Notre Dame added a fourth verbal commitment from this past weekend’s recruiting visits on Monday in the form of 4-star athlete Danny Spond. The Colorado native was a one time commitment for the Buffalos at Colorado, but he re-opened his recruiting in December and is now the 21st member of Notre Dame’s class of 2010.
Spond (6’2, 230, 4.69) is the fifth member of the Class of 2010 to play primarily quarterback in school joining Luke Massa, Andrew Hendrix, Tommy Rees, and Derek Roback; but like Roback, Spond has the versatility to play multiple positions and is likely destined for the defensive side of the ball. He has the size and speed to play linebacker at the college level and could end up on the inside or outside of Notre Dame’s new 3-4 alignment.
Spond fits the “Big Skill” category of Brian Kelly recruit and could end up at either linebacker spot or tight end if quarterback doesn’t work out depending on where he best fits once he gets to Notre Dame.
Notre Dame wasn’t heavily pursuing Spond under the old coaching staff, but that changed once Brian Kelly took over and assembled a staff. Spond was one of the first of the new offers to come out once the new staff hit the recruiting trail.
Part of the reason Spond wasn’t on the previous staff’s radar was the fact that he committed to Colorado back in April. After watching the Buffs fall to a 3-9 record this season though, he opened up his recruiting and was looking at Stanford and TCU along with Notre Dame.
Should Spond end up at linebacker, he would join Prince Shembo and Kendal Moore and possibly Derek Roback in this class. Should tight end be his final position in South Bend, he’ll be joining Alex Welch. While Spond played some safety in high school, his future on the college level most likely will not be in the defensive backfield since he is already 230 lbs.
Quarterback shouldn’t be completely dismissed as a possible position for Spond either. He ran an option based attack for Littleton HS so he is very raw as a passer, but with linebacker size and good speed, he could be a very dangerous weapon lining up in Brian Kelly’s spread offense.
His highlight video shows some glimpses of the playmaking ability he posses for the quarterback position.
[youtube]w8CPPw2px_k[/youtube]
Wherever Spond ends up lining up for the Irish, the one thing that is clear is that Notre Dame has added a very versatile athlete that could help the team out at a lot of different positions. He also fits the mold of what we are seeing as a typical Brian Kelly recruit.
With the addition of Spond, Notre Dame now has four commitments from the first big recruiting weekend of the Brian Kelly era. Derek Roback, Bruce Heggie, and Luke Massa committed on Sunday with Spond joining them today. The Irish are still in great shape with fellow weekend visitors Jeremy Ioane, Kona Schwenke, and Matt James.
Spond played LB in high school and was all-conference.
He actually played at columbine, not littelton and he played saftey, and QB, as well as kicker, I played him
Now all we need is just a few “versatile” 300 pound quarterbacks to complete our recruiting needs. Just think of the potential upsides.