Hinish Didn't Want To Leave His Future Home

Kurt Hinish was a little busy on Dec. 10th, so the 2017 Notre Dame defensive line commit wasn’t able to take his official visit to South Bend for the Irish’s banquet that weekend along with many of his fellow pledges.

Hinish and his Central Catholic High School (Pa.) teammate and fellow Irish linebacker commit, David Adams, were playing for their second straight state championship.

So Hinish and Adams made the trip out to South Bend for official visits this weekend along with linebacker commit Drew White and some uncommitted targets.

Hinish didn’t want to leave.

“It was good,” the Pittsburgh native said. “It was fun. I got to hang out with some of the players and I didn’t want to go home. I love it up there.”

Freshman offensive lineman Tommy Kraemer served as Hinish’s host for the weekend and he also hung out with guys like Jamir Jones among others.

“I hung out with Rob Hainsey, I hung out with all of the early enrollees,” Hinish continued. “There were a couple of defensive guys I ate dinner with like Troy (Pride). I hung out with a ton of dudes, but mainly it was Tommy, Robert, CJ (Holmes), Aaron Banks, Isaiah Robertson and Brock (Wright).”

The five early enrollees were able to shed a little bit of light on what the rest of the 2017 recruiting class should expect.

“They said it loved it so far,” Hinish said. “They’ve only been up there for a week. They said they haven’t really gotten homesick yet and that they really liked it.”

Hinish is still excited about the decision he made back in March.

“I feel good about it,” he said. “It’s a pleasure for me to be able to do that. The opportunity was given to me and I obviously committed. I’m real excited to go back up in the fall.”

He also spent time with the Notre Dame coaching staff over the weekend.

“I hung out with those guys all weekend long pretty much,” said Hinish. “They told me I’d probably be playing interior defensive line, but other than that, not too much. We casually talked here and there, but nothing too specific.”

In addition to the current members of the Notre Dame program, Hinish also spent time around some recruits the Irish are hoping bring aboard.

“I hung out with Kofi Wardlow, Tre Norwood and Jordan Genmark-Heath,” he said. “I didn’t talk much with Russell Yeast, but he was around a lot.”

Hinish made his case, but was sure not to overstep his bounds.

“I just tell them what a great school it is,” he said on his pitch to the uncommitted prospects. “I don’t ever want to force anyone to do something they don’t want to do. I just give them my opinion and tell them they can go from there.

“I tell them, ‘Everyone who came through here loved the school, so I’m sure you’d love the school too.’ I wasn’t really trying to suck them in to do something they didn’t want to do because that doesn’t really work out, but I was working hard to sell them on certain things.”

Hinish felt many of the recruits enjoyed their trips, especially Genmark-Heath, a safety from California.

“I know Jordan really enjoyed it,” he said. “I was with him all last night and the night before. He really, really liked it.

“I think we have a good run at him. I think so, yeah. I hope so.”