Iowa WR "Tied for a team best 3 touchdown receptions last year" Gaddamn, with 14 games last year they didn't even have one player who averaged 1 TD every 4 games?
This seems more like Davis and I forgot his name aren’t coming along and they need game ready bodies.
It's a dangerous proposition to not add anyone have to walk the tight rope and anticipate nobody getting hurt or missing significant time. Not a good bet IMO. Worst case scenario dude led nation in punt returns last year
https://www.si.com/.amp/college/2022/05/25/lane-kiffin-nil-recruiting-boosters-nick-saban This worth a read- I refuse to buy into the Sampson/Prister narrative about Notre Dame and NIL. I feel like ND isn’t fucking around which is why they don’t care want Dante does they told him give us the last OV we will out bid everyone. It’s not possible for ND to be getting visits from all these 5 stars from the fucking south and not be playing the game. I’m sorry if that hurts your perception of ND but lord knows ND has done it for years, they just keep everything micro managed and controlled including the ND media
Holtz was one of the dirtiest coaches of his era. I don’t hate getting back to that. It’s the cost of doing business in college football.
This is nonsense. The coach calls the Vatican, the Pope talks to God, and God whispers to the recruits we want in their sleep. Just as it's always been. 10 Hail Mary's for blasphemy.
Spoiler TAMPA, Fla. – As he introduced himself to nearly a dozen Notre Dame alumni clubs over the past month, Marcus Freeman raised his left wrist to check his watch often enough that it was fair to wonder whether the new Irish head coach was doing a bit. Here’s how the scene would play out: Freeman gets talking about recruiting, a default setting for him. He notes Notre Dame has the No. 1 class in the country. The crowd applauds. Freeman looks at his watch to check the date. He explains how he doesn’t want the No. 1 class on whatever the date is in May. He wants it in December when signing day arrives. More applause. Freeman would be forgiven if it was purely performative — it absolutely plays with his audience — but he insists it’s not. In the past month while his staff hit the recruiting trail, Freeman spoke to alumni clubs in New York City, Staten Island, Tampa, Hilton Head, Los Angeles and Dallas, taking the authenticity that has made him so popular on campus and exporting it. He did a virtual event with Notre Dame vice president of university relations Lou Nanni. He spoke to Notre Dame’s Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies. He flew back to Hilton Head three days after his Notre Dame event there to run a 5K with his wife Joanna in support of his longtime friend B.J. Payne, who coached Irish freshman Jaylen Sneed at Hilton Head High School. “I have no clue what the date is,” Freeman told The Athletic. “I know the day of the week, but not the date.” The Athletic followed Freeman at two of those stops, first at the University Club in Tampa on May 9, when he spoke to more than 100 alumni, then in Hilton Head the next night before a more intimate group inside the Wexford Plantation, a golf community exclusive enough that Michael Jordan once owned a home there. There were meetings with high-level donors. There were tailored blazers, sharp enough that Freeman joked he could have used these sartorial gifts while he was still a coordinator. Dick Corbett, who endowed the head coaching position, attended the Tampa event. Heisman Trophy winner Tim Brown showed in Dallas. The tour required an adjustment to life off the recruiting trail. Freeman couldn’t visit Berkeley Prep in Tampa to see five-star commitment Keon Keeley while in town, even though the defensive end reached out to talk. He couldn’t visit four-star safety Peyton Bowen at Guyer High School while in Dallas. But Freeman did get a chance to measure how much enthusiasm there is for Notre Dame football within a fan base that marks time by the program’s last national championship. If there was any doubt, a 55-year-old man at the Dallas event got the microphone for a question and simply said, “I love you.” It was all a lot to take in. “Listen, I know it’s not always gonna be like this,” Freeman told The Athletic. “We’re on this tour right now. Everything is great, but ultimately you have to make sure you win games. That’s important. I love the support. I love the excitement. This is all part of it, the reaching out, the network. But we have to win games.” Freeman knows the ability to hold an audience is not a sport. He has coached one game as Notre Dame’s head coach. It doesn’t come up among alumni. But there is a skill to how a first-time head coach works a room, how he shakes hands, how his listens and how he remembers. And on that front, Freeman is winning, which is perhaps part of the reason why he has a top-ranked recruiting class to riff on in the first place. Marcus Freeman arrived at One Tampa City Center around 6 p.m. and took an elevator to the 38th floor to the University Club overlooking the city. In a private reception before the public event, Freeman did a fireside