An eventful week for Notre Dame football continues apace, as behemoth lineman Elijah Paige this afternoon became the program’s third commit in the last three days. The 6’7″, 304 pound (!!!) Arizonan was on campus last weekend for his official visit, at which point buzz grew as to the end of his recruitment drawing near. Harry Hiestand reportedly really, really likes Paige, and it would seem that Paige is pretty cool with Harry too; in a recent article at 247 (free), he offered this: “Hiestand is a different style of recruiter than anybody else that’s recruited me. He’s a little more old school, which I really like.” Paige goes to current Irish lineman Tosh Baker’s high school, and plays basketball there too just as Baker did; in the same article he mentions that he’s very close with Tosh’s younger brother. Despite the distance, connections abound.

When Paige picked up his Notre Dame offer from the new staff in February, some eyebrows raised as he was a mid-level three star and momentum seemed strong with other higher-rated prospects. However, as noted, Harry likes him quite a bit, and many other staffs do too based on who offered him and who has been pursuing him. His commitment is a particular blow to USC, who had been pushing hard for him and whose fans had already penciled him into their class.

Fittingly given the level of interest in him from quality programs, he recently jumped up over 400 spots into 247’s top 250. We would imagine that if he does the camp circuit this summer he’ll very likely continue to climb.

Recruiting Service Rankings

247Sports Composite — 3 star (.8900 rating, .0001 behind the first 4 star), #380 overall, #31 OT, #8 in AZ

On3 Consensus — 3 star (88.28 rating), #458 overall, #33 OT, #7 in AZ (does not yet include the updated 247 ranking)

The 247 Composite and On3 Consensus both combine 247, On3, Rivals, and ESPN rankings.

247Sports — 4 star (90 rating), #223 overall, #23 OT, #6 in AZ

On3 — 3 star (89 rating), NR overall, #30 OT, #8 in AZ

Rivals — 3 star (5.7 rating), NR overall, #51 OT, #6 in AZ

ESPN — 3 star (79 rating), NR overall, #35 OT, #9 in AZ

Friend of the Stripes Jamie Uyeyama does the recruit evaluations for ISD, and we trust his evals as much as anyone’s. So while the 247 Composite and the On3 Consensus don’t factor in ISD evals, we put a lot of weight on them ourselves.

Irish Sports Daily — 4 star (92 rating)

Cohort

In addition to Notre Dame and USC, Paige holds offers from Auburn, Baylor, BYU, Duke, Miami, Michigan, Michigan State, Nebraska, Northwestern, Oregon, Penn State, Stanford, UCLA, Washington, and Wisconsin, among many others.

Highlights

It’s probably a good sign for him being a Hiestand guy that Paige hasn’t uploaded anything to Hudl in a year and a half… Anyway, we see plenty to like on sophomore film. Man does he move well at that size and that age – holy cow. He gets out in the open field very smoothly and he’s a load when he’s out there. I can only imagine being a fairly typical 5’9″, 150-pound high school cornerback and seeing this guy bearing down on you. Yikes.

I was impressed by how well he handled reach blocks, which his high school apparently asks him to do with some regularity. Those aren’t easy for anyone let alone a 15 year old, but his quickness off the ball puts him in good position on those blocks consistently. And his footwork and balance in his pass set are really nice – he lost guys a little bit once or twice but overall, and again adjusting for age, he has exceptional balance and doesn’t typically take any bad steps. I saw some nice punch out into the rusher too.

He plays really high at times on here, which is hardly surprising for a 6’6″ sophomore. I think he also needs to be more consistent with his punch in pass blocking, but hey, he’s just a kid, and in fairness he may have fixed a lot of this already. The main takeaway is that he shows the athleticism, power, frame, and attitude to be very good at the next level.

Impact

While I definitely think Paige will stay outside for the Irish, there likely won’t be an opportunity to push for starting minutes there until 2024 at the earliest – Blake Fisher and Joe Alt should have the tackle jobs locked down for as long as they want to be here. And of course the ’22 class included three guys who could land on the edge as well in Aamil Wagner, Billy Schrauth, and Ty Chan. So the odds of Paige being an instant impact guy are fairly low. I do think he has the potential to push and/or provide alternatives to the ’22 guys if needed though, and has all the tools needed to start as an upperclassman on either end of the line.

Welcome to the Irish family, Elijah!