Notre Dame Enters Modern Age With Its Recruiting Strategy

One year ago around this time, the Notre Dame football offices were in a state of disarray. Running backs coach and recruiting coordinator Tony Alford departed for Ohio State, defensive backs coach Kerry Cooks joined Oklahoma, quarterbacks coach Matt LaFleur left for the NFL and outside linebackers coach Bob Elliott moved into an administrative capacity in the football office.

Suddenly, current linebackers coach Mike Elston was thrust into his new recruiting coordinator role, which he had previously handled in a similar capacity for head coach Brian Kelly elsewhere. Coaches are optimists by nature when it comes to recruiting, but Elston admits he had his doubts.

“At one point, I didn’t know if we’d be in the top 25 with the recruiting class,” Elston said. “But we’ve been able to build relationships quickly. To be where we are today with where we started with the decimation of the staff. … I’m very proud of the work that we’ve done.”

Shortly after noon on National Signing Day Wednesday, Rivals had Notre Dame’s 24-man haul (including walk-on offensive lineman Logan Plantz) ranked No. 9, and no major recruiting site had the Irish lower than 13th. The addition of Georgia athlete Demetris Robertson, who has yet to make a decision, would likely make it a consensus top-10 haul.

Regardless, Notre Dame made several inroads under Elston that are expected to reap even greater benefits moving forward.

In word association, Notre Dame is associated with tradition. However, that is sometimes also perceived as a negative. One can get so set in its ways that it doesn’t acclimate to a changing world. The Fighting Irish brand at times has been stereotyped as the old man screaming at the neighbor kids to “get off my lawn.”

Elston recognized a need to walk the fine line between tradition and change. This included “untraditional-like” actions such as taking Notre Dame’s semi-truck to Georgia and parking it at Robertson’s house. It made a splash (legally, too) in social media and, as Kelly noted, helped break up the “monotony” of the final week before National Signing Day.

“We don’t want to be stuffy, always serious,” explained Elston, who engaged in his own humor on Twitter. “… We want to be as aggressive as we can be with the cutting edge, but also not lose sight of what our distinctions are.

“It’s always a question about how cutting edge do you want to be. … If you’re going to go in the South and recruit, you better roll up your sleeves. We want to have some fun, too. On social media, we want them to see our personality.

“The biggest thing to draw back on over the last year is having the ability to trust in [Kelly] to move the staff forward and change some things. He’s allowed us to do certain things that he was either comfortable with or uncomfortable with, but turned out very well.”

Notre Dame landed a school-record seven players from Florida and searched the nation — and Canada — over to land receivers such as California’s Javon McKinley and British Columbia’s Chase Claypool, who made his mark at the Irish Invasion in June.

During the restructuring of the recruiting process last winter and spring, several additions were implanted by Elston. Nebraska’s Aaryn Kearney was hired as the coordinator of recruiting operations, with 2013 Notre Dame graduate Jasmine Johnson as his assistant. This allowed 13th-year employee Dave Peloquin, the director of player personnel, to concentrate more on his duties.

“Dave needed to be focused on an area instead of doing everything,” Elston said. “He’s going to be with Coach Kelly and manage the 85-man roster. He’s going to assist the coaches in identifying and evaluating who to talk to. And he will be in charge of the admissions info.”

A “think tank” was also formed with approximately 30 Notre Dame students working regularly in the office to formulate ideas to better sell the brand and bring the Fighting Irish into the 21st century with Instagram, Twitter and other avenues of communication.

“Once we identified what everybody’s role was and everybody stays in their lane, everybody’s going to be evaluated on a daily basis, like you should fix this,” Elston said. “Stay in the lane. Everybody was going in the right direction and we started to see much improvement.”

Particularly gratifying was the success of the Irish Invasion in June, which is expected to be enhanced in years to come, with a particular emphasis on future stars in the junior and sophomore classes. 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.

“Last year, we didn’t have an Irish Invasion date set until March,” Elston noted. “We already know what that date is, we know our Junior Day, we know which marquee game we’re going to target for top recruits. We have to get that information out quicker to get more guys on campus.

“What we’d like to do is accelerate the process quicker with the position coaches … that’s a change we’re going to instill here.”

The Irish already have five verbal commitments for 2017 (it had one last year at this time with offensive tackle Tommy Kraemer). Also, for the first time in Kelly’s seven recruiting seasons with the Irish, there were no decommits, whereas in the past there were usually about three per year. Conversely, Notre Dame flipped seven players from other schools, including Alabama (defensive end Khalid Kareem), USC (linebacker Daelin Hayes) and Florida (safety Spencer Perry). Kelly noted that the lack of drama was one of the highlights the past week.

“The strategy we had this year was to expose the family and the players to as many coaches as we possibly can, especially Coach Kelly,” Elston said. “It allowed us to build these relationships so strong … no one was even nervous today about who was going to sign and not sign. Not even one called to say, ‘Coach, I’m thinking about taking a visit her or taking a visit there.’ The relationship with multiple coaches was so strong that it just never happened.

“We did a better job this year when [a recruit] got on campus. If somebody wasn’t around, he made a choice to come back into the office, meet the family, talk with the family …

“We recruited the right kind of guys that picked Notre Dame because they knew what we were about. They didn’t waver from the rumors of, ‘Brian Kelly is going to the NFL.’ That stuff doesn’t faze guys that commit to Notre Dame. … People choose Notre Dame because of what this place is about, the fabric of the University, academics, and the way that it builds leadership and character. If you’re recruiting the right kind of guys, they get that.”

A 10-win season, an invitation to a Big Six bowl and weekly exposure on Showtime didn’t hurt either. Extending Kelly’s contract through 2021 also facilitates the selling of continuity.

“There are not many things you can recruit negatively about Notre Dame,” Elston said. “Some people try: Academics are challenging at Notre Dame. Well, we want guys that want to be challenged [in school], so go ahead and attack him on that.

“One of them is it’s a spiritual school, it’s a Catholic school. And then the third is Brian Kelly is always looking for the next best opportunity to go to the NFL — now that [contract] erases that.”