- Notre Dame’s 2019 recruiting class picked up its fourth commit (again) when New Jersey lineman John Olmstead announced for the Irish at his school today. The 6’6″, 290-pound behemoth was in the “ND lean” bucket for quite some time; his affinity was solidified on an early April visit, after which he scheduled his announcement.
Olmstead has mentioned higher interest in Wisconsin and Minnesota in the past and he has an impressive offer list, as we’ll see below, but I couldn’t really pick a runner-up here. I get the sense that in this recruitment, there was Notre Dame and then there was Not Notre Dame.
Recruiting Service Rankings
247 Sports Composite — 4 star (.9317), #169 overall, #18 OT, #4 in NJ
247 Sports — 4 star (90 rating), #297 overall, #32 OT, #4 in NJ
Rivals — 4 star (5.9 rating), #63 overall, #10 OT, #1 in NJ
ESPN — 4 star (80 rating), #240 overall, #23 OT, #6 in NJ
Cohort
In addition to Notre Dame, John Olmstead holds offers from Arizona State, Duke, Florida, Florida State, Louisville, LSU, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Oregon, Penn State, Vanderbilt, Virginia Tech, and Wisconsin, among others.
His offer timing is interesting too. The services have expressed some concern over his junior tape, which isn’t as sharp as his sophomore tape. Coaching staffs don’t seem to share that concern, though; the Florida, Ole Miss, Louisville, LSU, Michigan, and Florida State offers all came in after his junior season ended.
Highlights
This is Olmstead’s sophomore film.
Olmstead looks a little stiff in space at times, with so-so athleticism and footwork; I’m not sure he projects to a tackle at the next level. That’s the bad-ish news. The good news is that he has substantial power and meanness, so he could be a very good interior lineman. His initial punch needs more consistent aggressiveness, but once he locks onto someone, it’s over. He shows great leg drive and plays past the whistle on every snap; even when he pancakes his man, he doesn’t stop blocking him. Love it. He fits the mold of what Harry Hiestand and now Jeff Quinn likes to see in his linemen.
Impact
Olmstead will definitely need a couple of years as an understudy, first to build strength and flexibility and also to hone his technique. I could see him working into the rotation as a redshirt sophomore, and as a potential starter on the interior down the road.
Welcome to the Irish family, John!
Huzzah! Some folks, myself included, were a bit worried about the Quinn hire on the recruiting front. Given his keeping Luke Jones, getting Patterson, and now Olmstead (plus the current outlook for the 2019 class) all in basically a 3-month period, I will gladly eat some crow there.
I wouldn’t put any money on it, necessarily, but there’s a chance we could have two more OL in the fold in the next few days – Quinn Carroll is on his official visit this weekend and winding down soon, and Andrew Kristofic will take an unofficial (his third in the last month, I think) on Monday.
Quinn has definitely been banging it out on the trail. I’ll reserve full judgment on him until we see how the line plays this fall, but I’m cautiously optimistic – certainly I feel much better now than I did a few months ago.
Yep. It’s not totally out of the question that we could have Olmstead, Carroll, Zeke Correll, and Kristofic committed and basically be done with o-line recruiting 7 months before the early signing period. That’s pretty good!
Looks like another great get. OL crootin is the best crootin.
On a serious note, how can they not be more effective showing the higher up RB recruits the list of linemen from the recent past (Martin bros, Stanley, McGlinchey, Nelson, etc), present and future compared with other schools and be like “see this is why you gotta come here”. Maybe simplistic but it’s wild that RB struggles to get the elite type of athletes these days when, you would think, RBs should be very interested in running behind the strong point of the team. I get there are more factors at play, especially for a school like Notre Dame it’s just ponderous to me.
I was wondering the same thing. I originally thought that AD was a good recruiter. Maybe that is not the case? I don’t think we’ve gotten a top RB recruit since he started, despite having a great line, experience running the ball, and tons of opportunity to come in and play right away.