Notre Dame continued its strong recruiting weekend Sunday morning, picking up a commitment from 4-star defensive end Howard Cross. That name might sound familiar to you, and for good reason. This Howard is the son of long-time New York Giant and Super Bowl Champion, Howard Cross. So the Irish landed a 4-star defensive end with NFL bloodlines? Sounds good to me.
The 6-2/240 pounder out of Montvale, NJ is the sixth 4-star commit in Notre Dame’s Class of 2019 — the third in the past three days and fifth from the defensive side of the ball. Notre Dame was an offer that he wanted for a long time, and things moved quickly after he received it. The Irish offered less than three weeks ago on April 3rd. About a week later news broke that he had set up a visit for the Blue-Gold game. This wasn’t his first visit to Notre Dame — he’d done so once before last year — so he saw all he needed to this weekend to pull the trigger and commit to the Irish.
Recruiting Service Rankings
247 Sports — 4-star (90 rating), #315 overall, #24 SDE, #5 in NJ
Rivals — 4-star (5.8 rating), #238 overall, #26 SDE, #7 in NJ
ESPN — 4-star (81 rating), #188 overall, #22 DE, #5 in NJ
247 Sports Composite — 4-star (.9141), #246 overall, #19 SDE, #5 in NJ
Cohort
In addition to Notre Dame, Howard holds other offers from Duke, Boston College, Virginia Tech, Michigan, Tennessee, NC State, and Pittsburgh, among others.
Highlights
Probably any kind of film review you read of Howard is bound to have one word in particular — motor. This kid just gets after it and doesn’t quit. His highlights are filled with him shedding off one or two blocks in a play or beating splitting double-teams to make the stop. No matter how good of an athlete you are, you just don’t do that unless you’re playing with intensity and purpose. I don’t think anybody is going to try to convince you that Howard possesses elite athleticism, but he is a good athlete in his own right. Honestly, if he were a couple of inches taller, he’d probably be rated even higher than he is now — so he’s no slouch. Any kind of deficiencies he has in athleticism or length, he makes up for with effort and instincts. Seems like the kid just has a feel for which gap the ball carrier is about to hit, and he sheds the block at just the right time to prevent the running back of having anywhere else to go. These are the types of traits that will really help him be successful at the college level.
Impact
Landing blue-chip defensive ends has always seemed to be an Achilles’ heel for Notre Dame’s recruiting efforts. For this cycle, Notre Dame went from looking extremely good with top-level prospects to being in a less-than-ideal situation recruiting the position. The Irish could still end up landing an elite guy like NaNa Osafo-Mensah, but they aren’t in as good of shape with him as they were two months ago. There’s a very real possibility that Howard Cross ends up being the highest-rated defensive end commit come February, so this pickup is a pretty big one.
After landing only one defensive end in the Class of 2018, it’s important that the Irish land at least three this cycle. Howard will likely need to be ready to see the field immediately, as the Irish currently don’t have a ton of bodies at defensive end. His ability to bulk up with good weight over the next year will be crucial for that to occur.
Welcome to the Irish family, Howard!
What the status with Justin Anderson and Mazi Smith? Are we looking worse with them too?
Anderson would have already committed if he could. I’ll just leave it at that.
Michigan is coming on strong for Mazi. Probably more likely we get Rodas Johnson at this point. Staff apparently likes him both inside and at SDE (at least to start, we’ll see if he packs on more weight). That would still make for 3 blue-chip DTs in the class.