If all goes according to plan on February 6th , Notre Dame will once again have one of the top offensive line classes for 2013. Hunter Bivin, Colin McGovern, John Montelus, Steve Elmer and Mike McGlinchey all participated in All-American games this year and did very well for themselves ,but one that seems to intrigue a lot of people is the tallest of the bunch, Mike McGlinchey.
The 6-foot-8, 270-pound goliath displayed his dominance at the Semper Fi All-American game and earned rave reviews for his offensive line play. Though he really had a good time participating, McGlinchey admits he was also using the contest as sort of a measuring stick.
“It definitely gives you a chance to see where you're at against some of the top talent in the nation,” he claimed. “I thought I did fairly well and I was pretty successful all week. It definitely gives me a lot of confidence going into my college career at Notre Dame.”
That career will soon be a reality in about two days and the talented Pennsylvania product cannot wait to add his signature to that letter-of-intent.
“It's definitely going to be a special day on Wednesday to know that I'm finally part of the Notre Dame family,” said McGlinchey. “I'm excited about the whole thing and seeing what the future is going to bring.”
Though many teams around the nation would love to have the future Irish offensive lineman on the roster, he made it clear early on that there's only one place he’d be going in 2013 and that’s South Bend.
“I've been fortunate because teams stop recruiting me after I committed to Notre Dame,” explained McGlinchey. “I really haven't been hounded by too many people and I think it's a part of what I did that nipped that early on. Once I committed to Notre Dame, I sat down and called all the other coaches recruiting me and told them I was stopping the process. I told them I was 100-percent committed to Notre Dame. Once I committed I felt it was my responsibility to put things to an end and that's what I did.”
His decision to end things early was justified in his mind this January when his future head coach decided to drop by Philadelphia to pay the lineman a visit.
“Coach Kelly stopped in for a in-home a couple weeks ago and everything went great,” he shared. “We just sat around and had a good conversation. It wasn't really too much about Notre Dame or football. It was a chance for coach Kelly to get to know me and my family better and for me and my family to get to know coach Kelly better. I really appreciate him taking the time out of his schedule to come see me.”
What type of player can Notre Dame fans expect to see when it's his turn to take the field?
“They're going to get a hard worker and I'm going to try to outwork everybody,” he stated confidently. “I'm going to put myself 110-percent into everything I do at Notre Dame and hopefully make myself better and the team better. I'm just going be the best player I can possibly be and hopefully that'll help the team be successful.”
The Penn Charter standout also has high expectations for the rest of the Irish mob also.
“I expect and hope for great things to come from our class. We're a very unique group and we have a lot of really, really talented players coming in, but most importantly were all a bunch of really great kids. It's a very unique blend and I don't think anybody else in the nation can match us. I think this is going to be a really special class at Notre Dame.”
