Recruiting Impact of Frank Verducci Hire
Just yesterday the SBT had a quote from Tom Lemming about John Latina being Notre Dame’s best recruiter amongst the assistant coaches this year so his departure will obviously bring some about some questions about the potential impact. After doing some preliminary research on Verducci though it seems as though recruiting won’t be an issue at all with Notre Dame’s new offensive line coach.
Latina was in charge of recruiting New Jersey and was the primary recruiter for Tyler Stockton, Theo Riddick, Nyshier Oliver, Carlo Calabrese, and Zach Martin. Here’s a snippet from the official release announcing Verducci that should put any concerns regarding him recruiting New Jersey to rest.
“In addition, the name Verducci in New Jersey high school football is legendary as both his father and uncle were coaching icons. This should aide our recruiting efforts in New Jersey and the Northeast.
Here’s another bit of info I found tonight from the Sun Times which makes me even more optimistic about this move from a recruiting standpoint.
Verducci was ranked one of the top 10 recruiters in the country by Tom Lemming in 1990 and by Allen Wallace at SuperPrep from 1990-92 and in 1995.
So in a nutshell, we now have an offensive line coach with 19 years experience coaching on the college level who has been considered a top notch recruiter by some of the best recruiting analysts in the business. As I mentioned in my last post, Verducci’s familiarity with the blocking schemes Charlie Weis wants to use is also a major selling point in bringing Verducci onto the staff.
All in all this looks like a pretty solid move for Weis and Notre Dame.
Frank Vitovitch has been Co-Owner and Editor in Chief of UHND.com since joining forces with Kyle Flavin in 1999. Since that time, he has written over 2,000 articles covering Notre Dame football, recruiting, and basketball. He also works with all staff and external writers on all articles published on UHND.com. Frank's love for Notre Dame football started at a young age watching Rocket Ismail give opposing coaches ulcers in the late 1980's. By day Frank works in marketing and holds a degree in Digital Media from Drexel University. Frank's work has been cited by online/print editions of NBC Sports, ESPN, and Sports Illustrated and has been quoted on air by ESPN's Collin Cowherd. He's conducted interviews with Notre Dame legends Rocket Ismail, Randy Kinder, Lee Becton, Reggie Brooks, Michael Stonebreaker, and Ned Bolcar among others over his 20+ years of covering Notre Dame football. He's also been published in the print edition of USA Today Sports Weekly and the USA Today College Football Preview multiple times. Other Published Works/Citations for Frank Three Reasons Notre Dame Will Beat Alabama - USA Today Notre Dame Suspends WR Kevin Stepherson, RB C.J. Holmes Indefinitely - Bleacher Report Notre Dame / Ohio State Fiesta Bowl Preview - Eleven Warriors Brace Yourself: The Fighting Irish are Relevant Again - Sports on Earth Interviews with the Enemy: A Q&A with Frank Vitovitch of UHND - Yahoo! Sports Five Good Minutes: Notre Dame Football Preview With UHND.com - BC Interruption Vicious Electronic Questioning with UHND - MGO Blog
“Powlus should be gone also. Don’t know exactly how effective he is.” Brilliant. You don’t know how effective he is and you want him fired. This sums up the avg. ND internet fan.
And ftr, Polian is/was the best asst. coach recruiter on the staff (outside of Corwin of course).
The problematic implications of delivering a highly- successful-multidisciplinary- aggressive-offensive-blocking-armamentarium will be a monumental challenge in less than a year.
Our offensive line is nowhere near it’s zenith in skill. Experience is only one part of the equation. It will take an exciting and progressive paradigm shift to develope a hybrid system that fits our offensive line.
I really hope this guy can instill toughness and aggressiveness in the offensive line.
Your welcome gillery junior.
Powlus should be gone also. Don’t know exactly how effective he is.
@ JC-
I will have another thank you.
I agree with Mark, lets give the guy a chance and see what he does. The way most of you guys crucify a person it’s a wonder we can get anyone to come here and even the lineman we are trying to recruit read negative stuff like this and think I don’t want to go there.
