In a development that we can quite fairly say surprised not just us but the entire college football recruiting world, blue-chip offensive lineman Aamil Wagner announced his commitment to Notre Dame today. Usually the recruiting sites have content pre-written because the recruit has tipped them off, and when the announcement comes they just push all that content live. There is was a rather noticeable dearth of pre-written material out shortly after Wagner committed, because nobody had any clue it was happening. In fact, 247 Sports national analyst Steve Wiltfong hinted that not even the Notre Dame staff knew this commitment was coming. 247’s Kentucky guy, Josh Edwards, said he found out 15 minutes before the announcement and sat on it, much to his credit. For those of you who don’t follow recruiting super closely, I can’t tell you how unlikely it is in the modern age that a kid could keep it that close to the vest. Impressive and, for Irish fans in this case, fun!

In the 2021 class the Irish pulled Ohio State legacy and Columbus native Lorenzo Styles away from the Buckeyes. Earlier this year they landed the commitment of five-star Cleveland area defensive lineman Brennan Vernon, who Ohio State pursued heavily. Now they have Cincinnati native Wagner, who at one time was considered automatic for Ohio State, in the 2022 class. Heady times indeed. Despite all the Ohio connections, the general consensus was heavily in favor of Kentucky for Wagner – his older brother Ahmad played there and just joined the staff as a grad assistant. This commitment is just a massive surprise and a big win for Jeff Quinn and the entire Notre Dame staff.

I love Mom’s reaction here – in fact everyone but Dad looked genuinely surprised:

Recruiting Service Rankings

247Sports Composite — 4 star (.9448 rating), #134 overall, #12 OT, #6 in OH

247Sports — 4 star (94 rating), #116 overall, #11 OT, #6 in OH

Rivals — 4 star (5.8 rating), #202 overall, #23 OT, #9 in OH

ESPN — 4 star (83 rating), #116 overall, #18 OT, #5 in OH

Irish Sports Daily — 4 star (94 rating), #47 overall

Cohort

In addition to Notre Dame, Ohio State, and Kentucky, Wagner holds offers from Arizona State, Auburn, Duke, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Oregon, Penn State, Stanford, and Virginia Tech, among many others.

Highlights

Wagner has posted some short individual game highlights to his Hudl feed but no season highlights, so this is his junior season film instead. Wagner needs to show way more bend in his lower body or he’s going to lose leverage consistently at the next level. Let’s get that out of the way first. I’m pretty confident it’s just a technique issue rather than a physical limitation though, given how good of an athlete he is. In fact he looks a little better in that regard in those senior highlights. Moving on… That athleticism at his size is what had staffs around the country drooling over him. He has very light feet and man, he can move. He pulls a couple of times on this video . If you really want to see him run, check out this 25 second video from a game this year, in which he makes a block 45 yards downfield. I mean come on. A safety in downfield recovery mode shouldn’t have to deal with a rogue offensive lineman, yet there he is.

He also has a rather hilariously large desire to hit people. He needs to fix his leverage and get his hands away from his body quicker off the snap, but he has athleticism and attitude that can’t be taught. The biggest question on him is probably his size – listed at 6’6″ and a svelte 265 pounds, it’s fair to wonder how long it will take him to get around 300 pounds. It happened for Joe Alt in less than a year though and, as you can see in the header photo here, Aamil’s pops is, uh, not a small man. So there’s plenty of reasonable cause for optimism there.

Impact

As we hinted at just now, Wagner will almost certainly need some time to add good weight and hone his technique before he’ll be ready to get on the field. Fortunately, assuming health, the Irish offensive line looks to be very well set up for the next couple of seasons – Blake Fisher, Rocco Spindler, Zeke Correll, Andrew Kristofic, and Joe Alt could all start together through 2023 (Kristofic and Correll’s fifth year and Fisher, Spindler, and Alt’s junior year). I think Wagner has a great foundation to build toward a starting role as an upperclassman, most likely on the right side.

Welcome to the Irish family, Aamil!