Brian Polian Notebook | Early Signing Period

Notre Dame recruiting coordinator Brian Polian spoke on Wednesday as the Irish signed 24 prospects earlier in the day. 

On this recruiting cycle:
"There's certainly a lot of people that that take part in this process that, that we need to thank, especially in a year that was so unique like this one was. Our recruiting staff with Aaryn, Jas, Matt, Sydney and Riley, our player personnel with Dave Peloquin and Bill Rees, and the admissions office. The job that they had to do this year, not only is it related to recruiting, but just in admissions in general, in a year when standardized testing was a challenge. 

"We had certain schools going pass-fail, we had others go all virtual, some hybrid, so the job that they had to do this year was such a challenge, and we're so grateful for their partnership. I do want to mention our partners at FIM and frankly, other coaches on the campus. When we all kind of figured out collectively that this year was going to be like any other in recruiting, there was a lot of working in conjunction to kind of bat ideas around. The creation of that virtual visit for us was a really, really big deal and that thing was built from scratch, and there were a lot of partnerships throughout the course of campus that helped us put the thing together."

On challenges of the cycle: 
"I'm sure Coach talked a lot about how unique this whole cycle was. It was an incredibly challenging cycle and it will continue to be for the 22's, because we lost all of those evaluation opportunities in the spring and in summer camp. Having to tell our story virtually, having to try and connect through the use of zoom and FaceTime, and when the NCAA made phone calls with this group unlimited, that did help in a sense, but this no doubt was a challenge.

“Coaches were phenomenal. Coach Kelly was phenomenal with his availability to us day in and day out. There were a lot of people that played a role in what we feel is a really good class, a class that we're very proud of. My wife made me promise that I would say thank you to her publicly because she heard the excellent presentation about 80 times from March through the summer here from our kitchen table. Everybody's families had to adjust. We'd be giving virtual visits and a dog would run through in the background, or a child would come running up. Coach Lea did a lot of these meetings with baby Jack sleeping on his chest. In that sense, it took adjustment from everybody."

On what’s next and the class:
"24 in the class currently, I believe coach mentioned that we are not done. There's possible additions here in the next 48 hours and there are possible additions at the February date. We are still fluid right now. We really felt like we addressed some needs. Offensive line, five players, three tackles, two guards. The defensive back room, obviously, we're a little light on the model and we're going to graduate some players. Defensive line, we needed some ends and we felt like we addressed that. Then obviously three wide receivers that we feel really strongly about. It's a shame that we cannot go through guy by guy, but I can tell you, as a staff, we're very grateful for every signee in this class. We're grateful for every family, their flexibility, all the things that we have to deal with this group.

“It's worth mentioning Blake Fisher, the Mayor, running the chat between all the commits. For example, the job that they did when Prince Kollie was a little bit thrown for a loop there by coach Lea's departure to Vanderbilt. The way they were, the way they revolved around him for a couple days and helped calm him down and be there for him and provide support as he was working through a change there. Like we said, there were a lot of challenges as we put this class together, but as a department, the support staff, the coaches, coach Kelly's leadership, I think we're very, very proud of that of the group and excited about it."

On Clark Lea’s departure:
"I speak for the staff when I tell you that the entire coaching staff is absolutely thrilled for Coach Lea and his family. He's getting a chance to go home and be a head coach in the power five, so we're thrilled for him. I would have preferred that it announced 48 hours later, but that's the world that we live in. 

"Were there some anxious moments? We identified two or three players that we knew had very, very strong personal connections with Coach Lea. We were very proactive about, 'Hey, coach Lea's done a phenomenal job and he's going to be a candidate here at some point,' and especially when Vanderbilt opened, it was kind of easy to picture that. When it became official and we had announced it to our own team, we got on the phone with every commit on defense. 'Are you okay? What are you concerned about, especially guys that expressed to us a little bit of hesitation. We got them on the phone immediately with Coach Kelly.

“I think collectively as a staff, we handled it well. Again, we're thrilled for Coach Lea, but from coach Kelly on down through the rest of the staff, I think we managed it fine and we ended up with with all the guys that we're counting on and we're blessed to have them and I think they're comfortable with where things are at right now."

On potential of adding from Transfer Portal:
"Some of that is determined by need, some of it's determined by, do we have scholarships available, but we are always looking. When you look to Skowronek and Nick McCloud, it's hard to say that those weren't good decisions. Those guys have been terrific teammates and very productive players. We will never make a living in the grad transfer market, but we'll always be open to it. If we have space and can find a fit that addresses a need for us, then we'll look at it."

On Bill Rees as an evaluator:
"I think what Bill gives us is a very patient and discerning set of eyes. There are recruits that you can look at 50 plays off of a highlight and you can look at numbers and say, 'Okay, this guy's clearly an A-list player. There's no doubt.' But player development here and our ability to take the Drue Tranquill's and the Chase Claypool's of the world and develop them and help them become frontline players, those guys are incredibly important to our success. Those are the guys that Bill Rees has the ability to dive deep on. 'Hey Bill, we watched about 50 plays on this guy on a Friday during the season, but we got to go get ready to play a game now. Can you watch three or four games and share with us your thoughts?'

