Internet rumors circulated last night that sophomore tight end Konrad Reuland was transferring from Notre Dame, and those rumors became reality Monday when Charlie Weis released a statement announcing Reualnd’s intentions.
After meeting with Konrad Reuland on Sunday, he has decided he will leave he team and withdraw from Notre Dame. I appreciate all Konrad has done for Notre Dame, and I wish him nothing but the best.
Reuland told the South Bend Tribune that he just wasn’t happy at Notre Dame for a variety of reasons.
“Basically, it came down to the fact I wasn’t happy with where I was,” the 6-foot-6, 255-pound sophomore from Mission Viejo, Calif., told the Tribune via cell phone Monday. “It was combination of things, not just football, not just the school. I wanted badly to be happy again, and felt this move was the best thing for me.
“I realize Notre Dame is a very special place. I wouldn’t have picked it from all the schools in the country if it wasn’t. But it didn’t work out for me on a personal level. I felt the change was the best.”
It’s likely that Reuland wasn’t happy at least in part because the former five star recruit was passed on the depth chart by fellow classmate Will Yeatman in the summer and then by freshman Mike Ragone more recently. Reuland was sitting 4th on the depth chart with five star prospect Kyle Rudolph and four star Joseph Fauria already verbally committed to Notre Dame for next year.
Reuland is now the 3rd and most highly touted transfer out of Weis’s first full recruiting class. Reuland was a five star prospect and picked Notre Dame over USC among other schools. He has seen very little playing time this year and with Ragone passing him on the depth chart already he was going to be fighting an uphill battle for playing time moving forward. Ragone, while extremely talented, is still a bit undersized, but he was still lining up as the third tight end in some obvious running downs this weekend and is said to be a stronger blocker than Reuland already.
While it’s never a good thing to have transfers, this transfer will hurt Notre Dame more in terms of how it looks to outsiders than it will in terms of depth right now considering Yeatmen still have two years of eligibility and Ragone three after this season to replace John Carlson who is in his final year of eligibility. Where it could hurt Notre Dame more is on the recruiting trail where opposing coaches will point to news like this as a sign Weis is losing control of the team even though at the end of day, it is more about the 4th string tight end looking to play somewhere else.
Reuland does not know where he intends on transferring to at this point, but there has been some speculation that he will enroll at a junior college this year and then transfer somewhere next year when he will be able to transfer anywhere without needing Notre Dame to release him from his scholarship.
Those Ohio State starters learned from great classes and weren’t pressed into service because there was no talent ahead of them. Notre Dame’s are. There’s a massive difference. It’s not like OSU is just plugging in underclassmen because they have to, they can because those younger guys beat out the team vets. ND’s has 16 players on scholarship from the last two years of Ty’s recruiting. Even if ND starts everyone you would still have 6 freshman or sophs starting.
The reasons for each team starting freshman and sophs is different. To not see that is blind.
“The reasons you give are valid for explaining why ND is not a top 25 team but they are not valid for explaining why they are as bad as they are”
Gee ya think? That’s why I said both Ty and Weis shoulder blame for this. To blame one alone is idiotic.
Everyone does lose seniors but once again, what makes USC, Florida, ect all top programs is that when they do lose seniors they have a great class or classes behind them ready to step in. Notre Dame didn’t have that coming into the season. Everyone knew this was going to be a down year……Well every level headed person knew it was going to be.
Hell even interviews with recruits they are saying that they were told the same thing. It wasn’t a secret.
I never said it wasn’t Weis’ fault. In fact I showed where Weis is to blame. It’s not my fault that most people that want to bash only Weis have the memory of a goldfish and are unable to actually apply logic and reasoning and identify factors for the Irish struggle. Contrary to what most mouth breathing fans believe hiring a new coach doesn’t somehow magically erase the long term effects the old coach may have had on the team.
I don’t think that it is absurd to think that someone from his “first” class should be able to contribute something. Was that class ranked 119th because that is how they are playing. The last 2 classes were very highly ranked but they haven’t shown anything except for Golden Tate who looks like he could be a star, and maybe James Aldridge.
You say there is no veteran leadership but ND starts more seniors than Ohio State and they have true freshmen and sophomores who contribute. Laws is good. Isn’t Carlson an All-American? Last year all we heard from ND fans was how great Zbikowski was although I didn’t buy it then and I especially don’t buy it now. The reasons you give are valid for explaining why ND is not a top 25 team but they are not valid for explaining why they are as bad as they are.
The comparison with Ron Zook is an interesting one. You can’t honestly tell me that Illinois had stockpiled more talent than ND before before Zook and Weis were hired. They were at the bottom of the Big 10 and if not a laughingstock they were close to it. Ron Zook has had one recruiting class of note and yet Illinois are far more competitive than ND right now.
I feel sorry for ND fans that hanging their hat on these 4 and 5 star recruiting classes because they only matter on paper and they look great before the season starts. Then coaching takes over. Yes, I agree that ND lacks depth of veteran talent but everybody loses seniors, some even juniors, but they develop the young talent they have. Instead of running up scores, or trying to, and padding Brady Quinn’s stats last year Sharpley could have seen more time. Or maybe some of the young RB’s, WR’s and TE’s. That wouln’t satisfy Charlie’s ego which is fully developed by the way.
