Notre Dame took another step to a fantastic offensive line class today when elite prospect Quinn Carroll pledged to the Irish. Offensive line coaches all across the country highly coveted Carroll, but it was Jeff Quinn who played name dominoes and got the job done. The 6’6″, 295-pound Minnesota mauler made the call after numerous visits, the most recent being an official in mid-April. Quinn represents yet another legacy steal for the Irish as well; his father Jay played at Minnesota and had a cup of coffee in the NFL with the Bucs and Vikings.
Carroll was methodical in his approach – that Notre Dame official was his fourth visit to South Bend, and it was also his third official visit along with Penn State and Virginia Tech. He took full advantage of the new early visit period; offensive linemen tend to decide earlier (and stick more often), so I’d bet that Carroll’s visit schedule will become pretty common for the position.
Recruiting Service Rankings
247 Sports Composite — 4 star (.9592), #87 overall, #12 OT, #1 in MN
247 Sports — 4 star (92 rating), #131 overall, #16 OT, #1 in MN
Rivals — 4 star (6.0 rating), #33 overall, #6 OT, #1 in MN
ESPN — 4 star (83 rating), #173 overall, #19 OT, #1 in MN
Cohort
In addition to his three official visit destinations, Quinn Carroll holds offers from (deep breath) Alabama, Arizona State, Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Florida State, Georgia, Iowa, LSU, Miami, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Missouri, Northwestern, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, USC, and Wisconsin, among many others.
Highlights
Quinn Carroll is a finisher. That’s the easiest way to sum up his film. He’s more mauling bear than dancing bear – think Mike McGlinchey, rather than Ronnie Stanley. In fact there’s no opportunity to see how well he dances since every play on this reel is a run, which should warm the cockles of many Irish fans. What we do see is a kid who delights in pulverizing opponents. Check the play at the 2:31 mark; the ball is 30 yards away, the defender has more or less given up, and Carroll is still driving him back off the edge of the screen. He moves reasonably well on pulls – I don’t know that it’s his strength, but he can do it. He has impressive power and, especially for a kid his size against smaller competition, does a pretty good job with his pad level.
I think he’ll need some time in the weight room to get stronger and improve his conditioning, as most linemen do. I’d also like to see him add a little more flexibility and add some violence to his initial punch, but that’s picking nits. This kid is a physical, athletic road grader, full stop.
Impact
As noted, expect Carroll to wait in the wings for probably a couple of years before working his way into the rotation. The aforementioned McGlinchey and Stanley are probably good comparisons for his likely career path: bide your time, break in on the right side, move to the left side. And hey, maybe even follow them in the first round of the NFL draft, while we’re dreaming. I’m very confident that Carroll will develop into a starter, and a really good one at that.
Welcome to the Irish family, Quinn!
Wow! For a little while there I was getting worried about ND recruiting. What has been a week since our last commit? This kid looks like a mean mauler of d-linemen. Great write up Brendan. Hopefully, Nana is next.
Tea bagging needs work.
Not that it really matters, but the composite ranking has him at 87, not 60.
Hopefully everybody freaking out about the Jeff Quinn promotion will calm down now (highly unlikely).
Good catch, fixed. Quick peek behind the scenes – I wrote this article two weeks ago. His individual rankings haven’t changed, but I could swear he was in fact the #60 prospect in the Composite back then. Or I could be senile, a solid probability there as well.
I’m cautious to assign too much importance to a small sample, but from everything we’ve heard about Harry in the past and what we’ve seen from Quinn so far I think it’s clear Quinn is an upgrade on the trail. Holding onto Luke Jones, landing Jarrett Patterson in about a month, taking Ohio State down to the wire for NPF, and landing Olmstead, Kristofic, and Carroll is a pretty solid record. We’re in solid shape with OG Zeke Correll (#164 overall) and I have a hunch we might get a nice surprise down the line, especially if we start off the season hot.
I’ve come around on the Quinn hiring, despite being very down on it initially. If what we heard about the interviews was true – Bostad came off as arrogant, Frye didn’t seem like he would mesh well, and Gilbert seemed kind of meh aside from his connection to Long – I understand landing on Quinn. Should a guy like Herb Hand have been a part of the process? I would’ve loved that, but he took the co-OC title at Texas – Long wasn’t going to be onboard with anyone being co-anything. Tom Manning and Brian Ferentz already held the co-OC title at Iowa State and Iowa. So I understand it.
The big question, of course, is what the onfield product will look like. Quinn has the unenviable task of (a) following a legend and (b) coaching two guys who are following legends. The line isn’t going to be as good as last year, but if they’re “just” good, I think that’ll go a long way.
Agreed about the on field performance being key. It is fun to watch those that have the instant reaction to think any change or decision made by Kelly is going to crash and burn and seem to take weird joy in ND having problems have to scurry onto another aspect.
They seem to just assume whatever decision Kelly makes is a disaster. I understand the frustration but its just not wise to make decisions based solely on assumptions. Especially when you can see for yourself what the on field product is doing.
2 or 3 years ago people were asking why Hiestand couldn’t develop a cohesive and strong O Line despite all of the strong recruiting. I give it until the 2nd sack of the season or 2nd failed 3rd and short run before people call for Quinn’s firing.
Perception vs. actuality can be a really wild difference. I saw one of the Pro Football Focus guys marvel on twitter that the 2015 ND o-line is the only one anyone could find, in history(!), with 3 eventual Top-10 NFL picks starting on it (LT Stanley #6, LG Nelson #6, RT McGlinch #9). I’d say somehow they developed it.
O-line will be interesting since this basically seems like a reload year losing the 2 All-Americans…But with 2 5th years and 2 very talented youngsters with some game experience in Kraemer and Hainsey, might be better than some fear. Surely won’t be as impressive as last year, though. And even then many were nitpicking the greatness a little bit too much, so there’s just no pleasing those insistent on chasing an unattainable ideal.
Not to mention off that 2015 line Nick Martin was chosen in the 2nd round and Steve Elmer had a pretty good shot at going top 3 rounds had he chosen to go pro in football. We have to go all the way back to 2002 for an ND line to have all 5 guys eventually get drafted.
A lot of those clips have him playing guard. Don’t see a lot of 6’6 kids playing guard in HS. Also, seems like a huge giveaway that he’s going to be pulling left and it’s not like defenses don’t notice the guy that big.
Agreed. I know people assume that OT prospect = LT prospect, but I think it’s notable that his high school played him almost exclusively at RG and RT. Love his upside, but there’s definitely a chance he lands at RT and sticks there. He’s a straight mauler but I don’t know that he has the athleticism of a guy like Kristofic or Josh Lugg, which could keep him away from the left side.
But whatevs, man, he’s a beast now and there’s every reason to think he’ll be a beast at the next level too.
One of the few recruits who is actually their listed height.
My favorite part of this article is that his picture looks like it was photoshopped out of a Rockne-era picture of a Notre Dame player.
He totally looks like a Leahy…Frank or Ryan!
Or do you mean that soft, blurry effect that lots of old photos have after theyve been colorized?
I assume ND is going to play 4 straight years of night games to keep this kid OUT OF DIRECT SUNLIGHT AT ALL COSTS. Good lord hes translucent.
Can someone tell me why we don’t seem to be getting a look from David Bell? I thought it was just him being set on tOSU. Now his crystal ball is at 40% Purdue.
He’s just not an ND type kid. I don’t mean that in a bad way, it’s just not for him.
Also, he’s pretty set on wanting to play football and basketball in college.