Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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2016 RECRUITING ISSUE "For example, if you have three dif‑ ferent coaches that go to recruit you and you get three different messages, there's some uncertainty as to what you're getting yourself into. But if all three coaches come in and you hear the same thing, you know what you're getting. … That lessens the wavering of a student‑athlete. "Number two is that we vetted out better than we ever have because we were further out on our recruits in terms of time. We had more time with them to make sure that they were kids that would fit here at Notre Dame. I think those two things stood out for me." Kelly appreciated that lack of drama leading up to National Signing Day and quipped that every coach should be able to experience that one time in his career. "There's no drama because I think we did a great job of really getting to know the guys who we were signing," Kelly said. "Knowing why they were coming to Notre Dame and asking the questions: 'Is this the right place for you? We don't want you to commit unless you're totally invested.' "If you want to keep taking visits, go take visits, then you're not committed to Notre Dame. If you're committed, shut down the recruiting process and make a commitment. "We have this word commitment, but I don't know that we hit it hard enough. We hit it pretty hard with those kids, and I think it's served us well on days like today." In addition to not having a decom‑ mitment, the Irish flipped seven play‑ ers that had previously pledged to an‑ other institution. "When we talk about Notre Dame, it either hits their brain or it doesn't," Kelly said. "When we talk about what our distinctions are and we talk about living on campus, and we talk about you don't live in a football dorm and we talk about the spirituality of our campus, if he starts twiddling his fin‑ gers and looking the other way, we're moving on. "When we tell our story about who we are, it's pretty easy to know who that resonates with. If it resonates with them and the family and they under‑ stand it, we're all in. We're going to recruit you. If it doesn't, we're moving on to the next guy." Kelly said the Irish adjusted their approach on the recruiting trail at the beginning of his sixth year at the school. "I think in the recruiting end of things, it's the combination of at‑ tention to detail, not being afraid to hear the word 'no,' and keep plowing through 'nos' early on in this recruit‑ ing process," Kelly said. "There's no area that we're not afraid to get into and afraid to take a shot at in this re‑ cruiting process. "We want to make sure that we're highlighting who we are and our dis‑ tinctions, and using all platforms to reach the student‑athletes that we're talking about recruiting, from Insta‑ gram to Twitter, all platforms not just mailings. "I think that has really been the im‑ petus in terms of us moving quicker and getting into areas that maybe we