Welcome back, everybody, to another edition of Irish Illustrated Insiders, January 18th Thursday.

And we have a full crew today.

I'm Tim Priester with Tim O'Malley, John Bryce, Pete Sampson of the Athletic, John Bryce, also with football scoop.

And it's a big day this weekend. It's a big weekend for Notre Dame, junior day. Guys, I'm not good about, you know, as it pertains to this is the best ever or this compared to that group.

All I know is when I look at this list of junior day guys coming in,

not only the 12 players, I believe it's 12 out of 14 that are verbally committed Nordame,

but the ones that are visiting with the Nordheim has a shot at. This is a,

this is a really big group. This is a testament to Marcus Freeman's work and the work of the coaching staff.

Yeah, I would, I would say that this is a direct reflection of the emphasis Marcus Freeman

has placed on recruiting, even all the way back to 21 when he was Notre Dame's defensive

coordinator and he started changing the way that Notre Dame approached defensive recruiting.

This is just further manifestation of Marcus's emphasis on recruiting and recruiting earlier

and getting guys to campus earlier.

It's Marcus and Chad Bowden working hand in hand on all of this and then deploying from

there.

But this is this doesn't happen by accident. And this is frankly, to your point,

Tim, they've gotten better and better each year under Marcus Freeman. This is the latest culmination of

that because it's been intentional and it's been so long going. And this is a staff that's really

adept at building and fostering and maintaining relationships. And when you can get this many kids to come to South Bend and it's not been above freezing

and over a week, that tells you the strength of the relationships.

I think it would be a good, my point was going to be that getting them in early and getting

on it.

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