Two of Notre Dame’s top remaining prospects made their college decisions known during the two All Star games on Saturday afternoon. Gerrell Robinson, who was playing safety for the West squad during the Army All American Bowl, picked local Arizona State, but Deion Walker, a five star wide receiver from Virginia, picked the Irish during ESPN’s Under Armour All American game.
Conventional wisdom suggested we wouldn’t get both prospects considering we already had two wide receivers committed in this class in Mike Floyd and John Goodman, so it’s not surprising that we landed only one of the two.
No matter which way this played out for the Irish, it was a win-win situation as both Robinson and Walker are very gifted prospects at the position. Had the Irish coaching staff been able to convince Robinson to play defense, where many believe is better suited for, its likely he would have landed in South Bend.
Regardless, getting Walker is HUGE for this class by giving it three All American wide receivers. Here’s some quotes about Walker’s decision from an ESPN article.
“The value of Notre Dame’s academics is excellent, and I have developed a strong relationship with Charlie Weis,” said Walker. “He is just a cool guy and really put in a lot of effort calling and recruiting me personally.” From a football and receiving standpoint, Walker felt there would be no better mentor than the three-time Super Bowl winning offensive coordinator.
“He is an offensive-minded coach who knows the game and how to get the ball to his wide receivers. Coach sees me as a receiver who can play in the slot and also split out wide. “He said I have the green light to come in and challenge for a starting job.” We agree with Weis’ assessment of the Virginia prep standout and feel Walker possesses the elite receiving skills and elusiveness needed to become a much needed playmaker for the anemic Fighting Irish offense. ESPN’s No. 8-rated receiver prospect is tall with a long, rangy body and is very smooth in all of his movements. Walker displays very soft hands and precise route running skills with a good burst out of his breaks for a taller receiver.
I’ll post more thoughts on the game later on.
No wonder you like Charlie Weis, your ego is as large as his!
Charlie Weis is a good man and that is all that counts, ND made a wise choice and will be rewarded soon. The vainglorious ND naysayer camped out on this site is pugnacious, and suffering from a severe case of acatalepsia pertaining to ND football. There is no modus vivendi with this neophyte; he is incapable of having a dialectical discussion.
So lets recap:
Frank is a great ND fan.
DD stands for Dumb Dork
Robert can break it down like no other.
frank,
1. on the nfl front, although there have been many fine performances by notre dame grads, we are giving a special cheer this week for dt derek landri, now with jacksonville.
2. we caught derek’s game at a fine establishment in los angeles called ireland’s 32( the number of counties in all of ireland) while we were watching and cheering on a tough, intelligent, notre dame basketball team soundly defeating a uconn team made up of individuals with vastly superior athletic talents at a sold out joyce center in south bend which was really rocking on national tv.
3.young derek, who was bashed by the usual suspects in the college football section of the espn.com and at other nd bashing media outlets as not being big enough, strong enough, fast enough, or athletic enough to make it in the nfl, sacked qb big ben of pittsburgh and also intercepted one of his passes, a fine performance by a 1st year nfl player or by any nfl player.
4. we are informed that people in the nfl who make the draft choices no longer trust pete carroll and those like him. after all, pete carroll went on a speaking tour and used all of his influence in the nfl last year to drive down the nfl draft stock of brady quinn and other notre dame players, who have succeeded in the nfl, both on the field and off the field while pete carroll’s self proclaimed best athletes in the world from the usc football program, with some minor exceptions, have turned out to be very expensive duds and disgraces,both on the field and off the field, like reggie bush, carson palmer, matt leinart, and mike williams, among others.
5. on the other hand, those people in the nfl, based on the performances of notre dame players developed by charlie, corwin and their staffs at notre dame on and off the field, have every reason to trust charlie and corwin and their staffs at notre dame.
6. mike brey and muffet mcgraw really have earned those new basketball facilities, better than the cameron facilities at duke and other schools.
7. there is really no reason why notre dame cannot excel in every sport, as well as in academics and life after school, as stanford does in every sport except for football and in the high tech silicon valley.
thank you for the eloquence and inspirations,
bob gilleran
frank,
1. getting back to notre dame football and notre dame, our sources, who include a numer of notre dame 2008 commits and their families and high school coaches, inform us that robinson’s decision to choose arizona state was due to family factors, which require him to stay close to his family in arizona and that, but for these family issues, robinson would have chosen notre dame.
2. as for omar hunter, he is in the process of finding out that he has been conned by the nd bashing sales pitches pete carroll, urban meyer, and a few other dishonest recruiters.
3. unless there are some family issues which require omar to stay close to home for college, it is quite possible that omar will recommit to notre dame.
4. as you will notice, omar has not committed to any other school.
5. we continue to believe that omar, in addition to being very talented, is a fine young man of character and integrity who has just been the victim of a recruiting scam.
6. we hope that omar does come to notre dame. however, if he does not, we wish him the very best.
7. we also understand that notre dame is still in the hunt for a number of other fine 2008 commits.
8. for anyone who missed the army high school all american game, you can find the highlights, including fine performances by notre dame’s 2008 commis at nbc sports online, including 2 td catches by floyd, one delivered by crist and another fine td catch by goodman.
