Notre Dame Football: Recruiting dead period extended

The NCAA’s recruiting dead period has been extended until the end of June. This is another trial and tribulation on for Notre Dame’s staff this off-season.

The NCAA has extended the recruiting dead period through the end of June. This will affect every team, but will certainly have a big impact on Notre Dame.

The Irish will be forced to reschedule all of the player visits that were expected to come and visit Notre Dame in June. This is eerily similar to the major recruiting weekend that had to be called off when the lockdowns for COVID-19 began.

This time, it may be an even bigger loss than before. Time is running out for Notre Dame to get prospects on campus in mass for a visit. Prospects step foot on campus and fall in love with a place. It happens all the time. Without these visits, Notre Dame must recruit on reputation and Brian Kelly’s recruiting pitch. With a reputation of “Grandpa’s team,” and Kelly’s struggles to recruit top 10 classes historically, this is concerning.

Now, experts are theorizing that not being able to take their usual visits will lead to more recruits staying home. This makes sense, of course. If you can’t visit places around the country, then how can you know if you’d fit into the campus? It’s a lot to ask an 18-year-old to move onto a campus site unseen.

Even more devastating to the Irish is that they aren’t sitting on a recruiting hotbed. USC is on a hotbed, so is Miami. Texas should be fine, and schools like Maryland may finally have more access. Notre Dame, on the other hand, rarely draws from Indiana.

Brian Kelly said as much on The Rich Eisen Show, “We have very few kids within three hours to our campus.”

Notre Dame starts a leg behind other blue blood programs when it comes to recruiting. The academics are stricter, the weather is worse, and there aren’t dorms for the athletes. These are realities, and they become more pressing when a hand gets tied behind your back in recruiting.

Still, none of this can be an excuse. Notre Dame needs to recruit top 10 classes. They need that high caliber athlete if they want to take the next step as a program. Extending the recruiting dead period makes this more difficult, but this is the reality Notre Dame must deal with.