Notre Dame Football Recruiting: Urgency of Earning Vanderdoes’ Commitment Today
By Andrew Hall
Dec 17, 2012; South Bend, IN, USA; Notre Dame Fighting Irish nose guard Louis Nix III answers questions at the Notre Dame BCS national championship media day at the Loftus Sports Center. Mandatory Credit: Matt Cashore-USA TODAY Sports
Tonight, Vanderdoes will commitment to either Alabama, Notre Dame, UCLA, USC or Washington during a press conference at his school in California. Eddie Vanderdoes is a 5-star Defensive Line from Northern California who was originally committed to USC. But as USC started to fall apart, he looked elsewhere.
Today, there have been several reports on Twitter that he will commitment to Notre Dame or UCLA or [enter school here]. Rivals.com Analyst Mike Farrell announced via Twitter that he was told by multiple sources that Vanderdoes would be headed to Notre Dame:
But, SacBee Writer Joe Davidson reported that anyone who said that they could say where Vanderdoes was headed was wrong:
To make the situation even stranger, Notre Dame listed Vanderdoes on their Signing Day Press Release then told reporters in attendance that it was a mistake. These are the tweets from Irish Illustrated:
This situation is very similar to the Manti Te’o announcement where no one probably knew anything about where Te’o would go because Te’o did not even know. Did Notre Dame tip their hand in revealing where Vanderdoes will attend? It is possible that Notre Dame knows and there was some confusion on whether or not Brian Kelly would talk about him during the press conference. However, no one will really know until the Vanderdoes announces his commitment.
Landing a commitment from him is critical. He would play immediately in the rotation along the Defensive Line. Currently, Notre Dame would probably start Tuitt, Nix and Day but he could easily work into the rotation with Springmann and others. In the future, his commitment would mean that Notre Dame has a possible replacement for the Louis Nix. In 2014, the Irish will not have a true Nose Guard. Vanderdoes definitely wants to play Defensive End but has the ability to play Nose Guard and could help there in the future.