9. there were so many notre dame commits at the army all american game( with usc finshing a very distant second), that the game might as well have been called the notre dame future bowl.
9. there is also a fine video presentation at msnbc in the notre dame central section about notre dame’s 2008 commits.
10. now that charlie and corwin and their staffs and every member of notre dame’s 2007 team and the 2008 commits have actually pulled off the greatest miracle in the history of college football recruiting, some of those fair weather only notre dame fans,including certain sprtswriters at the old sbt, who spent the entire season bashing notre dame’s coaches,members of notre dame’s 2007 team, and omar hunter personnally, are starting to write positive articles.
11. for the old sbt writers and others, it is simply too late. we are going ahead with the purchase of the old sbt and the local tv station and the creation of the new sbt, hopefully with the participation of you and your associates after we complete the purchase and the auction of most of the antiquated equipment of the old sbt on 3/17/2008.
thanks to you and your associates, the future of notre dame football, notre dame athletics, and notre dame has never been brighter,
bob gilleran
frank,
1. based on prior posts of DD and through other legal methods, we have tracked down DD’s real identity.
2. DD is an enemy of notre dame and of everything that is honest in college football and college sports.
3. based on the evidence with which DD has so stupidly provided us voluntarily in prior posts on your website and on others, we will be seeing DD and a number of his friends in the civil courts during 2008 and stripping DD and his friends of their material possessions.
4. DD and many like him are both worried and terrified, with very good reason, about the fine recruiting job that charlie and corwin and their staffs have done for 2008 and future years and about how well charlie and corwin and and their staffs will develop the talent of these fine young men.
5. the success of notre dame football, accomplished with honesty and integrity and without compromising notre dame’s academic and character standards by charlie and corwin and their staffs, is a deadly threat to the corupt and dishosest football programs for which DD and others are pimps.
6. sure, pete carroll and urban meyer and some other dishonest football coaches at the football factory schools tried every dirty, dishonest trick in the book to dislodge notre dame’s 2008 commits with their usual nd bashing routines that worked in the past, but not in 2008 and future recruiting years.
7. however, recruits have obviously caught on to the dishonest recruiters and neither pete carroll nor urban meyer are doing very well this year. they have simply ruined the lives of toomany young athletes who fell for their phony sales pitches in the past.
8. that information, along with the terrible graduation rates at usc, florida, michigan, and the other football factories is available on the internet for every recruit to see and evaluate.
9. no matter how great ant athlete has been in high school, there is no guarantee of an nfl career for any one of them.
10. at the service academies, boston college, stanford, notre dame, and a few other schools that play the recruiting game and the games on the field with honesty and integrity, every student athlete gets a fine education, in addition to their best shots at nfl careers and in their lives after college.
11. at usc, florida, michigan, and the other football factories, with minor exceptions, the football players are put in nfl or bust situations and receive no real educations at all and no training in integrity and ethics.
12. we are immensely proud of what charlie and corwin and their staffs, together with the fine notre dame student athletes, who are not afraid to take on the challenges in the classrooms and on the football fields, have done at notre dame and will continue to do.
as always, we thank you for your eloquence and inspirations and for staying positive in the face of some temporary adversity,
bob gilleran
ps you really do have a very special talent with words and with getting right to the point. there are many similarities between philadelphia and brooklyn.
Frank,
I am not a USC fan and as you know I have a dislike for Charlie Weis, or more importantly the fawning over him by ND fans.
There are those of us who consider him to be a fraud and yet there are some, amazingly so I might add, who still consider him to be a genius. Those in the latter group can argue all they want but the results don’t lie.
He may be recruiting up a storm but his team on the field is going in the wrong direction. These are HS kids and they need coaching no matter how many stars the recruiting gurus give them.
He is pulling the wool over your eyes and I don’t buy into his crap. He has shown no affinity for the college game and the idea that he was somehow responsible for any success that was achieved in New England is preposterous.
On top of that he is obnoxious and condescending, which has no bearing on his coaching ability, it just makes it hard to stomach this fascination that ND fans have with his recruiting accumen and over blown NFL past.
This is how I see the chronology of the Weis regime. He has had 2 decent seasons with the previous coaches recruits but when there were ugly losses blame was assigned to the previous coach. Then he had one horrendous season with mainly his recruits but blame was still assigned to the previous coach or even the one before him if you can believe that one. Now he is a recruiting genius when in reality the school name gets most of the players. A total cynic might suggest that he actually cost the school some players by the way he acts.
Am I worried, even just a little, about the talent Weis is building with this class? Why should I? It’s not me who should be worried.
DD,
You spend a lot of time on a ND blog for a USC fan. Sounds like someone is a little worried about the talent Weis is building with this class especially at WR with Walker, Floyd (who had 2 long TDs in the Army game), and Goodman (who also had a touchdown in the Army game).
“…Walker felt there would be no better mentor than the three-time Super Bowl winning offensive coordinator.” Who wrote that line, Charles himself, because I can’t believe there are too many people around who still fall for that garbage.
I tend to belive the first part, an actual quote, “The value of Notre Dame’s academics is excellent”.
I don’t know why any team would even take the field in 2009 0r 2010 because those national championships are already reserved for Notre Dame and their top recruiting classes coached by the Offensive Genius.
What more could anybody ask for? Other than maybe 4 wins a season.