NU offer gives QB Jack Lausch a decision to make
- Thread starter lou v
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As I believe someone else already noted, even if Lausch viewed ND as his dream destination, this type of thinking might have prevented NU from taking a linebacker named Fitzgerald back in the early 90s. I just don't get it.
ND has tremendous appeal for guys at Catholic schools and Lausch has openly said he grew up a fan.
Well one thing we know is he isn't really worried about his short-term draft potential: if he attends either TSISB or NU he'll be ineligible for the draft for three years.
Lou already reported he hadn't talked to the NU baseball team at all as of the article coming out.
NU's baseball program is not good. The baseball opportunity is no comparison. Furthermore, at ND he has a scholarship and a reserved spot on the roster. At NU he's presumably have to walk on, work his way up while missing spring games and practices, etc. He'll have the reverse problem in football if he goes to ND.
As others have said, this is primarily a decision about what sports he wants to be his number 1, baseball or football. His family is wealthy so any money differences are irrelevant. He's also a lifelong Notre Dame fan, but also seems to love and respect NU too.
If his draft upside is true, I personally think the kid would be insane not to go the baseball route for purely financial reasons, but that's just me. NIL in football may be changing that equation.
You are making a few assumptions here. Not every kid that plays for a Catholic HS is an automatic ND lean or dream school destination.
The bigger point is the second I sense that NU doesn’t recruit the best athletes due to fear of transfer to a name program, I am out as a fan. I know this is NOT the way the staff feels or operates.
My understanding is that Lausch is focused on pursuing an opportunity that gives him a chance to be a starting QB at a P5 school. That is his priority if he goes the college route although he wants to try to play both for a while. My read is that baseball becomes a priority only if he is drafted high by MLB (top 5 rounds and has a big bonus on the table). Personally I don’t see that happening and even if it does this is a high academic kid from a well off family so the lure of MLB money in lieu of a top college education may not be as strong as it would normally be.
The worry that he will develop at NU and then transfer to ND seems quite odds since.....he already has a ND offer. I understand that it's a PWO. But if his dream is to play at ND, take the offer in hand. Best chance to get a scholarship at ND is to start there.
I can't imagine our coaches, or any coaches at any P5 school, back off on a recruit for fear that he'll transfer.
I can't imagine our coaches, or any coaches at any P5 school, back off on a recruit for fear that he'll transfer.
Walker was the head coach so it would have been his call. But I don’t think he forced him to choose. Pohlman wanted to play baseball fulltime.
Sounds like Pohlman felt differently.
He was drafted as a catcher, but moved back to the mound his first full season.
Skipped low-a because he was old, and couldn’t pass the hitter-friendly California league (High-A)
Interesting. Walker was old school so I guess I’m not surprised but the story back in the day was that he really wanted to play baseball fulltime to enhance his MLB chances.
We’ll see what Lausch does.
Does that mean that NU should pass on any player that is likely to go for the NFL draft after three years? Brandon Joseph might have the chance to go pro after only two seasons of playing time. Should Fitz pass on any player that isn't willing to stay for five years?
We’ve definitely had the “never would I want a one-and-done” on the basketball board, so, yes, I'm sure some will say that.
NU has a very early Spring FB practice season, so he might be able to get in a half season of baseball
I can understand your concern, but it's really a situation where you have to hope that the culture that Fitz has built is so strong that it can really integrate young people into it and make them happy and make them play for their brothers on the team and want to win for those guys and that these guys have a great time at the University and want to finish their careers here. We've seen a lot of guys come here and do that even if Northwestern wasn't originally their first choice.
We're at the point where we'll have better facilities across the board than anyone else (once the stadium revamp is finished) combined with a great education in a great location as well as long-term coaching stability and a solid winning tradition over the past 3 decades.
Obviously, the gameday atmosphere is on a different level at a place like ND (or Michigan/Ohio State/Penn State and any of those types of places), but it's just that we have everything else and have to be able to sell all that other stuff.
I think we'll win enough battles at the portal to make up for those that leave here.
And ultimately, we're in a situation where we take in so much fewer recruits than the average program (because they stay in the program longer) that we really need to make sure we're hitting even if it's a guy that might dream of playing for another program if he makes it big. We need that 1-2 years of success from a larger portion of our recruits to have those division winning/top 25 teams.
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You're arguing for the exception. The vast majority of south side college sports fans are fans of ND, even if they go to U of I or wherever else. A lot of south side people kinda/sorta dislike NU because they view it as the North Side white collar school, even in comparison to ND, which doesn't make sense, but it's the sentiment anyways.
That said, we should still be trying to hammer that conference in recruiting (hoops especially IMO, but that's a different topic).
I don't think we have a solid winning tradition from '95-current from the view of an outsider, nor do we have one compared to the schools we're competing with for the caliber of players we need to win. Seasons like '19+21 are just so devastating because the stability argument is code for consistency, and we're proving to be anything but. Thorson was consistent, NU football isn't. Instead of continuing on, edging close to a .600 winning percentage, 13-20 has dropped Fitz below .550. We have no choice but to hope Fitz can solve the crisis.
Thing is, most outsiders pay 0 attention to bad years for programs that aren't the Texas/Florida-level programs in the world.
Most outsiders will see the years where we make Big Ten title games and very few will notice the bad years.
Of course, that's 0 consolation to our actual fans, but it also helps blunt the negative impact. Still, if it becomes a long/multi-year trend of poor seasons that will hurt.
Pretty sure the difference in what you’re saying is the “full time” part. From what I know, Walker required football players to be football players first so that they would attend football practices or workouts before baseball games.
It really wasn’t all that bad or difficult to delete. Worse stuff gets deleted almost every day around here. Most people don’t realize it because frequently a post gets zapped before many people get a chance to read it so they do not know it existed. That’s why the mods get the big bucks
Seriously! Could you guys imagine if you had to read everything I tried to post on here?!?
NU is taking the risk with Lausch. I hope it turns out for the best. I do not want to be embarrassed.
NU is taking the bigger risk not committing him. How many options do they have? Still need a QB for next year. If there is embarrassment, it will not be yours, it will be Fitz's.
I agree. Especially if he is a PWO. The minute he plays football (head count sport) he would count for the total of FB players on scholarship. He's probably not getting much money for baseball, if any at all. Wouldn't make sense for a FB team to make an equivalency sport (baseball) athlete a PWO. I think he made the right decision with NU.
In Fitz's presser today there was a moment when I had to listen again. seems that baseball is going to be in Lausch's future at NU. Yep, you heard me right. I really have to see how that [plays out
That was the expectation all along however he gave an interview recently that for the first time made me think otherwise. Lausch actually said in this article that he is not sure if he’ll pursue baseball at NU. First time I’ve heard that full focus on Football was a possibility.