Billboards And Creativity Boosting Notre Dame Recruiting
With a contagious winning culture, sustained success and his impressive player development all firmly in place, Brian Kelly believes that improved recruiting is the final step to hoisting a national championship trophy for the first time since 1988.
And the 12th-year Irish head coach, along with his staff, are leaving nothing to chance in their progressive efforts to make it happen.
Interstate billboards, personalized playing cards, Internet dance jigs and even parking a Notre Dame tractor-trailer outside the home of one perspective recruit are just a few of the creative tactics Notre Dame has used around the country over the years to lure top players to its little campus in northern Indiana.
“We’re gonna try to be the most aggressive, hardest working recruiting staff in the country,” said Marcus Freeman, Notre Dame’s first-year defensive coordinator and tireless recruiter. “I think for us to continue to elevate, and continue to try to be national champions, and be able to close that gap between right now, Alabama, we got to continue to acquire some of the best football players in the country.”
These fresh recruiting approaches are born after a vow from Kelly in December of 2019 to move from a top-15 recruiting outfit each year to a top-five program.
“I’ve changed,” Kelly explained. “We’re going to change the way we do some things that I think will allow us to do that.”
All of ND Nation was left to wonder, at the time, exactly what Kelly was suggesting, and about 18 months later, we’re finding out.
Drawing recruits for on-campus visits will forever be Notre Dame’s best recruiting tool.
But during an extended dead period that has kept high school players off campus for more than a year because of the pandemic, the importance of thinking outside the box to expand its recruiting toolbox became magnified.
And buying billboard space to celebrate current Irish players in their hometowns is one recent example of the Notre Dame recruiting staff thinking smarter and working harder to enhance its national appeal to high school players.
From Tampa and Atlanta in the Southeast, to Pittsburgh in the Northeast, to Indianapolis and Chicago in the Midwest, to Phoenix and Los Angeles out West, these billboards celebrated current Irish players in their hometown areas with a massive mugshot, a Twitter handle, and a simple eight-word message.
“I’m from Atlanta and I chose Notre Dame,” is how the billboard read along congested I-85 with Irish All-American safety Kyle Hamilton’s image.
Senior defensive lineman Kurt Hinish had one in Pittsburgh. Junior tailback Kyren Williams had one in St. Louis. Freshman offensive lineman Blake Fisher had his displayed in Indianapolis.
In all, more than a dozen Irish players were celebrated on these interstate billboards throughout the country.
It’s just another clever ploy to attract prospective recruits from these talent-rich areas that may not have ever given Notre Dame a glance.
Freeman explained that the mission of becoming a top-five recruiting school starts with expanding the candidate pool.
“Guys might not always be dying to come to Notre Dame,” he said. “But if we understand that they’re the right fit, and we do our research, and they can be successful here at Notre Dame, our job is to convince them.”
And that’s where ingenuity and effort come into play.
With the dead period finally set to end and players allowed on campus for official visits beginning June 1, the Irish recruiting staff has moved from a billboard strategy to a reach-out approach to its recruiting.
In an effort to bolster accessibility and familiarity, the Irish recruiting staff contacted at least 1,000 high school football coaches around the country during a seven-day span in early May.
This aggressive push comes as Notre Dame’s summer visit calendar is already loaded with almost exclusively four-star players, along with some five-star prospects, including Zach Rice from Lynchburg (Va.) Liberty Christian, the No. 3 offensive tackle and No. 17 overall prospect in the Rivals rankings.
Correlating Notre Dame’s recruiting creativity with actual dividends is difficult.
But the fact that Fisher and Rocco Spindler from the 2021 recruiting class may become only the second and third Irish offensive linemen ever to start on opening day as true freshmen (Sam Young, 2006) and that the 13-man Irish commitment list for 2022 ranks No. 4 in the country serve as circumstantial evidence that these efforts are working.
Let’s also not forget the immediate impact tight end Michael Mayer, running back Chris Tyree and cornerback Clarence Lewis made as true freshmen last season.
But perhaps most impressively, is that these enhanced recruiting measures have not only helped Notre Dame quickly catch up on the never-ending recruiting trail but also hike around many top schools along the way.
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