Nyshier Oliver made a weekend visit to Tennessee and on Tuesday he committed to the Vols – the team he originally committed to before switching his pledge to Notre Dame.
Considering Oliver visited this late in the game, it isn’t surprising that he switched to Tennessee, but I did find this passage from GoVolsExtra a little bit interesting.
Oliver said he will have an opportunity to play defensive back for the Vols. He said Notre Dame was recruiting him to play on offense.
“I didn’t have any intentions of going there for the slot receiver position,” Oliver said. “I wanted to be a cornerback or defensive back.”
If he had “no intentions” of being a slot wide receiver, why commit to Notre Dame in the first place? Earlier in the recruiting process Oliver seemed to be very excited about the chance to play in Notre Dame’s offense and being a Golden Tate type of playmaker. A few months later he had “no intentions” of playing wide receiver?
The loss leaves Notre Dame with just Shaquelle Evans and possibly Tyler Eifert at wide receiver. Eifert will very likely grow into a tight end at 6’5″, 217 lbs already.
Luckily for Notre Dame, junior 4 star WR Daniel Smith has already committed for next year and the Irish have plenty of very talented wide receiver prospects who are very high on Notre Dame at this point. Kyle Prater, Corey Cooper, and Justin McCray are three potentially elite WR prospects Notre Dame is already actively pursuing.
It always stings to lose a recruit this late in the process though – especially one that had been committed for as long as Oliver was.
roberto, this is normal for all schools. there are decommits everywhere this year more so it seems(correct me if i’m mistaken). remember all these kids are still young and having the world thrown at them.
Has any one else noted a disturbing trend during the Weis era? Namely, the late-recruiting season poaching of our commitments? What is the ND staff doing or not doing that is allowing for this? Is Weis aware this has even become an alarming trend? This class, barring a minor miracle, will not finish in the top 15!
…his scholarship offer was pulled by the Notre Dame coaching staff. His situation is totally seperate from Marlon Pollard’s in that Pollard was open with the ND staff about his intentions to officially visit UCLA. Oliver didn’t extend Weis the same courtesy (Weis found out about the visit through the grapevine), and subsequently had his Irish offer pulled.
We seperated from Oliver, not the other way around.