Notre Dame fans were given another reason to celebrate this Saint Patrick’s day, when 4-star linebacker Josh Burnham announced his verbal commitment to the Fighting Irish. The 6’4″/215-pounder out of Traverse City, MI is the eleventh player to commit to Notre Dame for the class — the 5th on the defensive side of the ball. Notre Dame’s class currently ranks #2 in the country, trailing only Ohio State.
Notre Dame offered Burnham back in June of 2020, so they’ve been on him for quite a while. Up until fairly recently, however, it looked like Michigan was his leader. He grew up a fan of the Wolverines, which can be forgiven considering his recent reformation. Once Marcus Freeman was hired as the new Defensive Coordinator/Linebackers coach, he made it known early that Burnham would be a top priority, and his relentless pursuit is paying off. He released a Top 3 of Notre Dame, Michigan, and Wisconsin a little over a month ago on February 11th. A couple of weeks ago word got out that Notre Dame had jumped into lead position for Burnham, and now here we are discussing the newest Notre Dame commit.
Recruiting Service Rankings
Rivals — 4 star (5.9 rating), #141 overall, #5 ILB, #3 in MI
ESPN — 4 star (83 rating), #163 overall, #18 OLB, #2 in MI
247Sports — 4 star (94 rating), #85 overall, #6 OLB, #2 in MI
247Sports Composite — 4 star (.9520), #115 overall, #9 OLB, #2 in MI
Irish Sports Daily — 4 star (96 rating), #29 in the ISD Fab 50
Cohort
Josh chose the Irish over other offers from Michigan, Wisconsin, Alabama, Ohio State, Iowa, Michigan State and others. His offer list totaled 13 teams, including Notre Dame.
Highlights
Josh’s highlight video is, umm… Quite long. Over 30 minutes. I’ll be honest, I still haven’t watched the full thing. It’s clear early on that Josh is an extremely impressive athlete, though. He really does it all for his high school team. Passing, receiving, rushing, defense — you name it. I thought the clip beginning around the 1:20 mark in particular really showcased his athleticism. He starts out in shotgun as a quarterback and scrambles, weaving through defenders for a 50-yard touchdown just so effortlessly. As a defender he plays physical and isn’t afraid to fight through blockers like some high school athletes tend to be. There’s a lot to be excited about here.
Impact
Gotta admit snatching an elite kid away from Michigan feels real good. Even if the Wolverines weren’t involved, this would still be a big pickup, though. Burnham is currently the highest-rated commit in the class, just a few spots ahead of defensive end Tyson Ford. He’s also the highest-rated linebacker commit for the Irish since the 2018 cycle.
Burnham’s best fit is probably at Mike, though he could play Buck as well. Looking at the scholarship chart, the youngest Mikes on the team are Bertrand and Ekwonu. Neither of those two guys have made much of an impact just yet so they’re relative unknowns at this point, and they’re entering their redshirt sophomore season in 2021. Bo Bauer is the only other Mike on the roster who should be here in 2022, and he’ll be in his fifth year, so there is definitely an opportunity for Burnham to play some significant snaps early on in his career. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him end up as a multi-year starter.
Welcome to the Irish family, Josh!
Brian Kelly celebratory dance:
https://twitter.com/CoachBrianKelly/status/1372289792692604929?s=20
This is great news! It seems like there have been few LB commits in recent years, so it is really good news to get a highly ranked one like him. I’d like to see them keep this pattern, with the next recruit being ranked even higher.
I just took a look at the 247 team rankings and ND is currently ranked 2nd. BUT, looking at the surrounding teams I got the vibe of “which of these teams is not like the others?” as ND has the most 3 stars and the only top team without any 5 stars.
They’re not the final rankings and I think you’ll see most of NDs 3stars rise in the rankings.
Our recruiting this year is probably marginally better than in prior years. We have a similar average star ranking right now to the last, oh, 8 years give or take, but it’s being dragged down a bit by Amorion Walker. Walker is a definite 3-star, but probably not the middling 3-star he is ranked as – he’s 869th in the country right now, and will probably eventually get a boost. Gobiara (our 2nd-lowest-ranked recruit) also is looking good in spring football and could get a boost.
That said, I could see Angeli falling below where he’s ranked at (from high 3-star to middle-to-low 3-star). There’s also no real buzz that any of our higher-ranked recruits are significantly underrated, which probably means they won’t be moving up.
IMO, all three of the players you mention will end up 4 stars. Angeli with more game film and camps will rise. Walker the same, he has a rare combination of size and speed. Gobaira is tearing it up in his spring season. He’s not a 215 pounder anymore.
