Recruiting Week In Review
Written by Joe Bradshaw
Notre Dame’s new coaching staff has been turning heads with both their work on the recruiting trail and the way that they are conducting practices this spring.
Obviously, there is much to be said and done about the final composition of the Class of 2018, the Irish seem to have gained the attention of numerous top recruits. And these recruits are almost universally speaking very highly of the new regime.
Last week, Irish Sports Daily reported on two young men that are still weighing their options and have included Notre Dame in their considerations. What have you been missing by not being a member of Irish Sports Daily?
Brian Asamoah, LB, 6-0, 205, St. Francis de Sales High School, Columbus, OH originally intended to announce his college destination on April 21st, but has now pushed that decision back because of a spate of new scholarship offers. Notre Dame was one of the schools that recently offered. He originally named Penn State, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, West Virginia, Michigan and UCLA as his top schools but now also indicates those will change as well.
“My top six has to be reworked with the new offers that came along,” Asamoah explained. “I also have to visit more schools and see them in depth. I felt it was best for me to wait my time out and just do what’s best for me and not rush the process.”
Asamoah plans to hit the road again in order to check out the schools that have recently offered.
“I was supposed to visit Michigan but that got cancelled because Coach Harbaugh said he couldn’t make it,” he shared. “I’ll be potentially making up the visit with Michigan on April 8th. I may be looking to go to Notre Dame once my cousin has the free time so he can take me.”
Asamoah’s cousin, Jude Adjei-Barima, plays for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and was coached by Mike Elko at Bowling Green. The three-star linebacker won’t be a complete stranger to Notre Dame. He visited last year for the Miami game but admitted that he didn’t get a chance to see nearly as much as he would have liked.
“I didn’t get to see that much of Notre Dame,” he said. “On my first visit there I just went to the game. I didn’t get to see any facilities or anything; that was my fault, though, because I was late.”
Houston Griffith, CB, 6-0, 185, IMG Academy, Bradenton, FL just recently returned from a trip to South Bend where he wanted to get more acquainted with Defensive Coordinator Mike Elko’s scheme.
“I really just wanted to see them practice, see Coach Elko’s new defense and also sit in on a position meeting because I’d never done that before,” he said. It was a good time to go back there and see it because I was on spring break.”
The four-star defensive back liked what he saw.
“I thought it was a good practice, you could tell they were working back on the fundamentals of the game, working tackling drills and breaking on the ball in the secondary and just as a defense as a whole actually,” he said. “I thought it was a really good practice. They competed well.”
Griffith also got his wish when he sat in on Defensive Backs Coach Todd Lyght’s position meeting.
“You can tell what Coach Lyght teaches the corners,” he shared. “They have to know their stuff right away. I noticed once he asked a question on one play, what the corner had to do and they just get it right away. I’m pretty sure the way they teach things, the guys process it quickly, so it’s not hard to understand.”
Griffith recently made stops at Penn State and Ohio State as well but has no other visits lined up at this point. With an offer sheet that includes a veritable who’s who of the college football world, the Irish clearly have a Herculean task in winning his signature next February. If they do it will be because of their ability to build quality relationships.
“I’m just going to be trying to continue building a relationship with the coaching staff and really just get a better vibe with how the players like it and why they chose it.”
These two summaries represent just a sample of the Notre Dame football recruiting information available each week on Irish Sports Daily.