Credit: Rivals.com

Most likely to be a first round draft pick

Tommy Kraemer

Kraemer is the crown jewel of the 2016 class, and I acknowledge it may seem cliché to project the highest ranked recruit of the class to be a first round draft pick. However, it’s simply too difficult to bet against a Top 100 recruit, high school senior who is already 309 lbs., stands 6 feet 5 1/2 inches tall, and will be mentored by a coach who has demonstrated a distinct ability to put offensive linemen in “The League.”

One doesn’t need to look much further than my previous piece, where I gush about Kraemer, to see that I am more than bullish on the Cincinnati, Ohio product. It would not be a surprise to see Kraemer potentially push for a spot within the 2-deep on the offensive line this year. But considering the depth at the position is in very good shape, he may be best fit to redshirt and take the year to learn, grow and mature.  This path proved beneficial for Quenton Nelson (who was also a Top 100 recruit) who started at guard last year and used his redshirt year to grow to a massive 325 lbs. Big Tommy projects to be a solid anchor in a future Irish offensive line while also possibly projecting to cash in on a handsome signing bonus around this time in four years.

Most likely to make an immediate impact

Devin Studstill

Scout.com photo

Studstill is a rangy safety from Palm Gardens, Florida.  Standing 6 feet 1 inch and weighing 190 lbs., he’s appeared to have already added 10 lbs. since being on campus as an early enrollee (graduating high school in December to enroll at Notre Dame for spring term, thus affording him the ability to participate in spring football).

During his short time with the team, Studstill has already made positive impressions on the coaching staff – Brian Kelly included. Kelly highlights that he has already established an understanding of the defense, while physically proving he belongs at the collegiate level. The news about understanding the defense may raise a few eyebrows within the Irish faithful, as fans have seen a defensive backfield (safeties especially) that has struggled with assignments and suffered blown coverages over the past two years. Studstill’s physical gifts are likely not surprising any of the coaches, because he was widely regarded as the top prospect at safety on the Irish’s recruiting big board. Though only a three star recruit, the coaches agreed that the athletic Floridian was a priority, and Kelly’s comments, along with significant first team reps in spring ball, would suggest that they evaluated him accurately. Studstill benefits from playing a current position of need at safety. The graduation of Elijah Shumate coupled with the uncertainty and unproven safeties on the roster produce an exciting opportunity for him to step in and contribute during his freshman year. I find it possible, yet unlikely, that we see Studstill starting at safety across from Texas come September, but I do firmly believe that he will be consistently rotating his way into the game giving him the best chance to make an immediate impact within the 2016 recruiting class.

Most likely to switch positions

Chase Claypool

Claypool is an interesting wide receiver from Abbotsford, British Columbia (Canada). He stands at an intriguing 6 feet 5 inches, weighs 205 lbs. and was a four star recruit.

Claypool dominated throughout high school, albeit against lesser competition than traditional football talent hotbeds like Florida and Texas. As stated, Claypool was recruited as a wide receiver, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the Irish decide to kick the tires on Claypool potentially contributing on the other side of the ball. It wouldn’t be the first time that a highly regarded offensive recruit flipped from offense to defense – Jerry Tillery did it last year from offensive tackle to defensive tackle, and James Onwualu made the transition from wide receiver to starting linebacker a few years ago.

Claypool’s size and raw athletic ability could potentially translate into a much needed rush end, or possibly linebacker.  If you still aren’t sold on this kid’s athleticism, don’t take my word for it. Instead take Brian Kelly and the coaching staff’s opinion during a neat exchange on a phone call where Kelly asks Claypool how his basketball game went the previous night. I’ll save you the suspense – he dropped 51 points in the specific game Kelly asked about, and averaged over 40 points per game throughout the season. In the highly unlikely chance that Claypool doesn’t find himself on either side of the ball, Mike Brey and the (back to back Elite Eight) Irish hoops squad might see if he’s interested in balling out in Purcell Pavilion. With his Canadian roots, potentially uncapped athleticism, and overall physical stature, Claypool is the most fascinating recruit of the 2016 class.

