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.