Notre Dame football received some fantastic news tonight, as massive 2020 defensive end Alexander Ehrensberger has decided to verbally commit to the Fighting Irish. The 6’7″/240 pounder out of Dusseldorf, Germany is the 4th commit for the Irish from the Class of 2020, and their first on the defensive side of the ball.
My decision is made!
100% committed!🙏🏼☘️💪🏼#GoIrish @CoachBrianKelly @CoachMikeElston @aarynkearney @PPIRecruits @BCollier56 pic.twitter.com/73DkbpVL7T— Alexander Ehrensberger (@AlexanderEhren2) January 31, 2019
Recruiting Service Rankings
247Sports — 3 star (80 rating), #951 overall, #51 SDE, #1 in Germany
Rivals — Not Yet Rated
ESPN — Not Yet Rated
247Sports Composite — 3 star (.8000), NR overall, #66 SDE, #1 in Germany
Irish Sports Daily — 3 star (86 rating)
Most of the recruiting services haven’t quite gotten around to giving Ehrensberger a proper evaluation yet. Rivals and ESPN haven’t even tried at this point, and even 247 left it at their default “guy who plays against terrible competition but is probably a 3-star” grade. ISD has probably done the most thorough evaluation out of any recruiting services out there, so it seemed appropriate to include their rating.
Cohort
Alexander chose the Irish over one other offer from Florida International, and interest from major programs like Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, Georgia, and others.
He likely would have added more offers to the list, but he essentially put his recruiting on hold for a bit while he focused on Notre Dame and passing admissions. He visited South Bend back in late November and it sounds like he’s been waiting for the green light to commit ever since.
Highlights
Ehrensberger’s film can be quite fun to watch. It’s extremely amusing seeing a 6’7″ defensive lineman run down a quarterback that’s probably a solid half a foot shorter than him.
Ehrensberger is essentially a very raw, but very athletic player packed into an absurdly long frame. He’s quick off the ball. There are a few times in his highlights where he’s basically in the backfield before the offensive lineman in front of him has gotten out of his stance. He has a lot that he will need to work on, but this is an extremely high-ceiling prospect.
If you’d like a more in-depth analysis of Ehrensberger’s film, click this link to read Jamie Uyeyama’s film review over at ISD.
Impact
This is a really good start to defensive recruiting for the Class of 2020. Big end is a huge area of need right now, and having a high-potential guy in the fold this early in the cycle is a good sign. Ehrensberger isn’t someone you should expect to make an impact early in his career, but if he develops well his potential is as high as anyone Notre Dame has recruited at the position for the last handful of years. Guys of his size that can move as well as he does just do not grow on trees.
Welcome to the Irish family, Alexander!
Important to note that Ehrensberger plans to be an early enrollee, should help jump-start his development.
The film was labeled “senior year highlights” so is he graduating this year and taking whatever time off before coming in next year’s spring semester? I assume Germany has a different school calendar than we do so something like that might be necessary to line up anyway.
AAAANNND googling tells me they have roughly the same start time depending on the region of Germany (Aug-early Sep) but they have a much shorter summer break, with some schools ending their school year in July. So it’s likely that even if he’s a “senior” graduating this year, his school year would end late enough that he wouldn’t have been able to get to a program in the fall, making enrolling in January (and counting towards 2020) the obvious choice.
Truly a man among boys. A little hard to tell how good he is because the competition is so bad.
This is a weird recruitment, almost by necessity. If you’re going to take a low 3-star with basically no offers, though, this seems to be the kind of guy to do it on. Not many athletic-looking 6’7″ guys playing football.
It’s the kind of story where if he went to FIU, he’d develop in a monster surprise wrecking G5 competition. At a top level school, he may simply be depth. Will be interesting to see how he pans out.
Yeah, I agree – his ceiling seems really high. He’s a loooong way from being ready to produce in college, but some of the things he showed on that tape, especially burst, bend, and change of direction, literally raised an eyebrow for me. To be that size, and move like he does… Man, it’s worth rolling the dice.
I like his hands considering he is such a raw prospect. I’m not sure he is doing exactly the right things with them, but they are very active, and he almost always makes first contact with his hands, not his body. His swim move is hilariously effective against these kids that are probably 15-20 cm shorter.
I noted his quick hands too.
This is a really good point. In many cases the bigger, stronger, more talented kids in a low competition area end up not developing multiple techniques since they don’t need them to beat the competition. If he’s been working on the things he’ll need to do in college then he may be less raw than is thought.
i like this. Provided the next three de-ends are more prepared to pay sooner. This feels like a big swing early in the count. It’s OK but as the strikes and balls get higher, the focus changes to making solid contact and ensuring your swinging at strikes.
I’m terrible at metaphors. I don’t know why I try to use them.
i dunno man, this one seems to work. Maybe it’s your best metaphor to date?
Okay, so which soccer team does he rep? Fortuna, Leverkusen, Gladbach, Dortmund, Schalke, or Koln?
His social media profiles give nothing away, so just on geography I’m going to guess Fortuna. No worries, I’m going to put some of my best men on this investigation. My best men.
Wilkommen!
I think I’m a little higher on this kid than I usually would be. He’s got size, uses his hands pretty well, and seems to be a super high motor guy. He obviously has to bulk up some more, but per this tweet, he is obviously capable of that. He put on 26 lbs in 6 months
https://twitter.com/EuropesElite_EE/status/1082643267211145216?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1082643267211145216&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.onefootdown.com%2F2019%2F1%2F31%2F18206081%2Fnotre-dame-recruiting-german-de-alexander-ehrensberger-commits-to-2020-irish-class-college-football
Can I say I’m a little disappointed in the lack of “blitz” jokes being thrown around for a German defensive lineman? Too easy? Or is it like “don’t mention the war” from Fawlty Towers?
It was a starling!
You can’t coach size or speed. He definitely has the size, and should be able to easily add weight. He seems to have the frame for another 25 pounds. Hard to tell on speed given the competition, which looked awful.
I don’t remember whether it is Lane Kiffin or Butch Davis at FIU, but they need to reach to find top talent. He had a lot of interest from big players, all of whom may have been playing the wait and see game to get more traditional talent.
Elston has done a good job of getting the most out the talent available, so I give him the benefit of the doubt on a kid who may be a reach. Quinn, Alexander and the new RB coach don’t have that credibility to me. All the defensive coaches have it.
As a technical matter, given the likely grayshirt, he is probably our fifth recruit for that class and second on the defensive side.
Nah, unimpressed. True football players in elite college programs are going to be road meeting rubber for this guy.
Or maybe 2/3 years under a legit S&C coordinator and solid DL coach will make a raw, but very good athlete ready when that time comes. We’re not going to find out anytime soon.
Right. We’re not going to know this is a mistake until 2022 at the earliest.
The size differential makes his film look like Tuitt’s HS film.
So summer vacation for Dusseldorf (which is in the state of North Rhine Westphalia) starts July 15th this year. My neighbors in Saint Cloud are a German couple as the German School of Paris is a few hundred meters away; they were very bemused at my request to verify this but ultimately kind of pleased that a German kid would be playing at this level.