Notre Dame Football: Have the Irish Been Knocked out of the Gunner Kiel Lottery?

Quarterback Gunner Kiel is the top quarterback in the country who recently decommitted from Indiana. He is considered by both Rivals.com and Scout.com to be the No.1 quarterback from the 2012 recruiting class.

Recently, rumors are all over the Internet claiming that he is expected to commit to Notre Dame come January. Although none of these rumors have been confirmed yet by any of the top recruiting sites.

Kiel did say he wants to go out and visit all of the other schools that have sent him an offer. That includes Notre Dame as well as Florida, Alabama, Michigan, Stanford and Wisconsin among other schools.

Notre Dame is considered one of the favorites to land him but there has been a ton of drama this season. Despite recently returning to the Polls this weekend, this season has been a huge disappointment for the Irish. Notre Dame has yet to return their football program to elite status and coach Brian Kelly has been dealing with questions about his job status all year.

Not to mention that Notre Dame just recently recruited dual-threat quarterback Everett Golson whom fans are very excited about. He is expected to play a big role next season and could very well be the future of this Irish team.

Brian Kelly runs an open competition as we all saw this season where Dayne Crist lost the starting job to Tommy Rees.

Is Kiel willing to compete for the job or does he want to go somewhere where he is a lock to start from day one? This may be a turn off for the top quarterback.

Kiel doesn't have the excellent arm strength quite yet but makes great decisions with the football and and has amazing accuracy. His mobility is also underrated as he can scramble to buy extra time in the pocket or pick up the first down with his feet when needed.

His sophomore season he completed 68 percent of his passes and racked up 2,600 total yards and 30 total touchdowns.

Randy Chambers is a B/R Featured Columnist that covers College Football and the NFL. You can contact him @Randy_Chambers or [e-mail]

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