Blue & Gold Illustrated: 2020 Notre Dame Football Preview
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1264448
BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED 2020 FOOTBALL PREVIEW ✦ 159 "Our mission is excellence and graduating all of our players and playing for champion- ships," Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly said during the 2019 season. "The schools we're targeting in the state of Georgia have a similar batch of schools that we feel like demographically we can hit, and they match the Notre Dame kind of model that we want from our recruiting base." It is far from surprising to see Clemson offer just 93 five-star prospects. The Tigers may not have the academic standards of Notre Dame, but its football program does attempt to prioritize culture more than just about every other team in the county. But what is amazing is that Clemson still signed the same number of five-star pros- pects as Georgia (19), even while offering 38 fewer such players. This also included seven recruits in the top six of their respective classes, as well as No. 1 overall prospects in quarterback Trevor Lawrence (class of 2018) and defensive lineman Bryan Bresee (class of 2020). Even if a team such as Clemson is offering a similar number of five-stars in comparison to Notre Dame, it is still difficult to reconcile with the notion that the Tigers could tender more if they wanted to. The Fighting Irish simply can't. On the other side of the spectrum, Ala- bama pursued by far the most, offering all but eight five-star recruits over the course of the last five years. This paid off with the Crimson Tide sealing the deal with a five- year high of 22 five-star prospects. This depicts a certain advantage (or maybe "power" is the better word) Alabama has over Notre Dame. The Crimson Tide can pursue almost every elite recruit in the country, and premier players want to join other elite prospects, which often makes the recruiting pitch easier for Alabama. No matter how much Kelly and his staff might want to push back against the admin- istration, it's impossible for the Fighting Irish to recruit in a manner similar to Ala- bama. However, Stanford and Clemson in re- cent years have drawn up a useful blueprint. Not All Offers Are Equal A caveat when discussing scholarship of- fers is that not all are created equal. As most recruitniks know by now, some tenders are committable while others are not. Notre Dame has run into issues with this in the past. In the 2019 recruiting cycle, the Fighting Irish earned a pledge from Thomp- son's Station (Tenn.) Independence wide receiver TJ Sheffield. The coaching staff had offered him, but that didn't mean it was ready to accept his commitment. The staff had other prospects higher on the board and ultimately called Sheffield and told him as much. The three-star prospect ended up signing with Purdue. That means even if Notre Dame techni- cally offered 95 five-star prospects from 2016-20, many of them weren't commit- table, a notion confirmed by a source close to the program. The Fighting Irish offered many of the five-stars early in their sophomore year, only for the coaching staff to realize that academically a large portion would not be admitted into Notre Dame. The purpose of the offer was to engage interest and create an avenue for obtaining the necessary aca- demic information. Reason For Optimism The good news is that three 2021 Fight- ing Irish commits are already in contention for a fifth star: Avon (Ind.) High offensive tackle Blake Fisher, La Mesa (Calif.) He- lix Charter quarterback Tyler Buchner and Pickerington (Ohio) Central wide receiver Lorenzo Styles. Will Notre Dame strike gold and have back-to-back classes with a Rivals five-star signee for the first time since inking at least one in four straight cycles from 2011-14? It seems plausible, and the value of that type of momentum can't be overstated. Per- haps in three or four years, Notre Dame fans will look back on the 2020 recruiting class as the moment when the Irish began to sign five-star prospects on a regular basis and the talent advantage between their favorite team and the likes of Clemson didn't seem so daunting. ✦ Head coach Brian Kelly has inked 10 Rivals five-star recruits since arriving in South Bend in December 2009, including current Fighting Irish fifth-year senior defensive end Daelin Hayes in 2016. PHOTO BY ANDRIS VISOCKIS