Big News! ND Safety Eilar Hardy will take Year 5 at BG

I will be headed to Bowling Green to play with my brothers @PrimeTimeLewis & @marc_mention4 lets put on for the 6⃣. Blessed opportunity ✊🙏
— HardyNextDoor (@Ice_4xIcey) February 3, 2015

In perhaps the biggest recruiting news that has a chance to impact next season, Notre Dame S Eilar Hardy is transferring to BG.  He will do so as a graduate and he will be eligible immediately and at a position of need for the Falcons.

Hardy went to Pickerington HS where he played with Roger Lewis and Marcus Milton.

He was a highly decorated player at Pickerington Central HS.  He was first-team All-State and #209 out of The Rivals 250 nationally.  He went to Notre Dame, where he did not play his freshman and sophomore years and then played 10 games with 2 starts his junior season with 26 total tackles.

Before the 2014 season, he was one of five players held out of fall practice because of academic dishonesty issues.  He was eventually admitted back to the team in mid-October, reinstated by the NCAS and played in 5 games with 9 tackles.  For the record, he was the only one of the five to return and play in 2014.

He was granted his release in late January and will graduate in May from Notre Dame.  He considered Miami and UConn as well as BG, and chose the Falcons over Miami, where former Notre Dame assistant Chuck Martin is coaching.

No idea what the story was with the academic issues.  He was reinstated before everyone else and he is graduating from Notre Dame, so those two things should mean something.  On the field, it is hard to know what we will get...out of HS we would have taken him no questions asked (obviously) and if even part of those skills still exist he is likely to be no less than competition to our returning safeties with the potential for more.

Welcome to the Falcons, Eilar.