The board has been fairly quiet recently, but with the NCAA recruiting dead period ending last week on June 1st, expect that not to be the case over the next few weeks. Notre Dame has already starting bringing recruits to South Bend, holding the Irish Invasion this past weekend mostly to get a jump on 2023 and 2024 evals. There is an absolute monster list of visits scheduled to take place throughout the rest of the month — so hang on to your hats, folks.
The Defense Board
A reminder on how we do this – we’ll include the entire big board table but only review prospects who are above “Cold” status and who have had actual developments of late. Speaking of which, the temperature scale:
- Hot means the prospect is on commit watch.
- Warm means the prospect has Notre Dame in a small final group and/or is a possible Irish lean.
- Mild/Mild+ means the prospect is in regular contact with the staff and has visited or has firm visit plans.
- Cool means the prospect has some level of contact with the staff and/or vague visit plans; also the default temperature for most new offers.
- Cold is a known (or reasonably safely assumed) lack of contact with the staff and/or an elimination.
Also, on the 247 Composite scores: Roughly speaking above .9830 is a five star, above .9500 is a top 100 prospect, above .9200 is a top 200 prospect, and above .8900 is a four star. Those slide around a little within a cycle and from one cycle to the next, but they’re pretty solid ballpark numbers.
Remember that of course we don’t have perfect information on all prospects – we don’t know for sure whether a prospect has or hasn’t talked to the staff outside of what’s reported elsewhere. We don’t know for sure how high prospects are on the staff’s board. We try to make highly-educated guesses at all of it, but we don’t know.
Unit | Position | 247C | First Name | Last Name | Temp |
D | CB | 0.9948 | Denver | Harris | Cold |
D | CB | 0.9835 | Jeadyn | Lukus | Cold |
D | CB | 0.9834 | Daylen | Everette | Cold |
D | CB | 0.9725 | Khamauri | Rogers | Cool |
D | CB | 0.9565 | Earl | Little Jr. | Cold |
D | CB | 0.9510 | Jyaire | Brown | Mild |
D | CB | 0.9507 | Keenan | Nelson | Cold |
D | CB | 0.9635 | Terrance | Brooks | Cold |
D | CB | 0.9399 | Jaeden | Gould | Cool |
D | CB | 0.9267 | Toriano | Pride | Cold |
D | CB | 0.9220 | Austin | Jordan | Cold |
D | CB | 0.9214 | Ephesians | Prysock | Cool |
D | CB | 0.9062 | Dillon | Tatum | Cold |
D | CB | 0.8989 | Nikai | Martinez | Mild+ |
D | CB | 0.9016 | Cam | Miller | Cool |
D | CB | 0.9002 | Benjamin | Morrison | Mild+ |
D | CB | 0.9018 | Jared | Kerr | Cold |
D | CB | 0.8839 | Jayden | Bellamy | Mild+ |
D | CB | 0.8739 | Davison | Igbinosun | Cool |
D | CB | 0.8697 | Avery | Powell | Cool |
D | CB | 0.8627 | Ryland | Gandy | Cool |
D | DT | 0.9862 | Mykel | Williams | Cold |
D | DT | 0.9632 | Caden | Curry | Cold |
D | DT | 0.9502 | Anthony | Lucas | Mild+ |
D | DT | 0.8925 | KJ | Miles | Cold |
D | DT | 0.8850 | Kaleb | Artis | Cool |
D | ILB | 0.9742 | Shawn | Murphy | Cold |
D | ILB | 0.9783 | Jaishawn | Barham | Cold |
D | ILB | 0.9642 | Niuafe | Tuihalamaka | Warm |
