Former Purdue Recruit T.J. Sheffield Has Re-Opened His Recruitment

Former Purdue recruit T.J. Sheffield has re-opened his recruitment.

In a stunning turn of events, Sheffield was told by Notre Dame this morning that they no longer have a scholarship for him.

This happened after Sheffield accepted Notre Dame’s offer less than a week ago on July 6th.

Sadly, this isn’t anything new. Often times when coaches or coordinators switch schools, recruits get lost in the shuffle. What makes this weird and a little bizarre is that Coach Alexander is still on staff at Notre Dame, and, the commitment was made less than a week ago on July 6th.

A few hours ago, Sheffield tweeted that he got a call from Coach Alexander notifying him that Notre Dame, “was not going to honor my commitment due to a change of plans.”

Ouch. Talk about cold.

This may not be a popular sentiment, but, why can coaches, who are grown men, change their commitments, yet recruits, who are teens, are forced to sit out a year if they want to transfer? It doesn’t seem fair or right. It also doesn’t set a good example for kids who look up to these men as role models and mentors.

Regardless, this opens up the recruitment for Sheffield once again, and it could turn into a huge signing for Purdue if he commits this time around to them. Purdue was one of the dozen schools that ESPN is reporting gave him an offer.

Some of the bigger schools to have given Sheffield an offer along with Purdue include Ohio State, Penn State, Stanford, Tennesse, Vanderbilt and Virginia Tech.

I would be shocked if all of those teams aren’t reaching out to Sheffield, but, unfortunately for him, some of those schools may have already moved on and offered his scholarship to another player. It’s harsh, but that’s just how recruitment goes.

I reached out to Sheffield this afternoon via Twitter for a comment, but he hasn’t gotten back to me yet. Understandably his DM’s and mentions are blowing up this afternoon, not to mention all of the college coaches blowing up his cell phone trying to recruit him all over again.

Hopefully I’ll be able to connect with Sheffield at some point this week and post that interview here for readers to listen to and read.

In the meantime, here’s a social media post from Sheffield explaining what happened.