Recruiting Week In Review
Written by Joe Bradshaw
The Class of 2019 is now front and center in the battle for recruits. That doesn’t necessarily mean as much as it used to since recruiting starts so early, schools even offering freshmen and, in rare cases, eighth-graders. Still, the early signing period speeds things up and creates a greater sense of urgency to stay in good communication with recruits and get them on campus as early and as much as possible.
Notre Dame has clearly done a much better job of identifying prospects earlier and recruiting them harder. This is evident in the Class of 2019 and even more so in the Class of 2020. Last week Irish Sports Daily reported on young men from each class respectively in order to gauge their interest in the Irish. What have you been missing by not being a member of Irish Sports Daily?
John Olmstead, OL, 6-6, 290, St. Joseph’s High School, Metchuen, NJ has been on Notre Dame’s radar for a year now but with the Class of 2018 signed and in the books, the four-star lineman from the Garden state knows that recruiting is going to intensify.
“Obviously, last Friday was the last time coaches were coming out,” he said. “It was crazy the last two weeks, they’ve been pouring out. I expect to get a lot more calls, a lot more text messages now that their focus is mainly on the 2019 class.”
While things at times are likely to become almost overwhelming, Olmstead seems well-prepared to deal with the craziness that is college football recruiting. In fact, he even seems excited about it. He intends to take advantage of the new NCAA rule that permits recruits to take spring official visits.
“Right now, that’s my plan,” he shared.
He’s also nearly ready to release a list of top five schools stating that, “those top five will be the schools I’ll most likely take officials to.”
Notre Dame took advantage of the last visiting period to swing by St. Joseph’s and Olmstead plans to reciprocate by taking his second trip to South Bend, the first being last November. For him, getting his visits in is important because he hopes to have a decision relatively soon.
“Either sometime around June if it’s the right feeling or sometime over the summer,” he explained. “You never know, I might not even do the officials this spring. I may just wait until senior year, but I think I’m going to try to do the early signing day, which is not too far away.”
Even though Paris Johnson, OL, 6-7, 290, St. Xavier High School, Cincinnati, OH is a member of the Class of 2020, he’s also beginning to experience an uptick in recruiting as his class moved into the on deck position following 2018 Signing Day. He already holds offers from Notre Dame, Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, Clemson and Stanford just to name a few. His head coach, Steve Specht knows why his star is commanding such attention.
“He’s an unbelievable young man,” Specht said. “He’s incredibly talented. I think right now he’s 6-7, 290 and still growing. He’s just a baby. He’s only a sophomore. He has an incredibly bright future. He wants to major in some type of International Business/Law and a minor in Chinese. He’s a 4.0 student for us. He’s what a left tackle is supposed to look like.”
Colleges are as high on Johnson as his coach is. The offers from the who’s who of college football bear witness to that.
“He obviously has the numbers,” Specht explained. “He has the size and speed and he’s just going to grow. He can flip the switch. He’s such a great kid, great human being. But when he plays the game, he plays it hard and physical. He’s able to make that transition probably better than anybody I’ve seen do it since Luke Kuechly played for us.”
Notre Dame extended Johnson an offer in January and Specht believes it’s one that his young star will look at very seriously.
“I think anytime Notre Dame offers a Catholic kid from the Midwest, that holds a lot of weight,” he explained. “Obviously they’re one of the schools that Paris is going to be looking at. He’s still got two years to go through this. It’s amazing we’re looking at it so much earlier now. He’ll narrow his list down to five.”
Specht is confident that Johnson will trek to South Bend at some point.
“He’s doing his due diligence right now,” he said. “He’s been to a lot of different schools. He was just at Ohio State. He’s been to Michigan State, Indiana, University of Cincinnati. I know he’s going to try to take a trip out to Stanford. That’s probably the farthest he’s going to be traveling. Since Notre Dame is in driving distance, I know he’ll be able to make that as well.”
Specht expects Johnson to make an early commitment.
“Ultimately, I think he’ll make a decision early just to get it over with and let the other schools move on with their recruiting.”
These two summaries represent just a sample of the Notre Dame football recruiting information available each week on Irish Sports Daily.