About Brendan R

People who know me best say that I'm sociable, have a dry sense of humor, a predilection for useless trivia, and can obsess about meaningless details. I'm happily married to a woman who thankfully still hasn't figured out that I married up, and we have three great kids, all boys who are trying to destroy our house in stages. They're quite efficient at it, too. In what time I have left over after the various cleanup efforts, I'm a sports nut, a science geek, an unabashed Shakespeare lover, and an aspiring 50-state marathoner.

The Cornerback’s Creed

After one of Notre Dame's practices last week, defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman was available for a general media session for the first time in four months. As usual, Freeman proved to be a compelling listen from multiple angles. Whether he talked about personnel, defensive philosophy, life adjustments, or mentoring, it was all great insight into [...]

By |2021-08-18T15:12:54-04:00August 18th, 2021|Football|5 Comments

2022 Football Recruiting: Big Board Consolidation Tiiiiiime

Ladies and gentleman, it is time to consolidate the board. We're officially moving from doing separate offense and defense updates to doing one comprehensive update, since the board is down to 12 total prospects with a non-zero level of mutual interest. That non-zero level is defined as having a temperature of "Cool" or better, if [...]

By |2021-08-17T10:44:12-04:00August 17th, 2021|Football, Recruiting|24 Comments

2023 Football Recruiting: S Adon Shuler Commits to Notre Dame

Notre Dame's 2023 class added its third prospect today when four-star athlete Adon Shuler announced for the Irish. The 6'0", 190-pound New Jerseyan earned his offer by camping at Notre Dame in early June, then showed his interest was serious by returning for the BBQ at the end of July. While he's currently ranked as [...]

By |2021-08-16T10:56:50-04:00August 16th, 2021|Football, Recruiting|3 Comments

2022 Football Recruiting: Blue Chip WR CJ Williams Commits to Notre Dame

Notre Dame added its third wide receiver to the 2022 recruiting class today when top 100 target CJ Williams announced for the Irish. There was pro-Irish buzz for a long time around the 6'2", 193-pound Californian and Alabama legacy; now, he's set to become the first Mater Dei product to wear the blue and gold [...]

By |2021-08-08T16:47:36-04:00August 8th, 2021|Football, Recruiting|5 Comments

2022 Football Recruiting: Offense Big Board Update 8/2

Wooooo-ie, has it been a busy month since we last updated the board. Fourteen prospects with Notre Dame offers committed elsewhere, one flipped a longtime commitment to an in-state rival, one decomitted from a powerhouse program, and one new Irish offer went out. The Offense Board A reminder on how we do this - we'll [...]

By |2021-08-02T20:15:31-04:00August 2nd, 2021|Football, Recruiting|16 Comments

2022 Football Recruiting: CB Benjamin Morrison Commits to Notre Dame

Notre Dame's 2022 recruiting class gained its fourth defensive back today when four-star corner Benjamin Morrison announced for the Irish. The 6'0", 172-pound Arizonan caught our attention several months ago when describing his high school, Brophy College Prep, in this interview with 247's Kevin Sinclair (free): “It's hard to explain how one feels about Brophy [...]

By |2021-07-16T08:04:11-04:00July 16th, 2021|Football, Recruiting|7 Comments

2022 Football Recruiting: Elite LB Jaylen Sneed Commits to Notre Dame

Notre Dame added arguably the jewel of its 2022 class today when elite linebacker Jaylen Sneed announced for the Irish. The 6'2", 210 pound South Carolinian had a late flirtation with Oregon, reportedly a favorite program of his younger years, but the Irish and particularly defensive coordinator/linebackers coach Marcus Freeman were determined to keep the [...]

By |2021-07-12T19:55:38-04:00July 12th, 2021|Football, Recruiting|16 Comments

2022 Football Recruiting Big Board: Offense Update 6/28

Movement! As we noted was likely in the last couple of updates, there has been movement all over the board with prospects finally able to take real recruiting visits to schools. We had four  players go on the board and eight players come off it, with two of those arrivals also on the departure list. [...]

By |2021-06-28T11:24:32-04:00June 28th, 2021|Football, Recruiting|12 Comments

Not-Dead-Period Football Recruiting Predictions

The college football world is abuzz with newfound energy this week, as the NCAA's COVID-related dead period finally ended when the calendar flipped to June. Some schools even hosted a basketball-style "Midnight Madness" and welcomed recruits into their facilities as the clock chimed its way into the new month. We can understand the excitement, given [...]

By |2021-07-12T09:18:25-04:00June 3rd, 2021|Football, Recruiting|22 Comments

2022 Football Recruiting Big Board: Offense Update 5/24

The board has been fairly quiet as most prospects have focused on packing their suitcases for the end of our long national winter the dead period on June 1st. As we mentioned last time, Notre Dame has an absolutely monster month of visits set up, for 2022 and 2023 prospects, and every other school has done [...]

By |2021-05-24T11:26:12-04:00May 24th, 2021|Football, Recruiting|26 Comments

2022 Football Recruiting: TE Holden Staes Commits to Notre Dame

Notre Dame added another quality tight end to its 2022 class today when Holden Staes announced for the Irish. The 6'5", 230 pound Georgian committed to Penn State last summer but re-opened his recruitment in February. This wasn't a case of second thoughts after his recruitment blew up, as he already had almost all his [...]

By |2021-05-08T17:47:27-04:00May 8th, 2021|Football, Recruiting|20 Comments

2022 Football Recruiting Big Board: Offense Update 4/26

There's been a decent amount of movement on the board since the last time we checked in on Notre Dame's 2022 offensive recruiting. The biggest development has nothing to do with individual prospects, though; it's that the NCAA has decided to finally lift the dead period as of June 1st, which as you might imagine [...]

By |2021-04-26T10:48:32-04:00April 26th, 2021|Football, Recruiting|5 Comments

NCAA to Approve One-Time Free Transfer Rule

Get ready for a tectonic shift in collegiate athletics, folks: Later today the NCAA is expected to formalize acceptance of a rule that will allow all student-athletes to transfer once without having to sit out a season of competition. The one-time transfer rule for athletes in all sports has been approved by the NCAA's Division [...]

By |2021-04-15T11:48:04-04:00April 15th, 2021|18S Reads, Football|7 Comments

2022 Football Recruiting: DE Darren Agu Commits to Notre Dame

Notre Dame added another big, athletic defensive end to its 2022 class today when Darren Agu announced for the Irish. The 6'6", 225-pound Georgia resident has had quite a fascinating journey to where he is now. Born in Ireland, Agu moved to London as a child. He played six-man football there and made a name [...]

By |2021-04-09T16:31:11-04:00April 9th, 2021|Football, Recruiting|4 Comments

2022 Football Recruiting Big Board: Offense Update 3/29

A few weeks back we kicked off the 2022 offense big board with a comprehensive run down of where everything stood. Fast forward a couple of weeks and we don't have a ton of movement, but we do have a couple of developments worth noting. The Irish staff used St. Patrick's day as a huge [...]

By |2021-04-21T10:37:09-04:00March 29th, 2021|Football, Recruiting|14 Comments
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