Photo by Jared Purcell / MLive.com

Most likely to ruin a color commentator’s day

Adetokunbo Ogundeji

Say that five times fast – or once slowly if you can. Ogundeji is also most likely to join current Irish sophomore wide receiver Equanimeous St. Brown on the “All-Name Team.”

“Ade” is a defensive end that comes to South Bend from Walled Lake, Michigan and stands 6 feet 5 inches and weighs 225 lbs. After initially committing to Western Michigan, Ade was all Irish less than a month after Notre Dame offered him a scholarship. He even visited campus at least five times (per 247sports) before signing his letter of intent.

Raw, raw… (WWE) RAW! Ade was a three star recruit that will benefit significantly from a redshirt freshman year. Similar to Chase Claypool, Ade lacks no athleticism.  He will also benefit greatly under the fine tutorship of defensive line coach Keith Gilmore.  Consider him putty to be finely molded and tuned into a fine contributor after a year or two of development. Additionally, consider him to truly test the phonetical skills of many color commentators.

Most likely to steal the opponent’s lunch money

Parker Boudreaux

Parker Boudreaux (Photo: CNN)

Boudreaux found himself with over 60 scholarship offers throughout the recruiting process. It seems almost every school in the country wanted this offensive lineman from Orlando, Florida who stands 6 feet 4 inches and weighs 287 lbs.

“P-Money,” as he is so eloquently known on Twitter (with over 56 thousand followers mind you), brings a nasty, in your face attitude to South Bend. One glimpse at a few of his high school highlights and one doesn’t hesitate to see how this attitude translates into countless pancakes on the football field. Make no mistake; P-Money is a brawler through and through. But as offensive line coach Harry Hiestand explains, he is also a technically sound football player. With the offensive line depth currently in solid shape, expect Boudreaux to spend his freshman year hitting the weights hard and hitting training table (meal time) equally as hard. Oh, did I mention that he pulled a school bus to announce his commitment to Notre Dame…?

Most likely to be unfairly compared to a previous Notre Dame Football player

Ian Book

Book is a three star quarterback from El Dorado Hills, California. He stands 6 feet 1 inch and weighs 200 lbs. Book was previously a Washington State commit until he took an unofficial visit to Notre Dame and the ultimate lure of Offensive Coordinator and Quarterbacks Coach (Prince) Mike Sanford was too tempting to resist.

Book decommitted from Washington State and committed to the Irish three days following his first visit to South Bend. Some who follow the Irish have already made the comparison of Book to former #NDFB quarterback Tommy Rees. Whatever your personal opinion was on Rees, I urge you to indefinitely postpone drawing this comparison. One peek at Book’s high school stats shows that the West Coast kid can really spin it, while illustrating the ability to be a threat with his legs.

During his senior campaign, Book completed over 70% of his passes, threw for over 3,000 yards, 30 touchdowns, and only threw 5 interceptions. As stated, Book can also tuck the rock and be a threat on the ground. He ran for 779 yards (6 yards per rush) while accounting for 12 touchdowns on the ground during his senior year.

Again, regardless of your feelings about Tommy Rees, we can all agree that he was essentially a nonthreat in the ground game (with the exception of the sneakiest, most methodical quarterback draw of all time against Michigan – ha ha ha…). Book is a heady quarterback that fits the current offensive system, unlike Rees who had multiple limitations.  With this being said, BOOK = REES; please don’t let anyone try to tell you that they are similar players.

This concludes the 2016 Recruiting Class Superlatives. Overall, the coaches succeeded in addressing many of the team’s needs with this class. Dare we say that this class is…wait for it…most likely to bring #NDFB a National Championship? I’m certainly not going to make that bold of a prediction just yet, but hey, we all have dreams right?

Cheers and Go Irish!

