The Opening

Each year there are thousands of high school sports all-star, training and highlighting events.  When is comes to sports promotion, Nike is at the head of the class and high school football is no different.  100 of the top high school football players (in Nike’s opinion) have traveled to Oregon.  For five days these “elite” athletes are trained and coached, and compete to see who the best of the best really is.   The challenges include Nike 7ON tournament, Nike Linemen Challenge, and SPARQ (Speed, Power, Agility, Reaction and Quickness) Rating National Championship.

Nike picks up the expenses for these athletes, and with a sweet deal like that, any high school student would be thrilled to go.  At first, my thought was, why would any committed and/or signed athlete go, and what would they have to gain?  Well, Nike doesn’t do things anything less than first class.  On the first night, these kids were addressed by stars including Jerry Rice, Ndamukong Suh, Larry Fitzgerald, Champ Bailey, and Marshall Faulk, among others.  Needless to say, Nike has connections.  On their free time, kids play EA Sports NCCA Football ’12 (one week before it is released).

Mostly, these young men hope to improve their training techniques, learn some new strategies and network.  This is a great opportunity to be around other athletes of their caliber; most of the time they are a big fish in a little pond.  This might be as close to what they will experience at the next level until they get to campus.   Of course, bragging rights is something each one of these guys would like to have when they leave as well.

The Irish have a number of dogs in this fight, with both commits and recruits attending.  The benefit of following “The Opening,” which you can do on ESPNU Thursday (9-10 p.m. EST), there will be a recap of the SPARQ championship followed by highlights of the 7-on-7 and lineman challenges on Friday and Saturday (9-11:30 p.m. EST).  It will be a great opportunity to see what the Irish have to look forward to from the young men who have committed to play for Notre Dame.  The current commits include Florida wide receiver Justin Ferguson, California wide receiver Deontay Greenberry, North Carolina offensive lineman Mark Harrell, Indiana linebacker David Perkins and California cornerback Tee Shepard. 

As far as those recruits who have not yet committed, this is obviously a great opportunity to make sure we are going after the right guys or maybe even pick up on a kids who may not have had the opportunity to catch Notre Dame’s attention (I know talent is searched out with extreme prejudice at the big time level, but with hundreds of thousands of athletes playing high school football, some slip by).  Those to keep an eye on as Irish recruiting targets include including Ohio running back William Mahone, Ohio defensive lineman Ifeadi Odenigbo, Massachusetts athlete Armani Reeves, Washington running back KeiVarae Russell, Washington offensive linemen Zach Banner and Josh Garnett, Indiana defensive lineman Sheldon Day, Virginia defensive lineman Korren Kirven, North Carolina defensive lineman Jamal Marcus, California wide receiver Bryce Treggs, Texas defensive back LaDarrell McNeil, California offensive linemen Kyle Murphy and Jordan Simmons, Florida athlete Nelson Agholor, Arizona athlete Davonte’ Neal, California defensive lineman Aziz Shittu and Florida offensive lineman Laremy Tunsil.

The first big competition is the SPARQ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Training Rating National Championship.  Needless to say, with so many big fish in one pon,d the competition was intense and the results impressive.  The SPARQ general athletic assessment test is composed of the 40 yard dash, kneeling power ball toss, agility shuttle, Yo-Yo intermittent recovery test (beep test) and vertical jump.  In the prelims, defensive back Daje’ Johnson, Hendrickson (Pflugerville, Texas)  – a TCU commit – set the all-time SPARQ score with a 146.52 (I believe the previous high prior to this year was around 127)

Landon Collins, Dutchtown (Geismar, La.) a 6-foot, 210-pound safety, posted a vertical just under 44 inches and a 40-time of 4.42 seconds.  Collins won with a 143.76, below Johnson’s epic score from earlier in the day, delivering his best performance when the tests mattered the most. Johnson ended up in sixth in the finals.  Right now the Irish are not on his radar.

Saturday's Best

ESPN.com did a piece called Simply Saturday http://espn.go.com/ncf/feature/video/_/id/6681950/, basically ranking their top 50 college football players who didn’t exactly tear it up on Sunday afternoons in the NFL as they did on Saturdays in college.  On that list includes several formal Irish greats - several I never got the pleasure of seeing play, some I did.

At #46 is Tight End Derek Brown.  I remember Brown as a big tight end, and at 6’6’’ and 270 lbs., I am sure many defenses did as well.  As a freshman, Brown was a part of the 1988 National Championship Team.  By the time he was a senior, he was an All American and the first round pick (14^th overall) of the New York Giants, where I am sure they were hoping he’d pick up where Mark Bavaro left off.  In seven NFL seasons, Brown had only 43 receptions for 403 yards and 1 touchdown.   Don’t worry though; he owns three Quiznos shops and lives in Rexford, NY with his wife and two children.  

