Notre Dame Covers The Country With Virtual Recruiting Blitz
Notre Dame’s seven-day “virtual recruiting blitz” wrapped up on Friday, as the Irish coaching staff spoke to over 1,000 high school coaches from across the country.
Mid-April to the end of May would typically be a time for the Notre Dame staff to be out on the road recruiting, but with a dead period in place since last March, Brian Kelly’s coaches had to get creative.
Building relationships with high school prospects and their parents is obviously key to the recruiting process, but defensive line coach and recruiting coordinator Mike Elston feels that Notre Dame can be doing a better job building relationships with high school coaches.
“It’s paid off because we’ve had really good classes, but at the end of the day, it’s all about building relationships in the recruiting process,” Elston explained. “Coach Kelly’s charge is to make sure we dig into an area, make phone calls and build those relationships.”
Here’s a look at the Notre Dame assistant coaches and the areas they recruited during the recruiting blitz. The Irish coaches tweeted out most mornings the areas they were recruiting.
Tommy Rees (quarterbacks/offensive coordinator): Chicago, Nebraska, Kansas City
With Rees’ background as Lake Bluff, Ill., native, he’s an ideal fit for Notre Dame recruiting Chicagoland and has done so for the past few years.
Lance Taylor (running backs/run game coordinator): Charlotte, Raleigh/Durham, Alabama, Jacksonville, Mississippi, Arkansas
Taylor is from Alabama and has spent four years of his coaching career in the state of North Carolina.
Del Alexander (wide receivers): Arizona, California, Oregon, Nevada
Other than his current position at Notre Dame and coaching at Wisconsin from 2007-11, Alexander has spent his entire coaching career — which started in 1995 — on the West Coast. He was also born in Los Angeles and played for USC.
John McNulty (tight ends): New Jersey, New York, Philadelphia, Minnesota, Wisconsin, New England
McNulty has coached all over the country, but the Scranton, Pa., native has spent a lot of time in the Northeast including two stops at Rutgers (2004-08, 2018).
Jeff Quinn (offensive line): Michigan, Northeast Ohio, Pennsylvania
Quinn has spent a majority of his coaching career in the Midwest, especially in the state of Michigan. He coached at Grand Valley State from 1989-2003 (all but two of those years were with Brian Kelly) and Central Michigan (with Kelly again).
Mike Elston (defensive line coach/recruiting coordinator/defensive run game coordinator): Washington, D.C., Maryland, Virginia, Austin, Dallas Fort-Worth
The longtime Notre Dame assistant has added Texas to his recruiting duties. Brian Polian had been recruiting the Lone Star State previously.
Marcus Freeman (linebackers/defensive coordinator): Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, Toledo, Detroit
Having the Ohio native and Ohio State graduate not focused on his home state would be foolish. He’s also helping in Detroit with the amount of talent in that city.
Mike Mickens (cornerbacks): Louisiana, South Carolina, Houston
Mickens’ coaching career is still relatively young, so without very strong roots outside the state of Ohio, he’s dipping into other states for the Irish.
Chris O’Leary (safeties): Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Orlando, Tampa, Miami
This is O’Leary’s first full-time position as a division one head coach. O’Leary was in Florida and other various states.
Brian Polian (associate head coach/special teams): Indiana, California, Colorado, Utah, Hawaii
Polian has been a key Notre Dame recruiting on the west coast, and as a longtime Notre Dame assistant, he’s well-known in the Hoosier State.
Virtual Recruiting Map
Based on the information the Irish staff provided on social media, below are pins to the general locations that they were recruiting. (Hawaii not pictured)
Click on the image to enlarge it.
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