ND fans need to break this chain of blame. First there was the academic requirements, then Bob Davie, Ty Willingham and then when the savior comes in and it can’t be his fault, the players are too young. For some this guy gets the longest grace period in history. I can’t wait until he becomes the next link in the chain because after seeing how nice guys like Bob davie and Ty Willingham have been thrown under the bus what is it going to be like for a guy as unlikeable as Charlie Weis.
DD,
To claim Weis has “3 classes” in is absurd. His “first” class was based on about one month of recruiting trying to reverse the damage Ty had done. There’s a reason there is no veteran talent on this roster in the Jr. and Sr. classes. Ty can be held responsible for that.
Weis needs to be held culpable for what is occurring on the field this year, whether he has veterans or not, but to simply ignore the talent void from the last two classes of Ty’s would be naive. Anyone who puts the blame solely on Ty or Weis is wrong. Both deserve blame for what has occurred. Weis needs to get more out of the players he has right now but it also can not be discounted that the veteran leadership/talent is not there because of what Ty did recruiting his final two seasons in South Bend.
Simply because Weis has two top 10 classes on the roster now does not mean that we should have expected to see immediate results. What makes programs like Florida, USC, ect so successful year in and year out is the continuing building of a talent base over the course of years so that you are not forced into playing 18 and 19 year olds, but you can slot them in at your leisure and have them playing besides talented and experienced upperclassmen. Notre Dame does not have the luxury right now as the upper classes are barren.
Weis has the program going in the right direction from a talent base standpoint and hopefully it isn’t much more than a year or two until we see the fruits of that talent/depth building Weis is currently doing…assuming he keeps recruiting this well.
Could Weis turn into Ron Zook and recruit well but fail as coach in South Bend? Sure it’s possible but we need to take time to see all these great classes he is brining in mature.
I have never been a fan of ND but even I find it hard to watch what is going on in South Bend. You guys talk about waking up the echoes but it will never happen if you continue to blame Ty Willingham. For god’s sake, Bob Gilleran even blames Bob Davie! You can’t take a top 5 recruiting class and automatically make them a top 5 team. Even great HS players need to be developed into great college players. I called Charlie Weis a fraud last year and took a lot of heat from ND fans but I stand by it. This team is poorly coached and youth is not a valid reason only one of a number of poor excuses that ND fans are using. Weis has players from his first recruiting class now in their third year in the program and I know he came in late and got a late start but he has had by all reports 2 great classes following that one. So that is 3 classes with 2 being fully his own and nobody is really developing. Other schools are having a lot of success by playing kids that were recruited in the last 3 classes.
Corwin Brown was supposed to be the answer for their D but the D is horrible. He can recruit Chicago but can he coach? Charlie thinks that he and his NFL buddies can recruit kids by flashing rings and resumes and so far they have fooled a few but that won’t last long when people look at all these high recruits getting blown out every week. I don’t even think he is a great recruiter, Notre Dame and its history are the real recruiter here.
The bottom line is this, who is responsible for this mess? Bob Davie and Ty Willingham may have created their own at ND, that may or may not be up for debate but what is the statute of limitations for blaming them? I think it is long past and I think it is time that ND fans wake themselves up, never mind the echoes, and realize that this current mess has been created by one Charlie Weis. He is not the savior that you think he is and if you think he is blameless here then that is your right to feel that way but I think that most people would agree that to continue to blame Ty and Bob Davie (that is a REAL stretch) is both wrong and counter productive.
Bob,
I’ve read this site daily for over a year now, your uneducated comments have been the worst I’ve ever seen. Please stop talking.
Love,
Mike
P.S. The bushgate comment was the most obnoxious. Leave the politics off this site.
What the heck is the matter with this picture? Not happy at ND, well I’m not happy with ND either but guess what? I love them!! And I wouldn’t stop loving them even if Tyrone was still here! We need to wake up the echoes ourselves. WE ARE NOTRE DAME . WE need to believe.I wish Konrad well but if he was a 5 star recruit than maybe we should stop looking at recruiting and those stars they assign to kids. You need to perform at ND in the classroom too.So if you are going to ND I’D RATHER THE 4.0 STARS THAN THE 5 STARS IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN! GOOOOOOOOO IRISH!!
frank,
1. we are sorry to lose konrad and will miss him.
2. we wish him well. he left nd with the class and integrity for which he and his family are well known in california.
3. unfortunately, we will never know what konrad would have done at nd if this year’s oline had been prepared before the season or if we did not have those lazy bob davie caused recruiting gap years( tyrone was just a victim of what davie had failed to do in recruiting).
but for those recruiting gaps, konrad would have seen a lot more playing time and would have been happy.
4. lazy bob davie did more damage to nd than any other coach in nd’s history and he continues to do so, from a distance, at the espn.
5. konrad is just another victim of bob davie. once the recruiting class of 2008 arrives, charlie and his staff will have repaired the damage done by davie and we will never have lack of continuity problems again.
keep up the great work,
bob gilleran