From the seedy accommodations the night before to getting bad-mouthed by a rival coach on speakerphone sitting in the living room of a recruit and his mother, the self-proclaimed most memorable home recruiting visit of former Notre Dame head football coach Brian Kelly’s career did have a happily-ever-after.
Five-star defensive end Stephon Tuitt flipped his Georgia Tech commitment that day, late in the 2011 recruiting cycle, and rejoined the Notre Dame recruiting class that he had been a part of earlier in the cycle.
To this day, it stands as the most-significant commitment flip of the combined Kelly/Marcus Freeman Era of Notre Dame football (2010-present). And that’s because of his combined recruiting pedigree, eventual second-team All-America status, draft position and long-term impact on the program’s rise.
And now Freeman hopes to one-up that. At least where the recruiting ranking is concerned.
Five-star defensive tackle Justin Scott, committing to Ohio State on July 2, remains on Notre Dame’s recruiting board. So does Tennessee cornerback commit Kaleb Beasley, who pledged to the Vols on Oct. 21.
How realistic might it be to flip either?
Consider ND’s history of poaching and being poached. Not including the current 2024 cycle or the fledgling 2025 class, the ledger stands at 67 flipping into ND’s fold and 43 decommitments since 2010.
The quality overall has been in ND’s favor as well over time, though each side has only one eventual first-round draft choice — wide receiver Will Fuller, originally a Penn State commit, and decommitted offensive lineman Taylor Decker, who ended up at Ohio State.
Notre Dame has flipped at least two recruits in every class from 2010 through 2023 except in 2020. There were zero in that cycle. That’s also one of only two classes in the Kelly/Freeman Era with zero decommitments. The other was 2016.
The Irish have lost five five-star prospects to decommitment, with 2023 recruits defensive end Keon Keeley (Alabama) and safety Peyton Bowen (Oklahoma) joining 2014 running back Elijah Hood (North Carolina), 2013 linebacker Alex Anzalone (Florida) and 2010 defensive end Chris Martin (Cal).
But they’ve gained six, including Tuitt. The others are outside linebacker Daelin Hayes (USC) — who played defensive end at ND, safety Max Redfield (USC), defensive tackle Eddie Vanderdoes (USC), quarterback Gunner Kiel (LSU) and running back Greg Bryant (Oklahoma).
Scott’s current ranking as the eighth-best player at any position in his class is higher than any of the previous five-stars the Irish flipped.
Getting Tuitt back in the class happened early during the home visit, with Kelly and then-assistant coach Chuck Martin making the trip to Monroe, Ga., about an hour east of Atlanta.
Once Tuitt agreed to come back into the fold, Kelly suggested — and Tuitt’s mother, Tamara Bartlett, insisted — Tuitt call Georgia Tech Paul Johnson before Kelly and Martin left to go back to South Bend.
“Well, [Tuitt] got on the phone and called coach Johnson, and Johnson didn’t know that I was there,” Kelly told me in a 2015 interview. “And [Johnson] goes, ‘You’re going to Notre Dame? [To play for] that guy from Grand Valley State?’
“And we could hear him on the phone. And so he’s tearing us apart. We finally had to interrupt and say, ‘You better let him know that we’re here, ‘cause we’re getting quite angry.’”
And that may not have even been the worst of it.
“Where he lived, there was like one hotel in the whole area,” Kelly said. “And it was like a scene out of [the movie Psycho] — the Bates Motel. I mean I literally stayed at the Bates Motel.
“Let’s put it this way, [defensive coordinator Bob] Diaco wouldn’t even stay at the place. But I did.”
With less color, amusement and drama, here’s the rest of the top 10 flips of the Kelly/Freeman Era. Players still in collage, such as running back Audric Estimé, were excluded from the list as they continued to build their respective college résumés.
2. Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah (Virginia): Only a three-star prospect, but he went on to become the most decorated player among the 67 imports — a unanimous All-American, a Butkus Award winner and key piece in Notre Dame’s 2020 College Football Playoff run.
Then newly hired defensive coordinator Mike Elko and linebackers coach Clark Lea re-engaged with Owusu-Koramoah, whom they’d been recruiting while coaching at Wake Forest. The Irish needed numbers in a class depleted by six decommitments, and Lea and Elko felt Owusu-Koramoah would be the perfect fit for the rover position they were introducing into the Irish defensive scheme.
He verbally committed on national signing day in 2017, back when prospects still signed in February. Notre Dame staged a clumsily performed phone call during the signing day press conference in which Owusu-Koramoah nearly hung up because Kelly let the phone ring too long before answering.
