Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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FAN FORUM NOTRE DAME & ELITE RECRUITING I want to congratulate both Lou So- mogyi and Andrew Owens for very fine and balanced articles in the Febru- ary BGI summarizing the 2015 season and state of the program. I have come around to conclude that Brian Kelly is a fine coach, and I can- not think of anyone better off the top of my head, and who is a realistic op- tion, who could do a better job than he has done. To paraphrase a saying Lou Holtz often used: "We're not where we'd like to be, we're not where we should be, we're not where we have to be, but thank God we are not where we used to be." As I look at the program as an out- sider, the one area that I think needs a little more attention is recruiting. From what I read and hear, what separates the Nick Sabans, Urban Meyers and Pete Carrolls (when at USC) is that they have a voracious and almost ma- niacal capacity to recruit. It seems as if Notre Dame fills its bucket up early with three-star kids in the hope of developing them by the time they are upperclassmen, but I'm not sure this is the best approach when you are trying to be a national cham- pion. Notre Dame has not won a major bowl since 1994 and is 0-7 in those games. But of those seven games, in which ones did you feel Notre Dame had the better talent? They were prob- ably underdogs in every one of them. As someone famously once said, "The battle does not always go to the strongest and swiftest, but that's the smart way to bet." I understand the wide moat compet- itive advantage that Notre Dame used to enjoy in recruiting has narrowed for reasons already thoroughly dis- cussed in this publication and online: academic restrictions, weather, TV ex- posure for everyone, et. al, but I still believe that if you are going to dare to be great, you have to go after the type BE HEARD! Send your letters to: Letters Blue & Gold Illustrated P. O. Box 1007 Notre Dame, IN 46556 or e-mail to: lsomogyi@blueandgold.com Defensive coordinator Brian VanGorder's unit fea- tured a talented front seven, but it still finished the 2015 season ranked 45th in total defense, 75th in sacks and 109th in turnovers forced. PHOTO BY JOE RAYMOND