At #26 is Angelo Bertelli who I missed by almost 40 years.  He may be best known for being the first of Notre Dame’s seven Heisman Trophy winners.  The year he won the Heisman, Angelo only played in six games, where the Irish averaged 43.5 points a game, then he was called for active duty in the Marines.  Bertelli was in boot camp when Notre Dame won the national championship that year.  He went on to fight on Iwo Jima and Guam and was awarded a Bronze Star and Purple Heart for his service in World War II.  A knee injury ended his pro career after only three seasons in the All-America Football Conference.  As far as I am concerned, Angelo Bertelli did more after his college career than anyone with his service to his country.

At #24 is another Heisman Trophy winner, John Haurte, who had his best season as a senior, passing for 2,062 yards and 16 touchdowns after being injured for most his sophomore year (freshmen did not play varsity then).  Haurte’s greatest professional football accomplishment was being drafted by two separate teams, one in the NFL and one in the AFL.

At #17 is another member Notre Dame’s 1988 National Championship team, Tony Rice.  I have read a lot about Rice in several books regarding Notre Dame football and I would encourage others to do so.  Tony was a talented high school football player whose road to Irish stardom was a challenge (Prop 48 issues).  I was very impressed in the tales that I read regarding how he handled himself through it all.  I remember reading that he could easily throw the football 75 yards at Notre Dame.  Professionally, Rice played in Canada and in the World League.

At lucky #13 is someone who, in my opinion, was one of the most exciting college football players of all time.  Also a member of the 1988 National Championship Team, Raghib “The Rocket” Ishmail  was named #75 on the College Football News Top 100 College Football Players of all time.  I remember EVERY time he touched the ball or the ball was kicked or punted in his direction you would watch with bated breath.  I also remember him saying in interviews how his younger brother (later nicknamed “The Missile” at the University of Syracuse) was faster.  Although he was drafted by the Raiders in the forth round, he signed a record contract with the Toronto Argonauts of the CFL.  Ishmail did have a NFL career during the 90’s with the Cowboys, Panthers and the team that originally drafted him - the Raiders – putting up respectable numbers but never the recapturing the excitement he showed in South Bend.

At #11 is John Lattner, the third Notre Dame Heisman trophy winner on this list.  Lattner was what I would call the Larry Bird of his Irish teams, doing everything all the time.  In addition to the Heisman, he also won the Maxwell Award twice.  Amazingly, he did not lead the Irish in rushing, passing, receiving or even scoring yet he won both the Heisman and Maxwell Trophies in 1953.  After playing one NFL season with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Lattner joining the Air Force.  Like Bertelli, Lattner provided more to his country after college than just football.

With six players out of 50 (at over 10% the most of any school) on this list, some Irish Fans may feel attacked.  I feel honored.  To me, this demonstrates the very high expectations put on Notre Dame Football players (maybe too high). And, in my opinion, the fact that there are three members of the 1988 National Championship team on the list demonstrates that it was one of the best college teams ever.

I also recommend uhnd.com’s All Time Notre Dame Draft Busts list at http://www.uhnd.com/articles/nfl-irish/time-notre-dame-draft-busts/ which includes Darius Walker who I always said should have stayed in South Bend for his senior season.  And while there were six Irish players on the “busts” list, there were also a number of ND football players who were steals in the drafts throughout the years, led by Joe Montana, taken in the 3rd round #82 overall.  Even though Montana was a good collegiate quarterback, looking back, none of the 81 picks drafted prior that turned out better.  For those interested, the Buffalo Bills had the first pick that year, drafting Tom Cousineau, a linebacker out of Ohio State.

Better late than never

I am always amazed when I hear about athletes who start a sport relatively late in life.  In high school, Matthias Farley was a good receiver with 849 yards and 12 touchdowns in his junior season.  That’s not overly impressive until you realize that his junior season was also his first in football, changing over from soccer after a sophomore season that saw great individual success but a dismal team record.  His senior year numbers were less impressive on the offensive side, but because of his athleticism, he saw some time on the defensive side of the ball, putting up some impressive numbers there.  Even with only two years of high school football experience, Matthias Farley had offers from UCLA, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Illinois, North Carolina State, Duke, Maryland and East Carolina.

Farley was originally slotted to play on defense, but has recently has been moved to wide receiver, not unusual for Kelly to put athletes where he feels they will be most helpful (ala Luke Massa from Quarterback to wide receiver).  Matthias was an early commit, being the fourth recruit to commit to the Irish during his cycle.  He has recently been assigned #41 which he requested in honor of one of his high school football coaches, Eugene Robinson, who played safety in the NFL for 16 years. 

In researching Matthias Farley, I discovered a couple of lighthearted videos with a lot of “jocularities,” as Father Mulcahy from M.A.S.H would say:  http://www.schooltube.com/video/f1c04a1a8f5e4b95eb3a/5-Freedoms-Fast http://vimeo.com/11197102  To me, these videos show Farley to be an outgoing, fun young man with personality.

For those interested in seeing his more athletic side, check out his Junior year highlight film http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpY4KgtO_Ew&NR=1

I am looking forward to seeing his contributions and continued development.