Owusu-Koramoah went on to be selected in the second round of the 2021 NFL Draft by Cleveland.
3. Will Fuller (Penn State): Had Fuller stayed all four years, he likely would have broken most of Michael Floyd’s still-standing school career receiving records.
Instead he came out after the 2015 season, his junior year, and became a first-round draft pick of the Houston Texans, 21st overall. He also earned second-team All-America honors from the Associated Press.
He would have likely been on a College Football Playoff team (2015) had Notre Dame had a competent defensive coordinator at the time (Brian VanGorder was fired four games into the next season).
4. Ian Book (Washington State): A three-star prospect who went on to set the Notre Dame record for quarterback wins (30) and was the starter on both of Notre Dame’s playoff teams (2018 and 2020) makes the argument that perhaps he should be higher in the list.
His performances in those playoff games, his limitations in the deep passing game and his ordinary pass-efficiency numbers make the argument against it. But Notre Dame was certainly better off for the long term for the eventual fourth-round draft pick having picked the Irish rather than landing at Washington State.
5. Drue Tranquill (Purdue): Another three-star prospect, this one overcoming two ACL tears 10 months apart early in his career and Brian VanGorder as his defensive coordinator for the first 30 games of his time at ND.
VanGorder’s replacement, Mike Elko, moved Tranquill from safety to become ND’s first player to play the rover position, and he starred there. Then in 2018, new defensive coordinator Clark Lea moved Tranquill to inside linebacker, where he evolved into a fourth-round draft pick (Chargers) and a key cog in ND’s 2018 College Football Playoff run.
But it went deeper than that. When Kelly was asked about the player who most impacted ND’s cultural shift following a 4-8 season in 2016 and Kelly’s own offseason coaching makeover, Tranquill was the player Kelly said “changed everything”.
6. Louis Nix III (Miami): Nix was under such pressure to first commit to the Hurricanes and then stay committed, he said, from the coaching staff at Jacksonville (Fla.) Raines, he kept his silent commitment to outgoing coach Charlie Weis at Notre Dame a secret for weeks from almost everyone.
Once Weis was fired and before Kelly replaced him, Nix revealed his flip into the Irish class. Linebacker Manti Te’o deservedly was the Heisman Trophy runner-up Nix’s junior year (2012), but the Irish don’t ascend to the No. 1 spot in the polls that season and play for the national title without both Tuitt and Nix playing major roles on that Irish defense.
7. Jarrett Patterson (Arizona State): A three-star prospect who became a four-year starter, a multi-year captain and an All-American at two different positions — at center in Kelly’s final season at ND (2021) and unselfishly at offensive guard in Freeman’s first as head coach (2022).
Another cultural beacon, Patterson was a sixth-round pick of the Houston Texans this past spring. He did not give up a sack during his Notre Dame career.
8. Nick Martin (Kentucky): A three-star prospect who came in as a tackle and became one of the better centers at a school that’s produced a bunch of them. The younger brother of Notre Dame perennial All-Pro guard Zack Martin, was the final puzzle piece on a 2015 offensive line that included three eventual first-round draft picks — Ronnie Stanley, Mike McGlinchey and Quenton Nelson. Nick Martin went on to become a second-rounder.
Again malpractice on defense kept Notre Dame from making its College Football Playoff debut in 2015.
9. Khalid Kareem (Alabama): A four-star prospect and the only one of the 67 imports who turned away an Alabama commitment, Kareem was one of three edge players who flipped into the 2016 class (with seven flips in that class overall), and you could almost group them together. The other two, five-star Daelin Hayes (USC) and three-star Ade Ogundeji (Western Michigan), also played their high school ball in Michigan and became best of friends, working out between semesters and on long weekends off with Kareem’s father, Ken Kareem.
All three impacted ND’s 2018 playoff run, with Kareem the most productive that season. Hayes and Ogundeji were key pieces on the 2020 playoff team’s defense, after Kareem had gone to the NFL. All three were drafted in the fourth or fifth rounds.
10. Everett Golson (North Carolina): The sixth three-star prospect on this list, and probably the one that will elicit the most pushback. But Golson was significant in becoming Kelly’s first QB signee in his first full recruiting cycle at ND (2011).
And beating out two former starters, Dayne Crist and Tommy Rees, was significant in pushing forward the dual-threat skill set Kelly felt was essential for the program to climb. Notre Dame’s 2012 national title game run was defense-driven, but Golson — with some tag-team help from Rees — played well enough for the Irish to reach the title game.
An academic suspension in 2013 followed by a regression in 2014 followed by a transfer to Florida State ahead of the 2015 season ended Golson’s Irish career with a whimper and a shoulder shrug.
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