“It’s a good fit for me,” Bullard said. “I liked the smaller campus, smaller classrooms and just how prestigious a school they are. Especially with Tennessee, it was a tough decision. I felt like me and Coach (Phillip) Fulmer had a relationship. But at the end of the day, Notre Dame was the best place for me.”
Bullard attended Notre Dame’s spring game in April.
“At first I was going to wait until after football season to decide,” Bullard said, “but this was best for me and my family, and the interest of my team.”
It does amaze me that Charlie Weis has been able to get commitments like this from highly rated prospects right under the nose of “State U” on the heels of last season. This was a huge pickup for the Irish. Bullard is a top line offensive guard prospect and could potentially grow into a tackle with a little more height.
“They see a very athletic young man who plays a major role in three sports,” Kyle said of Fox, who also plays for St. Ignatius’ basketball and track teams. “When he’s able to concentrate on just one sport I think he’ll be 240-245 pounds in the next few years. He was being recruited east coast to west coast.”
Fox is from the same high school that sent John Ryan and Robby Parris to Notre Dame the past few years and is a great addition at LB to go along with Carlo Calabrese.
New Jersey linebacker Carlo Calabrese committed to Notre Dame on Thursday, the fifth commit of the year for the Irish.
For now, here’s a highlight reel from YouTube. I’ll have more later.
Update:Wrote an article on the homepage on Calabrese. This weekend I’ll have a post “the Book On” post here like I did for Cierre Wood and Theo Riddick. I’m also going to try and create a profile for each of these recruits with more stats and info.
Most recruiting experts expected the quarterback in this year’s Notre Dame recruiting class to be Jon Budmayr. Well, on Tuesday, the Illinois native committed to Wisconsin according to Scout.com becoming the second Irish hopeful in the last week to commit elsewhere. Offensive tackle Eric Shrive committed to Penn State at the end of last week.
Badger Nation reports:
Marian Central prep quarterback Jon Budmayr, widely considered one of the best quarterbacks in Illinois and the 55th best quarterback in the nation according to Scout Media, gave his verbal commitment to Wisconsin Tuesday afternoon to play for Wisconsin starting in fall 2009.
Budmayr picked Wisconsin over offers from Arizona, Illinois, Nebraska, Northwestern and Notre Dame.
“Jon’s real excited for this opportunity, as are we,” his father, Rick, said over the phone. “Jon wanted to commit before his senior year and the Badgers were there from day one.”
Tough loss for us since Budmayr seemed like a great fit for the current quarterback situation at Notre Dame. He will need some time to develop at the college level and would have had that luxury at Notre Dame. Nice pickup for the Badgers and tough loss for the Irish.
Eric Shrive was thought to be right at the top of Notre Dame’s recruiting board this year and most considered him a lock for the Irish. Shrive unexpectedly committed to Penn State last week though despite growing up a Notre Dame fan. In an interview with the Altoona Mirror, Shrive talks about picking Penn State despite gorwing up as a ND fan.
It was pretty well known Shrive’s childhood favorite was someone other than the Lions. Someone just as interested in getting Shrive’s signature on a letter-of-intent in February.
“I was actually,’’ Shrive said, “a Notre Dame fan growing up.’’
‘‘I just knew Penn State was the place for me when I established a relationship with the coaches,’’ Shrive said. ‘‘It’s only two hours from my house. They have great facilities.’’
Not only did Shrive grow up a Notre Dame fan, but his father is a Notre Dame fan, and the Scranton area has a big Fighting Irish fan base. Still, Shrive, who visited 10 prospective colleges between last season and this spring and attended the 2007 Notre Dame/Penn State game at Beaver Stadium, didn’t feel pressured to play for his childhood favorite.
‘‘Yes, [this is] at big Notre Dame community, but it’s probably a bigger Penn State community,’’ Shrive said.
I still can’t get my head wrapped around this one. It’s not that he committed elsewhere that really shocks me, its the timing that does. Most thought he would wait until the season started to see how the Irish looked before committing somewhere else. Instead, he committed four months before the season started seemingly out of the blue.
He mentions in the article that he is 100% committed to Penn State, but we’ve heard that before from recruits the past two seasons, so there is always a chance he reconsiders if say Penn State suffers a season as we did a year ago. I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for that to happen though.
West Scranton offensive lineman Eric Shrive, one of the top offensive line prospects in the state, committed to Penn State’s 2009 class Thursday, according to a report in the Scranton Times.
The addition of Shrive is somewhat of a surprise, as most recruiting experts believed Notre Dame was in the the lead for his services.
Shrive is considered one of the best offensive linemen in the country and was thought to be at the top of Notre Dame’s wish list. Tall, athletic tackles like Shrive are hard to come by and are a hot commodity in football as evidenced by the Dolphins taking Jake Long #1 overall in last month’s draft.
What makes matters even more disappointing is that Shrive was considered to be all but a lock for the Irish just a couple months ago.
With Shrive off the board, Weis and staff will most likely have the full court press on Xavier Nixon as their top tackle.
Theo Riddick made it official earlier Wednesday and committed to Notre Dame - giving the Irish four verbal commitments on the season. Here’s some additional information on the Irish’s newest commitment.
According to the Courier News Online running back recruit Theo Riddick is going to pick Notre Dame as his college choice today.
Immaculata High School star running back Theo Riddick is expected to announce Wednesday during a news conference that he will play at Notre Dame University.
Notre Dame picked up a huge commitment early Saturday when five star running back Cierre Wood picked the Fighting Irish over UCLA. Wood is listed as a five star back on both Rivals and Scout and had offers from the likes of Auburn, Cal, Florida, USC, and Oregon among many others.
Notre Dame will have four scholarship running backs for the ‘09 season - James Aldridge, Armando Allen, Robert Hughes, and Jonas Gray - so it’s likely that Wood could be the only running back the Irish take this year. If anything, i would guess that any other back ND pursues would be someone who could play multiple positions.
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