Former Notre Dame Coach Details Caitlin Clark's 'Soft Commitment' Before Iowa Switch
During her January 2 appearance on New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce, Caitlin Clark discussed why she ultimately decided to play college basketball at Iowa despite nearly having gone to Notre Dame instead.
"I basically narrowed it down pretty early on when I was going through my college recruitment that I wanted to be like in the midwest, just kind of a homebody. Family person. Just wanted to stay fairly close to home. So that narrowed a lot of stuff down," Clark said.
She later added, "As a kid, you want to go to Notre Dame. It's the same with Notre Dame football. It's the coolest thing in the world. It's Notre Dame, it has that tradition and they've had so many great players go through there in every single sport."
Still, Clark had a gut feeling that she should end up at Iowa — which proved to be a great decision.
However, some of Clark's fans might not know that Clark had committed to Notre Dame before switching to Iowa. Former Notre Dame head coach Muffet McGraw (who recruited Clark) discussed this in detail during her January 14 appearance on Good Game With Sarah Spain.
"I may still be coaching if Caitlin Clark came to Notre Dame," McGraw joked. "I remember it well, loved recruiting her... When I went recruiting at [Clark's high school alma mater] Dowling Catholic, they waited on me... it was amazing.
"She committed to us, but I had a feeling it was kind of a soft commitment when she did, because she couldn't decide, couldn't decide," McGraw continued of Clark. "And then finally she said, 'I want to come.' But it wasn't like 'I'm coming!' It was kind of like 'I made the decision'.
"After that, we waited and waited for her to announce [the commitment], because as you know, we're not allowed to announce anything. The players have to do that themselves," McGraw added. "After that, I kept saying 'When is [the announcement] coming out?' And then when she made the announcement, she was going to Iowa."
McGraw then noted, "Of course, she called me first to tell me that she was going to [Iowa], the classy person that she is."
It certainly would have been fascinating to see what Clark could have accomplished if she'd gone to Notre Dame — although Hawkeyes fans would prefer to not imagine such a scenario.