Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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2015 RECRUITING ISSUE luminaries. That ultimately helped lead to the hiring of Crusaders head coach Gerry Faust, who built Moeller into the na‑ tion's preeminent high school football program, to the same position at Notre Dame (1981‑85). Like Notre Dame, though, Moeller had been in a football drought, and it took 27 seasons from 1985 before it won another state title in 2012, Taylor's sophomore year when he broke into the starting rotation. A year later, Moeller repeated. So when Taylor enrolls at Notre Dame this year, it too will mark 27 years since the Irish won their 11th con‑ sensus national title. The most recent Moeller products to suit up for the Fighting Irish were quar‑ terbacks Andrew Hendrix (2010‑13) and former walk‑on Charlie Fiessinger (2011‑14) — both of whom played for head coach John Rodenberg, who in his seven seasons has returned the Crusad‑ ers to powerhouse status. Part of it includes an intense weight training program that begins in junior high and has four sessions a week dur‑ ing the offseason and twice a week dur‑ ing the season. Taylor has excelled in that setting and will enroll as a smaller version of Louis Nix III (2010‑13). His role will be to occupy blockers and help anchor the middle of the line. "What really made him recruitable was his junior year," Rodenberg said. "He didn't have to play with all the muscle — he played with more tech‑ nique and his career took off. He's going to be a 300‑pound‑plus kid, a prototype 310‑ 320‑pound one‑ or three‑ technique." Taylor's main objective at Notre Dame