Notre Dame football gained some much-needed good news this Friday afternoon, as defensive end David Abiara has decided to verbally commit to the Fighting Irish. The 6’4″/250-pounder out of Mansfield, TX is the 3rd defensive commit in Notre Dame’s class of 2021, joining defensive tackle Gabe Rubio and safety Justin Walters.
David first received his Notre Dame offer back on January 23rd and quickly set up a visit for the Junior Day event that occurred a little over a week later. The quick turnaround from offer to visit made it clear his interest in ND was legit. That visit to South Bend almost led to him committing to the Fighting Irish a few days later. After speaking with those close to him, he decided to hold off just a bit longer to make sure he wasn’t taking things too fast. Those who have been following his recruitment closely knew Notre Dame was in the lead spot for him, but there was no expected commitment from him today so this still comes as a welcome surprise.
100% Committed, Love Thee 🍀🍀 pic.twitter.com/hcxXWpzjkE
— David Abiara 🇳🇬 (@Dtx_Davidd) March 27, 2020
Recruiting Service Rankings
Rivals — 3 star (5.7 rating), NR overall, #21 SDE, #42 in TX
ESPN — 4 star (80 rating), #293 overall, #34 DE, #45 in TX
247Sports — 3 star (89 rating), NR overall, #18 SDE, #44 in TX
247Sports Composite — 4 star (.8900), #345 overall, #23 SDE, #51 in TX
Irish Sports Daily — 3 star (89 rating)
Cohort
David chose the Irish over other offers from Oklahoma, Alabama, LSU, Texas A&M, Virginia Tech, Wisconsin, and others. Quite the offer list. His decision ultimately came down to Notre Dame and Oklahoma.
Highlights
David’s junior highlights show a powerful player who possesses ideal length and a ton of potential to boot. He’s got really long arms that he uses well to keep opposing tackles from locking in on him. He’s a strong kid, possesses all the tools he will need to develop into a multi-year starter.
Jamie over at ISD always does a great job with his film review posts so if you’re interested, take a look at his film review on Abiara here (free).
Impact
Abiara is a really good pickup who has some blue bloods knocking down his door. But honestly, the biggest impact his commitment probably has right now is on the perception of the state of Notre Dame recruiting right now. March was supposed to be a huge month for Notre Dame, with the staff set to host the biggest recruiting event in years last weekend. It was to be the weekend to make a big move on all the elite guys that had ND in their top group.
Unfortunately COVID-19 had other plans and all NCAA recruiting is currently in a dead period.
Deion Colzie, who was supposed to be in South Bend this past weekend, instead decided to re-open his recruitment on Saturday. His family is still reportedly in ND’s corner so we’re not out of it, but it’s certainly a worse spot to be in than having him in the fold as a solid commit.
Then earlier this week elite offensive lineman Landon Tengwall announced a Top 2 of Notre Dame and Penn State, and set a commitment date for Thursday. This probably would have been good for ND if he had been able to visit last weekend — but the fact that he hadn’t been to ND in months and had visited Penn State numerous times since the fall made his Penn State commitment the least surprising thing ever.
So yeah, it’s kind of been a rough week for ND. But this commitment from Abiara, a defensive end with a legitimately elite offer list, has been a huge pick-me-up. Sort of makes one feel as if the sky isn’t falling after all.
So thank you, David, and welcome to the Irish family!
Thanks Tyler, nice write up on Abiari and lots of info here on what’s been happening lately in recruiting. Nice to know we’re still in it for Colzie. The guys at II were talking that rumor was he felt he wasn’t getting enough ND love. ND can fix that, if that’s true. Some of these kids need that, especially when they will be going far from home. It doesn’t make them prima donnas.
Though I think the hope of a top 5 class is just dreaming. Part of that is because ND won’t have the numbers in this class to have a shot at that. With highly rated QB along with some top playmakers, this can still be a really good class for ND. Of course with the current state of affairs, it’s anybody’s guess how things shake out.
It’s my understanding that the baseline amount of “love” a highly-regarded recruit gets is very high. Imagine the most high maintenance girl you’ve know and take it up a notch.
It is highly good to get some positive news — in fact, any news on sports in general, and especially our ND sports. These are not exactly unprecedented times , the period that comes to mind is WWII. And we came out of that one with four straight undefeated years and three Natties. But to have it all fall down at once is … disconcerting. Since I don’t follow recruiting except for this kind of story (for which thank you, Tyler), how are the other top-15 programs doing?
On waking up here in France to another tough day (though I have to say the French are in general outdoing themselves in displaying solidarity with each other and support for our medical personnel), I reread my post and want to clarify. I was only referring to the impact of a major worldwide cataclysmic-level event on ND football recruiting. That may seem trivial and I did not intend that. One of my sons is on the front line, ambulance pickup and emergency medical care in Ohio for starters. But I do think sport in general is an important human activity. So when I congratulate those of you who are writing articles for this wonderful site, and posting, I am genuinely complimentary and thankful.
It’s been a tough run for recruiting, it was less than 3 weeks ago you guys had a recruiting primer for 2021 and it seemed like Nd was poised to add a couple top 75 talents at the big recruiting weekend and instead they got a decommitment from a top 50 guy and pretty no timeline for visits or recruiting picking back up.
Having said that all this feels so small compared to what’s actually going on it’s hard to even be disappointed by this since everything else feels so my worse.
This was a nice distraction if only for a minute.
To be fair, no one in the country has a “timeline for visits or recruiting picking back up” right now. I do agree with some of the dread that a national recruiting base like ND might suffer more than most with the focus of the recruiting cycle since this might become a factor for kids to just stay closer to home and Big State U and the cancellation of the March recruiting is a very serious and meaningful blow against the ND program but such is life right now. Getting Abiara is some nice comfort like Tyler mentioned to sort of have something good happen for once and show that it’s not all worst case news for ND right now.
It’s easy to say this as I sit here behind my keyboard, but it would be great if ND were to try something innovative with online recruiting now, rather than just being part of the crowd that is bombarding recruits with texts/calls. Of course, I have no idea what this is, but the ND minute videos might be a step in the right direction to trying something different.