I apologize if I’m being too optimistic for some of you. In this of all years I think the early rankings for the 2022 class will fluctuate a great deal. I don’t think any of these guys are dropping. I think you’re way off if you think ND settled for any of these guys. Wimsatt being projected now to “Rutgers” being some evidence of that. I think that points to ND being higher on Angeli than him. JMO
I’m not sure how you’re saying that Walker is a “definite 3-star” — based on, what, 3 games of evidence? And I don’t know where the idea that Angeli will slip further comes from, either. I think everyone agrees that we are in unchartered territory here w/r/t the rating of prospects due to the scattershot participation from state to state. If the ratings services aren’t prepared to make some fairly massive adjustments to their rankings once high schools get back to a regular, full schedule as 2021 unfolds, then I think that will reflect more on their failure to address more timely and relevant evidence than it does the players in question or the schools to which they’ve committed to play in college.
Summer camps will give rating services an opportunity to compare kids head to head. Spring football in some states too. Gobaira’s game film so far could have you asking yourself, “is that the same kid ?”. He’s filled out from his skinny sophomore film and looks legit now.
I should have been less categorical. He’s definitely a 3-star by ranking and offer sheet and available tape – that is all available evidence. There’s nothing about him that would indicate he should be a 4-star other than that he’s tall and his coach claims he can run in the 4.4s (which is not rare for coaches to say about their high school players who definitely cannot run in the 4.4s).
The logic of this “how do you know he’s not a 3-star” of course is sound – I don’t know; for all I know he’ll turn into Randy Moss. But, realistically, he’s a 3-star based on all available information right now. But if he’s that underrated, he’ll probably get offered by LSU or Alabama and maybe not end up in our class.
Jeez, could you be more negative? If he’s underrated he’ll go elsewhere? Yes, it’s been reported elsewhere (Tom Lemming) that his speed is exceptional. 10.5-100m Don’t know where Lemming got that but, it’s what he reported.
Gobaira’s definitely getting a boost. He’s #427 in the composite right now and that might be about 200 spots too high (or low? You know what I mean)
Burnham’s size and frame and especially his rankings look very, very similar to Jack Lamb right down to ESPN liking him less than the other two services. Trying to get past that as a personal hangup, but it’s standing out to me. The two are independent of one another, and I’m def down to take a 6’4, 215 pound high-end LB recruit, it just was striking to me how similar their profiles are on paper in many ways.
Great to beat Michigan at anything though and he’s one of the higher-ranked recruits so far so that’s awesome. Sounds like there’s more coming at LB too, could be a really great and fun class there.
https://18stripes.com/2018-recruiting-lb-jack-lamb-commits-to-notre-dame/
Burnham’s a much better athlete tbh
Did Jack Lamb play QB for his hs team? Maybe but I doubt it.
True, and that is a good point. But Lamb was talked up as having “plus” athleticism at the time of his commitment.
You do bring up a good point though that almost none of these kids are slam-dunks to be great college players. It’s always best to keep expectations in check.
Lamb did have plus athleticism, and recall that he was a regular at Mike in the dime package in 2019. He just also had really bad injury luck – first his knee in HS, then the hip injury late in 2019, which I think really set him back. Not sure he ever got back to 100% after that, and in the interim other guys emerged.
Which is all to say, recruiting is a crapshoot for a myriad of reasons.
That is fair too, the injuries can derail anyone and he had to go through that. And Lamb’s still a P5 player and possibly/probably going to get a lot of action again next year.
Michigan was really feelin itself this off-season too. From closing out last year with edwards to their hot start this class, never mind they were MI kids and they still had to hire their coaches, it was really nice to have the Irish shut that down.
Freeman obviously deserves a lot of credit, but how important is Elston? Seems like those the defensive recruiting staff on the whole is pretty good
In an alternate reality, I live in Traverse City MI and have a kid with a scholarship offer to play football at ND. That would be the life.
Not sure one wants to live in Traverse City from November through April, but man is it beautiful when things start to warm up.
So basically it’s the Notre Dame of towns.
My wife and I took our honeymoon to Traverse City a few years go.
Can confirm that TC in August is wonderful.
FYI these are the top targets remaining on the LB board at the moment:
Junior Tuihalamaka – .9712
Jaylen Sneed – .9652
Devon Jackson – .9398
Sebastian Cheeks – .9389
Notre Dame currently has crystal ball predictions on 247 for all 4 of them right now.
4 for Cheeks
2 for Tuihalamaka
1 each for Jackson and Sneed
WOW.
we may need an article comparing them to our best defensive class in the kelly era and how they stack up.
What will do with the riches at LB? Might one move to DE?
I really don’t know, but it’s a good problem to have.
DE recruiting is in a really good spot as well, though