Are Academics Really a Problem for Notre Dame Recruiting?

Earlier this week, new Oregon State Beavers head coach Gary Andersen went on the record to discuss his reason for leaving the Wisconsin Badgers.

Admissions. 

Anderson told CBS Sports' Dennis Dodd that a large frustration for him in Madison was the admissions standards for recruits, something he presumably won't have to worry about in Corvallis.

"

It's been well [documented] there were some kids I couldn't get in school. That was highly frustrating to me. I lost some guys, and I told them I wasn't going to lose them.

I think they did what they were supposed to do [academically] and they still couldn't get in. That was really hard to deal with.

"

If you think tears are being shed for Andersen in South Bend, think again.

As Brian Kelly and his coaching staff finalize a recruiting class that's looking like another Top 10 group, it's another opportunity to appreciate the way Kelly—and Notre Dame's athletic department at large—has found a way to turn what some coaches (like Andersen) believe to be a negative into one of the great assets the school has on the recruiting trail.

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Notre Dame's stringent academic standards have been well discussed for decades: Tony Rice's journey from freshman non-qualifier to national champion quarterback, the T.J. Duckett and David Terrell academic fiascos and the polarizing role of former admissions director Dan Saracino.

And let's not even go into Urban Meyer leaving Notre Dame at the altar.

For every success story you find on the gridiron at Notre Dame, you seem to find just as many surrounding the stars who wanted to play for Notre Dame but couldn't get in.

But Kelly has found a way to make Notre Dame's academic restrictions work for him. And while every recruiting cycle has one or two stories about the one who got away (247 Sports reported that recent decommitment Prentice McKinney's flip to UNC was based on admissions), last signing day, Kelly encapsulated his sales pitch in his opening remarks:

"If they want to come here just to hang their hat to play football and go to the NFL, we passed on some pretty good players, because I don't want guys to come here and not finish their degree," Kelly said. "I want guys to come to Notre Dame, get their degree, help us win a national championship and be the No. 1 pick in the NFL draft. That's what I want, if that's what they want."

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That sales pitch has continued to work. It's the reason why Jerry Tillery believes he can go to Notre Dame instead of LSU and still accomplish everything he wants to both on and off the field. It's a big reason why linebacker Tevon Coney is also on campus now as an early-enrollee freshman, getting started on his academic and football career a semester early.

Notre Dame's national brand continues to play a huge role in getting into living rooms across the country. But so does the pitch that parents hear, who understand that it isn't merely lip service when a coach sells them on competing with the best both on and off the field.

"I just want to be clear that these are our distinctions, and you're shopping down a different aisle," Kelly said last February when talking about his recruiting pitch. "We're not better than anybody else, but this is what you're going to get if you shop down this aisle. So when we get into this at the end, I pretty much know which way you're going to go."

So with signing day less than two weeks away and Notre Dame once again putting together a universally respected recruiting class, Kelly and the Irish staff have found a way to make a stringent admissions policy work for them, not against them. 

And they didn't even need to leave for Corvallis. 

*Unless otherwise noted, all quotes obtained firsthand.