Longtime Notre Dame assistant to join Brian Kelly at LSU

How much will be missed: A ton? Some? Not at all?

What’s also worth discussing are Polian’s ties to the state of Hawaii. Notre Dame has had a pipeline to much of the state’s top talent for years and that’s in no small part to Polian.  Manti Te’o, Jordan Botelho, Marist Liufau, Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa, and Robby Toma are just a few of the Hawaii products that have gone on to big things at Notre Dame in the last decade.

That’s not to say Polian was a one-trick pony and only recruited Hawaii as he served Notre Dame well on the west coast in general, recently helping to get Tyler Buchner among plenty of others to campus.

Like Freeman talked about in terms of elevating things in the Notre Dame football program, Polian was clearly pretty good at his craft.  But if he was the best recruiter on the staff previous to Freeman’s arrival I think it speaks to just how high of level of recruiting Freeman sees possible at Notre Dame.

And that’s really stinking high.

Related:

Notre Dame coaching staff tracker

Manti Te’o through the years

Everything Marcus Freeman said at introductory press conference