D | OLB | 0.9922 | Harold | Perkins | Cold |
D | OLB | 0.9682 | Jaylen | Sneed | Warm |
D | OLB | 0.9728 | David | Bailey | Cold |
D | OLB | 0.9477 | Sebastian | Cheeks | Warm |
D | OLB | 0.9355 | Devon | Jackson | Mild |
D | OLB | 0.9104 | Tevarua | Tafiti | Cool |
D | OLB | 0.9041 | Lander | Barton | Cool |
D | OLB | 0.9000 | Robby | Snelling | Cold |
D | OLB | 0.8900 | Martrell | Harris | Cold |
D | S | 0.9861 | Kamari | Wilson | Cold |
D | S | 0.9803 | Bryce | Anderson | Cold |
D | S | 0.9784 | Zion | Branch | Cold |
D | S | 0.9700 | Xavier | Nwankpa | Mild+ |
D | S | 0.9543 | Kamari | Ramsey | Cold |
D | S | 0.9195 | Sherrod | Covil | Mild+ |
D | S | 0.9168 | Cristian | Driver | Cold |
D | S | 0.9056 | Taylor | Groves | Cool |
D | S | 0.9000 | Jaden | Mangham | Mild |
D | S | 0.8889 | Jake | Pope | Mild |
D | S | 0.8850 | Cooper | Barkate | Cold |
D | S | 0.8789 | Devin | Moore | Mild+ |
D | S | 0.8678 | Kevin | Winston | Mild+ |
D | SDE | 0.9946 | Shemar | Stewart | Cold |
D | SDE | 0.9767 | Derrick | Moore | Cold |
D | SDE | 0.9712 | Dani | Dennis-Sutton | Cold |
D | SDE | 0.9235 | Ernest | Cooper IV | Mild+ |
D | SDE | 0.8975 | Isaac | Hamm | Cold |
D | WDE | 0.9831 | Enai | White | Cold |
D | WDE | 0.9774 | Cyrus | Moss | Mild+ |
D | WDE | 0.9647 | Kenyatta | Jackson | Cold |
D | WDE | 0.9397 | Wilfredo | Aybar | Cold |
D | WDE | 0.9289 | DJ | Wesolak | Cool |
D | WDE | 0.8567 | Alex | Bauman | Cold |
Defensive End
Commits: WDE Tyson Ford, 0.9484, #123 overall/#8 position; WDE Aiden Gobaira, 0.9000 #292 overall/#17 position; WDE Darren Agu, 0.8797, #461 overall/#26 position
Slots: 3-4
Not a lot to report at defensive end, as the Irish have the position mostly locked up at this point. Cyrus Moss is still the only real target remaining, and he is still planning to take his official visit to Notre Dame on June 18th. That will be the Irish staff’s opportunity to make a big move in his recruitment.
Defensive Tackle
Commits: Donovan Hinish, .8797, #465 overall/#71 position (DL)
Slots: 1-2
As expected, Donovan Hinish is now off the board and in the fold for Notre Dame. The top target remaining is Anthony Lucas, who is taking his official visit to Notre Dame this upcoming weekend. Notre Dame is in a good spot with him, but they’re battling with a ton of blue bloods here. This visit needs to go really well in order for Notre Dame to land him.
The other defensive tackle prospect with an official visit to Notre Dame scheduled this month is Ernest Cooper. He will be in South Bend the weekend of June 25th.
Linebacker
Commits: OLB Josh Burnham, .9515, #114 overall/#9 position; OLB Nolan Ziegler, 0.8958, #317 overall/#24 position
Slots: 4
The month of June could prove to be a big month for Notre Dame at the linebacker position. The following uncommitted players have official visits scheduled with the Irish:
Junior Tuihalamaka — June 11th
Jaylen Sneed — June 14th
Sebastian Cheeks — June 18th
The general consensus is that Notre Dame likely won’t make it out of the month of June without two of those three linebackers committed. Smart money right now is on Tuihalamaka and Sneed.