The post Superlatives for the Recruiting Class of ’16 appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Coach Lou Holtz [Photo: Jonathan Daniel/Allsport]

I was a child of the Lou Holtz years, when Notre Dame was in the hunt for a national title almost every season. That has not been the case at any point since Holtz left.

In this article, I’m going to look at some of the stated “hurdles” and determine if they’re relevant. Then, I’m going to answer: What is a reasonable expectation for Notre Dame football on an annual basis?

Schedule

“We won nine games two years out of the five. I think the difficulty is sustaining that year after year with the schedule that you play. Particularly the early season schedule is difficult.” – Bob Davie, on the day of his firing in 2001.

If you examine the Sagarin strength of schedule (SOS) over the last five years, the information is somewhat telling.

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

Notre Dame schedules, with the exception of last year, have fallen outside of the top 20 during the past five years. This would seem to indicate that a difficult schedule has not and should not be a barrier to being competitive, simply because the schedules have not been that difficult in relation to other top programs.

Graduation Rate

“But what matters most is excellence. Notre Dame stands for doing things the right way, and in this age of college football factories exhausting players’ eligibility with 50 percent graduation rates, questionable degrees, and long rap sheets, the ND way has never been needed more as a beacon for the rest of the sport.” – Jim Lefebvre

For years, admission standards have been bandied about as an obstacle to Notre Dame competing year in and year out – in that limits who the Irish can actually recruit.

A look at graduation success rate for football players over the last four years seems to indicate schools with top graduation rates do not typically factor into the national championship mix on a year in and year out basis.

2011-12

2012-13

2013-14

2014-15

Recruiting

“So I put those out to you because there are a lot of components that go into the recruiting today. And here at the University of Notre Dame, we clearly have our vision as to the kind of player that we’re going to recruit at the University of Notre Dame.” – Brian Kelly, 2010

Many of the top analysts have suggested that Notre Dame cannot recruit the “top players” on a regular basis as compared to some of the top football powers. While I’m not a fan of looking at recruiting rankings, we can at least look at how 247 Sports has ranked each year’s class to gauge how effective Notre Dame is recruiting as compared to top programs.

2011

2012

2013

2014

A couple of items come to mind here when I examine recruiting. First, a highly rated class doesn’t get you anything. I could throw a list of people together in my head who were high profile recruits at many schools (including ND) but never really panned out. Secondly, from 2011-2014, Notre Dame posted two top 10 classes – not exactly indicative of school that can “no longer recruit.”

Conclusion

Simon Chun

So what can we expect or what should we expect from Notre Dame football teams in light of this? Are there obstacles or hurdles for Notre Dame?

In the way of scheduling and recruiting I might argue they are well-overplayed. Notre Dame continues to recruit in the top 20 consistently. The schedule argument, as I mentioned earlier, also seems exaggerated. The graduation rate is there and is a real figure. I do agree with the anecdotal aspects that suggest there are certain players that Notre Dame cannot and will not recruit. They should be applauded for this.

Given this information, I think it is likely we will not see Notre Dame in the hunt year and year out.

Now before I get blown up here and in the other forms of social media, that does not mean they will not be in the hunt regularly. In 2012, they went to the national championship game. In 2013, they took a step back. I would argue only injuries and some sloppy play (2014) and a couple of soul-crushing road losses (2015) kept them out of the hunt in those years.

Add it up and you get a team that has been on the cusp of breaking through a couple of times in the last four years. That is what I believe is a likely norm in this age of Notre Dame football. As such, a reasonable expectation should be Notre Dame teams that frequently play in big bowl games and make a runs at the title, combined with the occasional team that experiences a drop off year. This will become the norm given Notre Dame and the cyclical nature of modern college football.

The post What Should The Yearly Expectations Be For ND Football? appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

credit: @realaverydavis

Avery Davis, a multi-star, Texas recruit and a junior out of Cedar Hill High, verbally committed to the University of Notre Dame on Saturday. Davis finished last season with a sixty-five percent completion rate (128/197), twenty-two touchdowns, 1,966 passing yards, and 934 rushing yards. He runs a 4.6 forty and stands 6’0″ tall.

