Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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4 OCT. 31, 2020 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED V ery much unprompted, Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly cryptically opened a window shortly before the Camping World Bowl last December into how some changes were coming in the way he and his staff would approach recruiting. "We want to break out of the 15th-ranked or the 10th-ranked class," Kelly said, "and we want to get into that next echelon." Without sharing any specifics, Kelly said there were some strat- egy tweaks "in the works" that would "change our view as it re- lates to nationally recruiting." Kelly has previously — and per- haps regrettably — admitted that his recruiting rankings hold a cozy niche that falls between No. 10 and No. 20 each year. "We're going to fall somewhere in that range," Kelly said on sign- ing day 2017 after Rivals ranked that Irish class at No. 13, "because there's a line there we can't get over based upon what our distinc- tions are here." Those "distinctions" — academic requirements, a seasonal climate, dorm-room living — haven't and won't change. And partly because of that, the 2013 class (No. 3) is the only one of Kelly's 11 recruiting hauls that Rivals rated in the top 10. Meanwhile, recruiting's Fab Five — Ohio State, Clemson, Alabama, Georgia and LSU — in four of the last five cycles on the trail have combined to attract more top-50 prospects than the rest of the other 125 Football Bowl Subdivision programs combined. So, how exactly does Kelly — whose program is 37-6 over the last three- plus seasons — get out of the teens, "break through that recruiting thresh- old" and "get into that next echelon?" Before COVID-19 interrupted re- cruiting travel in March, the answers were showing more in Kelly's deeds than in his words. Fair or not, the knock on Kelly as a recruiter has been detachment, an unwillingness to get his hands dirty, typically opening and closing recruit- ments but doing little in between. Wide receiver Jalen McMillan (Washington) and safety Lathan Ransom (Ohio State) — a couple of four-star top-100 players Notre Dame narrowly missed out on in the 2020 class — both explained to Carter Karels of The South Bend Tribune that Kelly's absence in the recruiting pro- cess drove them elsewhere. "With Coach Kelly, he never texted me," McMillan explained. "He didn't text my mom, my dad. So I didn't feel like we had a relationship for me to actually want to go there." To Kelly's defense, until an early December signing period was imple- mented in 2017, the Irish coach said much of his recruiting effort in the weeks leading up to the traditional February National Signing Day was spent protecting against poachers for an active class rather than building future ones. Each of Notre Dame's previous two recruiting classes in 2019 and 2020 were gathered, signed and de- livered in December, providing Kelly more freedom to visit the '21s and '22s rather than "babysit" the '20s. Kelly outlined the benefits of the early signing period to Rivals recruit- ing analyst and podcast host Woody Wommack on "NSD LIVE." "I can direct it more, and I can be more actively involved in position- ally recruiting," Kelly said. "I can get to know each one and estab- lish and start to build relationships with each one of them." Last January, Kelly completed a recruiting pilgrimage that landed him in at least eight different states, including Michigan to visit four-star offensive lineman Rocco Spindler — the No. 59 player in the country — who ultimately com- mitted to Kelly and Notre Dame. COVID-19 protocols suspended all recruiting travel through much of the spring and summer, but up until then and moving forward, the Irish staff believes that beyond closer involvement with prospects earlier involvement will also help boost recruiting success. Scouting and identifying "fit- able" five-star prospects back to when they're high school sopho- mores — and even freshmen — and then not waiting to extend scholarship offers appears to be another philosophy the Notre Dame recruiting team is increasingly imple- menting, evidenced by an early flood of offers to the 2022 recruits. The recruitment of 2019 five-star safety Kyle Hamilton from Marist School — a small, private prepara- tory academy near Atlanta — is the formula Notre Dame hopes to follow more frequently to landing recruiting royalty: identify legit fit, offer them early, stay in constant contact. Believing that a couple of strategy tweaks by Kelly and Co. will magically pull Notre Dame into the Fab Five bub- ble of recruiting success is misguided. But through earlier detection, quicker offers and more coddling, perhaps the Irish can move from a perennial top-20 outfit into the top 10. Entering the last week of October, Rivals ranked Kelly's 19-man 2021 class No. 11 in the country and his three-man start to the 2022 group No. 8, so perhaps the early returns to Kelly's more present recruiting are already showing. ✦ Will Changed Recruiting Strategy Reap Rewards? UPON FURTHER REVIEW TODD D. BURLAGE Todd D. Burlage has been a writer for Blue & Gold Illustrated since July 2005. He can be reached at tburlage@blueandgold.com Linebacker Jaylon Smith, now with the Dallas Cowboys, was the headliner of Notre Dame's No. 3-ranked recruiting class in 2013. The Irish are working to break through into the upper echelon of national recruiting again. PHOTO BY JAMES D. SMITH / COURTESY DALLAS COWBOYS