Notre Dame is well known as a national team that recruits around the country. It’s common to see the roster filled with players from California and Florida, and many states in between.

But Georgia, too? That was one factor for scheduling the home-and-home series with the Bulldogs, according to coach Brian Kelly.

“Well, obviously the high school football is outstanding,” he said at his weekly press conference. “We have felt like it has matched what we’re looking for relative to high quality, excellence in the classroom as well in the schools that we are targeting, and certainly from a football standpoint.”

Kelly added that Notre Dame’s mission is to graduate players and play for championships.

“The schools we’re targeting in the state of Georgia have a similar batch of schools that we feel like demographically we can hit, and they match the Notre Dame kind of model that we want from our recruiting base,” he said.

At his press conference, Georgia coach Kirby Smart was asked about crossing paths against Notre Dame in recruiting and it was pointed out that Georgia natives Tommy Tremble of Johns Creek (Wesleyan) and Kyle Hamilton of Atlanta (Marist) see a lot of playing time.

“They’ve got a great opportunity and product to sell, just like we do,” Smart said. “Both those two kids we recruited really hard. Got a lot of respect for both of them. They come from great academic backgrounds, great families. Tremble’s dad played here right before I got here, was a great player. He’s a really great player. So both those guys got a lot of respect for them.”