Lauded for his fleet feet and powerful arm, Davis presented a perfect opportunity for the Irish to prize local talent from the rich state of Texas. Because he was not the starter his sophomore year, the SouthBend Tribune’s Tyler James noted that the local schools, to include Oklahoma, secured verbals by the end of August, leaving Davis up-for-grabs, as it were.

Davis is rated a three-star prospect by Rivals and four-stars by just about everyone else, making him the the third four-star recruit in the last four recruiting classes. And speaking of four-star players, Davis’ teammate, target and early-favorite to start on Notre Dame’s 2017 All-Name squad, Charleston Rambo, a wide-receiver, visited campus Saturday as well.

Rebuilding Notre Dame’s recruiting caché in Texas is a priority for the Irish, who failed to landed any Lone Star state players in last season’s class.

Davis’ highlights below:

The post Like We Needed Another QB: Kelly Gets His Guy in the Class of 2017 appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

I went back to the 2009 season and compared 247sports composite team recruiting rankings, final BCS or Playoff Committee rankings, year-end AP rankings, wins/loss, and s/p+ strength of schedule for more than a dozen teams. There is a lot of really interesting data that I hope expand on in future posts. Now, though, I want to focus on what we can learn from the four undefeated seasons since 2009 in what we now call the “power five + Notre Dame”.

2009 Alabama
2010 Auburn
2012 Ohio State*
2013 Florida State

With one exception, those teams had two top-five composite recruiting classes on the roster for their undefeated campaigns. The exception – and it’s notable – was the 2010 Auburn team. That team, as we all know, benefited from the transfer of a Blinn Junior College quarterback: Cam Newton. Newton went on to have, by most accounts, the single most dominant season in college football history. (Plus, the seniors left on that team were part of a top 10 class.)

So, if you’re not going to be loaded with blue chip recruits in multiple classes, you’d better have a historically great QB (or maybe a spare $200,000 to acquire one).

For Notre Dame, the only top-five class on campus (2013) was just gutted by early NFL draft entries. By missing on five-stars like Caleb Kelly, Ben Davis, and, likely, Demetris Robertson the Irish won’t be bringing a top-five class on campus this season either.

That means it would take a total aberration for Notre Dame to go undefeated in 2016. 

Many of you will bring up the 2012 season in which Notre Dame finished the regular season 12-0 and played for the national championship. Even that group had one top 15 class (2009) and the composite number one overall class in 2008 still on the roster, at least in part.

So, given who the Irish signed on Feb. 3rd, and who’s still on campus, what can we expect in 2016?

The track record of the power five programs I’ve looked at that have multiple top 15 classes on the roster suggests 10 wins is a solid bet.

Yes, there are a few notable exceptions. None more so than the 2012-2014 Michigan teams who not only failed to reach double digit wins but did so with two top six classes on the roster – which really just goes to prove Brady Hoke was in so far over his head it would not have mattered if he wore the other team’s headset.

But the trend is pretty clear: multiple top-15-class-teams win 10 games far more often than not. Three of the four classes reporting for spring football in South Bend fit that bill. Or to put it another way: To win fewer than 10 games next season would be under performing relative to their level of talent.

—
*was serving a bowl ban for the NCAA violations.