“There are times that Bill will put together what we call a point of attack tape, which is not a highlight film. It's the good, the bad and the ugly. In those, his input, those notes, those POA films, they go a long way in helping us make decisions with guys that may not be obvious off of a 50 play highlight tape or off of a combine performance. Bill's got the time in some cases and certainly the patience and the discerning eyes to help us on those guys and it's incredibly important. Anybody can look at Kyle Hamilton's tape and say that guy's an elite power five player, or will be an elite, power five player. It's Drew White, it's Marist Liufau, it's those guys that were maybe not household names. They're developing into frontline starters and we have to make educated decisions there and Bill helps us collect that information."

On underrated signees:
"This is subjective. This is my opinion, I love JoJo Johnson. I know he's not prototypical height, but he's a feisty, feisty competitor, he's physical and we know for a fact he can run because he's put really good times on record here in our camp. I think Kahanu Kia, had he had the chance to play a senior year, would have had more than some of the Pac-12.

“I think Devin Aupiu, who was 205 at one point in his junior year, is now 6-5, 225-plus edge-rusher athlete. I think Joe Alt, who in our own data that we were going to put out to the media today, at one point we had listed at 240 and was playing tight end as a junior. Now you see he's up 40 pounds, he's 280, he moves great.

“Look, there are obvious guys in every class, Styles and Spindler and the obvious guys are always there, but I do feel like, given the circumstances we were dealing with this year, I think we did a really good job of digging deep and there are going to be some players in this class that maybe weren't regarded the way that they should have been. At least that's our belief and our hope. I will say this to our fan base and to the media outlets that cover us if there was ever a year that the star system may not be the be all end all.

“I mean, I don't know how you can accurately rank a class when some of the top players haven't played their senior year, some have played six games, some have played eight. I've never been a big believer in that anyway. I know, its place in terms of come conversations and why it exists, but in the end, I don't know if this is the year that's gonna hold a ton of weight, because there are a lot of guys that nobody really knows what the finished product is yet."

On finding out key information on prospects with evaluations:
"There was harder digging on everything this year. Everything about the show was harder. It was just how we were going to get the information. There's nobody in the signing class that we don't have as much verifiable information as we could possibly get. This was just a weird year. 'Hey man, we're really are interested in you, but you're listed at 6-3 and we've never seen you in person.' Then it becomes a screenshot of somebody in the nurse's office or in a lot of cases, a screenshot of a tape measure from Ace Hardware.

“There were things that we had to do that way, like Kahanu Kia, the evaluation off of the junior film was good and we liked him, but Kahanu put a video out on his own outlets of him doing a workout in his yard by streetlight and we're watching this guy move. Then we're talking to our friends back in Punahou and saying, 'Measure him for me.' I want to know exactly how tall he and exactly what's he weigh right now. We had to do that across the board and I will say this, there are a lot of prospects and a lot of high school coaches across the country that figured out very quickly that that information was going to become really important and people were videotaping themselves being measured, themselves jumping, themselves running, going through drills, things that we could have seen in a camp or might have been able to collect data from a combine.

“Guys were filming themselves doing that and putting it on their Hudl link or putting it on YouTube. There's nobody that we're going into this thing completely blinded with, but we had to get really creative in terms of how we were collecting the information."

On Blake Fisher and active recruits recruiting: 
"Yeah, there's no doubt you have to guide them. First of all, we can't direct them to talk to anybody. That's not within the rules. We can't say to them, 'Hey, we need you to reach out to this guy or to this guy,' but there are times, and it's not just Blake, it's every class, there is that guy in every class, and he'll message you, 'Hey coach, just talked to this guy and he'd be really interested and I think he'd be awesome.' Meanwhile, we've seen that guy's transcript and we know it's not necessarily a bit. There is a little bit of, 'Hey, slow down, we appreciate you,' but that is much better than having a class of 24 or 25 and there's no ringleader.

“I've had multiple guys tell us, we've had multiple guys tell us, once they kind of got in later in the process, maybe a guy that committed in the fall, maybe a guy that committed six to eight weeks ago, they talked about how welcoming that commit group was, via that text chain that they had, and how welcoming they were. That was an asset in recruiting, there's no doubt. When you have guys like that in the class that are assertive that way and rally everybody up, then it really becomes a positive thing and creates momentum."

On the defensive line class: 
"(Jason) Onye is already a big, big man and he's going to offer some position flexibility. Onye is the type of guy that might someday be able to rush at three-technique and passing down situations because he would be such a mismatch.

“Schweitzer is actually the last prospect that I think I saw in person. I was in Schweitzer's school in January before the cycle ended and we haven't been back out since. Clark and I loved him. The issue when he was a junior was that he was playing linebacker. He was 205 or 208 pounds. Why are you recruiting this guy to play the Vyper position when he's standing up? You don't see him pass-rush that much. But his motor was so good and we knew because we had seen him, he's got length. He is 6-4 plus. Through the summer, even though he was committed to Nebraska, we never stopped communicating with him and we were watching his body. He'd send us photos and video and you're seeing his body start to fill out. When the time was right and the numbers allowed it, we offered him and we felt great about it. Now, he is a guy that is gonna take some physical development, but his length, his twitch, his motor, we believe are going to lend himself to being a really good player.