chat with alumni association executive director Dolly Duffy before taking questions. Before the program began, Lou Holtz delivered a pre-recorded message, including his apologies for not being there as he recovered from back surgery. “My job since I left Notre Dame was to always support the head coach at Notre Dame positively. I’ve done that without exception,” Holtz said. “But I’ve got to tell you, it’s much easier to be positive about Marcus Freeman …” Whatever Holtz said next was drowned out by laughter and applause. Freeman seemed at ease among the group, wearing an open collared white shirt with a plaid purple blazer. The next night in Hilton Head, he added white Vans, an un-stuffy touch to what could have been a buttoned-up atmosphere. Freeman plays a lot of the same lines at these events. Few hit harder than the return of gameday Mass. Freeman recalled visited Notre Dame as a recruit and being blown away by the team leaving the Basilica to play in the stadium. After being named head coach, he asked associate athletics director Ron Powlus when the tradition changed and how it could change back. “He said there’s one person that makes that decision and that’s the head coach at Notre Dame,” Freeman told the audience. “So that’s the first thing I changed, go back to Mass on Saturday.” The crowd erupted. The Tampa and Hilton Head events were the week before graduation, with Jerome Bettis and Stephon Tuitt’s completion of their degrees highlighted by Freeman. Applause. He talked about the “God, Country, Notre Dame” door outside the Basilica as his sacred space on campus. Applause. On both nights he talked about outworking other programs in recruiting and why he believes Notre Dame has the best product to sell in recruiting. Applause. And any mention of the football alumni reunion during Blue-Gold Game weekend registers. That proved particularly true in Tampa for Jim Smithberger, who played defensive back on the 1966 national championship team. When the team returned to South Bend for its 55-year anniversary last season, Smithberger said he felt ignored by the school — no dinner in the Monogram Room, no observance during the game. There was a spot in the parking lot for a tailgate, but that was about it. “We felt slighted. I and several other members of the team stated after the fact that we would not go back to Notre Dame,” said Smithberger, a 1968 graduate. “When you consider what Marcus Freeman did inviting the players back to Notre Dame, I think I will reconsider my decision. That’s how big a factor it is for me.” The first question for Freeman in Tampa came from retired Army Colonel D.J. Reyes, a 1979 graduate who served for more than 30 years, including tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and who knew that Freeman’s father Michael is an Air Force veteran. Reyes asked how being raised by an African American father and a Korean mother shaped Freeman’s leadership style. Freeman talked about the differences between his father’s generation and his own, how questioning authority wasn’t tolerated when he was a kid growing up around Dayton, that it was “yes sir, no sir” around the house while learning to work hard. Freeman talked about how he learned his father was from the “Silent Generation” that didn’t overshare, which altered his perception still. He talked about his mother Chong working three jobs to serve both Michael and their two sons. Then Freeman pivoted to how he wants players to question authority and that it’s on the staff to be able to answer when players ask why they’re being coached a certain way. He said lessons from his mother influenced how he sees service in coaching and the idea that the staff must do whatever it takes to support the players. “I wanted to hear something different and unique that makes him the right fit at Notre Dame,” Reyes said. “What I heard only confirmed what I believed all along.” Freeman also fielded questions about NIL, bringing back the Dillon Hall pep rally, what leadership looks like, more NIL, his family life — “Everybody says how do you do it with a work-life balance? It’s not a balance for me. It’s a blend. You have to incorporate family into work” — the Gold Standard and how he counseled Kyren Williams on the NFL Draft. The final question in Tampa wasn’t a question at all, from a woman who is neighbors with former Notre Dame safety Nick Rassas (1963-65). She said when Rassas found out Freeman would be the next head coach, he cried. Freeman thanked her before exiting to applause. As much as Marcus Freeman’s jaunt through Notre Dame’s alumni clubs was a speaking tour, it was a listening tour, too. While in Tampa, he met with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. While in Dallas, he met with the Mavericks. Freeman talks a lot about the enhancement of the Notre Dame football program, which he lived on these visits. Other than being asked about how he’ll help other minority coaches and what’s going to happen on Sept. 3 at Ohio State, Freeman had an answer for most of the questions before they were asked. But he heard the questions just the same. “There’s two types of