Notre Dame football: Recruiting takes a hit from COVID-19

A look at why Notre Dame football’s recruiting is taking a hit due to the outbreak of COVID-19, especially as it pertains to campus visits.

Before analyzing the effect on Notre Dame football, let’s start by saying that what’s going on in the world right now is scary. For the health of our friends and family, it’s scary. For the amount of death that has already occurred, and potentially could occur, it’s scary. For the potential economic ramifications of COVID-19, it’s scary.

Now, I’m not an expert in disease control, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are, and their information on COVID-19 can be found here. They’re who you should be listening to about this situation.

By now, we all know that a large part of preventing the spread of COVID-19 is by staying home as much as possible and not giving it the opportunity to transfer from person to person. This had led to the NCAA declaring a dead period for recruiting. That means that coaches can’t meet with recruits in person.

This has forced everyone to cancel on-campus recruiting visits. Notre Dame football, who canceled this weekend before the Dead Period was declared, was forced to cancel a major weekend of visits. They had multiple 5-star and 4-star players who would all be visiting South Bend on the same weekend, who now can’t.

Given the uncertain nature of the COVID-19 outbreak, it’s currently impossible to reschedule a weekend like the one Notre Dame football was forced to cancel. Either the recruits will be at other schools already, or the chance of needing to cancel and reschedule again is too high.

Notre Dame football is a national recruiter. They don’t have a pipeline that pours into the University in the same way that USC draws from Los Angeles, or Florida State pulls from the state of Florida. Yes, the Irish recruit Chicago and Western Pennsylvania well, but it’s not a pipeline in the same way most schools have a pipeline of recruits.

This adds to the struggle of recruiting, as Notre Dame football needs to convince players from around the United States to come to the middle of Indiana, to play in the cold with incredibly high expectations. They’ll be held to a higher academic standard than at other schools, and need to attend their classes in-person. Brian Kelly, and his staff, need to be able to give players on-campus tours so they can understand the entirety of what the Irish can offer them.

Now, Notre Dame football is tasked with managing to get highly touted recruits from all over the country to reschedule their trip to South Bend, without knowing when the Dead Period will end. They need to do it without knowing when this outbreak will be over.

It’s an almost impossible task, and will likely hurt Notre Dame’s recruiting efforts towards the class of 2021.