Noah Boykin joined the 2018 Notre Dame bandwagon when he signed with the Irish today. The 6’2″, 170-pound prospect out of our nation’s capitol committed to Maryland back in July, but given his actions Maryland was probably a safety net – after that commitment, he visited Notre Dame, Virginia, USC, and Florida. He finally decommitted from Maryland a couple of weeks ago. Florida had much of the buzz until the last couple of days, when it went back and forth between Notre Dame and Virginia, and seemed to drift towards Virginia this morning. Todd Lyght busted it until the last second to secure Boykin and deserves a ton of credit for how he handled this recruitment.
Boykin took an official visit to Notre Dame for the NC State game. While the visit reportedly went well, we thought that would pretty much be the end of it. He reportedly was close to flipping around the time of the football banquet, but held off and started to look towards Florida. Todd Lyght never let up, though, and eventually he got his man. Boykin joins a defensive back class that suddenly looks quite strong, a welcome sight indeed for Irish fans after the thin 2018 class.
Recruiting Service Rankings
247 Composite — 4 star (.8916), #365 overall, #35 CB, #2 in DC
247 Sports — 4 star (90 rating), #291 overall, #25 CB, #2 in DC
Rivals — 4 star (5.8 rating), #204 overall, #21 CB, #2 in DC
ESPN — 3 star (75 rating), NR overall, #74 CB, #12 in DC
Seriously ESPN, go home. You’re embarrassing yourself.
Cohort
In addition to Notre Dame and Maryland, Noah Boykin holds offers from Clemson, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Michigan State, Missouri, Oklahoma, Penn State, Southern Cal, Tennessee, Vandy, Virginia Tech, and Wisconsin, among others.
Highlights
I like Boykin’s physicality – he’s solid in press coverage and run support, and he’s fearless going up for the ball. He also does a really good job of locating the ball and going after it. He’s not going to set any land speed records, but he’s more than fast enough to do the job – and he pairs that with excellent agility, which should help him turn and run with receivers. I really loved to see a guy with plus athleticism who wasn’t afraid to attack blocks and shed them to get after the ball carrier; plenty of guys are athletes, but their attitude limits their ceiling. Not a problem with Noah. Finally, he has some swagger, as evidenced by how demonstrative he is after some of these plays. Bring some of that Shane Walton mentality to South Bend, kid.
In terms of stuff to work on, I think Boykin needs to hone his man-to-man technique some; he looks like he has the physical skills for man coverage, but right now he’s getting by on being stronger and faster than his opponent. Once he gets to the next level and gets away from being an all-purpose guy he should be able to improve quickly there.
Impact
Boykin could be in the rotation next year, but in all probability I don’t think he’ll be quite ready yet. With Nick Watkins, Julian Love, Shaun Crawford, Troy Pride, and Donte Vaughn entrenched, any rookie would really have to show something special to force his way in. Depending on his own development and that of the other corners in the 2018 class, I could see him either breaking into the rotation or getting spot duty in 2019. He also has the frame to develop into a free safety with plus coverage ability, so that’s something to keep an eye on too. Wherever he ends up, he’ll upgrade the athleticism in the Notre Dame secondary.
Welcome to the Irish family, Noah!
Whoa this one’s a surprise! Score one for Lyght, seemed like he could have used a win on the recruiting trail. Ton of new bodies in the secondary now.
No Petit-Frere, but I would consider this a successful day. And at least PF didn’t become a skunkbear.
Insult to injury for UM: I saw their only top 100 recruit flipped to (I believe) UGA today.
That is correct. They have the 19th-ranked class right now; they won’t get any higher, and they might drop one or two more spots. OLB Dax Hollifield, who ND liked and had some Stanford buzz around him, signed with Virginia Tech. Not a bad day for schadenfreude.
If you want some additional schadenfreude… Stanford has the 38th ranked class right now, but their headliner, #46 overall Tanner McKee (QB), is headed on a two-year mission. If you take him out the class drops down to 50th, with the highest-ranked player #246 Jack West (QB). They have just one OL, one WR, no safeties, and no ILBs.
I don’t know what their roster situation is, but it would seem that this class has some holes in it regardless. I mean, Stanford took just a center on the OL this year? Stanford?!?
On the un-schadenfreude thing, USC’s class is kind of absurd. 4 composite 5-stars, 12 composite 4-stars, and only 1 composite 3-star. Markese Stepp is one of their lowest-rated commits.
Georgia’s class is unreal. Last I looked they had 9 in the top 50.
We’ll chalk up a loss for 2019
Can we fire Kelly for it now, or do we have to wait?
Never too early.
Best I could tell, they had 7 of the 28 5* guys. I’m no mathematician, but that’s like 90% of all 5*s!
Waiters and waitresses must hate you.
Overall, pretty solid, especially with a solid close at the end. I like that we’re not being shy about pushing scholarship limits. Also like that we’re (barely, but still) on the right side of the Blue Chip Ratio.
Dude’s probably pretty good at football and an excellent get, but I’ve got questions about his wardrobe choices. Why does his shirt have one long sleeve and one short sleeve? Was the weather especially strange that day? Will he need a new shirt if he plays on the right vs. the left side? Does he have extreme circulation issues?
And check out the grandpa way he’s wearing his shorts. What is this, the 1980s? Jack those things down, bro
One long sleeve? That’s a relief! To me it looked like he only had one arm. I mean, I don’t want to judge a kid, but that would make it awfully tough to play corner!
Wind was from the west; using only one sleeve on that arm gave him an advantage against the receiver who had both arms covered, so one was too hot, and the receiver who had both arms bare, so one was too cold. That’s superior meteorological skills for an incoming freshman.
Wow, KG, who knew you were all over weather patterns!
This kid can cover all the weather patterns in the playbook.
I think it’s because he uses hand signals while driving. That arm can get cold hanging out the window.
He at least passes the “Ain’t no scrub” test, then
Also, why is he wearing a skirt?
Any relation to… Maurice Stovall?
Also, other than the obvious, top-5y classes, I think the most impressive classes are Florida State (#11), Florida (#14), A&M (#17), and UCLA (#18) given that they were operating with coaching changes. Better than Michigan!
How about UNC pulling off a top 25 class, despite being UNC and winning 3 games.
Oooh hadn’t seen that. Yeah, that’s something.
Better than Stanford!
Indeed. I’m going to give Florida and UCLA bit more credit than the other two. Taggart stole some Oregon commits and Jimbo stole some FSU commits, which helped them some. Mullen walked into a mess and couldn’t really steal any commits from Mississippi State that would be helpful, while Chip started from scratch a month before signing day.
But all in all, dealing with a coaching change and still finishing like that is pretty impressive.