Aah, the world of college football recruiting. A never ending process. The 2013 class is signed and looks primed to fill the gaps and make an instant impact. We also already have four commitments to the 2014 class: Greer Martini, Jay Hayes, Justin Brent, and Jimmy Byrne. Let's take a look at each offensive position group to try to gauge what we need and who our top targets currently are. Given our last few recruiting classes were near full, (barring transfers or early departure for the pros) ...
Brian Kelly
Good Fridays w/Padre: Verses Versus
Take heart! All the signs point to it – Spring is near! It’s a new month, the month of rebirth: Easter, bunnies, and eggs. Camp Kelly is beginning; people are already making plans for the Blue & Gold Game. And the Pope emerged from his palace, saw his shadow, and flew to the hills. Everything old is soon to be new again, even if our blighted weather continues to oppress us. I recently picked up a book which I thought was a meditation on Indiana winters; it was called 50 Shades of ...
Good Fridays w/Padre: Chaplains
This week, the Michigan State football chaplain got himself in a bit of trouble for making a public boast about the Spartan basketball team, that was of questionable taste (to say the least). I know this is as much of a shock to you as it is to me – not that a priest has a filthy mouth, but that Michigan State athletes would welcome a man of God without trying to boil and eat him. I’m sure you also had the same initial suspicion that I had: a priest with low manners joining freely with our ...
Good Friday’s w/Padre: Pope Brian
I really must applaud the basketball lads for doing their best to fill the time in the bleak mid-winter. Not for them, a regular-old basketball game. No, our Notre Dame men are pushing their contests from long to longer and even to epochal – and by that I mean measured in geological time. It is a noble effort, but I fear it may be shortening their life-spans and those of the Leprechaun Legion, who did not see much daylight last Sunday after their own “exertions” on and off the court. ...
Good Fridays w/Padre: Mob Rules
Let me extend a hearty welcome to the Irish Mob! Admittedly, I am not in the habit of welcoming mobs, since I usually associate the word with the Paris Mob and that brings to mind the Reign of Terror. Not that I have any problem with our opponents suffering a four-year-long reign of terror as a result of our Irish Mob; but perhaps we could have chosen a more ethnically appropriate epithet for these lads – say, the Hooligan Crew. ...
Good Fridays w/Padre: OnlyHere
I still don’t entirely understand this elaborate process called “recruiting.” To me, it looks like Thai shadow puppetry, the way coaches and players chase each other around behind a screen until our new drop-everything-holiday, National Signing Day. Of course, people frequently remind me that what I used to call recruiting would now be classified as conscription at best, kidnapping at worst (get a lad to visit your Northern Indiana outpost, and then pretend the trains quit running because of ...
Good Fridays w/Padre: Lessons
It’s been an interesting couple of weeks, to say the least. Here are a few ways my eyes have been opened, a few points I have pondered, a few insights I’ve gained: - The head football coach should be a CSC. He doesn’t have to be a priest. The key is that he take a vow of obedience. ...
DEBATE THIS! The Heroic? Return of Brian Kelly
Head Coach Brian Kelly returns to Notre Dame! Are we happy? Maybe, maybe not. Grantland X and I seem to have differing views on the topic. Here is my two cents worth on the return of Brian Kelly, and Grantland X will present his rebuttal on Monday. Here we go ... It’s o-dark-thirty in the college football recruiting world and Notre Dame is hovering with a top five recruiting class. In the days leading up to the national title game head coach Brian Kelly gushes that coaching at Notre Dame ...
Good Fridays w/Padre: Courage!
“By the waters of Miami, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Notre Dame.” This is why, in our wisdom, we make you all take philosophy and theology, whether you like it or not. This is why you have to know a little something about what’s written in the Good Book, in order to be given a diploma written by our University. ...
Friday Roundup: The “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things” Edition
Your dreams of seeing your team win a national title are crushed. Once you process the devastation, you try to look ahead to the future as best you can, knowing that your team is in great shape for the future. Then, the architect of that team decides to interview for another job. Your football world spirals again. The recruits you've been looking forward to seeing next year are trying to process the whirlwind themselves, resulting in some deciding to find greener pastures themselves. This all ...