Notre Dame Football: A Look at Fighting Irish's Recruiting Class and Next Season

Is Notre Dame posed for a full comeback into the college football world?

While recent wins in recruiting leaves the team poised to have success in the coming year, some other factors point to possible problems that the Irish may experience in the next season.

While having a class of highly sought-after recruits is a good thing, it doesn’t necessarily mean success.

Charlie Weis showed us just what can happen when acquiring highly sought-after recruits doesn’t pay off.

Weis' teams were loaded with ESPN 150 athletes, yet their talent never bloomed, taking Notre Dame into national prominence.

Weis' final year at Notre Dame was his only year at Notre Dame where the team was completely filled with his recruits, a season which Notre Dame went 6-6.

What was the problem with Weis’ recruits? They may have been overrated or too highly ranked. It may have been Weis’ inability to fully optimize the talent of his athletes. It may have been a combination of the two.

But Notre Dame now has a new coach.

It will be interesting to see what Kelly can do with the new recruits that he picked up. Will they bust like Weis’ bunch? Or will they bring Notre Dame its first BCS win?

Only time will tell.

What happens to these recruits depends on what happens with Notre Dame in the upcoming season and a couple of things point to some trouble with the Irish.

Notre Dame will lose 35 seniors this year and will return 29 juniors to take their place.

Can these juniors fill the void, it’s hard to tell but leadership was one thing that Notre Dame was not lacking this season. Next year seniors Michael Floyd and Dayne Crist will look to create sparks on the offensive side of the ball and junior Manti T’eo seems to be the anchor to a smash-mouth defense.

Can these leaders lead the team to a BCS season? A winning season? A championship season?

Only time will tell.

The Irish seem set at quarterback next year, both Crist and the promising freshman Rees proved that they could win games this season.

Both of the Irish quarterbacks are a breed all their own.

Crist showed us this year that he can pick apart a defense with his accuracy. Crist also showed, that despite this being his first year as a starter, that he doesn’t make very many mistakes.

Rees has had a trial by fire. He has developed throughout the season and turned into an Irish favorite. Rees still makes some mistakes but his development can be seen; one week a throw could be completely off target and the next week the same throw could be through defenders and right into the breadbasket of the receiver.

Both Rees and Crist need to work on consistency and both could have a lot of success at the helm of the Notre Dame offense, but who will be the one at the helm?

Only time will tell.

Let it be known that a competition at the quarterback position isn’t necessarily a good thing.

Constantly knowing that you could lose your position because of a bad game could be a very bad thing for someone who has so much power over the offense. Throws could be forced and one bad throw could mess up the quarterback's whole game.

The extra stress is something that Notre Dame could do without.

However this competition could also work well for the Irish and could cause some of the Irish quarterbacks to have some extremely good games.

How will Kelly handle the quarterback spot?

Only time will tell and that is why I hate the offseason.