The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
» Notre Dame has strong recruiting presence in metro Atlanta,
ATHENS — Asked if he ever would have envisioned his son one day playing football for Notre Dame, Johns Creek resident Greg Tremble laughed out loud.
“Not in a million years,” he said.
Tremble is a little more invested in Georgia than the average dad. He was a starting defensive back for the Bulldogs from 1992-93. So, naturally, he was excited when UGA and coach Kirby Smart began recruiting his son, Tommy, a 4-star tight end out of The Wesleyan School.
As it turns out, Georgia wasn’t where Tommy wanted to go. The 6-foot-3, 230-pounder chose the Fighting Irish. So the Trembles will be wearing Notre Dame blue and gold (or green) rather than Bulldogs’ familiar red and black when No. 3 Geor- gia and the No. 7 Irish play Saturday night at Sanford Stadium.
“You know, as a father you just want the best for your kids,” Greg Tremble said. “I’m just ecstatic as a father. He’s happy as he’s ever been. He’s healthy, and he’s obviously getting a great edu- cation.”
The Irish are more than a little happy about having Tommy Tremble on their roster, too. Now a redshirt freshman, Tremble has emerged as Notre Dame’s best pass-catching tight end. He comes into the Georgia with four catches for 78 yards. He also caught his first touchdown in the opener against Louisville.
Tremble is one of seven Georgia residents currently on the Notre Dame roster. And while there always is going to be somebody from somewhere on the Irish roster, increasingly that seems not only to be players from metro Atlanta, but pretty good players at that.
Also making an impact for Notre Dame this season is freshman safety Kyle Hamilton. A 4-star prospect out of Marist, Hamilton returned an interception 35 yards for a touchdown in Saturday’s win over New Mexico at Notre Dame Stadium.
Hamilton was the target of an intense recruiting battle between Georgia and the Irish.
“We cross paths with Notre Dame probably on two or three kids a year,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said Monday. “But they do a great job recruiting. They’ve got a great opportunity and product to sell just like we do. Both those two kids we recruited really hard, and I’ve got a lot of respect for both of them. They come from great academic backgrounds, great families.”
That’s the difference in Notre Dame right now under coach Brian Kelly and where it has been in previous years. Because of their national brand and the elite reputation Notre Dame has an academic institution, the Fighting Irish always have recruited coast to coast. But between the organized efforts of Kelly’s staff and the success of football program — which was represented in the College Football Playoff last year — Notre Dame is having greater success with higher-profile recruits.
Notre Dame has taken a particular liking to Atlanta. Not only is it a two-hour flight from South Bend to a foot- ball-loving metropolis of 5.5 million people, but there are also a bunch of excep- tional schools in the area. As did Hamilton and Tremble, most of the Georgia targets attended private schools, such as defensive back K.J. Wallace (Lovett), linebacker J.D. Bertrand (Blessed Trinity) and running back Mick Assaf (Pace Academy).
Then Irish also managed to pluck C’Bo Flemister out of Pike County. The sopho- more running back scored his first career TD last week.
Recruiting inroads in Georgia are part of the reason Notre Dame was in favor of scheduling the currently home-and-home series with the Bulldogs. The pact was finalized in 2014.
“We were looking for an SEC opponent that shared some commonality,” Kelly said. “We liked the fact we were going to be in Geor- gia recruiting. We liked that piece of it. We have a lot of alumni in that area. That’s what made this an easy decision for us.”