The roller coaster ride that is Notre Dame’s 2020 recruiting class lately continued today when Jay Brunelle jumped on board. The 6’1″, 200-pound Massachusettan camped at Notre Dame a few weeks ago in search of a much-desired offer; the staff did indeed extend an offer, but there were rumors of conditions attached that made it less interesting. Brunelle just took an official visit to Michigan, who had been pushing for him much longer, and they surged into the lead with some more rumors that a commitment might be imminent. Within literally hours everything changed; Jalen McMillan committed to Washington (boo!), shaking up Notre Dame’s receiver board, and the staff returned to Brunelle in earnest. Obviously his first love made enough of an impression with that return to wipe out all of Michigan’s hard work, which… Heh.
Although there’s some question as to how high Brunelle’s star might rise, there’s no question that it is in fact rising. Michigan, as noted, has been pushing hard for him for a while, and Notre Dame showed much more interest after his camp performance. He also camped at UCLA a couple of weeks ago and earned an offer there. He put up very solid testing numbers at the New Jersey Opening regional in April: a 4.56 40, 4.25 shuttle, and a 38.4″ vertical. He’s not Jalen McMillan by any means, and I don’t intend to sugarcoat that loss, but the Irish could certainly do worse than Brunelle.
Proverbs 16:3
“Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.”
C O M M I T T E D
🎥: @epps_kristian pic.twitter.com/wNnmqCPFWJ
— JAY BRUNELLE¹ (@jabrunie) June 26, 2019
The Roller Coaster
I would be remiss not to note the details of the aforementioned 2020 roller coaster ride. It’s been a doozie.
- May 23rd – RB Chris Tyree commits to Notre Dame after an April dalliance with Oklahoma subsided.
- May 24th – DE Braiden McGregor trashes Notre Dame’s up-to-the-last-moment recruitment of him by announcing a weeks-old silent commitment to Michigan.
- June 11th – CB Clarence Lewis commits to Notre Dame.
- June 16th – OT Michael Carmody commits to Notre Dame and cancels a planned official visit to Ohio State.
- June 21st – CB Clark Phillips commits to Ohio State.
- June 24th – CB Landen Bartleson commits to Notre Dame.
- June 25th – WR Jalen McMillan commits to Washington.
- June 26th – WR AJ Henning commits to Michigan.
There are rumors of a couple of silent commits to the Irish as well. Brunelle, Lewis, and Bartleson are all lower-on-the-board guys than Phillips, McMillan, and Henning, so again, I’m not saying there’s a net zero effect there. But it has certainly been an up and down ride.
Recruiting Service Rankings
247Sports Composite — 3 star (.8577), #825 overall, #138 WR, #8 in MA
247Sports — 3 star (86 rating), #724 overall, #125 WR, #8 in MA
Rivals — 3 star (5.6 rating), NR overall, NR WR, #10 in MA
ESPN — Not yet evaluated
Irish Sports Daily — 3 star (88 rating)
Cohort
In addition to Notre Dame, Michigan, and UCLA, Brunelle holds offers from Boston College, Wake Forest, West Virginia, Harvard, and Yale, among others.
Highlights
Brunelle has some pretty good stuff on tape; unfortunately for him (and other Bay State players), level of competition was always going to be a question and is probably why Notre Dame and other programs didn’t offer based just off his tape. For example, does he look fast because he’s fast, or because everyone else is slow? With his 4.56 40 at the Opening and reportedly two sub-4.5 40s at Notre Dame’s camp, I think we can reasonably conclude that he has good speed. On tape he’s not blazing but he’s fast enough to go the distance if he gets some space. He shows good body control, fearlessness over the middle, and good moves in traffic.
Teams press him a lot, judging from this video, and he does a good job getting off it. He’ll need to muscle up at the next level to continue that, but the fact that he can do it now is a good sign. His route-running needs polish; way too many rounded-off routes for my taste. That’s coachable, though, and I think he has the agility to make higher-quality cuts. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, he showed in spots here and also in his camp performances that he has some swagger, which I would always welcome to a Notre Dame team. One of the highlights of his Notre Dame camp showing, in fact, was catching a ball over/around a guy who fell down trying to defend it, and then stepping over the guy Iverson-style. Love it.
Impact
In all likelihood, Brunelle won’t get much of a chance to see the field right away. We’ll see if actual play in the 2019 season confirms this, but as of right now it looks like Notre Dame may have hit on at least three of the 2018 receiver signees; Kevin Austin is poised to play a major role this year, while Lawrence Keys and Braden Lenzy are virtually assured of seeing plenty of action as well. All should be front-line contributors in 2020; while fellow 2018 signee Micah Jones, 2019 signees Kendall Abdur-Rahman and Cam Hart, and 2020 five-star commit Jordan Johnson should play a 2020 role as well.
That’s good news for Brunelle. as he’ll have a path to better development if he can use 2020 to grow and learn. It’s hard to know exactly how Brunelle will fit down the line; given his athletic ability, though, I could see him entering the rotation as an upperclassman.
Welcome to the Irish family, Jay!
Quick note to add – the rapid comeback by the Irish staff here is all the more impressive given that Brunelle’s teammate, 2020 WR Eamonn Dennis (0.8789) just committed to Michigan on Sunday. Brunelle was by all accounts completely ready to join Dennis in Ann Arbor.
Ahh painful that we lost both McMillan AND Henning (I thought we had a better chance with Henning). I hadn’t seen that we lost Henning too. To go from a top 100 player to a player currently ranked 824 is a little tough to swallow.
I guess we are mostly done with the possible elite guys then aren’t we? Maybe a safety we have a chance for. Otherwise, we seem to be in the hunt only for mid-low 3 stars to round out this class. Still think we should take Simon based on talent alone (even if the numbers aren’t perfect). I look forward to seeing the next updates.
Realistically, Henning has been gone for a while; the writing was on the wall early in the spring when he visited Michigan multiple times and the ND staff couldn’t get him on campus.
I’d imagine we’ll stay on McMillan. His announcement surprised pretty much everyone, so who knows what might happen down the road.
Don’t sleep on Xavier Watts. He’s on the board (or perhaps already in the fold, we shall see) and I think he’s very underrated.
I think we’ll add 1-2 more guys in the next week or two and then sit on the last 3-4 spots for the fall. We’re chasing a couple of safeties, most notably top 200 Jerrin Thompson, who will decide then, and I’d expect us to get in on a couple of other guys as well, particularly corners. Especially if the team gets rolling again.
Is Watts a speed guy? If the staff can add one more WR to this class who can really run, I’d be plenty happy with that, even if he’s more in the 3 star range like Watts.
I like it. I’m pretty confident in the staffs ability to evaluate and develop wide receiver talent.
Agreed. Plus I think people are sleeping on or don’t realize how elite Jordan Johnson is in the first place. Makes it a lot easier to round things out with development when there is such a highly rated player in the fold
I hope no one is sleeping on Johnson, he’s a top 20 player nationally.
Seems to me ND was cautious but interested after looking at Brunnelle’s film. Then when they saw a real QB throwing to him at camp, they offered. The coaching staff not being the only ones impressed with his workout, I think this kid is a good get.
The last kid from this school (St.Johns, Shrews.Ma.) ND was after was Richard Rogers, who chose Cal. He’s been in the NFL for 6 years now.
Reminds me of Ed McCaffrey.