Welcome to The Crootletter (sign up to get this in your inbox every morning!). I'm Bud Elliott, SB Nation's National Recruiting Analyst, and in this space I'll be sharing news, rumors and musings on the world of college football recruiting.
Monday was pretty great for Notre Dame fans. SB Nation's Bill Connelly dropped his Notre Dame preview and believes the Irish will again be very good.
With only one projected top-15 opponent on the schedule, thanks to projected regression for Stanford and Michigan State, the Irish could follow last year's "only lose to top-10 teams" recipe into the Playoff.
Still, the home-road splits and a conservative No. 11 projection suggest this will be another season of heartburn and close games. Five Notre Dame contests are projected to finish with a one-possession margin.
There isn't a sure loss on the schedule. In fact, there's only one game in which Notre Dame has a worse than 59 percent chance of winning. But operating in close games will be critical. That means finding go-to receivers for the quarterback in times of need, continued quality from Yoon, and a defense that improves up front despite turnover and holds steady in the back despite freshmen on the two-deep.
All of the "ifs" are realistic, and while the defense still has plenty to prove, I'm not going to doubt Kelly after last year. If I had a poll vote -- and thank goodness I don't -- I would seriously consider Notre Dame in the preseason top five.
But then things got better, because Notre Dame landed Phil Jurkovec.
Who is Phil Jurkovec? Just the No. 1 dual-threat QB recruit in the class of 2018. Jurkovec is 6'5, 200 and very athletic with a big arm as he wraps his sophomore year of high school. He picked the Irish over Ohio State, Penn State, Pitt, Alabama, Tennessee and Clemson, and he'll probably keep racking up offers even now that he's committed.
Brian Kelly has done a great job signing top quarterbacks during his tenure at Notre Dame. He's basically averaging a four- or five-star QB signee every year. From Everett Golson (four stars) to Gunner Kiel (five) to Malik Zaire (four) to DeShone Kizer (four) to Brandon Wimbush (four) to Avery Davis (four, in 2017's class, if he sticks) and now Jurkovec. Adding offensive coordinator Mike Sanford to the mix has only helped things.
While star ratings are very accurate, they are not a guarantee of success. (See Kiel's flameout before transferring.) To guard against problems, it helps to hoard talent. When Zaire went down with an injury early last fall, the very talented Kizer was ready to step in. Kelly has had a lot of success in South Bend, and recruiting the most important position in football this well helps not only to do great things, but also to avoid disastrous seasons.
About the only thing Brian Kelly has not done with QBs in South Bend is produce an NFLer, but Kizer has a strong chance of being a high pick in 2017 or 2018.
Oh, and having an elite QB committed won't hurt the Irish in recruiting other positions, either.
Quickly
Long-term bet? About half of the teams in the current top 15 of the recruiting rankings will not be there come February, but North Carolina might be a decent bet to stick.
Disappointing: Alabama players Cam Robinson and Hootie Jones were arrested in their hometown of Monroe, La., on drug and weapons charges. In Robinson's case, it's a stolen weapons charge. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty, etc., but the circumstances on the arrest report are incredibly stupid: Parking in a public park way after hours (2:30 a.m.) and having marijuana and a stolen handgun in the car, all allegedly. While I am not endorsing criminal activity, I will note that the pair massively increased their odds of getting arrested by the decisions they made with respect to location and time. Keeping weed in a home, or even in a car in a private driveway, is much less likely to yield an arrest.
Robinson was one of the best recruits I have ever seen. He's a projected top-five pick and arguably the best player on Alabama's team and the best left tackle in the country. Jones isn't bad, either. I'm hoping for the best for these two young men.
Alabama is perhaps better equipped than any team in the country to lose a player of Robinson's caliber (if it happens) because of how well the Tide recruits, and former blue chipper Lester Cotton looks to be a rising star, but this still stings.
I enjoyed this parody article about Texas A&M QB recruiting.