It’s mid-August now and the Notre Dame football recruiting class of 2021 is getting closer and closer to filling up already. Sunday night, the Irish received more welcome recruiting news in a commitment from defensive end Will Schweitzer. The 6’4″/220-pounder out of Los Gatos, California is the 18th commitment in the class for the Fighting Irish — though that number will likely be dropping back down to 17 sometime soon.

Will has always had heavy interest in Notre Dame — in fact, I had him as a name to watch in my way-too-early guess at how ND’s recruiting class of 2021 would end up. At the time of that post, it didn’t seem as though the Irish would end up having enough room for Will in this class as they seemed set to land both Jason Onye and David Abiara. Of course, the Irish did land both of those prospects and Will would commit to Nebraska in mid-June. But with Abiara’s commitment seeming as soft as warm butter at the moment, the Irish took it upon themselves to keep targeting Will Schweitzer in the hopes of getting him to flip. Those efforts have now succeeded.

Recruiting Service Rankings

Rivals — 3 star (5.7 rating), NR overall, #26 WDE, #41 in CA

ESPN — 3 star (75 rating), NR overall, #88 OLB, #84 in CA

247Sports — 3 star (88 rating), NR overall, #31 OLB, #41 in CA

247Sports Composite — 3 star (.8713), #539 overall, #35 OLB, #48 in CA

Irish Sports Daily — 3 star LB (89 rating)

Cohort

In addition to his aforementioned Nebraska commitment, Will also held offers from Cal, Duke, Utah, Arizona, Arizona State, Arkansas, TCU, Virginia, Syracuse, and others. His offer list currently totals 25 teams.

Highlights

As I do with every new commit, I’ll share Jamie at ISD’s film review for Will. It can be read here.

At this stage, Will is definitely more of a tweener. He plays tight end, linebacker, and some defensive end for his high school team. And I think in these clips he weighs somewhere between 200-210 pounds. So he’s a long, lanky prospect at this point. He’s got a lot of qualities to like, though. He has a good first step, and he already utilizes a couple of nifty pass-rushing moves despite the fact that he’s not even a full-time defensive end right now. His coverage abilities look solid, and he definitely possesses above-average athleticism for a defensive end. He should be able to handle all of the responsibilities that come with playing Vyper in the Notre Dame defense.

Impact

I mentioned earlier that David Abiara’s commitment to Notre Dame is extremely soft at this point, and that might even be an understatement. Here he is tweeting at Hayes Fawcett this Saturday night:

For those of you who don’t know, Hayes Fawcett is the guy for recruits to go to for top schools and commitment edits. Why does Abiara, a kid who is already committed, need to reach out to a guy who creates commitment edits? Not hard to connect the dots.

With Abiara likely gone, this is a good move by Mike Elston already landing another defensive end to take his place. I’m not going to pretend Will is considered the same level of a prospect as Abiara, but I think he is a good prospect and I do like that the Irish are adding a Vyper here rather than another strong-side end like Abiara is. This is definitely better than being left scrambling after losing a commit.

As far as a depth chart impact, Will definitely needs to put on more weight before being able to see the field for Notre Dame. If he can get up to around 250, that would be ideal. Notre Dame has good depth built up right now at defensive end, so there should not be any rush to get Will on the field early. A redshirt season is most likely in the cards for him in 2021, but I see no reason why he couldn’t end up being an eventual starter or contributor for Notre Dame.


Welcome to the Irish family, Will!