Notre Dame Cooks’d Again: Tre Norwood to Oklahoma

Photo from Twitter @trenorwood_3
Photo from Twitter @trenorwood_3

Former Notre Dame assistant coach Kerry Cooks strikes again.  Tre Norwood was considered one of the best bets for Notre Dame among last weekend’s five official visitors who weren’t already committed to Notre Dame.  Monday night, on the heels of his visit to Notre Dame, however, Norwood committed to Oklahoma where he was recruited by Kerry Cooks.

Well, that certainly wasn’t the way the Notre Dame coaching staff likely envisioned this week starting.  With just over a week remaining until National Signing Day and there class currently sitting at just 15 members, Notre Dame needs to add at least five members to salvage this year’s class.  Norwood was considered to be one of the best bets among the late offers to go out.  We can now scratch him off the board.

Cooks, a former Notre Dame assistant under Brian Kelly, visited with Norwood last week prior to his visit to Notre Dame.  Apparently the official visit to Notre Dame didn’t impress Norwood enough to overcome Oklahoma’s late offer.  The Sooners actually offered Norword after Notre Dame.  It was a bit odd that among all of last weekend’s visitors, Norwood was the only one not to tweet out any pictures during the visit and Norwood isn’t that quiet on social media.

Norwood became a pivotal recruit once Paulson Adebo and Elijah Hicks both decommitted from Notre Dame in January leaving the Irish thin in the secondary.  Notre Dame now has just one remaining corner on their board: Russ Yeast.

Notre Dame has several other defensive backs in play, but have corner potential on the next level other than Yeast.  Jordan Genmark Heath is a jumbo safety who looks like an absolute ideal fit for Mike Elko’s ROVER position.  Evan Fields is a traditional safety although after posting several pictures on his visit, it’s been rumored that the Irish are falling behind.

One name to watch now could be former Boston College commitment Jason Pinnock.  Notre Dame showed interest earlier this month and Clark Lea visited Pinnock last week, but to date, no offer has been made by Notre Dame.   With eight days to go until Signing Day though, will that be too little to late?

Notre Dame still has good chances with a lot of the prospects left on the board, but the already razor thin margin for error has become even smaller with another prospect off the board.

 

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20 Comments

  1. Seriously people…the biggest problem ND has with recruits is it’s own fans. When one after another says BK needs to go leads coaches recruiting against ND saying…he’s not going to be at ND very long look at what people are saying. And current players hear all this complaining too.

    All of you UN-loyal fans are the bests recruiters for other schools. I wish everyone would quit moaning at BK and suck it up and just say next year we are going to be great. If ND fans were OSU fans they’d be screaming bloody murder that Urban should be fired for having his team so unprepared for Clemson.

    BK got us to a championship game just 4 years ago. The last time we were that successful, Bill Clinton was president!

    1. Horrendously articulated post here, but based on what I can decipher, it is also very laughable. I believe you’re trying to imply that ND fans are more demanding than OSU fans, which might be the most ignorant college football related comment I’ve ever heard. Anyway, just let me know which ND fans caused Tre Norwood to pick Oklahoma and I’ll set them straight!

    2. @Jack – I agree completely with you. All the attitude on these boards has just discouraged me from reading them constantly. Wa wa wa. Belly-ache after belly-ache. It’s nothing for me to be proud of, as an alumnus of 1989. (witnessing last Natty in ’88) And I hope this is articled well-enough for George…

  2. Before last season, I thought any of these three things would get BK fired…

    1. he ‘loses’ the team; team lacks discipline off the field, kids start committing egregious or unlawful acts, kids stomp on fallen injured players…
    2. he loses his one asset, the ability to recruit talent.
    3. fewer fannies in the newly expanded stadium.

    #1 occurred in 2016, #2 is occurring now, #3 well, that might never happen, but a bad start to the season might be the trigger.

    1. The seats will always be filled as were the ones in Wrigley. Eventually an owner comes along who wants to win and he hires a guy who is second to none.
      They just need to find their Ricketts and their Theo.

  3. The biggest problem with recruiting comes down to 2 major factors I believe. First of all 4-8 never looks good, esp. with the talent on the team. If it was a first year coach with a new system, it happens. Even in 2007, they were given a bit of a mulligan because the team lost a lot of talent the year before and the cupboard needed to be refilled. But this year, they should have been at minimum 10-2 with the talent. I blame coaching mostly for this year’s disaster. I do like some of the new assistants coming in, but it’s a move that should have been made already in some cases (esp. defense).