Cornerback
Commits: Jaden Mickey, 0.9129, #227 overall/#26 position
Slots: 2-3
June could also end up being a big month for Notre Dame at defensive back as well. The Irish have a lot of realistic options coming in for visits over the next few weeks, including the following at corner:
Benjamin Morrison — June 11th
Devin Moore — June 11th
Nikai Martinez — June 18th
Jayden Bellamy — June 18th
I wouldn’t be shocked if any of these guys enjoyed their official visit enough to commit sometime this month. If I were to guess, I’d say Morrison and Bellamy are probably the two most likely to join Notre Dame’s group of commits, but that’s a difficult projection to make. It will be really interesting to see how things shake out.
Safety
Commits: None
Slots: 2
Safety recruiting is a bit more muddled than corner right now. Notre Dame is in a pretty good spot with multiple guys, and of course one visit can make a huge impact, but right now I don’t foresee any commitments coming from the position this month. These are the guys making their way to campus over the next few weeks:
Jake Pope — June 11th
Xavier Nwankpa — June 18th
Sherrod Covil — June 21st
Kevin Winston — June 25th
Xavier Nwankpa would be the crown jewel of this group, and might possibly be the top target for Notre Dame regardless of position. Ohio State has held the lead for him for quite some time, so his visit to South Bend is going to be ciritical for the Irish. They absolutely have to knock it out of the park.
That LB board though…
It seems like they’ve staggered visits to where the higher ranked guys (who I assume the staff like more) visit first and they can see where they stand with them. I’m sure that’s not an option every year but it seems like a really smart approach.
They land any 2 of Lucas, moss or Nwankpa and that is best defensive class of the Kelly era, much more balanced assuming minimal competence in secondary than any other highly ranked classes.
Would we take all three of Tuihalamaka, Cheeks and Sneed if they wanted to commit? That’d be awfully linebacker heavy but the talent level seems awfully high to pass on at a glance. I don’t want to be all “I’d simply change a guy’s position”, but between the possibility and the likelihood of future transfers, my ignorant self thinks we should probably go for it if possible.
Yeah, I think so too. I mean Cheeks is the 125th composite prospect and could ND be too full to take him? That wouldn’t seem right.
It should be a really, really impressive LB class no matter how it shakes out. Hopefully these guys bring more than Simon and Lamb, LB always feels like it could go either way in that 70-110 zone for players actually being able to develop, for whatever reason.
But….all the momentum looks positive there. A lot more concerned about safety (what else is new!?!). We’ll see if Freeman works his magic but they really need to add more DB’s.
I am with you guys. Take every single top 100ish player, no matter what. Even if they don’t switch positions, as long as they have different skill sets, then they can make up for other lacking areas, like pass rush or box safety. Any truly great position group will cover up some weaknesses of others.
I would generally agree but when you consider that often there are only 2 LB on the field at a time and we are talking about taking 5 in one class that seems like a bit of a logjam.
It also has to be considered what the staff thinks about their chances of signing a couple of top LB in the ’23 class.
Burnham is a big enough guy I could see him getting snaps at Vyper or rush end or whatever we call it. But, the other 4 all seem destined to play LB so I don’t want to ever turn away talent but taking 5 seems to set yourself up for roster management issues down the road.
Couldn’t Ziegler play safety or the rover? He’s a little big, but not necessarily a pure LB. Really, if he couldn’t I wonder if they could nudge him on down the road and bring in better players? He seems like a such a system fit, but ND keeping with what they’re done is only going to get them so far. Need more elite players, hopefully they can take all the top 125 prospects that they can get.
True that too many LBs could dissuade 2023 guys. If the staff legitimately thinks they are passing on someone here for a better player (although unlikely to have a better name than Cheeks), I am all for that.
But we have recruited 4 top 150 defenders in the past 3 years. Don’t turn away great talent until we are overflowing with it. I know things look A LOT different with Freeman, but this is ND, it is going to be a few years before I assume things will continue to go well.
*Cody Simon enters the chat*
Wasn’t that more of him not being good enough? Rather than a sorry, we have too many (since I think we took 0 that year).
This situation seems to be more that the staff will turn away a really good player for space reasons, rather than because they think someone isn’t good enough.
That said, I still would have taken Simon.