Just went through to process.

Just went through to process.
by Cy49 (2019-02-05 11:25:09)

In reply to: For those in the know, a question - posted by Cards86

My son is currently a freshman on a D1 team. Opening day is next Friday (Feb 15th) which is crazy. He went through the recruiting process and weighing offers. Most of his offers were private schools. He wanted nothing more than to be offered by ND. He camped there. I attended the three day camp with him. This was probably the 5th camp he attended. (Others were Davidson, St. Joe's, Villanova and Bucknell.) He was also at a few showcases and had conversations with some ACC schools and schools from the Big South. Through all of it, the ND showcase was the most disorganized event we attended. I understand it's a money maker to help pay assistant coaches. There were 150 kids at the camp. With that there were 60 pitchers. Of the 60 pitchers, only 10 broke 80MPH!!! Kids were from all over the country but I came away not impressed with the quality of attendees. The camp was not very well run with a lot of time just standing around. My son did receive some standard information emails from ND baseball for a while. He did email the coaches asking for an evaluation and if there was any interest. He did this with any school he had interest in and who saw him play. He reached out to many schools and got replies from every school, except ND. (Duke coach said he was ACC talent but they already filled his position.)
He narrowed it down to two schools at the end. One school had a 50% baseball scholarship and tiered with a 25% academic scholarship. The other had a 50% baseball scholarship but could not combine it with anything else. Of course, he chose the one that left me on the hook for the other 50%. No regrets. He loves it. He has opportunities to contribute this year. It's close to home so we will get to see him play.
Two other local kids still in HS have committed to Kentucky and Vandy. The kid going to Kentucky comes from a family of ND fans. They make a football game every year. Smart kid. Family would always be seen in ND gear. These days, they are in Kentucky blue.

I’ll echo this as a D1 player’s parent

Kid would’ve crawled to ND. National class infielder with dozens of offers. 50 schools on his list all in constant communication except ND.
I can’t speak to their geographic bias or lack thereof. But in our experience, ND baseball was the most poorly run recruiting outfit from crappy camps, to emails and phone calls, to on campus visits. Ultimately it was just too lame and son went elsewhere.

I believe Saban has done the same for UA football

I can't find the article off-hand, but he apparently revised the entire program on both sides of the spectrum from blowing away recruits to blowing away grizzled NFL scouts coming to junior/senior day combines. Alabama was in the doldrums between Stallings until Saban, has marginal regional recruiting advantages compared to Southern Cal, LSU, UGA, etc, but he has made them a machine, and I think ND could easily do the same across all sports with the right mindset