More than a decade has passed since Brady Quinn went through the recruiting process but it’s still fresh in his mind.
He remembers cutting his own highlight tape in the Dublin (Ohio) Coffman library. Searching for addresses and zip codes. Trying to track down recruiting coordinators so he could mail out packages of film.
Times have certainly changed and Quinn, who helped at the Rivals Quarterback Challenge Finals last weekend in Baltimore, thinks it’s for the better.
“We didn’t have the resources kids have today,” Quinn said. “It was different. You had to go to each school so my mom and I got in the car and went on a road trip for a few weeks and basically would stop by a school a day or a couple days, check it out academically, maybe go see the coaching staff and maybe throw if we could.
“That’s how it was done, the old-fashioned way and then you tried to get a sense whether it would work out.”
For Quinn, it turned out splendidly. The four-star who was ranked as the No. 10 pro-style quarterback in the 2003 class ended up setting numerous records during his career at Notre Dame.
But it was hardly a straight path to South Bend.
Iowa was the first to offer, followed by Miami-Ohio. Then Ohio State and Michigan came in and others followed.
As the Notre Dame coaching situation was being sorted out, it looked like Quinn could have ended up with the Wolverines. Notre Dame was going through a bit of a coach issue with George O’Leary and the Irish really hadn’t stayed in regular contact through it all.
Then the Dublin Coffman four-star took a trip to South Bend as the coaching carousel got settled by hiring Tyrone Willingham and Quinn knew he found his future home.
“It really came down to Michigan, Ohio State, Notre Dame,” Quinn said. “Notre Dame had gone through the snafu with George O’Leary. There was a period of time when I was being recruited by Bob Davie, he was fired, George O’Leary got the job and I didn’t really hear much from him, he got fired, Ty Willingham got the job later that spring and I started hearing from them but it was kind of late in the game.
“At that point, I was going to Michigan. Tennessee was in the mix as well, regionally they were closer, good football program so it kind of made sense at the time. Once I went up and met with Ty I just felt Notre Dame was the place for me to develop as a man and as a football player.”
The recruiting process was certainly different for Quinn, more challenging, more difficult to get noticed, but it all worked out. This was before a prospect could put a highlight tape on the Internet, talk with coaches on Twitter and easily gain exposure.
Still, in the end, there were similarities to how it goes today. Quinn did take visits early, he did meet with coaches, throw in person, get the full academic rundown, play the game of figuring out which program fit best.
There aren’t kids cutting tape in libraries anymore and scouring for zip codes to places like Columbus and Ann Arbor. Nobody is running to the post office to send out film.
After all the hours of road trips with his mom and meeting coaches, Quinn found what he wanted in South Bend and it all came together. It turned out to be a marvelous decision for the future first-round draft pick.
“There is no better way of playing the best football combined with the academics where if things didn’t work out I knew my degree would take care of it,” Quinn said of Notre Dame.
“Even more so than that, if you look at the success quarterbacks have had at Notre Dame to get to the NFL level a lot more guys have gone there than places like Ohio State so it made sense from that perspective.”
