest of the offensive talent. Games a won in the trenches and with Eichenberg and Tommy Kraemer leading the charge, the Irish have a leg up on the competition.

Speaking of their opponents for next year, Sallee also ranked numerous players on the upcoming schedule that Notre Dame will face. Clemson will bring star QB Trevor Lawrence, ranked 1st, RB Travis Etienne ranked 7th, LB James Skalski at 23, and WR Justyn Ross, 28th, clearly a loaded Tigers squad. The USC Trojans had three players on Sallee’s list, DL Jay Tufele checked in at 21, WR Amon-Ra St. Brown was 24th, and WR Tyler Vaughns barely made the list at 31st. One more opponent had a player ranked inside the top 32, Duke’s DL Chris Rumph II was right behind Eichenberg at 12.