I don't post much but I have had an intimate view of recruiting over the past year. My nephew if friends with a 4/5 Start recruit who just decommitted from Alabama and committed to FSU. My nephew is a freshman in HS and he's already getting looks from some major universities. I asked both of them if they got and offer from ND if they would go there. My nephew said he would absolutely go, his friend the FSU commit laughed and said "no way, they are too strict. I want to play football not go to church" The difference in these two is my nephew comes from a good stable family home and his friend does not.
Kids today don't care about Tradition or 4 for 40. They care about who has the best shot at winning and them playing early to they can be scouted for the NFL with the least amount of work, they don't want to earn it.
The disrespect I've seen in the past couple of years with my nephews teams to their coaches is unbelievable, you can't tell these kids anything because you can't even discipline them anymore. I was thinking about getting back into coaching until I started helping with his team again, it's unreal.
Until the culture of our kids change ND will never be a national powerhouse again, we can finish top 15 and every now and then we will make the playoffs and hope for a good match up or a team to play badly but we will need a perfect storm to ever win the NC again because we will not out talent anyone.