What I Learned In My First Year Covering Notre Dame Recruiting

May 1 marks my one-year anniversary covering Notre Dame football recruiting for BlueandGold.com, and it has been quite the ride. I have learned a lot about Fighting Irish football — its fans, recruits and coaching staff — and I wanted to share some of my experiences in this debut year.

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I have covered football recruiting for seven years now. So much of the country is now working remotely, but it’s something I’ve always done. My first beat was covering USF as an unpaid intern for a year when I was fresh out of high school, and then I picked up other gigs within the Rivals network, such as covering Colorado, Louisville, Mississippi State, Oregon State and USC over the span of a few years.

The opportunity to join BlueandGold.com (as well as writing articles for our print publication Blue & Gold Illustrated) was a huge honor for me and one I wanted badly from the outset. I will always greatly appreciate Stu Coman, Bryan Driskell, Lou Somogyi and Ryan Tice for their roles in me joining the team.

Once my job started covering the recruiting beat, it was pretty clear to me that Notre Dame was totally different than the other schools I’ve followed. While there was certainly an uptick of more big-time prospects, it was mainly the quality of the young men I was most impressed with.

I still keep in touch with and am Facebook friends with some of the young men I’ve covered on my previous beats, and I was able to tell the recruiting stories of a lot of great kids. But it didn’t take long for me to realize Notre Dame recruits were simply different.

In doing my first few interviews with Irish targets — whether that be in-person or over the phone — I quickly saw a trend of a similar answer to the question “What are you looking for in a school?” Academics was (and, of course, still is) typically the first thing mentioned by recruits — an answer I didn’t typically receive previously.

While so much of my job is making phone calls with prospects and sitting on the couch with my laptop, getting out and meeting recruits in person, which I’ll get into more in my next point, has been so much fun. Nothing beats that face-to-face interaction.

My first such meeting was with New Canaan (Conn.) High quarterback and 2020 signee Drew Pyne at the Rivals Five-Star Challenge in Atlanta last June. It was a treat, and I was in the room when he and five-star receiver signee Jordan Johnson met for the first time.

At the Under Armor All-America Game practices, I met Pyne’s parents, George and Helene, who blew me away with their kindness. They thanked me so much for my coverage of Drew and were incredibly nice people.

I’ve met Matthews (N.C.) Weddington running back and Notre Dame class of 2021 target Will Shipley twice, and his parents — James and Tammy — took time to meet me before one of Will’s games last September. It was great to see James when I visited Weddington again in December. Will is a tremendous young man, and the apple didn’t fall far from the tree because his parents are as gracious as you will find.

I was able to get breakfast with St. Peters (Mo.) Lutheran of St. Charles’ defensive tackle and Notre Dame class of 2021 pledge Gabriel Rubio and his father, Angel, last October. That single hour was probably my favorite in this job in the past year; I just wish it could’ve been longer, but I had to catch a flight out.

The previous day, Gabriel told me to stop in at his family’s shop, Grandma’s Cookies, but I was short on time as I had to make a trip to De Smet High to meet with the aforementioned Jordan Johnson.

As I was eating my lunch, a young woman with a Grandma’s Cookies t-shirt walked in, and I told her that I heard great things about the cookie shop. It turned out to be Gabriel’s sister, who then came back to bring me more cookies than one person should probably ever eat in a lifetime.

I brought a few back home with me and shared a couple with my wife. “Those cookies were so good,” my wife recalled.

I could go on and on. Athens (Ga.) Academy class of 2021 wide receiver Deion Colzie’s parents, Yolanda and Frank, are awesome people. I spent about an hour with Denton (Texas) Guyer class of 2021 cornerback Deuce Harmon’s father, Deon, in early March. I met Southaven (Miss.) High cornerback and Irish signee Caleb Offord’s parents, Shon and Amelia, last fall.

After Ohio State safety transfer Isaiah Pryor visited Notre Dame for his official in October, I met his father, Richard, for a cup of coffee down here in Atlanta — at 6 a.m.

The point is Notre Dame recruits true student-athletes, and that emphasis is seen through their families and their priorities. Getting to know them has been my favorite part about this job thus far.

To see recruits and their families, I have to hit the road.

I’m based in Atlanta, a hotbed area for Notre Dame recruiting, and have been out to see recruits the Peach State such as tight end pledge Cane Berrong several times and former commit Colzie. During the January contact period, Notre Dame dished out some offers in the Atlanta area, and it’s enjoyable to hop in the car and go and see those prospects at their schools to discuss the Irish and their recruitment.

I’ve enjoyed a couple of visits out to Charlotte to see Shipley and a pair of trips to Richmond to check in on Chris Tyree, followed by driving up to Baltimore to view offensive lineman Landon Tengwall, who has since committed to Penn State.

I flew out to Memphis last September to enjoy some great barbecue, as well as meeting Caleb Offord.

Florida is always a fun trip, and I was able to meet a dozen or so of Notre Dame’s top targets in the 2021 class, including offensive lineman Rocco Spindler, at the Future 50 camp in Orlando, Fla., in late December, which was the same week I saw Pyne, Tyree and Notre Dame long snapper signee Alex Peitsch for the Under Armour All-America Game.

Before coronavirus became a national pandemic, I made a trip out to Dallas to see cornerback target Deuce Harmon and defensive end David Abiara, who committed to the Irish a couple weeks later.

My excursion to St. Louis that I already detailed was an enjoyable one, as was making a trip to Los Angeles a couple months ago for our Rivals Camp, which quarterback commit Tyler Buchner participated in.

Prior to this job, traveling wasn’t something I ever really did, so I am thankful that my company sends me all over the country and that Notre Dame recruits nationally.

My job is to cover Notre Dame recruits, but once they are actually on the roster, that’s not my territory anymore. I still help with various team coverage, and on game days my role is to help moderate our premium message board, Rockne’s Roundtable.

When we hired Patrick Engel as our Notre Dame football and basketball beat writer earlier this spring, I attempted to explain what a game day is like on our message board. I didn’t know how to explain it and told him that it’s just something he’ll have to experience. It’s quite the errr … spectacle.

I love our community at Rockne’s Roundtable at BlueandGold.com. They’re quite the rambunctious group, but they’ve welcomed me with open arms, and I’m so thankful for the lively group of posters we have.

Notre Dame fans have their criticisms of the Irish head coach — some fair and some unfair — and many of them complain about Kelly as a recruiter.

When he is in communication with recruits, he’s fantastic. I’d put him right up there with any coach in college football. The prospects love him, and the high school coaches who meet him are in awe.

Kelly is genuine with the prospects and is very well spoken as well. He can sell the vision of the program and what makes Notre Dame so special and unique.

There is no question that Kelly can recruit with the best of them — but the question is more about how often will he be active in the process. He definitely is right now during this quarantine period, but what about during the season? Or during a (normally scheduled) dead period?

When Kelly spends a lot of time recruiting, it bodes very well for the Notre Dame football program.

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