Notre Dame Football Recruiting: Brian Kelly Is Almost Done Cleaning Up the Mess

With National Signing Day coming up on February 1, it is time to bask in recruiting heaven.

All the recruits are potential academic All-Americans, visit the sick on game day, are likely to break every collegiate record known to man, and not one of them has muffed a punt while playing for Notre Dame.

These are heady times indeed; just read the headlines on Irish early-signee Sheldon Day.

The 6’2” 282 lb. 4-star DT out of Warren Central, was offered by LSU, Florida, and a host of big time programs, before realizing ND was the only honest program in the country. He is fast for his size and can bend steel using only his earlobes. 

He scored 85 touchdowns in the tough North Central (Indiana) Conference, despite never playing offense in his life. Has never missed church, plays a mean jazz-flute, and is smarter than Ayn Rand ever was. He is a good fit for Notre Dame and likely will be starting all 13 games in 2012, in addition to his duties coaching special teams.

Upon hearing Day had picked ND over home state Indiana, IU football coach Kevin Wilson switched from white wine spritzers to Wild Turkey straight up, no ice.

Although I may have exaggerated slightly, we all know recruiting is directly correlated to success on the football field, so a great day gathering letters of intent is a great day for the program—despite the fact that no recruit has ever made a college tackle or gained a single college yard.

Irrational and/or baseless optimism fuels the fanbase for months, and in some cases years. In my case, maybe decades. The 5-star recruits are welcomed in my household in the same manner we welcomed the birth of my son—with a little less aftermath.

”But Dan, these are all high school kids that have never played a day of college football, and the recruiting services are all media-biased and profit-driven shams. Does it really matter how many stars a kid has?”

Yes Virginia, it does. And as another piece of advice, you should change your name. 

Recruiting Success = Success (Sometimes)

While the star rating isn’t perfect, and there are a host of other factors that play into whether a particular player will succeed at college football (or whether a stream of solid star talent will translate into a solid team), generally schools that have been able to stockpile 4 and 5-star athletes have a tremendous advantage over schools that are forced to settle for 2-star players and hope to develop them into something better.

As my drunken Uncle Frank often would say, “While you can’t win a national title on signing day, you sure as hell can lose it.” Then he would politely pass out so we could steal his change.

To show you just how picky the recruiting services are, I personally was never given even one star, despite an undefeated team, a decent arm, a 4.85 40-yard dash and a knack for not throwing it to the defense even at the expense of some particularly violent sacks.

Admittedly, while I remain bitter, no college football team has ever regretted passing on me, but I digress.

So while the system is obviously flawed, there is no question that the more stars on your team—all other things being equal, with a few exceptions—the more likely your team will win football games. When this doesn’t happen, the blame usually and rightfully falls on the coaching staff.

This is a big part of what brought about the downfall of the Charlie Weis regime at Notre Dame.

Charlie Weis Did Not Know How to Recruit

Charlie Weis is a classic example of a great recruiter that did not know how to recruit. Every year he would bring in a Top 10 or Top Five recruiting class, only to watch his teams struggle over time to a mediocre 56 percent career winning percentage at ND.

“Why is that Dan?” you might ask.

Charlie’s recruiting classes were consistently Top Five to 10, so theoretically at least, a good coach should be able to take his players and have a Top Fifth to 10th ranked team.

Not so fast Larry Logic. There is a problem with that analysis, and it isn‘t just that the recruiting services often don‘t know their ass from two footballs.

It isn’t just how many stars you get, it’s who has them.

In ranking classes, most recruiting services simply add up their version of star rating, and the team with the most stars wins. No service cares what position the star plays.

College coaches need to care.

While talent is important, having talent and depth at every key position is just as important. As the old Chinese laundry guy used to say, “No balance, you fall on face.“

Weis learned this the hard way. While Charlie could bring in offensive stars like Jimmy Clausen, Golden Tate and Michael Floyd to get splashy headlines on signing day, his defense was lucky to scrape up enough stars to field a decent field hockey team.

So while ND was able to ride Brady Quinn to over 11,700 yards and 95 touchdowns, and follow up with three years of Jimmy Clausen and another 8,100 yards and 60 TDs, the defense sputtered with much less talent and the Weis era ended with a very non-Top Five overall record of 36-27.

Charlie Made a Big Mess

So we see a bit of what went wrong Pre-Kelly, but to truly understand the mess Charlie’s Big O, Little D recruiting philosophy created, we need to take a closer look at the roster chaos he left for Brian Kelly.

Going into 2009, Weis’ full roster (including walk-ons) had 10 running backs, 15 wide receivers, and 20 O-Linemen. I have it on good authority that none of this massive crowd of college athletes were available in the event someone needed to play defense.

Add another five quarterbacks, four tight ends and two long snappers, and you can see there wasn’t a lot left to field a defense.

But Charlie didn’t stop there. The 2009 Irish had four kickers on the roster. Yes, I said four kickers. Evidently Big Chuck was not aware of the rule that you could only use one kicker at a time.

Imagine his embarrassment when he called for the four holders and four kickers to take the field for that 42-yarder in the spring game only to have the referees and that goofy-ass rulebook kick his schematic advantage right in the Jones Boys.

Forget about stars, Charlie’s 2009 team barely had enough defensive players to field the 11 required in modern college football. All attempts to teach the extra kickers how to play outside linebacker also failed miserably.

By position, the defensive depth chart was horrifying.

