UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

December 4, 2024

Chad Bowden

Press Conference

CHAD BOWDEN: Before I get started, I do have a couple thank yous. Obviously there's a lot of people that go into creating this class. Our recruiting staff, our student interns. Coach Freeman I always say, my job is so easy because of how good of a coach he is and obviously how good of a recruiter he is. I would like to thank Coach Freeman, the coaching staff, Pete Bevacqua, Ron Powlus, Katie Lonergan. I would like to thank our academics and admissions, Adam Sargent, Micki Kidder, Shannon Kelly, Deb Johns. I would like to thank our strategic development department, Pat Rogers and Scott Conners, Rally with Kayla Rogers, Anthony Travel, Madison Hahn, our compliance staff, Cyndi Sykes, Heidi Uebelhor, Brent Moberg, Jeff Parry and Tempestt Jenkins, Shalika Shetty and Kevin a/k/a "Boom" McMahon and the entire FIM team, Nathan Bush for keeping South Bend up all night long for our legacy walks. I know you guys hear those at night. And the South Bend community for not calling the police on us for those legacy walks.

Q. Chad, when you have a late development like Matt Entz getting the Fresno State job, how much does that under score the need to have authenticity in the relationships with a recruit like a Madden?

CHAD BOWDEN: Yeah, I mean, the reason we got Madden is because we have the best coaches in the country recruiting him. We have Coach Freeman, he's a linebacker guy as our head coach. You have Coach Bullough, who will obviously coach the linebackers, and Coach Golden, who in the NFL coached linebackers, those three are the reason why Madden is here today and why he signed with the Irish.

Q. From your time back to Cincinnati and maybe even a student worker to where it is now as a GM, how much have you seen college football recruiting evolve in the last half a dozen years, and what do you think is the next evolution?

CHAD BOWDEN: I couldn't tell you what the next evolution is, but I know we're going to always be on top of it because college football changes every day. You never know what's going to go through, what's not going to go through with the NCAA, and we just continue to push, push and try to develop and get better. The signing days change, a lot of dates have changed, contact days, when you go on the road. There's so much that has changed. But we always have a plan. We have multiple plans to make sure that we're on top of everything.

Q. The question I asked Coach Freeman maybe is best suited for you, and that is the changes that occur on a regular basis in recruiting, what happened this year that maybe made you say, next year I think we need to approach it differently, this way?

CHAD BOWDEN: Yeah, every year we look at enhancing what our recruiting process is always. I think signing day changing, I think not going on the road in December, I think maybe some of the things that we did during the season is something that we can look at. But there's so many different things that we're going to look at to enhance, and we do that every single year with every cycle.

We have an end-of-the-year meeting that I meet with Coach Freeman, go over what we feel like we've done well, where we missed. He obviously gives us his feedback, and we get together and come up with the best plan for 2026.

Q. With regards to James Flanigan and the recruiting process with him, I'm not sure that you were in on that right when he was really young and still in high school, but the process of recruiting him and his ability on both sides of the football?

CHAD BOWDEN: Yeah, he's a guy that offensively and defensively, he's a phenomenal athlete. He's very physical at the point of contact. He's a guy we are fired up about.

I know early on obviously his dad Jim means a lot to this program, means a lot to all of us. We were on James early. Might not have appeared that way, but we've always had our eye on James.

We've had our eye on the Flanigan family, and we'll continue to do so.

Q. Chad, with Blake Hebert, how did that flip come together and what does he bring to that quarterback room?

CHAD BOWDEN: Yeah, Blake's leadership, first off, is something that you can be around him and he lights up the room. There's something about that kid that you just see it -- you can see it on the field. You can see it with his teammates. They just light up when they're around him. They love it. They love playing for him. That's what really attracted us to Blake.

Then Blake, it was really a mutual interest. That's really what it was. He went to Brunswick School. Our unbelievable athletic director obviously went there, and I think being at that school kind of helped him understand that there's more to life than just football, and I think that played a big part in his interest in the University of Notre Dame when it came down the stretch.

