Martin's bad news, Fauria's bad news, and a Mitch Mustain update (LOTD 6/25)

Uh-oh.


Seems we've hit the proverbial bump in the road, and the team's only been on campus for two days. 5-star prospect Chris Martin wrote a Dear John letter to Charlie Weis yesterday, announcing that he would take visits to other schools. This is usually a bad sign, though you can never be sure until the end. We've heard similar statements from recruits in the past; such was the case with Omar Hunter and Arrellious Benn (though Benn never said it to the press). I think we know how those both turned out.

Off the top of my head, I can't really remember anyone who said they would take visits to other schools and then stuck with their original commitment. Opposing coaches see the blood in the water, and Notre Dame is a very easy school to recruit negatively against. I like to call it the Fox News effect. The negative recruiting doesn't have to be true (and in most cases isn't), but college football coaches are Machiavellian little fellows and they don't care as long as they get the recruit.

Martin is the big chip in the stack that is the 2010 recruiting class. He is a monster of a lineman on defense and is the type of player we need to get if ND ever wants to compete at an elite level. Unfortunitely, the old adage "where there's smoke, there's fire" tends to work with recruiting. I hope Martin decides to stay, but I'm not entirely confident that he will at this point (and that's based on no inside info, just experience with recruiting).

UPDATE (9:33): Martin says, “(I’m) very committed to Notre Dame still, but just decided I’d like to take some visits, get out and see what every other college is about.” He continued to say that his commitment to Notre Dame is "very solid" and the Irish will receive one of his five allotted visits (I would hope so). So he's very solid, yet still visiting other schools. Something just doesn't make sense here.

Okay on to... more bad news. Joseph Fauria will miss the upcoming season for "personal reasons". Fauria is not enrolled in summer school and will not be enrolled in the fall. Fauria told the Chicago Tribune's Brian Hamilton that it has nothing to do with academics or lack of playing time. It's the fourth straight season a player has left for "personal reasons", with previous sabaticals coming from Pat Kuntz, Darrin Walls, and Gary Gray.

The common trend among the previous departures is obviously the fact that they all returned. Fauria says he would like to return as well, which is a good sign. His departure does hurt our depth at tight end, with Kyle Rudolph being backed by Mike Ragone (who hasn't played a down in college), and Luke Shmidt, who will see time at tight end in 3 TE sets. Everyone else is a walk-on.

I can't help but think that the situation wouldn't be so bad if the University hadn't completely botched the Will Yeatman situation. Tight end depth wouldn't have been as much of an issue had Yeatman received a fair punishment, as opposed to the overreaction we saw from those in charge.

Okay, on to good news! Hooray! BGS has a break down of returning starts by offensive lines, both at Notre Dame and for the opposition. Returning starts on the offensive line tend to have a lot to do with whether a team has a successful year or a year like 2007. Luckily, the Irish have more returning starts among offensive lineman than any team on the slate. ND's lineman have accumulated 100 games started, SC has 91, Michigan has 75, and Sparty has 47. There's been a lot of talk of a vastly improved offensive line and these numbers help back up those predictions.

Conversly, the Irish have 42 starts among defensive lineman, a number that puts them in the middle of the pack among scheduled opponents. Stanford leads the way in this category with 67, SC has 16 (though Everson Griffen plays a lot and never starts), Michigan has 17, and Sparty has 48.

There's some good news on the recruiting trail, though it doesn't mean much at this point. Irish Illustrated says that Blake Lueders took his third unofficial trip to ND ($). ND seems to be the leader at this point, though Lueders didn't commit while on the trip. It's odd, but I actually feel better about our position with Lueders than I do with Chris Martin (though that statement could come back and bite me in the butt).

Quick note: Tickets may still be available for the season opener against Nevada. A limited number of tickets went on sale yesterday morning, so there might be some left. I tried calling the ticket offices, but they aren't open until 8:30. The sale is a result of Nevada fans not buying enough seats... which means there either aren't many Nevada fans or that they don't care about the biggest game on their schedule this year.

So the ND news is mostly bad today. What might cheer us up? A MITCH MUSTAIN UPDATE! Seems like ole' Mitch, who at one point was the starting quarterback at Arkansas before transferring to become QB3 at USC, may not be on the field with the Trojans this year due to academic reasons. When asked if Mustain would be eligible if the Trojans were to play tomorrow Petey said, "We don't have a game tomorrow," which is a ringing endorsement if I've ever heard one. Mustain finished the spring behind starter Aaron Corp and backup (and true frosh) Matt Barkley on the depth chart.

Finally, Oregon has new uniforms (again), and they are as hideous as you would expect Oregon uniforms to be. There is a set of Athenian wings on the shoulders, with a particularly special yellow top with silver numbers combination, along with a white top and silver pants combination (since when is silver one of Oregon's colors?). Nike claims they are the fastest uniforms produced... but could they beat Trindon Holliday in a race? I think not.

That's all for today. I think I'm going to go take visits to other blogs while considering a return tomorrow.