Midway through his weekly sit-down with the press, the Notre Dame Victory March began playing from the phone in Rob Ianello’s pocket. The Irish recruiting coordinator looked at it briefly, put it away and continued answering questions in stride.
“That was a recruit,” he noted when one reporter tried making a joke about it.
The business of courting future players never stops – and while onlookers might be getting a bit antsy because Notre Dame hasn’t received any 2009 verbal commitments yet, Ianello made it known that things are right about where the Irish coaching staff wants them to be.
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Ianello admits that Weis not being on the road this May is a disadvantage for Notre Dame in recruiting.
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“Don’t be concerned, because we’re not concerned,” he said when asked what he would tell the worried fans. “Don’t be concerned, because they’ll have plenty to talk about as we go through the summer, okay?
“I feel good about where we are. We have a plan...and we’re working that plan, and we’re confident that the plan is going to pay the dividends that we’ve all been accustomed to around here.”
Part of the fans’ anxiety surely stems from the fact that Notre Dame is coming off of a 3-9 season, and in theory, recruits might back away from a school after such a disastrous season. While that may prompt a little more of a wait-and-see approach for some prospects, overall things don’t appear that different from the inside.
“We have a great institution here to recruit to, and that has not changed,” Ianello said. “We’ve been to two BCS bowl games in the last three years...We have a lot to be proud of. We don’t bury the fact that we didn’t have a very good record last year; we did not. But we also don’t bury the fact that we’re one of the top schools in America when it comes to graduating their players.
“There are so many positives here. We’ve said it before that a young man comes to our campus with his parents, there’s a great chance he’s going to come to school here.”
Playing By The Rules
If there are differences in the current recruiting cycle, they likely won’t have much to do with Notre Dame’s 2007 performance (or lack thereof) on the field. Rather, they’ll be because of the two major rules changes voted in recently – the ban on text-messaging and the ban on travel by head coaches during the May evaluation period.
Ianello says that the Irish staff is “pretty close” to mapping out its plan for the spring, and that Charlie Weis’ inability to travel in May just puts a greater premium on getting out and meeting with more high-school coaches in December and January.
Still, he admits that ruling is likely going to affect Notre Dame more than most other schools.
“Obviously, Charlie works really hard at recruiting, and him being on the road was an extremely large positive for us,” said Ianello. “It’s disappointing that that (travel) rule got passed. It kind of snuck up on us. In my role with the AFCA, we had discussed this head coach on the road, off the road, for several years and it never had any legs.”
As for the text-messaging situation, the coaches will still be able to get word to prospects via email and other tools – but they’ll also have to rely much more heavily on the middleman in many cases.
“I think that the text-messaging legislation really puts an undue burden back on the high-school coach,” Ianello stated. “Because now, we’re calling the high-school coach and say, ‘Hey, can you get Johnny to call me?’”
Such methods of getting through to recruits without the benefits of recent technology will be an inconvenience, but Ianello is quick to point out that the Irish have a veteran group of coaches who were recruiting players before cell phones and email became a part of mainstream life.
“We’re just going to back to how we did it for 100 years,” he said.
Of course, the one big plus with the new legislation is that it affects every program, not just Notre Dame. It’s not like Weis has to stay home but Pete Carroll and Jim Tressel are allowed to roam the country.
As long as things are fair, you won’t hear any complaints coming out of South Bend.
“The good thing about that is we’re all on the same playing field,” said Ianello, “and if we’re all on the same playing field, I know that my head coach here at Notre Dame is going to outwork other head coaches in trying to make up the ground, and in that way, we’ll be okay.”
Whether the fans believe it or not.
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