National Signing Day 2013 Recap
After all the insanity that was January, we deserved a National Signing Day like this.
All 18 unsigned verbal commits sent their national letters of intent to South Bend. There were no surprise defections; in fact, the only surprise of the day was a positive one as Eddie Vanderdoes became the 24th and final member of the recruiting class dubbed as the Irish Mob.
Just how great was this recruiting class? Let’s take a look:
And below is the full roster for the recruiting class of 2013 complete with links to their bios here at HLS:
Personally, I’m thrilled with this class. The only thing that would’ve possibly made this class better would have been if Alex Anzalone had stayed in the fold to bring the class to a full 25, but, honestly, at that point, I’m just being greedy.
With this class the Irish could almost field an entire team of just freshmen on both sides of the ball save for one linebacker. The Irish managed to snag four five-star players (according to Rivals) which is the most I can ever remember the Irish having in a single class.
Notre Dame also only trailed a single school in the Rivals average star ranking. That school is Southern Cal, who bested the Irish’s 3.92 average stars with 4.42 average stars — of course, USC only managed to sign 12 players, so that skews that average ever so slightly.
Oh, and right below the Irish in the same ranking: Alabama with 3.84 average stars.
I could go on and continuously gush about this class, but the bottom line is that Notre Dame finished yesterday with an elite recruiting class. It is incredibly well balanced, addresses areas of need, and stocks the depth chart in crucial areas like both the offensive and defensive line (and Brian Kelly said he still considers those areas of need for 2014 — this is a man after my own heart).
Be excited, be very excited about what Brian Kelly and his staff just pulled off. This future is beyond bright for this team.
Finally, the folks at IBN Sports have reached out to us to share their ND signing day segment, featuring Mike Frank of Irish Sports Daily. They have loads of other signing day segments over at their site as well so be sure to check them out if you are interested.
Double Butkus
A big congratulations is due to Manti Te’o who started out his long week on the awards circuit by winning the Butkus Award, which is given to the country’s top linebacker. Manti’s week, during which he is sure to keep piling up hardware (do they FedEx these things home or is he checking them in his suitcase?) will now officially end at the Heisman Trophy presentation in New York as Te’o was announced as one of three finalists alongside Texas A&M’s Johnny “Scooby Doo” Manziel and Kansas State’s Collin Klein.
You may also recall that 4 years ago Te’o won the inaugural high school Butkus award. Well, fast forward to today and while Manti was being awarded the collegiate version Notre Dame commit Jaylon Smith became the 5th winner of the high school Butkus Award. Yup, these are good times in South Bend.
To give you a better idea of what kind of company Te’o is in with this award, just look at the previous winners:
| Year | Winner |
|---|---|
| 2011 | Luke Kuechly |
| 2010 | Von Miller |
| 2009 | Rolando McClain |
| 2008 | Aaron Curry |
| 2007 | James Laurinaitis |
| 2006 | Patrick Willis |
| 2005 | Paul Posluszny |
| 2004 | Derrick Johnson |
While early indications from “Stiff Arm Trophy” (a website that collects voting information from Heisman voters that publicly release their top 3) show Te’o firmly implanted in second place, we can still hold out hope that the most deserving player — representing the best defense and the best team in the country — brings home Heisman #8 for Notre Dame.
If you haven’t seen it yet, make sure to watch Manti’s Heisman music video below by Pat McKillen, a Notre Dame graduate and friend of Her Loyal Sons. Also check out his ND themed original “Loyal Sons” by clicking here, and find some of his excellent non-ND music at www.patmckillen.com.
