recruiting roundtable

We do an annual recruiting roundtable on BGS, and we'll have this up as a post on the blog soon, but I thought I'd throw it out to the gang here as well.

Pull up a chair and offer up your thoughts.

Biggest Get?

Biggest Miss?

Class Sleeper?

Favorite Recruiting Moment of the Year? (if you have one)

Parting Thoughts?

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Biggest Get: While the easy answer is our Polynesian Superman, our Linebacking Corps was still in pretty good shape before he jumped on board. I would've been perfectly fine with a group of Filer/Neal/Fleming/Smith/McDonald/whoever. Manti Te'o is icing on the cake. No, I'll say that our biggest get was big Tyler Stockton. On top of having one of the more intimidating Stock Photos ever

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he fills an immediate need, and he is already on campus. If we see recruiting as a function of Need x Awesomeness, he is our biggest get by far.

Biggest Miss: That being said, our biggest miss(es) was/were folks like LaLota, Roh, Bonds et al. We needed more big dudes down low, even with the outstanding D-Line haul we brought in last season. Safety is a small worry, but not as pressing.

Class Sleeper: [image] Edwin Johanness (Need to check on those initials...) Banks. He's already an outstanding athlete, if he can really figure out how to play DB, the sky is the limit for him. I trust our coaches to be able to make this happen.

Favorite Recruiting Moment (Non Manti division) [image] Cierre Wood commits to ND. After the craptacular season in 2007, there was literally no reason for a top 25 Offensive Skill Player to commit to ND so early in the process. When he decided to come to South Bend, it gave me hope that somehow, something good would happen in 2008. It didn't, really, but still.

Parting Thoughts A good class. Most definitely some holes here and there, but with the shitshow of 2007, I'm not sure if we could have done much better. This coming recruiting class is already shaping up to be out-freaking-standing, so maybe, just maybe, Charlie will get this ship righted.

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I was at the spring game and there was a serious buzz in the air when people started finding out that Wood had commited. After the game we were waiting on the players to leave the stadium. Talking with a bunch of recruits, Filer, T. Rob, Christ, I even got a picture with Deion Walker (nicest kid you'll ever meet). Then out comes Polian with Wood right behind him. Everyone around him started cheering. As he walked by following Polian the kid had a huge smile on his face, giving people high fives. It was just great. I was pretty pumped at that point.

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The damn season essentially washed that away.

Plus, I was able to fly back to SoCal and "mention" Wood's commitment to some people who said he would never leave Southern California.

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Biggest Get? Te'o

Biggest Miss? Nixon

Class Sleeper? Bullard (if a four-star can be a sleeper; if not, Fox)

Favorite Recruiting Moment of the Year? (if you have one) The Irish Eyes "chat" at the time of Te'o's announcment. One guy simply wrote "I came." Another said he was quitting his job.

Parting Thoughts? ND really can go 11-1 this year. That's not just setting Weis up to fail -- they're better than everyone on the schedule. I hope they run the table and Weis stays at ND until he chooses to retire.

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Biggest get: Just to be contrarian, I will say Tyler Stockton. Why? Well, as Casey Stengel said, "You have to have a catcher because if you don't you're likely to have a lot of passed balls." The recruiting whiffs in the 2005, 206, and 2007 classes left the Irish painfully thin at DL. Even after landing a rising star in Ethan Johnson and the group of Williams/Cwynar/Newman/Lewis-Moore, the Irish still need talented defensive lineman to be the first line of defense in Corwin Brown's 3-4 (ish) scheme. Playing linebackers on the defensive line is only an effective solution against pass-happy and undersized teams, qualifications that Hawaii thanfully met in spades. If Stockton stays healthy and becomes a productive player (and I think highly of him), he might salvage this class's DL grade from an F to a C, so he's the biggest difference making recruit in that sense.

Biggest Miss: I'm done ranting about DL, so I'll just say that Xavier Nixon looks like a future star to me.

Class sleeper: Among recruiting geeks like me, Motta and Bullard are officially "so underrated they are overrated" at this point. With the small class, I don't feel anybody is being lost in the shuffle, so I'll take Jake Golic. Not a no-name, but fairly low-rated, and there's nothing wrong with taking a flyer on a 225 pound kid who can move a little bit.

Best moment: Te'o, the "cardiac kid."

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Biggest Get: Without a doubt, this would be Te'o. He has the potential for instant impact, and I expect him to play in the nieghborhood of 20-25 plays a game this year, more if in the case of injury. Watt or Wood would be number 2; they should both have an impact early.

Biggest Miss: Since our OT depth is such a big deal, missing out on Xavier Nixon will probably be the biggest miss. To bring back an older name, though, missing out on Eric Shrive was a real disappointment. He had some skill and most people thought he was heading to ND. I wonder what happened?

Class Sleeper: My personal favorite from this year's class, Theo Riddick. I think he has all the skills to be a very good RB. While he won't start right away, I think he'll be a top contributor and an NFL player later in his career. As an aside, while nobody is proven yet, who would have thought we'd follow up the Aldridge-Allen-Hughes haul with an even better three?

Favorite Moment: Te'o putting on the hat. I was with a friend, having just told him that Te'o was going to USC. I was never happier to be wrong.

Parting Thoughts: This class reminded me a lot of the 2007 class. Short on size, but long on talent, they made a contribution right away. Hopefully this class will have a similar impact, and next class will be similar to our 08 signees. We already have a good start, with Chris Martin announcing that he's going to look into transferring to another school so he can enroll here early.

