With Washington's lower standards, he should do well there. Lower standards as in academic standards. Notre Dame has created their own monster, and should probably have a long heart-to-heart with Vanderbilt.
No the country has plenty of very smart football players and Notre Dame recruits the entire country. ND's Academic requirements should not be a problem at all.
I highly doubt that ND's standards are higher than Cal's, & the Bears did OK this year. (Aside: their coach knelt the ball, rather than score a late TD to pad his lead over USM...and that's a key factor in their not going to the Rose Bowl--not winning "big enough").
So I grow weary of hearing how much higher ND's standards are than everybody else's.
That's just a cop-out on ND's part. The truth is, they've not hired good enough coaches. Either that, or the coaches haven't worked hard enough at recruiting and just depended on the ND name to draw the kids in. Problem is, the kids of today aren't too impressed with the ND name or South Bend either.