The Recruit-a-thon

Head Coach Charlie Weis left for his yearly month long recruiting trek a few days after the Blue-Gold game. Go here: http://bluegraysky.blogspot.com/2007_05_01_archive.html#7226225380426983654 and scroll down to the post titled "Travels with Charlie, '07" to check out the interactive Google map of all the places coach went over the past month. He covered just about every area of the country, as usual.

This is the time when Weis really kicks it into high gear on the recruiting trail. He visits many different players' high schools' to talk to coaches and faculty about the player in question. He is one of only a handful of head coaches who do this. Many schools send their assistant coaches out, but Weis feels that if he's asking his assistants to be away from their families for a month, it would be unfair if he wasn't out working with them. I feel that this has helped recruiting two-fold, it gets the Notre Dame name out there and generates interest very early in the recruiting season. This year, Notre Dame already has 12 verbal commitments in May, signing day is still nine months away.

When Charlie Weis came to Notre Dame in December, 2004, the program was in the worst shape, quite possibly, in its history. It needed a coach who not only loved and understood Notre Dame, but one who was willing to out work everyone else to get the Irish back up to their historic level of success. This is the perfect example of what I mean, he is out there all month outworking most college coaches because of his dedication and love for his job. I believe if you outwork people, you've got a great chance to be successful and Weis certainly outworks most, if not all, of his competitors. He is the reason why this program is now back on its feet. It is not quite at elite status yet, but with the players he has and is bringing in because of his dedication and hard work, that is not far off. Coach Weis has taken a program that was thought a "has been" and turned it into one where top high school players take notice of and want to play at again.