It Could Be Worse--A lot Worse
UHND.com - Mike McCarrier
Well, the recruiting season has come to a close. Time for
Notre Dame to reel in another top class right? Not so fast, as Lee Corso would say.
Gone are the days of Notre Dame’s uncontested reign as the recruiting kings. Now
Notre Dame has to battle Stanford and Northwestern for recruits? Hard to believe, but yes,
that is what recruiting is now. It is so serious, that fans are willing to vehemently
criticize recruits for not picking their school. Kevin Jones decided to enroll at Virginia
Tech this fall. You would have thought he pulled down his paints and mooned everyone at
the press conference the way they reacted. Furthermore, Penn State assistants reportedly
were mad with Jones’ decision. Hey, things could be worse for Joe Pa and Penn State.
A think a 5-7 record last year is greater cause for concern.
That brings us back to Notre Dame. Coming off a 41-9 drubbing at the hands of Oregon State and its band of end zone dancing fools is tough. What is even harder to swallow is the amount of difference makers Notre Dame was in on but could not land. Difference makers? Who determines the difference makers? Tom Lemming had Ryan Grant as a four star player but did not put him on any of his top player lists. Allen Wallace, on the other hand rated Grant as his eighth best back, ahead of Lydell Ross and many other difference makers. Rankings are so subjective to say the least. To say that there is a consensus on who is better than who is wishing for too much. There have been many high school recruits who were expected to be nothing more then bench jockeys, but have gone on to have great careers. I can remember thinking that Matt LoVecchio would be nothing more than a back up. You could say I was wrong. He more or less surprised me. I was only surprised because I paid too much attention to the rankings.
Notre Dame fans should sit back and relax a bit. This class has players that not only like the football program, but the school as well. There have been countless recruits in the past that have left school because of other factors (homesickness, academics, social environment). I would rather have a class of players that would stay for four years. Brian Beidatsch impressed me with his confidence. He was asked if the Irish sign Shaun Cody would that affect his decision to stay at Notre Dame. He replied that he believed he could compete with a player of Cody’s caliber. Such an attitude is good to have. If this class brings the wins, we will all forget that the class of 2005 was rated out of the top 10. Now if we could only figure out why 30,000 Nebraska got tickets to the Nebraska-Notre Dame game.