Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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www.BLUEANDGOLD.com APRIL 2018 43 FOOTBALL RECRUITING Notre Dame is neck and neck with Ohio State for Correll, while also in the top five for Miller along with the Buckeyes, Georgia, Clemson and Stanford. The Irish are also in a good position for Chambers, Woodie and Hicks after their respective visits. WHEN TO VISIT? With Spears and Wallace both in the class to go along with four-star defensive tackle Jacob Lacey of Bowl- ing Green (Ky.) South Warren, Notre Dame will turn toward the spring with several prospects still scheduled to be on campus and a new early of- ficial visit period taking place from April to June. Spears will return to South Bend April 13-15 and be joined by fellow four-star Osafo-Mensah. Special teams coordinator Brian Polian, who doubles as the recruiting coordinator, has long been known as an impactful recruiter on the West Coast. With the new early visit pe- riod, Notre Dame should find it eas- ier for West Coast prospects with in- terest in the school to get to campus earlier in the year. However, Polian said deciding when to schedule visits for certain prospects can be a juggling act. "If somebody says to us from a far distance, 'I want to come make a visit to your place in the spring,' ideally you want them to see a game atmo- sphere here, as well," Polian said. "There's nothing like Notre Dame Stadium and this campus on a game weekend. Now, we're going to have to get into some strategic decisions about when do we want young men to take visits. "Do we want them here in June, or do you want them here in September when you've got Michigan under the lights and a national TV audience?" Kelly and Polian have been work- ing together with the rest of the staff and trying to decide the best way to approach the early visit period and when to schedule the trips. "When are those visits going to start, when do you end them — that's really what we're trying to figure out at this point relative to tweaking and how that's going to work," said Po- lian. "The real work now begins with the early visits." SPRING AND SUMMER WILL BRING MORE PROSPECTS TO CAMPUS Watson, Spears and Osafo-Mensah are all scheduled to visit April 13-15, the first round of early official visits for Notre Dame. The next weekend, April 20-22, will likely bring in several more visitors for the Irish with the annual Blue- Gold Game taking place April 21. Anderson is the only prospect who has set up an official visit to South Bend for the weekend of the Blue- Gold Game, but more will surely be set up, and several 2020 prospects are likely to visit that weekend as well. While successful, the Junior Days haven't been the only early oppor- tunities that have seen top prospects make their way to South Bend. With the new rules in place for visits, April will now be an important four weeks for the Irish in the 2019 cycle. More and more names are ex- pected to surface for official visits and unofficial spring practice trips leading into April. IRISH INVASION NO MORE Over the past four summers, Notre Dame has hosted its Irish Invasion and welcomed many of the nation's top prospects to South Bend because of it. The event centered around a camp where players could work out in front of the Irish coaches and get a look at what playing inside Notre Dame Stadium could be like. It served as the premier recruiting event of the summer for Notre Dame to impress some of the nation's best, but in 2018 the event will be no more. The Irish program still plans to host a major event, but much more like a BBQ event that other programs use rather than a camp. Notre Dame will focus on getting the players they want to see work out in person in June during their normal evaluation camps. Irish Invasion has yielded sev- eral commitments either during the weekend of the event or in the weeks after. Current wide receivers Chase Claypool and Javon McKinley plus safety Jalen Elliott made pledges to the Irish after taking part in the 2015 version of the event. Potential starting left tackle Robert Hainsey and wide receiver Michael Young from the class of 2017, plus wide receiver Micah Jones and line- backer Bo Bauer of the 2018 class, all followed suit in 2016. Incoming freshman rover Shayne Simon and safety Paul Moala kept the train going this past summer. While Notre Dame will have a dif- ferent approach this summer, there isn't any reason to believe the success won't be the same. ✦ Joseph Anderson, a defensive end from Murfreesboro (Tenn.) Siegel and Rivals' No. 240 overall prospect nationally, will take his official visit for the Blue-Gold Game April 21. PHOTO COURTESY RIVALS.COM