The post Notre Dame Has Talent To Win 10 Games in ’16 appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

A truck rumbles past – the road trembles and speaks over the low idle of my car as I feel the chariot nod in the direction of the truck in approval. Perhaps she’s thinking about the boys in ND1, taking a rogue trip to see D. Rob (as I like to call him). A good boys trip, but I’m guessing they avoided Waffle Houses (Mikey Sanford can be a picky eater) – all the reason why I do these alone. Well, not exactly alone. WIth a co-pilot and all the classic rock of the Georgia radio frequencies at my disposal – we plot a course to Thunderbolt, GA. An apt name for an apt prospect. DRob is an important fella, no doubt – he’s key to what we want to do in the near term, but I’ve always been a man about the distant future, and in my caffeinated haze, that future is living and breathing in THUNDERBOLT. The media is salivating over the fact that we’re sending a truck over to Savannah – even calling it dirty tactics, but for me and Roberto, it’s a smokescreen. Brian the Boss has inked another deal to ensure that this wild ride continues into the foreseeable future, and I’m in it to win it, whiny fans be damned.  When Brian tells me that he wants to get the meanest, nicest, smartest, most injury resistant young men out there – we know we have our work cut out for us. Not everyone can fit the bill, not everyone can understand my playbook, not everyone can understand the Allegory of the Cave – but when you can find a kid that can check at least two of those boxes, well….. have recruit will travel.

When the sun peeks over the horizon I punch into gear and we zoom off onto the highway, Thunderbolt in our sights.

The post Tales from the Trail appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

So, without further ado, let’s look at the numbers:

As a refresher, or, if you’re new to this, as a bit of background, the NCAA limits all FBS programs, with the exception of the service programs, to 85 total scholarships and twenty-five per recruiting class. The National Letter of Intent (NLI) program, a cabal of 644 NCAA schools and recruits, guarantees to every athlete who signs an NLI a one year athletic scholarship to the offering school. Signed “letters of intent” what the student-athletes so famously fax in to their schools on National Signing Day. The rankings services, such as Rivals.com, the website I used for this piece, tally the signed NLI’s and then evaluate the classes.

Even the Arts & Letters students out there recognize that 25 scholarships over four years results in 100 scholarships, fifteen over the 85 total scholarship limit. When you look at the table above, you see class size fluctuate. One of the reasons for this is early-enrollment, whereby the student-athlete graduates from high school early and enrolls at his school in the Spring. By doing so, the school may be able to count him against the previous season’s scholarship total. Academics may cause a player to leave a program or even switch his commitment prior to enrolling. NCAA sanctions, such as those that hit USC, may push class size to “artificially” low levels, too. Sometimes a program gets burned on Signing Day, à la Deontay Greenberry in 2012 or Eddie Vanderdoes in 2013. So, there are some legitimate reasons for the numbers to deviate a bit from where the math says they should be.

Then you have schools like LSU and Texas. LSU joins its SEC sister-schools like Tennessee and Alabama among the ranks of the “chronic oversigners.” “Oversigning” is a practice whereby a school intentionally signs more players than they can and then spend their time until Fall practice winnowing the roster down. Over the same number of classes Notre Dame signed 134 recruits, LSU signed 147. Texas, Notre Dame’s opening day opponent in 2015? 142. Alabama, the school with the perennial top recruiting class, signed 149? And somehow, spectacularly, Tennessee managed to sign 154 players. That’s TWENTY more players than Notre Dame signed. Because of privacy laws, the schools have convenient shields that keep them from having to explain too much.

Looking at the numbers the other way, Stanford has done incredibly well, despite noticeably smaller recruiting classes. Credit to the Tree for recruiting quality players who fit well in their system and produce on the field. UMass has chronically undersigned since making the move to the FBS and their rank in the bottom tier of the Rivals rankings. Georgia Tech shows the effects of NCAA-rules violations and a probationary period that ends in 2017. There’s no explaining the disconnect between Tennessee’s on-field performance and its recruiting class size or rankings.

For all the perceived difficulties the Irish face on the recruiting trail, the numbers show the Irish are able to sign full classes. That the wins and losses are not obviously linked speaks to the magic, or madness, of football and sport in general.

The post Playing the Numbers: How do the Irish Stack Up? appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

But the biggest troll of the day, so far, was the (tragically-incorrect) news that Brady Hoke had joined the Irish coaching staff as a defensive coach. This would have been so fantastic on dozens of levels, such as cronut, but also because Hoke was responsible for one of Notre Dame’s more impressive defensive performances last year.

