Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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2016 RECRUITING ISSUE connect to you real well." But "bubbly" and "funny" might not give Sanford the credit he deserves. The 33-year-old assistant coach studied the NCAA rulebook from cover to cover and did whatever he could within the recruiting rules to get McKinley to sign with the Irish. He lured the top wideout to campus for an unofficial visit in March, and then got him to return for the Irish Invasion in June. He flew to Los Angeles during the team's bye week to watch McKinley play in person and then ran into his mom in mid-December while she was at a work conference in Texas and he was recruiting underclassmen in the area. He also spent one recruiting trip in Hawthorne, Calif., riding along with McKinley's dad in a fire truck. It was a tactic that mirrored when former Notre Dame assistant and now Nevada head coach Brian Polian took weekly 10-hour flights to Hawaii to watch Manti Te'o play every Friday, and one that worked. "What sold me is what they have to offer both ways," McKinley said. "The combination of an early playing opportunity and just what they offer academically with one of the top busi- ness schools, I just felt like it was the best fit for me. … Coach Sanford was definitely stressed about the whole process of me just choosing my school, but it was a lot of relief off of his chest once I committed." McKinley was one of Sanford's first high-profile targets on the West Coast and also a talent that the Irish couldn't afford to pass on following the depar-