Irish make great impression on Ishaq Williams

There aren’t many recruits that have an offer list to match Brooklyn’s Ishaq Williams. The 6-foot-6, 230-pound Williams has 30-plus offers from some of college football’s best, and Williams was on campus last week during practice to get a first look at Notre Dame with his family.

According to Rivals.com’s Mike Farrell, the Irish are in great shape.

“Notre Dame was excellent,” Williams told Farrell. “I felt very comfortable with the team and the coaches and I learned more about their system. I spoke to Coach Diaco a lot while I was there. I also spoke to Coach Cooks and the athletic director.”

Williams had a long list of programs that he wanted to visit this summer, but his family only made two trips -- Notre Dame and the defending champions Alabama.

What’d he have to say about Alabama?

“I had a great time at Alabama. Those were some of the best facilities I’ve seen. You can tell it’s run like a professional team down there. It’s like a football factory. When you go there you can tell they expect to win. You can see that in all the guys on the team. I talked to the coaches a little bit in between their team practices.”

If I’m an Irish fan, I’m feeling really good about this situation. The characterization of ‘Bama as a “football factory” might be a compliment coming from Williams, but it’s certainly not something that you’d want to put on the cover of your media guide. More importantly, if the Irish are going to reel in a premiere recruit, it’s going to be because that particular student-athlete doesn’t want to be a part of a football factory.

More importantly, the fact that Williams got to sit down with position coach Kerry Cooks, an incredibly smooth and intelligent guy can’t hurt. The fact that he sat down with defensive coordinator Bob Diaco, a dynamic personality who happens to have grown up 27 miles away from Williams, should make Irish fans even more happy.

One of the best parts of having a great foundation to your recruiting class this early in the game is that the coaching staff can start to target the elite guys still left on the recruiting board. Most people would’ve thought that the Irish had no chance with a guy like Williams even though he mentioned that he was interested, but getting Ishaq on campus this summer was critical for the Irish.

It’s far from a sure thing that Williams will end up Irish, but credit the coaching staff for doing a great job so far.