This is not a vent board or any other kind of therapy. Before you hit the POST button, ask yourself if your contribution will add to the level of discussion going on.
Important notes on articles:
The 1986 class was considered one of our worst back then. by Moff
That gang from Chicago was not seen internally as some coup at the time, but rather what Gerry managed to recruit while it was clear he was going to be fired and in the wake of 58-7. It was a big drop off from Gerry’s multiple No.1 classes in his earlier years.
Grunhard and Smagala would go on to contribute. Foley would have but had a career ending injury early on. But that’s it.
Smagala probably would have been a 2 star, with Holtz initially encouraging him to go elsewhere when he inherited that recruiting class from Gerry. Smagala proved him wrong and ended up the second fastest on the team. Grunhard was also not an elite recruit.
Glonek never made it to campus due to academics, Zaleski and Cegielski didn’t make it past freshman year due to academics, etc. And they weren’t setting the practice field on fire either. Pearson was shown the door after the 1987 season. I’ll bite my tongue re those guys. Also, Harizin never played.
Alm and Zorich were not from those two high schools, with Alm
playing out in the burbs in Orland Park, but they obviously also contributed to the ‘88 team. I don’t recall Zorich being highly recruited, receiving a couple “best of the rest” and “honorable mention” accolades from a couple outfits.
No one was thrilled with that class. When we got blown off the field by No. 2 Alabama in the Fall of 1986, Holtz and Cerrato met in the front of the plane while we were flying home and it was made very clear that we needed to improve recruiting, including getting a lot more speed, and that was not going to be done by loading up a third of the class from two high schools in Chicago, half of whom had no chance of succeeding at ND. Holtz saw how fast the Alabama guys were, including two future NFL HOF linebackers on the same roster (Cornelius Bennett and Derrick Thomas) and told Cerrato to go out and get guys like that. We thereafter got the first of several No. 1 classes under Holtz that were drawn from all over the country. I’ve previously listed the many dozens of guys from the South that we went out and got during the Holtz years including a lot of our greatest stars.
If we continued to recruit classes like 1986, it would have been considered a failure. That said class is remembered well is because Holtz coached them up. But now the failure to replicate it is now being cited as the reason Kelly gets blown off the field by elite teams and is outrecruited by some lesser programs.
ND is full of excuses. Holtz was incensed and embarrassed by getting blown out by a far more talented and faster Alabama team and knew he and ND do could better. He didn’t say “Hey, what do you expect, it’s Alabama. Maybe they won’t come out of the locker room in the second half.” Kelly seems fine with it and we should all just thank him.