Another national signing day is in the books and once again Brian Kelly brought in a superlative class that received a lot of high rankings across the board. ESPNU ranked the class entering the Notre Dame football program as #13, Rivals #12, Scout, 24/7 Sports #13,
-(UND.com,) As listed by group, Notre Dame adds 10 skill players, seven power players, six big skill players and one specialist. As listed by position, Notre Dame adds five defensive backs, five defensive linemen, four wide receivers, three linebackers, two running backs, two offensive linemen, one quarterback, one tight end and one kicker.
UND.com lists out all the new Notre Dame football players, their positions, rankings, and all that stuff.
-WatchND produced an hour-long national signing day special co-hosted by long-time Notre Dame broadcast host Jack Nolan, Jac Collinsworth and Mike Monaco. Yes, that is Cris Collinsworth’s other son. If you’ve saw the Notre Dame football signing day show, or the HBO Real Sports segment on Collinsworth a couple weeks ago, you’ll notice that the similarities between father and son are striking.
A guest on that show today was national recruiting expert Tom Lemming, he was also featured on CBS Sports Network’s signing day special. Here are his rankings
Lemming’s Final Top Ten Recruiting Classes:
1. Alabama
2. USC
3. Florida State
4. Ohio State
5. Clemson
6. Georgia
7. Auburn
8. Notre Dame
9. Tennessee
10. Texas
Lemming on this Notre Dame football recruiting haul:
“Notre Dame really enhanced their front-seven on defense, adding much needed depth after all of their injury problems last year. They also landed a quarterback who could challenge for the starting spot next year.”
He’s probably referring to Brandon Wimbush, from Hackensack, New Jersey. You gotta love the design here on ND’s website. It’s pretty eye-catching.
-Best name in this class: Equanimeous St. Brown
If Key and Peele want to do an East/West College Bowl version four…..
-The BK Lounge (the more informative quotes from Brian Kelly’s presser today)
On getting KeiVarae Russell back…
“I know KeiVarae’s situation is that he’s working on classes right now at the University of Washington. He’s had conversations with the appropriate people to get those classes transferred back here and to meet the needs that he has relative to transfer requirements and meeting eligibility. There’s still some work to be done there but I know he’s working towards getting that done and our expectations are to have him back.
similar situation with Ishaq Williams….
“I think Ishaq has similar kind of criteria. His bar is a little bit more complicated, but he knows what he needs to do, as well. So, you know, we are hoping that both of them can get it done.”
A new destination for the Notre Dame football spring game? Seems like it won’t be at Notre Dame Stadium…
“We’re probably not ready to make a decision on it. We’re probably going to have a spring?? some form of spring game. I think the destination is probably going to be somewhere here on campus. We just don’t know where it’s going to be right now.
Again, it’s one that?? it’s a conversation that we are trying to figure out what the best venue is for us to have it. Obviously the stadium is off?line. We want to keep it on campus but as you could tell, our options are limited and the format has yet to be decided.”
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and writes The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with Fox Sports Digital, eBay, Google News and CBS Interactive Inc. You can read Banks’ feature stories in the Chicago Tribune RedEye newspaper and listen to him on KOZN 1620 The Zone. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)




