Current Notre Dame Recruiting Class of 2012

According to ESPN, Notre Dame and Brian Kelly currently have the 10^th best recruiting class (2013).  If it holds, this will be the third straight top ten finish for Kelly.

Kelly has 16 recruits verbally committed and a ton of offers still on the table.  You never know what will happen right up to National Signing Day and beyond.  Greenberry and Shepard are great examples.  One left Kelly at the altar and the other left school after two months.

Anyway the current 16 are on the left side of the Blog.

Since the class of 2011 is on campus, taking classes and working out, we dropped them off the Blog.

Emerald Isle

Whew.  Almost threw the baby out with the bath water.  Sorting through the junk mail delivered by the nearly bankrupt USPS I was ready to circular file a brown envelope from the Naval Credit Union.  Now how did those morons get my name and address?  Turns out it was our Navy vs. ND tickets!

Wow that would have been a disaster of major proportions.  Something I am quite capable of accomplishing.

It appears we will need personal oxygen tanks for the nose bleed section (504).  Although on the plus side it looks to be around the 30-35 yard line.  Since we got the tickets through the Navy athletic department there is a good chance we will be sitting among the enemy.  Regardless we will be yelling our Guinness induced fool heads off for the Irish.

The problem is my threat to rush the field if Brian Kelly starts Tommy Rees.  The first quarter will have ended before I can make it down to the field.

Well anyway, conventional wisdom indicates that Kelly will accept some freshman mistakes in order to get Everett Golson on the field.  Golson needs to tuck the ball when no one is open instead of trying to thread the needle or hope for the best.  Tommy just does not have the legs to outrun anyone, not even South Bend donut eating cops.

On another note, we have just learned that the entire staff here at Subway Alumni Station will be tailgating and attending the Stanford game.  Should be a good one minus Andrew Luck.  We were originally not planning on attending a game at the Bend this year, however some tickets and even a hang tag fell into our laps.  Who’s to say no to that?

Go Irish bomb the Navy.

Updates on Some Former Notre Dame Players

First off, Head Coach Brian Kelly hosted a BBQ on the patio outside his offices at the Gug for a number of 2013 verbally committed and uncommitted players last weekend.  He reportedly was walking around with no apparent ‘hitch’ from his recent back surgery.  Keep it up coach!

Former defensive end Brandon Newman has joined the Ball State Football Team.  Brandon had a year of eligibility left and was not offered a scholarship to play his fifth year for the Irish.  He played in two games during his career at ND.

Former cornerback Gary Gray was not invited to the NFL spring combine, was not drafted and was not offered a free agent contract.  The Detroit Lions did invite Gary to a tryout during a May mini-camp.  Checking the Lions transaction wire, we did not see any indication of his status.  Gray probably is most remembered for being the ‘goat’ in the Michigan game in 2011.

Checking the wire and Goggling David Ruffer has come up with a blank.  Sometimes a team will bring in a PK just to ‘push’ and stir things up with the incumbent during fall camp.  We’ll keep looking.

If you want to read some wonderful ‘touchy-feely’ interview type articles on former Notre Dame standouts, you got to point and click to the No Coast Bias website.  You can do it HERE.

A great series of posts written by ncblisa .

So far Lisa Kelly has interviewed Oscar McBride, Rick Mirer, Marc Edwards and Adrian Jarrell.  According to Lisa more are in the works and next are Reggie Brooks and Gerome Sapp.

What we get out the interviews is that these players enjoyed tremendous camaraderie, great coaching, wonderful experiences attending Notre Dame and getting a first rate education while playing football on some great Teams.  When their NFL careers petered out or were nonexistent, they relied on degrees from Notre Dame and a highly underrated networking system of former alumni and players to help them adjust to a new life and profession.  Good reads all.

Irish This and That

Well the Notre Dame Freshman football student athlete class of 2012 and hopefully graduating class of 2016 is on-campus.  Orientation, physicals, dorm move-ins, fitness and endurance testing all getting knocked-out and out of the way.  Coach Paul Longo and the weight room will be their primary concerns until summer classes get underway and the 7- on - 7 drills.

You can view the class on the left side of the Blog.  Probably the biggest question mark is Freshman Davone Neal an “All Everything” cornerback and wide receiver out of Scottsdale Arizona.  He’s the kid who postponed signing until a couple of weeks after National Signing Day and then was AWOL from his official media announcement.  He then promptly transferred high schools for the third time in four years.  “Personal” and “Family” issues/reasons were the reported explanation.  Let’s hope he does not become a ‘high maintenance” casualty similar to Aaron Lynch and Tee Shepard.  BTW, Tee is "healthy" and going to play football for Fresno State.

Very little news coming out of the Bend during the “Dead Zone Period” which we all hate. 

Obviously everyone is upset over the surgery to Austin Collinsworth and the distinct possibility that he will be lost for the season due to a shoulder injury in the Blue-Gold Game.  Experience at the already thin defensive backfield positions did not need to get slimmer.  You can refresh your memory on the walking wounded at the left of the Blog.

The fate of Tommy Rees and Carlos Calabrese is still in legal limbo.  Mum’s the word coming out of the Bend although we would be surprised to find them out practicing 7- on -7 with the rest of the Team.

Another football player experiencing “limbo” is WR Devaris Daniels.  Ya know it seems the Irish never enjoy simple distractions do they.  Here is another one.  Daniels got busted for underage drinking in his own house along with 20+ other revelers.  You got to 1, wonder the thinking and 2, where were the parent(s)?

The Brian Kelly back surgery came as a complete surprise.  Yes, he is a pretty secretive guy and all however, he must really have been suffering last year.

Shelly is working on a post concerning our Subway Alumni Station predictions and Laura is watching the wire service for any news we can comment on.  We know posts have been few and far between, that can be good and/or bad.  Stay tuned and check back with us over the summer and the Dead Zone Period.

Jaylon Smith Makes Lucky 13

Future Notre Dame Linebacker Jaylon Smith

Well ND Nation is all Ga Ga over Jaylon Smith, a Rival 5 Star recruit who over the weekend gave a verbal to the Irish and Brian Kelly.  We got his mug shot up over on the left side of the Blog along with Notre Dame's other 12 recruits for 2013.  He had been leaning toward Ohio State and here he is wearing the enemy’s baseball cap. 

Jaylon Smith Wearing One Ugly Baseball Cap

We don’t know if this is a “hard verbal”, “soft verbal”, or a “nod and a crossed-fingers behind the back verbal”.

Here is a little ditty written by somebody named RJD and posted over at the NDNation website Rock’s House Bulletin Board.  Kind of sums up our feelings here at Subway Alumni Station.  You just never know when some of these guys will decide to take the Orange Line and go somewhere else.

Jaylon could change his mind in February
Become a Buckeye instead

Or transfer after the spring game
Summer, winter or fall

Flunk a class
Break his ass

Pass up his senior year
Get arrested for a beer

Recruiting is no fun
Our angst has just begun


Amen brother. 

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