Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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FOOTBALL RECRUITING From there, though, Notre Dame missed out on its remaining prospects: • Louisiana cornerback Terrence Al- exander had it narrowed to the Irish and Stanford, and opted for the Car- dinal. • Like Cage, Louisiana defensive tackle Courtney Garnett was recruited late by Notre Dame, but he was still in- trigued enough to take an official visit to Notre Dame the weekend of Jan. 31 — the day after he issued a verbal pledge to Oklahoma. In the end, he still signed with the Sooners. • California wideout Michiah Quick also had it narrowed down to Okla- homa and Notre Dame, and chose the former that afternoon. • Finally, five-star California safety/ receiver John "JuJu" Smith, although impressed by Notre Dame enough to admit he was torn by his decision, opted to stay near home by selecting the USC Trojans. There is almost an unwritten rule that the closer it gets to National Sign- ing Day, the easier it is for a prospect to not select Notre Dame — because with Notre Dame if you have to think too much, it's probably not the school for you. "We took a couple of swings at some guys, and if we hit a couple of home runs, great," Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly said. "This class was set months ago, the base of this class, the core of this class. We had to scramble on maybe a D-lineman or two here or there because of need, but we had our core. "We knew the guys we were look- ing for, and we had a connection with those guys. That's how we'll continue to recruit." CASTING A WIDER NET One area where Brian Kelly ac- knowledged he and the staff had to change their thinking was along the defensive line, which became a "scramble" over the final month. They invested a lot this year in five- star prospects Matt Elam of Kentucky (Kentucky) and Thomas Holley of New York (Florida) … before realizing they were in dire need at tackle. Once January arrived, the Irish began recruiting about a half-dozen other defensive tackles, some of whom had already given a verbal commit- ment to other schools, including Mi- chael Sawyers (who decommitted from Vanderbilt and signed with Ten- nessee) and Peter Mokwuah (Rutgers commitment). The Irish did wind up with Mokwuah and Ohio's Daniel Cage, and Kelly admitted one is never too old to learn. "I just was a little too narrow fo- cused on where we were with our defensive line … I needed to change my view of how we recruited defen- sive linemen and open it up a little bit more," Kelly said. "It was strictly a decision that I needed to make. "We did it a little late, and we were very fortunate we were able to get two very quality defensive linemen late in the cycle here, but we've made that adjustment in our profile." Especially important was recruiting someone who was more than a one- gap player because of a tackle's need to play in both 3-4 and 4-3 alignments.