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Along with Osborne and Walton from the last class, would be a really, really nice RB room.

note that this kid's highlights are exactly what I want to see from our recruits. I have seen highlight videos from guys we've recruited where it isn't obvious which kid on the field is the ND-quality recruit. With Rogers, it's pretty freeking clear. And then he does to his competition what I'd expect a ND-caliber recruit to do to the competition. Especially in Massachusetts.

I have no idea if he's better or worse than Whisenton or anything like that. And if Whisenton is on par with this dude, then we have definitely reloaded our RB position at the level to which we have been accustomed. And that's a very good thing.

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"It's our blood and bones and these whistles and phones against Miller's and Noem's dirty lies."

Not saying he was top of board for them, but he was a priority recruit.

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Justin Thurman from Florida and Daniel Anderson from Arkansas. Those were both probably bad takes, and they were rectified. It should be mentioned that, for all of his strengths as a coach, McCullough was not as good of a recruiter as Seider is. And of course, our program has taken the next step in terms of recruiting prowess. That's why I think that this take is MUCH less like Irvin or Thurman or Anderson and much more like Price. And I wouldn't be surprised if he ends the cycle as a consensus top-100 prospect like Love was.

People loved his athleticism and perceived him as a home run threat type of guy. As you say, he greatly improved his twitchiness in small spaces throughout his career. I would not say he was thought of as a Chris Berman "whoop!" style runner until his sophomore year.

RB coaches to take early reaches at RB. Irvin was one. I swear there was another.

I'm totally fine taking this kid. I think he looks like a good prospect. As I said elsewhere, I view him as a guy who maintains our very strong roster. And that's a very good thing. I'm just trying (badly, perhaps) to say I'm a little surprised we got a RB who only maintains our very good status quo, in light of Love and Price. Nobody is talking about this kid like he's the next Reggie Bush or Sony Michel or whatever.

over Seider's? Given others we're currently involved with, ND wouldn't push for and take the commitment if they didn't consider him a top-5 back in this class. Freeman doesn't do low-hanging fruit like Kelly did.

Whistenton has scored over 40 TDs in Texas prep over the past two years and posted a 10.5 100. If fans wanted a potential HR hitter in the backfield to ultimately backfill the loss of Love & Price, they got one here.

thought early on he might end up at WR.

But it wasn't clear whether he was a great "running back" vs. a great athlete/track star.

In all honesty, I think that debate was continuing even as recently as this past fall (when some of us were talking about whether Price was a better all-around back than Love).

Not 100% sure when it became clear that he was something different. There were a few flashes his freshman year, but he never really had a chance to open up the engine until his second season.

I don't think J. Love coming out of HS was viewed as a 'hold your breath' back whenever he touched the ball.

IIRC, he was like 185, but he appeared more physical than elusive. He had track speed but he didn't have either the explosion or decisivemess as a runner that he later developed.

Am I wrong in my recollections?

- Recruiting Rankings
- Offers
- ND coaches’ private evaluations

I, at this point, am going to give option 3 the highest weighting. ND just put 2 outstanding talents in to the NFL. MF gets the nod until proven otherwise. Seriously, only ND’s coaches really have an insight if this kid will buy in to their asks and fit with the rest of the team’s talent. Only ND’s coaches have a feel for if this kid is going to show up, be a good kid and get the work done. If ND likes him, that’s good enough for me.

So, I think its awesome. ND’s coaches might get another speed threat at RB. LFG!

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is the money we are going to save on Thompson's Water Seal.

I tend to focus more on shuttle/40 times for RBs, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with a chap who can put the pedal down after 10 yards and scoot away.

from a credentials and talent standpoint isn’t the three guys you listed but rather Jadarian Price. And I think that’s plenty good enough considering he would probably be a first round pick if he didn’t have to share the backfield with maybe the best RB in school history.

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the class. And I agree that his overall resume is very strong. But based on his credentials, he seems like another Williams, Kedron Young, or Nolan James. And that's great. Those guys are all on track to be quality starting-ish players for us. I haven't heard anybody argue that "The Whis Palace" is neck-and-neck with Spell to be regarded as the top back in the class. Or that we stole a top choice away from Texas or OSU.

But I have a long track record over the years of being skeptical about spring rankings and ratings and also of trusting staff evaluations (especially this staff). And I'll stand on both those things. The strength of our roster means that it is increasingly difficult to add guys who appear to move the talent needle on paper. All I'm saying is that we don't seem to have done that here. We've bolstered our current position which is really really good.

as being one of the best RB coaches/developers in the game and in ND history. And yet his RB recruiting and offers were puzzling to put it mildly.

I guess Deland conditioned me to worry more about how the sausage tastes as opposed to how it's made (ie. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

FWIW. I was joking.

is warranted. As mentioned by others, looking at what other teams have offered seems to be far more predictive of a recruit's true upside.

Was just offering up an anecdote if folks were caught up with star ranking.

I mean, Jamie's comp for him is Omarion Hampton. He absolutely is talented enough to be the lead back in this class.

We're complaining about a recruit who was ardently pursued by the three football powers in perhaps the greatest state for football talent in the nation? Because of his 247 ranking? It's nice and neat when rankings and offers converge, but when they don't, always go with the offers.

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Freeman's got so much riz they need to call him Aura Parseghian

But the dude seems like the type who could turn into a gamebreaker with his speed. And if he's the #2 back in this class, I think that's fine.

To answer your question below - he's absolutely not on the same level as the DL recruits we're chasing. At least not now anyway.

Ohio State
Offered

Oregon
Offered

Florida State
Offered

Michigan
Offered

recruits we are chasing?

In 2021, we accepted the commitment of Sedrick Irvin Jr., a pretty good pick up with good bloodlines. This allowed ND a season to monitor his progress and the prevailing RB landscape.

In 2022, Irvin decommitted and we landed some dude named Jeremiyah Love.

Not saying that's the case here, but it can be good to lock in a talent player at the floor level.

I am not giving the rankings the time of day.

Seider and Marcus like him so that works for me.

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and these rankings are fluid.

IMO. Whisenton has enough peer offers to assuage any feeling of settling. He had offers from Texas, A&M (Tech, Baylor & SMU), Oklahoma, Oregon and Florida.

Finally Seider's rep & track record buys him some runway with me.

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the top two RBs into the NFL draft, isn't it a little disappointing that our first RB commit is from a guy ranked 19th at his position and without a national list of elite offers?

low hanging fruit ranking and "settling".

[arms folded]

https://247sports.com/player/lathan-whisenton-46142921/

Recent visitor, good testing/track numbers.

Florida, Texas, SMU were in the running as well.