After a successful signing day, Brain Kelly still had one more scholarship available for the 2014 season. That spot has now been filled by Cody Riggs, a Flordia graduate transfer.
The defensive back brings some much needed depth and experience to a secondary that can certainly use it; however, I’m more impressed with the outlook of the program overall.
And it isn’t just hitting the 85 scholarship cap either. The class of 2015 has a minimum of 11 scholarships available and that’s only if all 15 eligible fifth years stay. That’s a crazy amount of flexibility that will translate into serious upperclassmen depth which is rather crazy when you consider the senior class of 2015 will only have 13 of the 16 members that it started with.
That kind of depth allows Kelly to not rush his recruits, giving them a potential redshit year to further develop. Those potential fifth years can then in turn allow the strong upperclassmen depth to remain.
Some of the bigger headlines in recent years have been players transferring, weaseling out of their national letter of intent, or leaving early for the NFL, yet, through all of this noise, Kelly has fully restocked the Notre Dame roster and has the Irish in great potential shape for many years to come.
