Notre Dame added a key offensive piece to its 2022 class yesterday when four-star running back Jadarian “JD” Price announced for the Irish. The 5’11”, 180-pound Texan picked up his Notre Dame offer a little over three weeks ago and was set to visit independently this week before the Lone Star State ice storm wrecked his plans. Clearly the storm did little to deter him from his decision. This kid can play – as a freshman he averaged just under seven yards per carry and had 16 touchdowns, as a sophomore he fought through nagging injuries but stayed productive, and as a junior he was again back to just under seven yards per carry and had 18 rushing touchdowns, 20 total. At 5A, Texas’s second-highest classification.
Oh, and he’s a track guy who ran a 10.9 100M as a sophomore. Lance Taylor must be giddy.
COMMITTED!☘️ Happy Birthday Mom!💚@NDFootball #IGTBAYJ pic.twitter.com/nihgdd4TTe
— Jadarian (@Jadarian15) February 21, 2021
Can’t lose when Mom’s on your side, man.
Recruiting Service Rankings
247Sports Composite — 4 star (.9239 rating), #195 overall, #21 RB, #29 in TX
247Sports — 4 star (90 rating), #225 overall, #21 RB, #31 in TX
Rivals — 4 star (5.8 rating), #210 overall, #6 APB, #30 in TX
ESPN — 4 star (83 rating), #163 overall, #13 RB, #26 in TX
Irish Sports Daily — 4 star (93 rating)
Cohort
In addition to Notre Dame, Price holds offers from Arizona State, Auburn, Baylor, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio State, Oklahoma State, Stanford, TCU, Texas, and USC, among others.
Highlights
There’s a lot to talk about here, but I definitely need to grab one thing to highlight first: It’s an awful lot of fun seeing how hard it is to bring Price down. If you’re coming for him you better come square and hit hard, or he’s going to run over/through/around you. He shows a surprising amount of power for his size, and as noted above, his competition is pretty decent here so what we’re seeing on tape is legit. I think he has excellent vision and composure; run after run, he shows patience, sees the lanes, and makes cuts to set up his blocks. He has very good speed and acceleration too, really knows how to use his burst. There are only a couple of plays with him as a receiver but he looks plenty credible in that area too, which fits with the 28 receptions he logged in his junior season.
Maybe my favorite play on the whole reel is at 1:02, when he takes the handoff, picks his way through tight traffic, runs through a bunch of arm tackles, and bursts to the end zone. His full skill set is on display right there and it looks really good.
Impact
There’s a pretty decent chance that Kyren Williams will be gone by the time Price’s freshman season starts. Ascendant junior Chris Tyree, potential fifth-year C’Bo Flemister, and at least one of 2021 signees Audric Estime and Logan Diggs should be in line for opportunities, certainly, but with a workhorse like Williams moving on Price might get a chance to make some noise right away. I’ll be interested to see how his senior season goes; right now I see him as a second-year contributor and eventual front-line guy, but an exceptional performance could change my mind. Friend of the Stripes Jamie Uyeyama at ISD thinks Price is a top 100 level player.
Welcome to the Irish family, JD!
Great write up! Brendan, it looks like the recent RB recruiting has improved, but is that only my impression as a novice? Are these recent commits and signees under Taylor a clear step up from the past few years under Denson?
Denson commits:
Average rating of .8771, which is a mid-level 3*.
Taylor commits:
Average rating of .9201, which is top 200-ish.
Taylor has landed commitments from three backs rated higher than Denson’s highest, CJ Holmes – and Holmes is one of the three Denson signees who won’t finish their eligibility at Notre Dame. In addition, the Irish currently have a pretty decent chance to land either Nicholas Singleton (.9527, #111) or Dallan Hayden (.9080, #255, and likely in for a good bump) in the 2022 class.
Now, in fairness, only one of Taylor’s guys has seen the field, and Denson’s last guy ripped it up pretty well in 2020. Still, the numbers are what they are.
Great research. Certainly fair to say a big uptick here with Taylor. I still have the nagging feeling Taylor would have gotten around and closed on Shipley too if not for a global pandemic really hammering home the reasons to stay close for family.
It’s nice Kyren blossomed, but it seems like most of the work he put into reshape his body and improve was done upon getting to ND…And ironically might be more of Taylor’s coaching even though the credit for recruitment isn’t there. But aside from Williams it’s already a big win for Taylor and likely to keep getting better and more clear from here as to getting better players. That’s good to know!
Great breakdown — it seems pretty clear that there is a significant improvement! The reason I asked was that I was not sure if the new recruits were at the Jahmir/C’Bo level or if they were clearly a level above. It’s nice to see more talent on the way at RB and even if some do not pan out, there should be plenty of talented runners to step in
That is some great tape. I love guys that do run through arm tackles and turn good angles into bad angles.
A much stronger looking back than you would expect for someone only 180 lbs. He seems to like contact. Football speed looks good too.
Thanks, Brendan. Following recruiting in detail is usually way deep down in my too hard box, but your write up was so good I watched the highlight video. He does seem to be everything you said. Looks like he could peak about 2023, which is when the O-line should peak again…