Notre Dame Football: Why a Win Over Utah Is Critical to Recruiting

As the season has moved forward, Irish fans have seen the bad things that happen to recruiting when a team fails to perform up to expectations.

After a 4-5 record, including a loss to Tulsa, players like Aaron Lynch have decided to open their recruitment back up even though they already committed to Notre Dame.

However, despite these losses, a win over Utah, a ranked team, could bring more confidence back to South Bend.

In turn, that confidence can result in players re-comitting to Notre Dame, and even more deciding to take their talents to South Bend.

Recruiting is obviously one of the key points for the Irish moving forward, so this win can do wonders for the Irish. Recruits still out there that Notre Dame hasn't signed yet are essential to turning this Notre Dame program around.

Also, this Utah game will make it much, much easier for the Irish to be bowl-eligible. After the loss to Tulsa, it made their road to post-season play much tougher, but winning this will put them in prime position, with just Army left to defeat.

However, a loss on Saturday will make it do-or-die for the Irish. They would have to win both against Army and against rival USC, which is always a tough match-up.

Brian Kelly has talked about how important a bowl game is to recruiting, so this game is obviously important in so many ways.

TCU destroyed them last week, so Notre Dame definitely will have video to see where TCU dominated Utah and where they can do the same.

That's very critical, because, as I mentioned, this game is very important. Any advantage the Irish can get preparing for Saturday's game is an advantage the program will have in the long run.