Notre Dame is wrapping up one of the most important recruiting weekends in this recruiting cycle this morning. As we all wait for any official news on commitments – or on the reverse any dreaded eliminations – it at least looks like one visitor had a great time. Safety recruit Evan Fields was pretty active on Twitter throughout his trip with several posts about his time in South Bend.
Fields posted the tweet below after wrapping up his visit to Notre Dame. 0
https://twitter.com/Evan4_/status/823213815219294208
Evan Fields is considered to be one of the top recruits on the board remaining for Notre Dame given their need at safety. As an uncommitted recruit, Fields may represent one of the better bets for the Notre Dame coaching staff at the moment as well. Unlike with Russ Yeast (Louisville) or Jordan Genmark-Heath (Cal), Notre Dame isn’t battling for a recruit that is currently committed elsewhere.
Fields’s visit looked like it got off to a good start as well with the following picture showing up on his Tweeter feed shortly after arriving on campus on Friday.
https://twitter.com/Evan4_/status/822501888717373440
Adding Fields to this year’s class would be a great addition given the decommitments of Elijah Hicks and Paulson Adebo in recent weeks. Notre Dame has spots to fill in the secondary and Fields is right atop the staff’s board along with fellow weekend visitors Tre Norwood, Russ Yeast and Jordan Genmark-Heath. Yeast, however, could play either wide receiver or corner.
Ok, now for the bad news. While Fields posted a lot of positive things during his visit, he also posted that he received an offer from Stanford this weekend. Ten years ago that wouldn’t have been a big deal. It’s not ten years ago though and an offer from Stanford has become one of the most dreaded things to see for a top Notre Dame prospects these days. It’s an indication not only of how far the Notre Dame program has fallen off, but also how much Stanford has risen over the last decade.
Notre Dame has been putting in a lot of work here though. Both Mike Elston and Mike Elko have had in-home visits with Fields over the last two weeks before his official visit to Notre Dame this weekend. Perhaps an in-home from Brian Kelly is in order this week to help the Irish close in here.
Evan Fields Announcement Set
Fields is set to announce his decision next Monday, January 30th at 10:30 AM CT and lists his final six as Notre Dame, UCLA, Arizona State, Oregon, TCU, and Kansas State. Arizona State is considered the biggest threat to Notre Dame here although now it remains to be seen if Stanford can make a late push. Look for Notre Dame to keep on Fields a lot this week to try and secure his commitment and eventual signature on Signing Day.
A lot of close losses last year. It seemed every time Kelly chose to do a certain thing, even when it made sense, it ended up being wrong. But the guy can coach and I get the feeling that if you wanted to beat Notre Dame, you better have done it last year because, it’s going to be hard to beat them in 2017. They have a lot of NFL talent returning, get Alize Jones and Shaun Crawford back and will get additional help with one of the best recruiting classes in the country (at least top 15 out of 128).
Fire swarbrick and Kelly and go get a winner
It’s amazing how a 4-8 season can pretty much destroy a recruiting season. I’m sure many recruits throughout the nation have second and even third thoughts about their selection. Compound the fact the ND has made numerous changes in their coaching stable makes it even more difficult for the players. ND has a long hard road ahead of them. Getting back to respectability will be difficult and if Kelly doesn’t come up with a great season meaning at least 10 and 2 or thereabouts. He will be gone! Go Irish!
“he received an offer from Stanford this weekend. Ten years ago that wouldn’t have been a big deal. It’s not ten years ago though and an offer from Stanford has become one of the most dreaded things to see for a top Notre Dame prospects these days. It’s an indication not only of how far the Notre Dame program has fallen off, but also how much Stanford has risen over the last decade.”
—7 of those years Brian Kelly was the main man in charge of the Notre Dame program. Thanks Coach Kelly for an amazing job…Please someone, anyone……. MakeNotreDameGreatAgain
Yes, but also Stanford had Harbaugh and David Shaw. Give BK some credit for having brought the program back from Willingham and Charlie. Are we where we want to be yet (CFP every year)? No, but we’re a D.C. away and he just hired a good one. Have faith!
Faith in BK?! What has he done to inspire faith? One season that doesn’t even officially exist now?
That’s not faith. That’s called blind faith!
BK better hope his assistants save his ass. If they do, then the question is why did it take him so long to turn things over to his staff. Arrogance? Stubbornness? Ignorance? Some combination of the three?
You obviously don’t follow ND football very closely.
Looks like we got Evan. His hair matches His shoes. He will tap dance on the opposition.