Notre Dame’s recruiting machine added an unexpected piece today when linebacker Marist Liufau became the 20th member of the 2019 class. The 6’3″, 210-pound Hawaiian wasn’t on the radar of any casual fans and, in fact, many more dedicated recruitniks. He was, however, just on campus for an official visit, so he was quite clearly on the staff’s radar. Perhaps of note is that he attends Punahou, which you might remember is Manti Te’o’s alma mater. Also Robby Toma’s, who happens to be Punahou’s WR coach now. Hmm.
Liufau is the second “diamond in the rough” linebacker in the class, joining Indiana’s Jack Kiser. Defensive coordinator Clark Lea has a lot of equity in the bank with Irish fans based on his coaching acumen. I’m willing to let him use that equity as collateral for an SBA loan, but… Well, payments are payments, dude.
We’ll have to see what this commitment means for total numbers in the class. 20-21 was seen as the upper bound no matter what, and we’re now there. The Irish are still recruiting DE Isaiah Foskey and may be in good position for him, although he’s not announcing until closer to signing day. Will the big season get some earlier guys interested all over again? Will there be room if they do try to rekindle things? Lots of stuff to watch.
Recruiting Service Rankings
247 Composite — 3 star (0.8566 rating), #899 overall, #61 OLB, #8 in HI
247 Sports — 3 star (88 rating), #447 overall, #28 OLB, #7 in HI
Rivals — 3 star (5.5 rating), NR overall, NR position, #10 in HI
ESPN — Not evaluated
Cohort
In addition to Notre Dame, Marist Liufau also holds offers from Arizona, Boise State, Hawaii, Oregon, San Diego State, USC, Utah, Utah State, and Wazzu. He had taken an official visit to Boise and had assigned recruiters from Oregon, USC, and Wazzu, which I presume means those were his most serious suitors.
Highlights
After watching his highlight reel, I get the sense the staff is taking Liufau as a potential WDE rather than an OLB given how much of his time he spends rushing the passer. His technique is virtually non-existent, so he’ll need a lot of work there. Even so, he shows an impressive array of natural moves – just on this reel I saw a pretty good bull rush, spin move, speed-to-power, swipe… And oh yes, straight speed off the edge. On the first several plays I thought, OK, maybe this kid has some potential. Then I saw the play at the 1:24 mark, and an eyebrow went up and I was officially intrigued.
On the play he shows excellent speed off the edge and an effortless dip under the blocker to get to the quarterback almost unimpeded. That, folks, is an explosive pass rush. If he can harness that and make it more the rule than the exception, we might’ve gotten ourselves a superbly disruptive player.
Impact
Liufau is going to need some work both in the weight room and the film room before he’s ready to play a meaningful role. I think he certainly has a lot of potential, however uncertain his future may be. I could see him getting spot duty as a sophomore and then moving into a timeshare in his junior year, much like Julian Okwara is in now. His floor is unknown but his ceiling is pretty high because the physical skills are there.
Welcome to the Irish family, Marist!
A little disappointing. Not because of the player who I don’t know that much about. But because I guess this closes the door on Asa Turner who I feel is going to be a really good player. Don’t see the Irish taking this kid if they thought they could still flip Asa Turner from Washington. Hopefully I am wrong about Turner because I thought things were trending our way with him attending the Irish game versus Navy instead of the Washington game when ND was in California.
This year more than the last few i’m scratching my head at how they’re going to stay at 85…and that started several commits ago.
Interesting that you think he is a WDE. The 247 guys in the free articles at least were saying he is being recruited as a linebacker, which is… odd, given that we already have Kiser in the class and they seem similarly sized – and similarly lowly ranked, as you note. Do we think this is something of a “keeping the Hawaiian pipeline alive” thing?
I would be more concerned if ND hadn’t done a good job in the 2017 with their relatively last-minute diamond-in-the-rough selection (specifically, MTA and Jafar – though I guess jury is still out on 2018’s last-minute find in C’Bo, and the Doerer scholarship appears to be a mistake). I guess we’ll see!
>Do we think this is something of a “keeping the Hawaiian pipeline alive” thing?
Clearly. The “NCAA Football 2018” game system requires you have 3 players from a state on your roster for the “Pipeline” recruiting bonus to activate.
Maybe they are taking him because of Kiser, as opposed to in spite of him. Since they are both far from sure things, it’s more like they will find a contributor if they bring in more guys. Who knows.
