Re: The state of Notre Dame football.
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MyTurn2Raise, how much can a head coach reasonably be expected to recruit in the final 1-2 months before signing day? If you look at recruiting now, almost every team has at least 10 guys verbally committed, many with closer to 20 or more, and everyone who's any good at recruiting has been talking to recruits since their junior year. If he had left the Patriots, what is the likelihood that that recruiting class would have been substantially improved, given that at the time he was hired he was just another coordinator under the shadow of Bellichick and not some returning savior ala Nick Saban.
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How could Willingham be expected to recruit when everyone is calling for his head? How was he supposed to convince potential recruits that he would be there for their entire college career?
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This wasn't an issue for his Feb '04 signing class the previous year and he still put together one of the worst in Irish history...if his first two classes were dynamite and only has last was marginal you might have an argument.
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