Irish Invasion Already Serving As A Crucial Recruiting Component

It was one year ago at this time, the week after National Signing Day, that the Notre Dame football office and recruiting operation was scrambling as much as Cam Newton facing the Denver Broncos ferocious pass rush.

Four new Fighting Irish assistant coaches needed to be replaced, and former defensive line coach (now linebackers coach) Mike Elston suddenly was tabbed the new recruiting coordinator, a title he had not held since 2008 when he was with head coach Brian Kelly at the University of Cincinnati.

Many changes to the infrastructure were implemented during Elston’s first go-round at Notre Dame, but particularly gratifying to the staff was the growth and organization of the Irish Invasion last June, which is expected to be enhanced in years to come. The ability for prospects to learn about the school throughout the day while also partaking in a camp setting later that afternoon and evening proved invaluable.

Nine players who inked with Notre Dame on National Signing Day Feb. 3 were on hand for the one-day Irish Invasion camp, and it wasn’t just local products dropping in from nearby. Five of them eventually signed with Notre Dame after coming from notable distance: Abbotsford (British Columbia) Secondary School wide receiver Chase Claypool, Chesterfield (Va.) L.C. Bird cornerback Jalen Elliott, Bradenton (Fla.) IMG Academy safety Spencer Perry, Jacksonville (Fla.) First Coast wide receiver Kevin Stepherson and Palm Beach Gardens (Fla.) High safety Devin Studstill all worked out at Irish Invasion.

Meanwhile Cleveland St. Ignatius offensive tackle Liam Eichenberg, Cincinnati Elder offensive tackle Tommy Kraemer, Corona (Calif.) Centennial wide receiver Javon McKinley and Wilmette (Ill.) Loyola Academy long snapper John Shannon all stood on the sidelines and took in the festivities.

Equally significant is all five current verbal commits (last year at this time only offensive tackle Kraemer was on board) were at the Irish Invasion: tight ends Cole Kmet and Brock Wright from Illinois and Texas, respectively, offensive linemen Dillan Gibbons (Florida) and Joshua Lugg (Pennsylvania), and prized defensive end Robert Beal from Norcross, Ga.

“The number of scholarship players that came out of that is staggering,” Kelly said. “Those that were offered, those that were committed to us, those that got scholarship offers that we're still recruiting, those kinds of events don't just happen by chance. They take a lot of preparation, organization… Our recruiting office will continue to grow, move forward. We'll have some more exciting announcements as we continue to find the best and the brightest.”

Naturally there will be misses, too. Three of the top 2017 quarterbacks at Irish Invasion are now committed elsewhere: Hunter Johnson (Clemson), Jake Allen (Florida) and Sean Clifford (Penn State).

On the flip side, powerful four-star running back/athlete A.J. Dillon, grandson of 1969-71 Notre Dame star wide receiver Thom Gatewood (inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2015), was a standout at Irish Invasion and otherwise might have become lost in the shuffle while playing in Connecticut, not renowned as a football hotbed.

Other highly coveted prospects from 2017 included four-star Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., linebacker Vandarius Cowan and five-star Lexington, Ky., offensive tackle Jedrick Wills.

A recruiting principle at Notre Dame over the years has been “you either feel it or you don’t” once you get on to the campus. Social media and “pots of gold” evoke some buzz, but that is fleeting. The first and foremost objective of the staff is to actually get the prospects on to the campus to create a lasting impression.

“It was really finding what was most important in the recruiting process to get that chain moving in favor of that ‘yes,’ ” Kelly said. “And what we now know definitively is that we have to get you on campus in the summer months, to move favorably towards that decision to come to Notre Dame. You really can’t truly get to that yes, in our opinion, if you’re reading about Notre Dame on the Internet. You’ve got to get on this campus.

“What we learned in our first couple of years is that you can go out and recruit in May, and you can talk about Notre Dame and you can talk about how this is what you’re going to get at Notre Dame. You’ve got to get them on campus, and we use that Irish Invasion as a great opportunity to get them on campus.”

In the future, there will be more emphasis to attract budding standouts from junior and sophomore classes in high school, not that there wasn’t last year. Two-dozen 2017 prized prospects were on campus for the event last June, and even 2018 Chicago Mount Carmel cornerback Houston Griffith (son of 1991-2001 NFL player Howard Griffith) was making an early audition.

“We also want to use the Irish Invasion as something that’s a step on a year to two years out — the future stars for Notre Dame,” Kelly said. “It’s not just the immediate stars that are coming on campus, but I think Irish Invasion is, ‘Look what’s going to be coming in the future, as well.’ So it’s your futures game.”

Junior Day this past Jan. 23 also was the earliest it’s ever been, mainly because of establishing earlier relationships and developing better confidence with the sales approach under Elston.

“The [recruiting] calendar has moved up, so you've got to adjust to that accordingly,” Kelly said. “As you get more kids committed and guys that you know you feel really good about, you still have to recruit them, then you can start to move into those junior days a lot sooner, and this is the first year we felt really good that we've moved this thing up to the point where we can bring those '17s on campus in January, and that's going to serve us well and we continue to move forward.”