Irish Sports Daily

Zach Okun thought about bringing his recruitment to an early close with a commitment to UCLA, but the 2015 California offensive lineman wants to leave his options open.

“I love UCLA,” said the 6-foot-4, 305-pounder from Newbury Park High School in Newbury Park, Calif.

“It’s a nice campus, close to home in Southern California, but it’s not necessarily what I’m looking for. I’m not definitely staying close to home, but it’s nice.”

He currently has offers from the Bruins, Washington, Arizona, Kansas State and Cal.

The Class of 2014 is pivotal for Notre Dame’s future success. Between injuries and transfers the last two classes have suffered some attrition and the Irish desperately need to continue bringing in great athletes and players if they want to compete at the level that they demonstrated last season. With that goal in mind, the Notre Dame coaching staff has been reaching out to numerous recruits across the nation in an effort to cast a wide net that will result in another top rated recruiting class in 2014. Last week Irish Sports Daily spoke to two young men that have received Irish offers. What have you been missing by not being on Irish Sports Daily?

Corey Holmes, WR, 6-1, 180, St. Thomas Aquinas High School, Fort Lauderdale, FL visited South Bend for the third time last week but this visit was different from the others. This time he got the chance to see the campus and meet with the coaching staff in a much more personal way.

Jimmy Byrne committed to Notre Dame in December and the 2014 Cleveland offensive lineman has been using his time to get more comfortable with the Irish program ever since.

The 6-foot-4, 285-pounder from St. Ignatius High School spent some time on campus this weekend to further that process.

“It went pretty well,” said Byrne, who arrived in South Bend on Friday afternoon.

“When we got there, the first thing, I met with (strength and conditioning coach Paul) Longo for about an hour. It was just me and him. We got to go over stuff I’ve been doing in terms of training and stuff that Notre Dame does and what I can apply to my own stuff back home. It was good meeting with him.”

After showing some initial interest, Notre Dame came back around on Derek Kief this week, offering the 2014 Cincinnati receiver a scholarship on Thursday.

“Coach (Mike) Elston told me to call him,” Kief said. “I called him and he let me know then.

“I was real excited. They were in the national championship, so that shows there’s a good football tradition. The school has a really good tradition, so it’d be a real good place to look into.”

The Irish are added to the 6-foot-5, 185-pounder’s list, which already included schools like Alabama, Ohio State, Kentucky, Northwestern, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Vanderbilt, Illinois, Cincinnati and Indiana among several others. They’d been in contact with the La Salle High School standout earlier in the process, but weren’t in a position to extend an offer.