Notre Dame’s 2022 recruiting class reached the 20-person mark on Wednesday with the addition of wide receiver Tobias Merriweather out of Union High School in southwestern Washington State just across the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon. He was offered on November 19, 2020 and becomes the 2nd receiver in the class for the Fighting Irish.
Merriweather, like many recruits, has witnessed his high school career shortened due to the pandemic but is an impressive student, promising track athlete, and a football player who has been turning heads at camps. He made an official visit to Notre Dame not too long ago on June 11th and made a crucial trip to Stanford a couple of weeks later.
Originally set to decide later in the fall, Merriweather moved up his announcement and pulled the trigger for Notre Dame before fall camp begins in South Bend.
Recruiting Service Rankings
247Sports Composite — 4 star (.9484 rating), #125 overall, #18 WR, #2 in WA
247Sports — 4 star (94 rating), #75 overall, #11 WR, #2 in WA
Rivals — 4 star (5.9 rating), #155 overall, #21 WR, #2 in WA
ESPN — 4 star (82 rating), #188 overall, #25 WR, #4 in WA
On3 — 92 rating, #154 overall
Irish Sports Daily — 4 star (94 rating)
Cohort
This had been a Notre Dame-Stanford battle for much of this calendar year. In addition to these schools, Merriweather had top offers from USC, Washington, Oregon, Michigan, and 10 other Power 5 schools, mostly from the Pac-12.
Highlights
There’s only 1 receiver in the Composite top 25 at this position who is listed at 6’4″ and Notre Dame just received his commitment. Best big wideout in the class, maybe?
Merriweather is very fluid for his height and already looks to be an impressively put together athlete. Normally, I’m ready to see some rawness from someone with his frame (like Colzie last year a little bit) but I see much more of a polished product from this Washingtonian. He shows nice burst and has quick feet in and out of his breaks. If his track career is any indication, long speed shouldn’t be an issue at all.
He reminds me a lot of Clemson receiver Mike Williams (2013-16).
Impact
The Irish are expected to get a verbal from another receiver this weekend that is slightly higher rated than Merriweather. That would make it 5 receivers within the top 150 rankings in their respective classes over the last 3 cycles (with 1 already transferred out) for Notre Dame and Merriweather could arguably be considered the top prospect of the whole bunch.
Merriweather isn’t coming out of Florida, Georgia, Texas, or California and his level of competition is pretty poor. It’s unlikely he’ll get a huge boost from ESPN and Rivals to become a 5-star but I truly think Merriweather has 5-star ceiling and abilities. He has size, speed, agility, very good ball skills, and enough nastiness and an edge with the ball in his hands to make him a devastating playmaker in college.
I’d be surprised if Merriweather isn’t a future No. 1 receiver for the Irish. It’ll be interesting to see the situation when he arrives on campus, though. Potentially, a productive Kevin Austin could return as the top wideout and hopefully it’ll already feel like the program hit on Lorenzo Styles and Deon Colzie. However, I wouldn’t expect it to take very long for Merriweather to make an impact no matter the depth chart.
Welcome to the Irish family, Tobias!
Great writeup. If he has Clemson Mike Williams level career, that would be pretty sweet.
This kid has good hands, is really good with the ball in the open field, large catch radius, likes to block and only needs to put on a little weight. In other words, he’s got it all.
Don’t see a ton of 6’4 guys returning kicks and playing CB. I think it was Jamie U who wrote an article this year about how much more successful big WRs have been lately across CFB. Great pickup.
This is a great catch for ND! It’s nice to see them going after these 4*s and not being content with a bunch of 3*s with upside.
To that point, as of now the ND blue chip ratio is 70% for 2022 (14 four stars, 6 three stars) and just going to tick higher if/when Williams commits. Last year it was 12/26.
Lots of talent coming in, probably some Freeman effect but great to see. Also with Williams it would be 7 offensive four stars and 8 defensive ones, so the split probably isn’t as drastic as it might seem.