listeners,” Freeman told The Athletic. “People who listen to speak and people who listen to learn. For me, I try to listen to learn, listen to get to know people. I don’t know when I became like that, but we need more people who listen to learn instead of listening to speak.” In these alumni events it becomes clear why Freeman has been able to lead a recruiting surge that Brian Kelly could not. As much as Freeman admits he’d love to spend the month in high schools talking to coaches and scouting prospects, he has turned these events into a conversation piece in recruiting. While in the green room at the NFL Draft, he got prospects on FaceTime to show them the scene (and the other college coaches who weren’t calling them). When Freeman attended a sports summit at NBC in New York, he did the same thing from a Manhattan rooftop with a small group of Notre Dame players. “Then you show them Isaiah Foskey and say Isaiah’s here with me because he’s gonna be a first-round pick. This is going to be you. I’ll take you to New York with me if you’re a dude,” Freeman told The Athletic. “It’s relationship building, but then at times it’s how you can talk to them about something different.” Freeman aimed for about 10 recruiting calls per day during his cross-country travel. Sometimes that was with a player. Sometimes it was with a parent. Sometimes it was with a coach. But it was always something as Freeman put into perspective what kind of load this travel actually was. Flying private can turn a seemingly breakneck schedule into just a stretch. Even on the day he spoke in Tampa, Freeman went into his office in South Bend before departing at about noon. “I’m not a guy that does well with idle time,” Freeman told The Athletic. “And so people are like, Why are you going on these places? What else am I gonna do? Sit at home? While other people work? Like, it’s just not who I am. So it’s been good that it just keeps you busy. Keeps you active.” This week the barnstorming tour of alumni clubs comes to an end for Freeman. After Memorial Day, Notre Dame will jump into the summer visit schedule, looking to build on that class Freeman talked about at every stop. So after shaking hands and posing for pictures all May, he’ll do the same next month with a different audience. “I get to sell, I truly believe, the best opportunity for young people to grow to be successful. I have a deep feeling about that,” Freeman said to the audience in Tampa. “Yes, I know it’s recruiting, but I believe in my heart that I’m offering a young man a future that nowhere else in the country can offer him. “You don’t have to be a graduate of Notre Dame to fall in love with this place, to understand what it offers young people.” For the better part of this month, Freeman convinced Notre Dame’s alumni base of something it already believed. The fact that a relative outsider could convey that message underscored the skill of its delivery. Marcus Freeman might not always know the date, but he’s proving he understands how to use his time. (Photo: Michael Hickey / Getty Images)
i *think* that was covid casualty rather than a BK one, but I may be mistaken there. i can't remember when those actually stopped
Are we getting Limar? Not sure I am up to speed on this RB carousel. We lost a guy but are expecting him or some of these other top guys to commit?
That second 50+ yard td in q1 will be heartbreaking. Then I will get too drunk to remember it being within 10 in the 4th to lose by 17
I was bored a few weeks ago and watched the hour version of the 95 OSU ND game since I was a youngn when it happened. Marc Edwards was a beast and you guys had a pretty good shot at winning until you couldn't stop shooting yourselves in the foot.
I hate that stuff cuz were just gonna have to see Michigan or LSU Barstool plaster the Dante gold throne pictures everywhere in a few months
Braylon James father said that Coach Kelly didn’t seem to know who Braylon was when they were on the trip to LSU.
Good thing we have monster recruiting stuff happening. This time of year is usually the most boring BTW who gets processed for a transfer WR?
Schweizer was my first thought lol, idk how we kept all those safties thru spring. Like Griffith, Brown, Henderson, Joseph and Watts. Maybe we playing some 3 safety stuff this year. I thought for sure Griffith or Brown would have left
Making the trip to South Bend for the Clemson game. We have a group of 10 staying in Chicago. We decided against the Irish Express because the group wants to spend some time checking out campus and not just tailgating all day. We have rented a Sprinter Van and driver for the day. Any recommendations on where to park and are there specific Lots that will/will not allow a Sprinter Van? Looking forward to the trip.
Joyce and Stadium lots are near the stadium and paved. They’ll be the most expensive but the most fun. White field is general parking and has a shuttle that runs back and forth, it’sa party but it’s grass and away from what you want. Campus is not as big as you think it is, if you get into J or S you are a pretty quick walk to anything you want to see.