    Also, there is a perception that this will be a make a break year for BK. I do believe another poor showing next year and BK will be gone as HC. You can bet opposing coaches are using that on recruits to pull our recruits away. Most players don’t want to play on a team with a HC that’s a dead man walking.

    Unfortunately that doesn’t bode well for recruiting this year. We may very well only have 1 or 2 more recruits added to the board. I honestly don’t see us getting much more under these circumstances. BK basically has one chance to turn that around. If, and it’s a huge if, the team has a resurgence next year, beating all the odds and having a successful year, they could make up ground next year in recruiting and this year would just be an anomaly. But that’s our only hope. Sadly the alternative is BK fails as a coach, he gets fired next year, and we our back to square one.

  4. ND has had a dismal recruiting season thus far. Way too many commits reversing their choice and going elsewhere. Why you ask? I am there are a multitude of reason so let’s try a few on for size. 1. a 4-8 season 2. numerous coaching changes 3. academics too tough 4. a perception that Kelly will be gone very soon 5. a perception that Kelly is going nowhere. 4 and 5 seem to be opposites, how can that be? Well, it’s simple. Many incoming freshman do not want to play for Kelly for a number of reasons. On the other hand Kelly has credibility and many like that in a coach. He has won everywhere he’s been, just not quite enough at ND. The next couple of weeks could be ND/Kelly’s Waterloo. No matter how it goes it’s doubtful that he and his staff will pick up any significant players that will change the Irish’s dim outlook for the 2017-18 season! Go Irish!

  5. Everyone needs to relax. Word is that ND is in great position to flip a walk-on from Colgate. Projected to be a special teams ace by the time he’s a senior.

    1. Love your reasoning. BK has been reduced to looking for low hanging fruit. There is no doubt now, with all the recent assistant coaching hires, that if the team has another below average year, BK is gone. And if he isn’t, there will be mounting pressure on Swarbrick to step up to the plate and do something. I’ve been an Irish fan since I was 6 or 7, I am now 59. Brian Kelly does not have the qualities to be a great coach. Good maybe, but great coaches do not throw their players under the bus at the first sign of trouble and they almost always take one for the team and and own up to their own mistakes. Kelly has done neither. I am in the growing majority that feels this is a sinking ship.

  6. kellys sinking ship continues!! Kids don’t think much of KELLY and that is the number1 problem!!!! HELLO 6 / 6 2017 another excuse filled season!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    1. @crazy…6 wins? Very generous of you. Although, I was looking forward to watching Wimbush running the team. In fact, looking forward to anyone other than that egotistical DSK. The only positive thing I can say about DSK is, I’m positive he sucks. Oh yeah, I’m positive he will fail in the pros.

      1. DSK was inconsistent with his accuracy which killed drives. Also, the line couldn’t run block, which put it all on his arm. If Dembrok would have worked on the run more and not been pass happy ND would have been able to save it’s horrible defense.

        I am hoping BK got a wake up call and realized that he needs to be more of a CEO and not have try and run every aspect of the team. I am excited about new coaches and think he did a great job hiring.

        The final thing I see on this board is fire BK. Let’s look at the candidates

        1. PJ Fleck, got out coached by Wisconsin’s coach
        2. Urban Meyer will never coach at ND
        3. Nick Saben, will never coach at ND

        No one else is an upgrade

        This University will never thrive in football until a new administration comes in with the focus of the football team. Kelly is a small problem, Jenkins is the big problem, fire him.

      2. for some reason I can’t respond to Jack.

        No one else is an upgrade!?!? Do you honestly mean that Urban Meyer, Nick Saban, and PJ Fleck (which one of us is not like the others?) are the only college coaches that could have bested 4-8 last year?

        You’re out of your mind.

      3. PJ Fleck got out coached by Wisconsin’s coach? Are you actually serious with this comment? Im not saying Fleck is the next Urban Meyer but for Fleck to even have Western Michigan In a New Years Six Bowl game is incredible, let alone the fact that they were not only in the game against Wisconsin but they had a legit chance to win despite not having nearly the talent on their roster. Let me ask you this what would have Wisconsin have done to Kelly’s Notre Dame team this year despite having arguably less talent than the Irish? 20point win or more Id assume. The fact is Fleck gets the most out of the players he has because they relate to him and believe in what he says. The Western Michigan players would all run through a brick wall for him every Saturday, while Kelly’s players only seem to want to run away at the first exit they can take. Fleck’s teams play with Fire and emotion something Notre Dame has lacked since the days of Holtz. I for one would love Fleck to come row the boat to our sinking ship that is Notre Dame football.

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