I am very excited to hear Toma is on staff at Punahou. Hopefully that helps us out in Hawaii. I love Hawaiian players.
Polian felt his seat getting warm and convinced the staff we must have another Hawaiian on the roster that he needed to mentor.
Well, I could be wrong too. 🙂
A lot depends on his physical development, of course, but he has a good frame and I don’t think it’d be too hard for him to add 30 good pounds. My thoughts on him as a WDE mostly center on how he looks rushing the passer and who else we have in the class. As noted, he has no technique and yet is effective with an array of moves, which I would think would seem too enticing for Mike Elston to ignore. We also have Osi Ekwonu and Jack Kiser at LB in this class already, with both probably destined for the inside. I don’t think Liufau profiles as a rover, so that would make three guys for two spots.
Something that gives me quite a bit of a solace about the “diamond in the rough” potential here is that Toma knows him very well and undoubtedly had detailed discussions with Polian and Lea about him. MTA, Jafar, C’Bo, and Doerer were all much more of a flyer than Liufau is.
Curious why you were thinking he doesn’t fit the rover profile. When I heard he previously played a lot of corner and had beefed up to LB I immediately assumed they were thinking rover with this offer. But I don’t actually know that much about position fits, so would be interested in learning what eliminates rover as a possibility in your mind.
I think he was capable of playing CB due to the level of competition, not because he’s naturally a capable coverage guy. I don’t think he’s even played CB in a while, actually. The biggest thing for me though is size; he’s already 210 pounds and has a long frame, so I doubt he’ll be able to stay in the 220-225 range. Bilal is on the heavier side for a rover at 225 this year.
FWIW Jamie Uyeyama likes him as a potential ILB with plus blitzing ability. I could be way off on WDE, but I’m pretty sure he’ll grow too big for rover pretty quickly.
Makes sense, thanks!
When was the last raw prospect – i.e. one who had no technique but a lot of potential – worked out? How likely is it for someone to just start learning technique for rushing the passer to turn into a contributor? This often seems like a great idea to take someone who is raw and therefore probably underrecruited and if we could just coach up the technique then he’ll be a good player on the DL. But does it actually happen? And by “happen” i don’t mean like 1/100 but I don’t know more like 1/10 or maybe more like 1/6 or 7.
Ian Book? Drue Tranquill? Chris Finke (OK that’s cheating). Not totally to your point, but it is possible to find a contributor all over the field by grabbing somewhat raw of a 3* player.
Point taken though on rushing the passer, seems like it’s fairly easier to identify those types of guys just based on bodies and frames and project who will have the power/speed to develop into solid NCAA caliber players.
That said, to flip a question back at you – when was the last Hawaiian prospect that they liked that has NOT worked out? Kona Schwenke (RIP), Manti Te’o, Toma, MTA, Gilman. I’ll take guys like that on my team any day of the week. Also, from high school rankings I think you could argue that almost all of them (besides Manti, of course) were probably under-scouted and/or under-rated players that showed more than their stars suggested.
I’m cool with, and even HAPPY to take a guy from that Hawaiian circle every couple of years. Those guys seem like they can just ball more often than not.
Ade Ogundeji too. When he committed, all we heard was that he was a raw prospect that needed a few years to develop, and while he has not become an All-American, I think he’s worked out to be a pretty good player.
Obviously not as raw, but go read Brendan’s profile of Julian Okwara. Great athlete, needs to add size, really needs to work on technique, mostly an upside prospect who won’t make an immediate impact. He was an inch taller and 10 pounds heavier than Liufau.
https://www.onefootdown.com/2015/4/14/8408313/2016-de-julian-okwara-commits-to-notre-dame
Well also Brendan noted that this kid already has several legit pass rushing moves. So in some respects he needs to improve his tackling technique, but in some respects–i.e. his pass rushing–his technique sounds pretty advanced for a developmental prospect.
“Okwara is mostly upside, somewhat similar to Bo Wallace and Jhonny Williams in the last couple of recruiting cycles, which makes it difficult to project where he’ll fit down the road. Most analysts expect him to be able to add size but keep his speed; if he can indeed do that his floor should be an effective situational pass rusher and rotation guy, and his ceiling could be an every-down disruptor.”
+1 to Brendan for the projection, seems Okwara pretty much reached his ceiling.