Q. I wanted to ask you about the offensive line, as well. What excites you about adding those four guys to a room that's got all of a sudden a lot of young talent and competition there?

CHAD BOWDEN: Yeah, we needed tackles. We needed tackles in this class, and we feel like we got the best tackles in the country with Owen, Matty and Will, and then obviously we needed a center. I know Coach has hit on it, but we really needed to get a center in this class. All four of those guys came to camp or some type of skills camp that we've identified those are guys -- I think Coach Rudolph does the best job in the country recruiting offensive linemen. We have nothing but trust and respect for his evaluations and how he sees things and felt those were the best guys in the country, and we went out and got them.

Q. With early enrollees, how many of these guys are early enrollees, and is it still the advantage that a lot of people perceive it to be, because you guys have had a lot of June enrollees be really good freshmen. I'm curious your thoughts on those two things.

CHAD BOWDEN: Yeah, so we have 13 guys that will be coming at mid-semester, and then we'll have 12 guys in the summer.

Look, there's different stories one way or the other. We have plenty of really good mid-semester stories that have been a part of our program, guys that have come in and played right away. You could look at a Kingston and a guy that came in and has contributed and then you look at guys in the summer. Just last year Leonard Moore came in the summer and you see what he's doing now. It goes both ways.

Everyone's path is different, as Coach Freeman would say, and one way or the other, we're going to coach them, develop them, and do the best we can when they get here, and one way or the other, they're going to have an opportunity to play.

Q. I'm sure you will adapt to whatever the NCAA tells you to do, but is there a strategic advantage in having the signing period before the portal opens for you, for Notre Dame?

CHAD BOWDEN: I would say yes. Just gives you more time to just truly focus on what we were able to do in high school. I think they're totally two separate periods, and for us to -- across the country to just be focus on getting the guys we've had committed for so long, especially with how recruiting is nowadays, you have guys committed for sometimes two to three years, which we did in this class, whether they were silent or whether they were committed the whole time, so for us to be able to focus on just getting those guys signed before we moved on to the portal is great for us.

Q. I asked Marcus about the quarterbacks. Going into next year these are all guys that you have recruited. What does it say about the direction of that position group to where you guys are really home-growing these guys and they're all recruits like Blake and Steve and down the line?

CHAD BOWDEN: We feel great about the quarterback room. We feel great about going into next season with what we have. I know that, and really believe in the guys that we have recruited, and that's really all I have to say about that.

Q. What sort of importance do you think played in these recruits seeing the freshmen play and make impacts on the team this past season or this current season?

CHAD BOWDEN: Yeah, I think anytime you see freshmen ahead of you, and it was just like that the year before that, anytime you see freshmen that are playing ahead of you, you see a path. You can see it.

I think it's important.

Again, every path is different, so you don't know when that time is going to happen. You look at Xavier Watts, for example, you just don't know. You don't know when your time is going to be called. But I think for them to be able to visually see that there is a path for you to play, we're going to play the best player. That's our coaching staff, Coach Freeman, his philosophy is we're going to play the best. We're going to play the best player. It doesn't matter how old you are. That's what we're going to do.

Q. There were a number of players you guys were going after late in the cycle. Madden was obviously one of them. What goes into the decision to figure out which guys to push for in the final hours? Which guys are worth the investment down the stretch? Also on top of that, what was your reaction to Madden's news?

CHAD BOWDEN: Well, I heard Coach Freeman screaming, so I didn't know if something was going on. I really wanted to check on him.

But no, we were fired up. The whole staff came out. Everyone was hugging each other. It was a really special moment, a moment I'll never forget.

But it's really like that with everybody. It's so funny in recruiting, everyone cares so much about what happens at the end, they forget about what we have before that. We have an unbelievable class. I love this class. It's got incredible depth. It's solid at every position. But we celebrate every win in recruiting, and we evaluate every loss.

Now, as you go down the stretch, I know everyone says you can be after certain people. There are certain people that we pushed, some we didn't. When you recruit a kid for so long you figure out towards the end who's really worth it, who values this place and wants to be here, and those are the guys we push, and those are the guys that we got.