Tag: Notre Dame Fighting Irish

Why haven’t the Irish offered two high level ‘22 in-state prospects?

The Notre Dame staff has yet to offer two national prospects that reside in their own backyard.

It is still very early for many in the class of 2022 recruiting cycle, Notre Dame currently has just two commits in the class. Yes, one of them is from in-state offensive tackle Joey Tanona, the second ranked player in the state, but they have yet to offer the best player in the state, defensive tackle Caden Curry.

Curry resides in Greenwood, a suburb of Indianapolis, has been offered by Ohio State, Alabama, Michigan, Purdue and others. What’s missing is an offer from the Irish and Brian Kelly seems to be falling behind the ball on Curry’s recruitment. His current perceived leaders are Ohio State and Alabama, but the Irish haven’t even joined the party. You might wonder what the holdup is to offering Curry and that’s a great question. The 10th ranked defensive tackle according to the 247Sports composite rankings should hold an Irish offer at this moment, but alas, he does not.

Another question is why hasn’t Kelly offered rising offensive tackle Kiyaunta Goodwin? The massive tackle has seen his recruitment explode over the last few days, adding a big offer from Ohio State yesterday while he already had offers from USC, Alabama and LSU. Goodwin is further down the state in Charleston, a suburb of Louisville, but on the Indiana side. The Irish have yet to offer him as well. Goodwin is unranked in the 247Sports composite, but his offer list tells me that is going to change soon.

It is a bit confusing that the Notre Dame coaching staff has yet to offer either of these big-time prospects, but it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. In 2015, the Irish signed 3 of the top 5 in-state players, but since then until this year’s recruiting cycle, Kelly hasn’t signed one top 5 in-state player. Offensive tackle Blake Fisher will break that streak when he signs later this year, but this is still very concerning.

There are high level players in Notre Dame’s back yard that they are allowing to leave. Clearly there are some hurdles with academics, but this is definitely something to monitor. Seeing Indiana’s finest players on other teams rosters just doesn’t sit well with me.

ACC Football to continue as scheduled

The ACC Presidents met this afternoon and it was very quiet after their meeting.

As the old adage goes, no news is good news.

That was exactly the case this afternoon as the ACC Presidents met once again to discuss the health ramifications of playing a football season in the fall with their team of expert doctors.

The key to this meeting was that the Presidents will continue use their doctors as resources in determining if a season is viable. That is the main difference between the Big Ten and Pac-12’s decision and the ACC, SEC and Big XII’s move towards playing college football this fall. The conferences that are allowing football currently have their medical advisors believing that it is safe to go ahead and play football, while the two that have shut things down don’t agree.

It is a very touchy subject, as many players inside the Big Ten and Pac-12 would have liked to go forward with the season. Larry Scott, the Pac-12 commissioner, didn’t seem to have much push back on their decision as much as Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren did. A lot of it has to do with the state of California, where 4 Pac-12 schools reside, and the fact that they have had issues controlling the outbreak of COVID-19 cases.

The ACC will continue to move towards a season and hopefully, with no more hiccups along the way.

ACC to make Final, Final decision on Fall Football Today

The ACC has a meeting set up for this afternoon to discuss fall football once again.

The ripple effects of the Big Ten and Pac-12 cancelling their fall football seasons continue as the ACC presidents will have yet another meeting to decide if going forward with the season is the correct thing to do.

This tweet is a bit deceiving however, as this meeting was already set up to get an update from their medical advisors. There seems like no need to worry about the ACC joining the Big Ten and Pac-12 in their cancellation of fall athletics.

There will be news coming out of this meeting however, but it will most like just involve a conversation on how each program is doing with their testing and tracing. As we know, the Irish Football team had 9 players miss the first scheduled practice for precautionary reasons after two players tested positive. The Notre Dame student body should be given some kudos as well, as they have been tested prior to their return to campus earlier this week with some very encouraging results.

With the student body having exceptional rates on their return to campus, it gives the football team plenty of hope that the community is doing their part to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. We will continue to monitor this situation at Fighting Irish Wire and bring you any breaking news that comes from this meeting.

Notre Dame offers ’22 New Jersey Defensive Back

The Irish head out to the east coast for their most recent offer, New Jersey cornerback Avery Powell.

August has been a nice month for New Jersey defensive back Avery Powell. Yesterday the Irish joined Penn State, Michigan, Michigan State, and Florida as the schools to offer the 5-foot-11-inch defensive star so far this month.

A big wow from Powell as he announced that the Irish had offered, a reaction that none of the other offered schools received. That makes 10 total offers out to current class of 2022 cornerback prospects, with the majority if them being bigger prospects. Powell is on the smaller side at 5-foot-11-inches and 170-pounds, but that did not scare the Irish staff.

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Powell’s numbers his sophomore year aren’t eye popping, but playing significantly at that level is impressive. He recorded one interception while having 9 pass break-ups and 52 tackles. The Irish look to add to their 2022 recruiting class that currently has 2 current commits, OL Joey Tanona and TE Jack Nickel, which has them ranked 7th nationally by the 247Sports composite at this early juncture.

ESPN’s McShay projects one Notre Dame star selected in 1st Round

There was one rising Irish star that is projected by ESPN’s Todd McShay to be selected early in next year’s NFL Draft.

We know that there is considerable hype for Irish defender Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah coming into the 2020 season. You can add ESPN’s Todd McShay as a fan of JOK’s work last year and what his future could be at the next level.

McShay mocked JOK to the Atlanta Falcons with the 13th overall pick (insider article) and if McShay is correct, Owusu-Koramoah would be the highest Irish defender drafted since Bryant Young was selected 7th overall all the way back in 1994. McShay believes that the Falcon’s need more linebacker depth and JOK would help them immensely.