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Biggest Get? Teo, Lombard and Martin to start next years class, and our ST's triumvirate. In that order.

Biggest Miss? Nixon and not even getting a sniff from Jenkins when it was all said and done.

Class Sleeper? Riddick. Nobody talks about this guy other than to DCE somewhere other than RB.

Favorite Recruiting Moment of the Year? (if you have one) Landing Teo.

Parting Thoughts? This is a surprisingly good class considering what ND was up against.

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Get- Teo

Miss - Nixon

Sleeper - Tausch

moment - Teo putting on the ND hat

Thoughts - Due to the dissapointing season I think we missed out on a monster class, Starling, Moore, maybe Nixon. I wonder if Swarbrick came out right after the season that Charlie's job was safe, if we might have pulled a couple of more off. I'm not dissapointed in the class, just thinking what if?

We do an annual recruiting roundtable on BGS, and we'll have this up as a post on the blog soon, but I thought I'd throw it out to the gang here as well.

Pull up a chair and offer up your thoughts.

Biggest Get?

Biggest Miss?

Class Sleeper?

Favorite Recruiting Moment of the Year? (if you have one)

Parting Thoughts?

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Get... Manti

Miss... Bonds. We had this guy until Nick Saban brought him to the house for breakfast. He would have made this class a large measure better because of his playing a "need" position. Runner up: Starling, for the reasons stated. I didn't wring my hands on Nixon as much only because we look strong for several OT's in '10, if we but play well on the field.

Sleeper... Zeke is too well regarded, so I'll go with Dan Fox. Another in the unique talent. To echo and expand upon Busco's point, we are building a very diverse talent pool on defense. The kind of defense that can go big, or fast, or big and fast in some cases.

I think last year's D-line haul softens this year's a bit, especially given we are in pole position with many top '10 d-line. Same caveat about playing well.

The Te'o announcement was pretty sweet. I had the IE chat open on one part of my screen watching the scroll of celebration, and live feed of Manti on the other part.

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Biggest Get: I doubt you will see much argument from anyone on this one -- whenever ND can land a consensus top ten type player, especially on hte defensive side, it's a huge deal. Manti Te'o is the kind of defensive playmaker that has eluded us on the recruiting trail for quite a while.

Biggest Miss: Jawanza Starling. As close as we apparently were to getting him, losing him to USC (especially after Pollard's defection) made Safety a main focus next year.

Class Sleeper: Maybe not a traditional sleeper pick, but why is no one talking about Shaquelle Evans? This guy has the tools to be a #1 receiver on almost any team in the country, but there has been surprisingly little talk about him as he was overshadowed by the Te'o chase. Evans would definitely see a large amount playing time as a freshman if we weren't already stocked at WR - I still think he'll get on the field this upcoming season. He's just too talented not to.

Favorite Moment: When I watched Te'o put that ND cap on. What a moment that was.

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I think Tausch, Turk and Cowart are our Biggest Gets. Special Teams has been a huge black hole since Weis got here. Fitzpatrick's injury at the end of '05, Gioia's inconsistency in '06, the lack of any competent kicker in '07 and most of '08...this time Weis is taking it seriously and hopefully these guys don't zonk out.

I think our Biggest Miss was Byron Moore. His decommitment and recommitment to USC was a shame cause I think that we had a chance at him. While we aren't really that thin at D-Back, he would have been a nice get.

The lack of D-Line other than Stockton is also extremely disconcerting. We need DL and we need a lot of them.

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Agree with Joe's post, but as a DB guy (even though it doesn't look like he'll end up a DB), I gotta say, I love me some "Zeke and Destroy" as the sleeper.

I'll be watching with great interest to see how HSmith and Zeke are used throughout their respective careers. It's been stated one million times they are similar players. But which will show the natural instincts to play any of the four positions (SOLB, WOLB, SS, FS) they are being projected to play?

I believe they both will be good players. But either of them could become great if they show they can excel at one of these positions. The sad thing is, due to depth charts and need, sometimes kids aren't played at their best positions.

I'll be keeping an eye on these two guys. I'm a big fan of both.

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"The sad thing is, due to depth charts and need, sometimes kids aren't played at their best positions."

This has been a major issue with the defense, mainly caused by the lack of depth that CW inherited and his own failures stocking the defensive (manly) side of the ball.

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For some reason I picture Harrison as taller and faster, while Zeke is heavier.

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I don't think we'll know much until we see them both at the college level. We've seen Hayseed, but Zeke is still unproven.

The funny thing is (and the point I was trying to make), both of these guys have a strange skill-set, in that they probably can play each of the four positions I listed. Sadly, sometimes due to need and depth, kids play positions that aren't their best positions.

I'm certainly not saying HSmith played out of position this year. For all we know, he was used perfectly and he'll end up there and have a great career. But when you see athletes come in who have the ability to play a number of positions, it's often difficult to look back on his career when he's done and say "that was the position for him."

That being said, kids like this are a Godsend. You're shallow at a certain position? Plug him in. The next year a guy graduates at another position and the kid can fill that role? Plug him in.

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For me, the Biggest Miss is clearly the lack of quality DL signees, not just this year, but over Weis' tenure. It is this gaping black hole of missed recruits that has and will continue to affect this team dramatically.

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the Polo Grounds