One of the memes reiterated in the recent John Walters piece on Charlie Weis is that Weis is a great, tireless recruiter. For example:
No one will likely be congratulating Weis if his tenure comes to an end in the next ten days. A thank you would be warranted, though. He has graduated 96 percent of his players, tied for tops in the FBS, and returned Notre Dame to the front lines of the five-star recruiting battles. . . .
I’ve heard differently. Sure, Notre Dame gets some big-time recruits and its name alone will always put it in the running for such guys. And, surely, there are many top-flight recruits Charlie has met with personally. But consider this odd example:
Notre Dame has officially offered one of my linebackers, but no one from Notre Dame has ever spoken to the kid nor has anyone from Notre Dame ever returned any of my calls. To put it context: Will Muschamp [of Texas] returned my call, Brent Venables [of Oklahoma] returned my call, Bud Foster [of Virginia Tech] returned my call, [Michael] Barrow [of Miami] returned my call, Nick Saban returned my call, and yet no one from Notre Dame has ever returned my call. Geewhiz Charlie, that’s not exactly the way to get a kid to choose ND over other BCS schools — and then you offer him blind without so much as making contact with any coach? No. That’s not the way to go about the business.
. . . Notre Dame has zero chance at this player. I started trying to call them about him when he was a freshman. Not pushing the kid, just trying to make a contact, as I do not send film to schools without making a contact (especially on a kid that I know has 100% BCS level talent). No point in his film disc just sitting on a desk with a thousand others. And not a single coach from Notre Dame has ever returned a call in three years. Now that same kid is a Junior and he’s blue chip, [top ten] in Ohio in the 2011 class, ESPN Top 50, etc. And all of a sudden Notre Dame is interested? If he’s good enough to play at Notre Dame he’s good enough to play at other schools.
Compare that with the approach of a few other programs, including one of the names on Notre Dame’s shortlist:
Then you take programs like Cincinnati with Brian Kelly and the guy who recruits our area, Jeff Quinn [Cincinnati’s offensive coordinator]. They are completely different. They pursue a personal relationship. He sends me a text telling us good luck this Friday, he knows who we play (and he might just be reading it online but still he made the effort), he calls asking how things are going, how the kid is doing, he knows the kid’s mother, grand parent’s, sister’s name, etc. He even calls me every few weeks. Now, I know he isn’t really interested in talking to me and that it’s all about my player but still it makes a difference. Ohio State, Alabama, Virginia Tech, and others all recruit about the same way as Cincinnati. Pittsburgh, West Virginia, Michigan . . . they recruit like Notre Dame.
Obviously that’s just one account, but it’s certainly an interesting one.