The review of Owusu-Koramoah is very favorable as he “is instinctive and fast, with strong recognition skills. He’s all over the field and has the chance to be an every-down impact player,” said McShay. This is all on the heels of JOK’s breakout junior campaign where he tied for the team lead in tackles and had 5.5 sacks. As long as JOK continues his upward trajectory, he should be selected very early in next year’s NFL Draft.

Watch: Brian Kelly and Daelin Hayes discuss Big Ten on the Today Show

Notre Dame Head Coach Brian Kelly and lineman Daelin Hayes joined the Today Show to discuss the future of the 2020 fall football season.

Notre Dame’s Head Coach Brian Kelly and defensive linemen Daelin Hayes joined the Today Show this morning and touched upon many topics including the Big Ten’s decision, the enhanced testing the Irish have done, long-term health risks and more.

 

Former Notre Dame Head Coach Lou Holtz blasts Big Ten

The National Championship winning head coach Lou Holtz had some very strong words for the Big Ten after their cancellation of the season.

Lou Holtz, former Irish Head Coach and ESPN analyst, was a guest on Fox News this afternoon and guessed correctly that the Pac-12 would follow the Big Ten’s lead of cancelling fall football. He was also pretty adamant that football should continue towards getting ready to play this fall.

Holtz wants to go on with life, using statistics like 2% of people who are currently hospitalized are for COVID-19. “If you have a legitimate reason you don’t want to play, absolutely, don’t play. But the rest of you that want to play, let’s go play,” said the National Title winning coach.

He has a point, there are clear risks associated with playing football during this global pandemic, as the Big Ten most likely cited the potential for myocarditis, the inflammation of the heart muscle. Holtz is right however, if a player has issues with playing, then they should be able to opt out without any ramifications. It’s yet another sad day in the college football world, but the beat goes on in the ACC, SEC, and Big XII. At least for now it does.

BREAKING: Big Ten Cancels Football for Fall

There was a report on Monday that the Big Ten was canceling football for the fall but that was shot down just hours later. Less than a full day later we sit and it appears the conference in fact will not be playing football this fall after all. Pete …

There was a report on Monday that the Big Ten was canceling football for the fall but that was shot down just hours later. Less than a full day later we sit and it appears the conference in fact will not be playing football this fall after all.

Pete Thamel was first to report the news on Tuesday, doing so on Twitter.

Bruce Feldman and others quickly got the same information.

It’s not shocking in that we’ve discussed this being a possibility for literally months. It is still stunning to see and think of the idea of there being no Big Ten football or potentially college football at all this fall.

Now what happens?

Will the Pac-12 be right behind the Big Ten like they were when conference only scheduling was announced?

Will the ACC and SEC be far behind?

Will the Big 12 or any other conference try to take on suitors for a one-off season?

How many other Group of Five conferences will cancel seasons after the Mountain West did yesterday?

So many questions and so much more news to come.

We’ll have it all for you right here on Fighting Irish Wire.

Irish offer class of 2022 Florida Safety Rowser

Notre Dame offers former Michigan commit Myles Rowser who now preps in Florida.

The Notre Dame football staff saw their class of 2022 work finally be rewarded last week as offensive tackle Joey Tanona and tight end Jack Nickel became the first two verbal commits for the class. As the recruiting cycle continues, so do the efforts of the Irish as they last night offered Florida safety Myles Rowser.

A Michigan native, who just recently moved to IMG Academy to get ready for his collegiate career. Rowser has already committed once, to home state Michigan, but opted to reopen his recruitment. The 6-foot-1-inch and 185-pound safety already holds 22 offers including Florida, Penn State and obviously Michigan. He will not be afraid to return to play his collegiate football in the Midwest, but it seems like Rowser could have the ability to play in almost any region.

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The Irish hope that a return to the Midwest is the case, more specifically South Bend. Rowser is currently ranked as the 151st overall player nationally and the 10th ranked safety by the 247Sports composite. The Irish are making some waves in the 2022 class, and a future addition of Rowser would be more than welcome.

Just how good is Notre Dame OL commit Alt?

It has been very tough to figure out what kind of player Irish offensive line commit Joe Alt will be in the future.

When Minnesota’s Joe Alt committed to the Irish early last month, many wondered why the Irish had just taken yet another tight end. Well, that wasn’t really the case as Brian Kelly recruited the 6-foot-7-inch and 260-pound Alt as a tackle. The problem was that many recruiting services had Alt listed as a tight end, which is why his ranking is so low.

Rivals looked into Alt and his rating, due to the fact that they have had issues rating him. Josh Helmholdt, one of their recruiting analysts, said that “we initially rated Alt as a tight end because he is difficult to project to tackle without more information. Alt’s offer list suggests that, by in large, college coaches had difficulty projecting him as well, with several strong regional offers but a total offer list that numbers in the single digits.”

Helmholdt wonders “how much athleticism and foot speed does he lose when he adds the 70-plus pounds he needs to play tackle at Notre Dame, thought?” With the state of Minnesota pushing their season to the spring, we will have to wait and see how Alt’s continues his body transformation to a full-time offensive tackle.

It is something that isn’t overtly concerning to Kelly and offensive line coach Jeff Quinn, as a project like Alt is worth looking into. With most of Alt’s experience at tight end, don’t be surprised to see Alt take a redshirt as he learns the technique in his new position. It would be even less surprising to see Alt continue his progression and not make an impact for a few years as a member of the Irish. He is looked at as a high ceiling but low floor player, however the effort for the Irish is worth it to see if Alt can become the next star Notre Dame offensive tackle.