Recapping a Wild Weekend of Notre Dame Recruiting

If you didn’t logon and check in on the Fighting Irish this weekend, you missed quite a bit.  On top of Notre Dame holding it’s first full contact practice of the season on Saturday, the Irish picked up four verbal commitments for the class of 2013 in a span of less than 36 hours.  Here’s a quick recap of the weekend that was and all of the posts we got up this weekend.

We’ll start on the recruiting front where Brian Kelly and staff were busy locking up commitments from four visitors from this weekend’s junior day.  The first of which was Illinois offensive lineman Colin McGovern.  McGovern selected Notre Dame on Saturday over Alabama, Michigan, Iowa, Nebraska, Ohio State, Tennessee, and Wisconsin.  He has tackle size and athleticism and is a 4-star prospect from Scout and 247 Sports and a 3-star from Rivals, but with a offer list like the one above I would bet on a 4th star coming.

Shortly after McGovern was in the fold, Kentucky native Hunter Bivin joined him in this year’s class.  Bivin also has tackle size, but could get a look inside based on the rest of the linemen Notre Dame has committed thus far.  He picked Notre Dame with offers from Auburn, Florida, LSU, Miami, Michigan, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Wisconsin.

After the Irish two linemen on Saturday, Mike McGlinchey didn’t waste any more time in selecting the Irish with Notre Dame filling up along the offensive line in a hurry. The Philadelphia native is a massive prospect and like McGovern, he has an impressive offer list that should garner him a 4th star on Rivals – the only service listing him as a 3-star prospect at this point.  McGlinchey’s other suitors included Boston College, Florida, Florida State, Iowa, Miami, Michigan, Penn State, Tennessee, and Wisconsin.

Before we move on, it’s worth noting that with the addition of McGlinchey, Notre Dame’s entire offensive line class (including Steve Elmer) was offered scholarships by rival Michigan.

While it was great to see Notre Dame stock pile offensive linemen, the most exciting commitment from the weekend was probably elite dual-threat quarterback Malik Zaire.  Zaire selected Notre Dame over his home state Ohio State Buckeyes among others such as Alabama, Nebraska, and Wisconsin giving Notre Dame an elite quarterback early in the recruiting process that Brian Kelly and staff can build around.

You can catch highlights of all four of Notre Dame’s new commitments in the posts linked above.

Not too bad a job from Kelly and his staff for one weekend, huh?  In between locking up commitments at a rapid pace, they were also able to conduct the first full contact practice of the season on Saturday.

You can catch the highlights from Day 3 of spring practice along with some highlights from the first two days and get some insight on the quarterbacks from Brian Kelly and the linebackers from Bob Diaco.  After that, be sure he listen to Kelly review Saturday’s practice, the first with full pads, where he talks about George Atkinson, Theo Riddick, the quarterbacks, and more.

And here’s a couple other posts from earlier in the weekend.

• John Goodman Talks About His Last Opportunity – March 24, 2012
• Manti Te’o Talks About Returning to Notre Dame, Improving – March 24, 2012

Overall, a preeetty, preeetty good weekend for Notre Dame’s present and future.