“Aupiu is a great bet. If this guy played his senior year, who knows what his recruiting would have looked like. We see shots of this guy dunking a basketball, the way runs, his length. What we're hoping for is Ade. We're hoping for Khalid Kareem. Who did we beat Ade on? Western Michigan.

“It took him two years in the weight room, now you look at his production and what he looks like physically and that's the part of player development that we believe we can hit on because we trust Matt Balis and his staff and we know that these guys are going to get bigger and stronger. We're going to recruit guys with the right framework, with the right bones, with the right approach and fit, and then we believe the physical development will come and we're going to end up with some really good players."

On the challenges of finding a fit without visits: 
"That is a big piece of it and we lost that and there's no doubt. We did a deeper dive on anybody that we had any concerns about. 'Hey, this guy feels a little bit squirrely, we need to keep calling around and we need to talk to not only his coach, but coaches that play against them, and we need to talk to not only his counselor, but other counselors in the school.

“Where can we connect the dots?' We always feel better when we know somebody that knows the prospect. But there's no doubt — fit is really important to us. The feedback of our own players that we get post-visits, losing that hurt, so we had to try and make up for it another way."

On K Joshua Bryan: 
"Yeah, I don't want to count on a freshman. It's not great. It's hard to do. That kind of makes what Jay Bramblett did last year as a true freshman, on a double-digit win team at our level, on that stage, it makes what he did even more impressive. The reality of it is, in an ideal situation, you would like to have a guy on your campus for a year to hope to get them ready and get them prepared and help him to develop physically and get stronger. That allowed us to do that.

“Now, this is one of those places where the relief from the NCAA, as it relates to players in your program who've exhausted eligibility coming back to the original program, that guy does not count against your 85. So, we were fortunate in this case. When we entered into the summer, my assumption was that we were going to have to identify a kicker that could come in here and do it as a true freshman. So this is maybe one of the few instances where the circumstances of everything that was happening around us in the world might have helped us a little bit."

On QB Tyler Buchner:
"I remember exactly what we saw at that camp, because Tommy, coach Kelly and I, Chip Long at the time, we were all studying that quarterback group pretty closely. Quick release, very, very smooth motion, sneaky, really good athlete. I mean, that's an elite level lacrosse player. You saw all the plays in his junior season that he made with his feet. We feel like he'll get big enough. Obviously, he's not 6-5, but that's not necessarily what we were looking for. He'll get big enough. We loved his energy. Great smile, bounce, just that it-factor that you're looking for in quarterbacks.

“When we were in that camp situation, it was very clear to everybody that it was a competition. There were some quarterbacks in that class that knew, 'I'm in here with three or four other guys and I'm trying to be the one that they offer in the class.' That is by design. We need to find out who's going to rise up when they know they're being evaluated and who's going to compete. He competed and he looked great. We never looked back. There were other big-name guys that were in that group and we don't wish them any disrespect. We know that there'll be good players, but in coming out of his camp performance here, and the film evaluation, we set our sights on him immediately, and said, 'Alright, that's the guy we want in the class.

“Fortunately enough, what Notre Dame represented and the job that Tommy did recruit him, we were able to secure him and we feel great about it."

On  QB Ron Powlus III:
"While we're on the topic of quarterbacks, we feel really good about the addition of Ronnie Powlus. He's obviously a guy that we've seen multiple times in person. We know his makeup. We obviously know his family. I've known Ronnie since he was a kid. That one was an easy one for us. Look, we could not go into next season with three scholarship quarterbacks. It's just irresponsible. To set your roster up the right way, you got to have at least four scholarship guys, and we thought that Ronnie would be an ideal second quarterback in this class. He's been snake-bitten a little bit. His junior year, he suffered an injury, not his fault, and then his senior year, they're going in and out of COVID. It was just a crazy year. But we feel very confident in who we're getting as a guy and as a player and we're excited about it."

On DT Gabriel Rubio:
"The first thing you notice about Gabe is that he's as wide as a Volkswagen. He's a big, big man and he's really, really light on his feet. For a big man, he plays really hard. Sometimes those big guys can go two and three plays and then they tap out because they're worn down. He works really, really hard. We love his family. We love his makeup. There was a time that we challenged him in terms of, 'Hey, you have to understand what Notre Dame is academically and if you want that, we need to see the appropriate response in the classroom,' and he was phenomenal. This was early, early in his recruitment.

“He really accepted that challenge and has done a beautiful job ever since. We think he'll fit in. It's hard to say that any freshmen can play a lot. I think the one thing that coach Kelly and our Notre Dame program has proven is that it is a meritocracy. If you're a freshman and you deserve to play, we'll play you. He'll be in the mix, there's no doubt. We're very grateful that he's a part of this group."