It sounds like most of you guys wouldn’t be happy no matter who we got fot the OL coach. Give the guy a chance for crying out loud. He coached in the big ten which is a power running conf. He also coached at Iowa which has always used zone blocking under Hayden Fry and Kirk Ferentz and they have had success over the years getting their lineman to pick up the zone blocking scheme. Look what Shonn Greene did this year. Over 100 yds in every game. Iowa has always produced good lineman and many have gone on to the NFL and they weren’t even highly recruited. Many of the lineman came from the state of Iowa, so maybe that’s where we should be getting some of our lineman.
Was it really Latinas fault or is Weis and Haywood to blame. I hope Verducci brings a more aggressive mind set to the o line.
that would be cool if tim brown was the wr’s coach.
now lets hire a wr’s coach who can show how to run better routes
speaking of bob g haven’t seen much of him on here lately i miss the comedy
I surely think he can do a better job than latina
cmon guys… you are complaining about the hire?!?
Do we all agree that latina had to go? Yea, he could recruit, but could he develop the talent?
Have another beer bleed.
Latina had to go no matter what.
JC<
I’d be careful. You are starting to sound like borderline BoB Gilleran.
Easy David,
A certain uhnd moderator (not you Frankie) may accuse us again of being an “average Suckeye tardmonger” without indubitable facts.
I don’t know about you David,
but I guess I need to practice my abc’s of rudimentary D1 & D2 conference misnomenclature.
And develop some type of acceptable intelligentsia IQ.
so I can alleviate my obvious severe case of acatalepsia.
And of coarse, per infallible moderator so to speak “It’s practically my obligation to stir the pot.”
I wonder if we would be allowed the same ignominious latitude?
However, I’ll pass, I am not into advanced cognitive dissonance, cocksure vulgarism and sophomoric attitude.
It’ no wonder this uhnd moderator feels at home in Ohio State’s stadium.
i dont really know anything about this guy so im not saying this is a good or bad hire!! but we have the hole line coming back(minus turk) witch cant hurt it takes most players 3 years to grasp the college game look at how much sam young improved last season and as far a weis losing his job i dont think so i see the irish going into week 7 vs USC 5-0 i dont know if i see us being able to beat sc but i know we are closing the gap in talent with every top school in the contry and weis is the main reason why!! and dose anyone else get the feeling that we are going to land Manti Te’o?? i have the same feeling about him that i did about michael floyd….and look at how that turned out!!
@jonnyC
I don’t think it matters how much talent is in Jersey conidering these 2 Jersey guys might not have a job next year. I think what we are saying is that we are not impressed with the hire considering his resume. I will however be rooting for him because without a dominant OLine, this team is going nowhere. Any DC can shut down our pass offense if the running game is lacking again.
David
I never said you anything about not having the right to say what you want – I am probably just as big as a fan as you and I have things i am not happy about all I am saying is give the guy a chance
I’m not saying we dont have a right to voice our opinions but give the guy a shot before you judge him he has to do a better job than what we’ve seen lately
I agree Dan! i’m gonna give this guy a chance before I call him a failure. also don’t underestimate what frankie’s pointing out, there is ALOT of talent in NJ, with both CW & Verducci from there it can only be a postive as far as recruiting. IMO
After not winning a National Champsionship for 21 years and counting and 15 years of lousy coaching and counting – should be an immediate grasp of the obvious.
@ Dan
Fans that follow the team year in and year out have the right to voice their approval or dissapointment.
will irish fans ever be happy or do we have to find fault with everything
Not a Top Tier or Middle Tier Candidate. If you can’t coach – recruiting is a mute subject.
Just because you have 19 years of experience dosen’t mean you have been doing it right for 19 years.
Coaching record weak.
Great name! Sounds like someone from the Soprano’s.
ND has a world of talent at running back and we were headed down the road of wasting that talent. An effective running game would give our quarterback something he has never had…
a play-action passing game. With a consistantly improving defence and special teams, ND could be something very special next year, and years to come.
AMEN!!!
recruiting is not my biggest concern in an o line coach, i just want someone who will give us some tough, blue collar blockers up front. football is won in the trenches.