The defensive talent pool was extremely shallow, like, when you put your toe in to see if the water's cold it touches the bottom. 

I would defy the most hardcore Domer to name four of the defensive front seven that started the 2009 opener without looking it up.

Most damaging, the 2009 Irish had 14 scholarship defensive backs, six were seniors likely to be gone in 2010, and the only two freshmen DB recruits that Weis brought in were both gone by the end of 2010 without ever playing a down for the Irish.

Among those scholarships were such household names in Irish annals as Chris Bathon, Leonard Gordon and Ray Herring.

In addition to his three last minute DB recruits, Kelly had roughly eight to 10 guys returning at the start of 2010 to fill four spots in his secondary, without even discussing who might play the nickel back.

As an aside, at one point Kelly asked me if I could lose 40 pounds and sub-in at nickel back if needed. Unfortunately, in my haste to cover the crossing routes, I got a high ankle sprain tripping on my C-PAC machine while getting out of my recliner and was pretty limited on my cuts throughout spring ball.

Matters got worse when the assistant coaches were sticklers that none of the Gatorade containers could double as a kegger, effectively ending my ND football career before it started.

Luckily neither Blanton or Gray went down, or I likely would have been pressing coverage while giving a whole new meaning to the term “whiskey chaser.”

Putting the Egg Back Together

To his credit, Kelly has done all he can to restore zen to his roster. In his short recruiting campaign of 2010, he brought in nine defensive players, including landing Louis Nix III.

Landing Louis Nix III is not dissimilar to landing the Queen Mary, size-wise.

Not satisfied with just one huge defensive player, in 2011 Kelly brought in a boatload of defensive talent, much of which was big and angry-looking with intemperate dispositions.

Among a solid defensive group, there is no question that Stephon Tuitt and Aaron Lynch are future stars, and Troy Niklas played extremely well in spots. OLB Ishaq Williams has inhuman talent, and at 6’4", 240 with 4.6 speed, OLB Jarrett Grace has the tools to play for anyone.

DE Recruits like Tony Springman, Anthony Rabasa, Ben Councell and Brad Carrico are three and 4-star studs with big bodies that add defensive line depth or can be moved to offense, if needed.

In 2011, Kelly also brought in DBs Jalen Brown, Matthias Farley and Eilar Hardy to continue stocking the depleted defensive backfield, as well as moving Austin Collinsworth and Bennett Jackson to the secondary to add depth.

As testimony to what top-tier talent can do, look no further than 2011 recruits Stephon Tuitt and Aaron Lynch.

While we usually don’t often see the dividends of what a good recruiting class can do until two or three years down the road, the emergence of Lynch and Tuitt last year to man the trenches and step in for injured upperclassmen shows just how important top shelf talent really is.

Without them and their unnatural talent at such a young age, ND's defensive line would have looked as bad as, well, Charlie Weis' defensive lines.

Although the 2011 Fighting Irish had its issues, the 2011 recruiting class was not part of the problem. 

Building a Team

Notre Dame should be very happy with what Kelly has brought to South Bend since 2010, and the 2012 class is another solid building block in that process.

Offensively, getting Gunner Kiel in line to QB down the road is nice, and WRs Deontay Greenbury, Chris Brown and Justin Ferguson should help keep Kelly’s offense stocked with a great mix of talent, size and speed.

The power of William Mahone and the speed and elusiveness of KeiVarae Russell are good compliments to each other and should be strong additions to a relatively thin offensive backfield. USC transfer Amir Carlisle should add elite speed and elusiveness down the road.

Picking up solid O-Line recruits Scott Daly, Mark Harrell and Ronnie Stanley will keep building depth to an already deep offensive line, and Florida State transfer Jordan Prestwood is a great pickup that may see the field sooner than later.

More importantly, ND’s dearth of defensive talent under the Weis era is finally being repaired.

Kelly continued to patch the thin secondary with more size and speed by getting DBs Tee Shepherd, C.J. Prosise, Nick Baratti, John Turner and Elijah Shumate.

Most importantly, the D-Line continued to draw top talent in the likes of 4-Star, 6’2”, 286-lb DT Sheldon Day, mammoth 4-Star, 6’7”, 308-lb DT Jarron Jones and athletic DE Romeo Okwara.

Jarron Jones once ate a bus with 34 people in it. True story.

On a sad note, despite a stunning array of bull rushes and spin moves whenever we hide the whiskey, the days of my 90-year-old mom making the two deep at ND are clearly over.

Although my mom is no longer being actively recruited by the Irish, there are still several top tier players out there that could come to South Bend before the recruiting smoke clears. As it is, this class is rock solid, and unlike the Weis years, keeps the roster balanced and deep at most if not all positions.

While anything else we get in the next few days will only build on a strong class, if ND is able to land another four or 5-star athlete by Wednesday, Kelly should be sainted and February 1 declared an Irish holiday. 

Summary

Charlie Weis and his staff recruited well, but their overall recruiting strategy effectively crippled Notre Dame football. That’s one of the reasons why every signing day you read that Charlie’s ND landed another top class, then watched the Irish end yet another year at 6-6.

In two-and-a-half years, Brian Kelly has gone a long way in restoring the roster to a more competitive state, and one much more balanced as well as compatible with his style of offense and defense.

The improved talent across the board in the 2011 class has already paid big dividends. Kelly and his staff seem to have found another well-balanced crop of talented athletes for 2012, and it may get better between now and Wednesday.

On the day where every recruit is a winner, this year ND is a winner too.