Author’s Note: apparently, as I understand from the multiple tweets and reports this morning about the Hoke non-hire, Brady was “in for a penny, in for twelve hundred pounds,” as it were, until he learned that the Irish signed “Nicco Fertitta” and not, as Hoke believed, “heaps o’ fritattas.”

As of this writing (1234 CST), the Irish received NLI’s or early-enrollments from the following student-athletes: Equanimeous St. Brown, Alize Jones, Dexter Williams, C.J. Sanders, Nicco Fertitta, Shaun Crawford, Brandon Wimbush, Bo Wallace, Nick Coleman, Ashton White, Brandon Tiassum, Miles Boykin, Josh Barajas, Trevor Ruhland, Jalen Guyton, Justin Yoon, Elijah Taylor, Mykelti Williams, Josh Adams, Asmar Bilal, Te’von Coney, Micah Dew-Treadway, Tristan Hoge, and Jerry Tillery. All of their bios and video highlights can be found here, which is just a fantastic effort from the folks at und.com.

Thirteen defensive players, ten offensive players (at least one of whom is TRI-LINGUAL), and a magnificent kicker should see the Irish with significant depth at all positions, something Coach Brian Kelly emphasized in his mid-morning interview with a man who always seems to “got it,” the incomparable Mr. Jack Nolan. You can watch that interview here. Coach Kelly’s end-of-the-day presser, scheduled for 3:15 p.m. EST, can be watched here, which is just a fantastic effort from the folks at WatchND.

The day has not been without its losses, too, as QB coach Matt LaFleur has seemingly signed on with the Falcons of the NFL. This lead to cryptic/sad tweets from Irish players, to include Malik Zaire. LaFleur, it should be noted, recruited Brandon Wimbush, so we’ll see.

In any event, it’s been overall a very good day for the Irish. Stay tuned for actual analysis and stuff later today and during the week. In the meantime, bid these young men wilkommen, bienvenue, and welcome.

The post National Signing Day So Far: The Irish at 24 appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Before we get into the numbers, let me identify my sources. To get the records and bowl appearances and scores, I used the archives provided by und.com. To get the recruiting class rank, abbreviated on the table below as “recruit class rank,” I used the rankings as compiled by Rivals at Yahoo! Sports. Here’s what that all looks like in a table:

So, the numbers show that of the ten bowls, the next year’s recruiting class improved six times, declined three times, and was unchanged once. I am not suggesting a cause-and-effect relationship, but maybe there’s something to this notion of momentum that has come to clothe bowl season. In this era of tweets and instagrams, it is likely possible for someone far more savvy than yours truly to cull through the timelines and pages of recruiting classes to come to see if there’s some direct influence.

We know, though, that for the players on the roster, going bowling is a highly-anticipated reward in an otherwise heavily-policed world of NCAA rules compliance. You know they get paid to go, right? Like cash stipends and swag? Think “your” Irish are, or should be, above “all that”? They’re not. And shame on you for framing the issue that way. The Irish were wild about the package put together by the 2013 Pinstripe Bowl. To recruits, and dare I suggest that to recruits volunteering for the rigors of the Notre Dame student-athlete experience the effect is likely enhanced, the probability of playing in premier bowls in premier locations is likely added cherries, or PlayBox 7’s, on the cake. For an idea of what the kids got for Christmas, as it were, this year, check out this article here.

Notre Dame’s academics will continue to challenge the coaching staff on the recruiting trail. We just “lost” Prentice McKinney, a highly-touted safety and member of our 2015 recruiting class, to North Carolina as it became more and more apparent that he just wouldn’t be able to make the whole “student” thing work at ND. On the heels of season in many ways “lost” to academic suspensions that came on the heels of a season, 2013, that saw Everett Golson kicked out for academic reasons, the ability of the Irish to play in bowls year after year, I feel, is critical to our recruiting efforts.

The post So Why Go? The Importance of Going Bowling appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.