...in the IL.com article, and on a website for sponsorship deals, Pat has said he's coming back. He'll have an opportunity to leave at the top of ND's career points list.
I have not seen anything on Entenmann's status, but he has an opportunity to end up on top of our career saves list too.
It's possible that Donovan could move to close D, too, but I think you'd want to keep him at LSDM, where he's already play at a John Sexton-esque level as a freshman.
I will say the IL.com recruiting team seems to really like all 3 D recruits. They've all apparently have size and good speed. Will be interesting to see if any of them grab PT.
And if defense is our biggest question mark, that's probably a good sign. ND always has been elite in settled 6-on-6 defense since I started following the program about 15 years ago.
It is difficult to repeat, though. No one has repeated since Duke (uggh!) in 13-14, unless you count Virginia in 19-21 (no tournament in 2020 due to COVID).
One thing I worry about is that ND will see this national championship as vindication of its scheduling. I think we need to add two more games to the schedule (fwiw, I think Duke schedules too many games but ND doesn't schedule enough.) With the current schedule, we're only a really bad season from Syracuse, Ohio State or Michigan away from Marquette, or worse yet, Cleveland State, counting against our RPI and SoS.
...and I have (yet) another suggestion for it:
- Follow the Muffet Mcgraw model of scheduling a game in a player's home area/region her senior (or last) year as a way of making it easy to bring the family/friends to a game.
In this case, I'm thinking it could also be a recruiting tool; namely, schedule a long weekend of two games in the NYC region (either two against Long Island schools such as Hofstra, St. John's or Stony Brook) or one each in Long Island or New Jersey (Rutgers or Princeton). Given how many players we have from Chaminade (Rockville Centre in Nassau), St. Anthony's (Suffolk County) and New Jersey (Seton Hall Prep), lots of interest there. Plus, huge recruiting and/or brand building for some of the public school programs.
If Jack wants to fill the plane, double up with Halfpenny's girls team which has numerous players from both areas, too.
Venue-wise, Hofstra and Rutgers area easy to get to and Stony Brook/Princeton are not that difficult, either.
Chaminade is in Mineola. St Agnes was in Rockville Center. Used to have a great basketball team. Remember team with Pete Crotty (ND), Frankie Alagia, (St. John's),and Charlie Mahoney (Manhattan).
...on that St. Agnes team, too? Good outside shooter.
But I believe he came a little later.
An early-season road trip to Jacksonville every year. That will reduce, if not eliminate, any concerns about playing indoors in the early part of the season.
Halfpenny alternates trips to northern Florida and Virginia during spring break to get some blood flowing. Could easily see Coach C. scheduling Jacksonville and maybe another northern visitor.
New Jersey. As a side note, Chaminade is in Mineola while the Kavanaghs are from Rockville Centre.
For trivia fans, here are my memorized stops on the LIRR South Shore line:
Valley Stream, Lynbrook, Rockville Centre, Baldwin, Freeport, Merrick, Bellmore, Wantagh, Seaford, Massapequa, Massapequa Park, Amityville, Copaigue, Lindenhurst, change at Babylon for points east.