Bob Diaco just secured his place in Notre Dame recruiting lore.
Not only did the Irish defensive coordinator lead the charge that landed a verbal commitment from potentially five-star athlete Ishaq Williams on Friday, Diaco did it with an in-home visit at 4:30 a.m. There was no sales pitch according to father Shaun Williams, just a reinforcement of what the Irish could offer the 6-foot-6, 230-pound prospect.
"Everything else at Notre Dame just added up," Shaun Williams said. "It's really just what he was looking for. He really admires coach Diaco and really admires coach (Brian) Kelly. Coach Kelly is a proven winner and might just prove to be the next Joe Paterno, if he wants to coach that long.
"The whole idea of how confidently coach Diaco talks about Notre Dame winning a national championship in the next few years, he just felt he had to buy in."
Consider this commitment, the 21st in Notre Dame's recruiting class, a shot of athletic caffeine. Williams plans to head to South Bend this weekend to start classes next week.
Williams gives the Irish a unique outside linebacker and a stronger foothold in the Northeast. While finalists Penn State and Syracuse saw a defensive end, Notre Dame projected Williams as a do-everything linebacker, putting his hand on the ground and dropping into coverage.
While the linebacker position didn't feel comfortable to Williams at first, Diaco continued to sell the role with the help of a sit down with Darius Fleming last month in South Bend.
"Notre Dame, it has so many things we're looking for, but the football position is not something that he's necessarily used to," Shaun Williams said. "It's a new thing, so you know we had to take the football out of it. I asked him what University he'd want to go to. He said hands down that it was Notre Dame."
However, if Williams picked a hat at the U.S. Army All-American Bowl last weekend as originally planned, Shaun Williams said Penn State would have been the choice. But in the days leading up to the high school all-star game rumblings with the Nittany Lions began that defensive coordinator Tom Bradley might leave for another job. Paired with Joe Paterno's eventual retirement and the uncertainty surrounding Larry Johnson's future if the Penn State icon stepped down, Williams struggled to settle on a potentially tumultuous career in Happy Valley.
"We did care about what Tom Bradley was doing," Shaun Williams said. "We were concerned about the movements with Tom Bradley, how that would affect Larry Johnson's future at Penn State.
"Larry Johnson is a great position coach, a great motivator. That's not to say Bob Diaco isn't, but Larry Johnson has been doing it for a long time. He has a track record that's easy to see. But coach Paterno's impending retirement, there's just no promises of what's going to happen in terms of the Penn State staff staying intact.
"We really, really, really love what Larry Johnson does. But the whole notion of going to a school because of a position coach is not a good look."
Williams planned to visit Penn State this weekend but that trip has been cancelled.
The family plans to travel to South Bend this weekend with classes starting up next week.
"We're going to leave Sunday, probably," Shaun Williams said. "We'll get into his dorm Monday morning, go through orientation, see about scheduling and whatnot. I've got to reach out to Dave Peloquin and all those guys to see what the next steps are about getting a schedule together."
Odds are it won't include any 4:30 a.m. classes.
