The 2022 Notre Dame class picked up its fourth linemen recently when weakside defensive end Aiden Gobaira announced for the Irish. The 6’6″, 235-pound Virginian joined recent commit Tyson Ford in the 2022 defensive line group. Ford is more acclaimed at the moment, but there are some similarities between them – both are long, quick, fast, and powerful. Gobaira needs some refinement, which we’ll get into below, but has has a lot of promise.

As with many other prospects around the country, Gobaira didn’t have any camps available last summer and also didn’t have a 2020 season. However, Notre Dame offered all the way back in May 2020, so the staff must’ve liked his sophomore film enough to pull the trigger then. He finally made it to campus for an independent visit at the beginning of February and committed within a couple of days. The campus clearly resonated for him and Mom is, um, excited…

Sicilian/Dominican/Lebanese? How do I get invited to dinner at their house?

Also, Gobaira is on the right in the header photo. Five-star ND OL target Zach Rice is on the left, but don’t get your hopes up – he’s probably going to land at North Carolina. Big dude though.

Recruiting Service Rankings

247Sports Composite — 3 star (.8839 rating), #377 overall, #23 WDE, #12 in VA

247Sports — 3 star (89 rating), NR overall, #15 WDE, #10 in VA

Rivals — 3 star (5.7 rating), NR overall, #26 WDE, #16 in VA

ESPN — Not evaluated

Irish Sports Daily — 4 star (90 rating)

Cohort

In addition to Notre Dame, Gobaira holds offers from Arizona State, Duke, Louisville, Michigan State, Penn State, Vanderbilt, Virginia, and Virginia Tech, among others.

Highlights

Standard caveat that this is sophomore film and the next time we’ll see anything from him will be two years removed from this. Now, with that out of the way… I really like Gobaira’s first step and how he breaks down in the backfield when appropriate. He shows plus quickness and speed, and absolutely outstanding hustle – it’s no small thing for a defensive end to chase down a sweep from the weak side, or to be the first man down in kick coverage. As a pass rusher I think there’s quite a bit of promise there. I’d like to see a little more of a plan with his hands but they’re active and violent, which is a nice start. He uses that athleticism to shoot past tackles and through gaps with impressive ease, and he has enough strength to hold the point of attack pretty well against the run. One negative that stands out is he plays really tall in this film – I’d definitely like to see him use more leverage as a senior. He doesn’t show much bend here either, but again, he was a sophomore. He has certainly developed physically since then, so it’ll be very interesting to see how his game has developed as well.

Impact

Man, I don’t think I can make any kind of reasonable projection using year-plus old sophomore film. A bit broken record-ish, I know, but it is what it is. I think Gobaira certainly has the frame and athletic skills to be an eventual starter at end. How soon and how good a starter, we can revisit after his senior season. We know the Irish just landed a big, athletic kid who hustles his tail off. You can build a pretty good team out of guys like that.

Welcome to the Irish family, Aiden!