Also, funny how guys like Bo Wallace and Jhonny Williams end up almost totally forgotten (for ND at least) but Okwara becomes a main stay. Almost seems like you have to recruit all 3 and hope in the numbers game 1 of them ends up panning out.
So maybe this kid is one that won’t ultimately be remembered in a few years, but it seems like that’s OK and the situation will resolve itself if so. After all, it’s not like Wallace and Williams are clogging up a spot on the 85 for someone else.
Heh… Well, I also wrote this in Brendon Clark’s commitment post:
“A lot of people have connected Clark to Ian Book, and to a degree that’s understandable… The reality is that the placement between two higher-ranked prospects is what Clark and Book most have in common. Book is a good football player who can handle the job if needed, but he’s not an ideal full-time starter.”
So what the hell do I know?
Hush, hopefully you’re not proven true on that point after all 🙂
Ogundeji seems to be developing reasonably well to the point where he could become a spot starter one day.
(Whoops, just saw Stevezie beat me to this one)
I wasn’t necessarily trying to say this particular recruit won’t work out, I was just genuinely wondering how it normally works.
I doubt Book or Tranquil were raw prospects that didn’t lack technique. It’s not just about 3* players becoming contributors/starters, but my question is about the great athlete, raw skills kind of 3* (in fact I’m sure Book would have been the opposite case – great skills but not overwhelming tools/athleticism (arm included for a QB)).
So just put together some of the names dropped here:
Ogundeji (seems to be working out)
Bo Wallance
Jhonny Williams
To add a few:
Romeo Okwara (wasn’t he super raw in technique or was he just young?)
Kolin Hill
Have there been others?
Romeo was young – he didn’t even turn 17 until well into his freshman year. At their respective times of enrollment, Julian was a year and a half older than Romeo. Kinda nuts.
Wallace never made it on campus, IIRC; I don’t think it ever came out what happened, but I believe the going rumor was a fudged test score or something like that.
Raw and lacking technique is not something to be dismissed easily, of course. Where it’s easier to dismiss though is with kids who are multi-sport athletes and show plus athleticism. That describes Golden Tate, Tyler Eifert, Deshone Kizer, Torii Hunter, Phil Jurkovec… And, yes, Liufau and Jack Kiser.
Plenty of 3* multi-sport kids also flame out, of course. But having that profile lessens the red flag about a lack of football development.
Wardlow definitely qualifies
Going from memory, wasn’t Chase Claypool a guy who had played very little football period? And Tillery was seen as an offensive lineman by almost everyone, I don’t know what that means for how much he played defense in high school, but it does seem that his technique must have been at some level “raw” compared to his offense.
I don’t know when he started playing, but Claypool played all over the field in HS and was super raw as a receiver.
Tillery played both ways extensively in HS and was praised by the ND staff for very advanced hand technique as a recruit – I think BK actually mentioned his position coach by name on signing day. But you’re right, we were the only school recruiting him to play defense. Hiestand went down to evaluate him first and tried desperately to hold on to him, but BVG wasn’t having it. Probably his greatest contribution to the program.
Off the top of my head, Ogundeji, Wardlow, Romeo, Jhonny Williams were all latecomers to the game. I think Osi Ekwonu too, and he might be the second best defender in this class (nobody is touching Kyle Hamilton). He’s also a track guy. Coincidence? Perhaps not.
To be fair, it’s hard to expect much when a kid is coming from a completely foreign culture and has to adapt to a new country. Claypool deserves props for overcoming a lot, and the language barrier alone is enough to cause some slow development and explain why he wasn’t seeing much early in his career.
Now that I think about it, the same applies to Tillery.
And the likely Heisman trophy winner! – https://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/alabama-football/look-alabama-fan-worried-language-barrier-hawaiian-tua-tagovailoa-seeing-qb-point-wr/
Exactly what was in my head when I typed that out.
Tillery had probably the best hands I’ve ever seen from a DL recruit highlight tape (not that I watch many), and probably had better hands in HS than some guys who get drafted late.
FWIW just saw that Alohi Gilman’s father Asai is a private coach who does a lot of talent evaluation in Hawaii. I’m sure Polian et al. consult him from time to time on kids to watch.
Yes, this plus the USC offer make me feel pretty OK about this. Only real concern is space in the class, but maybe the coaches know something we don’t (e.g., guys privately conveying they’re going pro or transferring after this season).