That Will Pauling 9 yard catch on 3rd and 6 on a crucial second half drive against Miami gonna hit like crack
In unrelated news, Auburn announced today leaving UA for Nike So that's Auburn, UCLA, others flipping from UA. Who is UA down to? Us, South Carolina, Maryland... Can't believe they held onto our contract
pretty interesting read from Shaun Davis on IB Spoiler Notre Dame landed a massive commitment when Ian Premer pledged to the Fighting Irish, and it was a bit of a surprise. The Notre Dame staff wasn’t sure he was going to pick them until the call came. We’ve done some digging on this and here is sone background and intel on the decision. One of the big questions was why weren’t more big time programs on Premer? After talking to his high school coach that became clear. Most national programs felt he was going to stay local. Georgia called and was interested but asked him if he was a regional kid. That apparently rubbed Ian the wrong way, and he told them he wasn’t interested in them. It was a very strange question to ask. Notre Dame never asked that question, they knew the regional pull but they wanted him really bad so they just went after him and landed him. Many people felt it was a Notre Dame vs Kansas State battle, but according to a source the Wildcats were third. At the end it was mainly down to Notre Dame and Iowa State. Shows that the reporting on this nationally was really, really off and people were getting their intel from the staff at KSU and not from those inside the Premer camp. I actually had a Notre Dame source tell me after the ND visit that he felt it would be between Notre Dame and Iowa State. I honestly just assumed he meant KSU because of what was being reported elsewhere, but he was spot on. Premer had a great relationship with Matt Campbell (ISU head coach) and Taylor Mouser (ISU TE coach). They were on him the longest and it was hard to choose Notre Dame over them, but the Irish staff did a great job down the stretch. Mike Denbrock and Harris Bivin were both very instrumental in making this happen. They both did a great job building a relationship with Premer even though the Irish were in on him later than the other regional schools. Denbrock had several talks with Premer down the stretch. Denbrock focused on pushing the “Choose Hard” angle with Premer. He told him that basically you’re an elite player, and elite players go to Notre Dame. What’s interesting is that Premer had a similar conversation with his high school coach, who gave him similar advice. One concern for Premer was going away from home. His family wanted him to pick ND according to multiple sources but they never really shared that with him. That led Premer to think that staying close to home was best for the whole family. After the visits were done the family sat down and let Ian know they were good with whatever he decided, even if it meant going further away from home. That also helped him feel better about picking Notre Dame. An interesting note. Premer felt really bad about telling the Iowa State coaches that he was going to Notre Dame. He called the TE coach at ISU and tried to apologize to him. The coach responded “You don’t need to apologize, it’s Notre Dame.” That was a classy response by the coach. This was a great win for the staff. They kept grinding and didn’t let the intel about their chances sway them. They saw a guy they wanted, they stayed true on their message and got it done. Did he get a good NIL package? Yes. Was it this big package that put ND over the top? No. This was about the ND message, ND being elite and him seeing ND as presenting an opportunity his other top schools couldn’t. never would have guessed it was between ND and Iowa St in the end but I am very happy ND won out in the end
Pauling has low key gotten a lot of behind the scenes hype, especially when it comes to weight room and workout numbers. Let’s hope it translates to the field
ND signs starting transfers from VaTech, Bama, Virginia, Wisconsin, & Louisville 247 sports : that’s the number 58 transfer class
I’m fine in that range. Most high ranked schools are taking 15-20 transfers. No more needing 5-10 starters a year. 3-5 plugs for holes are fine. There need to be a high number of misses to need that many, and I don’t see it. Transfer rankings are honestly the opposite of regular rankings. If you’re in the top 10 you’ve had a ton of attrition.
Kstate coaches/staff were giving their reporters all sorts of bad info, the Kstate 247 guys were adamant that Premer had committed to them
Born and raised in SoCal, lived there for another 6 years post-ND before moving to NYC. Lmk if I can provide any info.
I don’t necessarily love McMurphy, but he’s usually well researched at the very least Having ND as the 1 seed is fun
https://www.on3.com/rivals/censere-gaylord-239537/ I would like to have a sincere gaylord on the team
This post is a great show of why Penn State and its fans have freaked out about ND so much the last few months. The fact that whether they could have remained independent or not is their biggest question mark shows how much they wish they could have. The reality is, they’re treated like second class citizens in the B1G and have been behind closed doors since they joined. Michigan and Ohio State run that conference, and everyone else is along for the ride. For years, Penn State fans have complained about scheduling, referees, etc within the conference. Whether they’ll say it out loud or not, a lot of them would’ve rather remained independent. Problem was, they couldn’t (whether all of them will admit that or not). And now they - more than any other program and fanbase - want NDs independence to fail to help validate the decision they were forced to make years ago. These people absolutely hate the fact that we could do it and they couldn’t.
Independence is really good despite what the SEC says. The only way this goes bad is if schools take the USC and IU route and not want to schedule good OOC games because they do t want to lose.
It worked before, it still could. None of the big 4 independents that joined a conference (Miami, FSU, Penn St) have had it that much better in a conference. I know FSU and Miami won titles, but they would have as independents.
This ranking seems to feed from pff, and they don't have Schuler in their top 10 safety rankings smdh
Non football related question Have a wedding on campus in August I'm going to. What hotel would you stay around the area for an on-campus wedding now? They have room blocks at Inn at St. Mary's and Hilton Garden Inn. Wanted to try the Morris Inn but its a couple hundred bucks more a night than the room block. I know there's new hotels near campus too
Watching the recruiting thread and I am thankful things went where they went with that texas tech guy. He seems to be like Chad but even worse. They are over paying for recruits left and right . Maybe he would have been different at nd but that seemed like an odd fit at first and now it looks like it might have been a complete misfit