Notre Dame, who you may have heard is, uh, long on opportunity for incoming wideouts, landed a huge piece of the 2023 recruiting class today when top 100 prospect Braylon James announced for the Irish. The 6’3″, 190 pound Texan broke the Irish seal for new receiver coach Chansi Stuckey in a big way; at #72 overall in the 247 Composite, he’s the highest ranked receiver commit since #37 Jordan Johnson in the 2020 class [grimacing emoji] and, somewhat unbelievably, would be only Notre Dame’s 12th top 100 receiver signee of the internet recruiting era. The tag team of Stuckey, Marcus Freeman, and Tommy Rees has hit the ground running; based on further buzz they’re generating on the trail, we don’t think they’ll slow down anytime soon.
#BREAKING: 4-star wide receiver Braylon James has committed to coach Marcus Freeman and @NDFootball ☘️☘️
James is the No. 12 overall receiver in the 247Sports Composite 🔥@braylon_james14 | @TomLoy247 pic.twitter.com/fvxD7AJqdN
— 247Sports (@247Sports) April 19, 2022
There’s also a bit of good luck involved here, but as the great Stoic philosopher Seneca said, luck occurs when preparation meets opportunity. James had a great relationship with Stuckey from the coach’s time at Baylor, and that relationship followed Stuckey to South Bend. James is also an extremely high academic kid – he reports a 5.4 GPA – who was willing to leave Texas for the right mix of football and academics. He visited Notre Dame back in March, and the only other visit he took between then and his announcement was one to Stanford. High academic kid, elite talent, pre-existing relationship with a new Irish assistant. Preparation, opportunity.
Recruiting Service Rankings
247Sports Composite — 4 star (.9676 rating), #72 overall, #12 WR, #13 in TX
247Sports — 4 star (92 rating), #128 overall, #15 WR, #23 in TX
Rivals — 4 star (5.9 rating), #78 overall, #12 WR, #14 in TX
ESPN — 4 star (86 rating), #46 overall, #10 WR, #11 in TX
Irish Sports Daily — 4 star (92 rating)
Cohort
In addition to Notre Dame, Stanford, and Baylor, James holds offers from Cal, Duke, Florida, Georgia, LSU, Miami, Michigan, Northwestern, Ohio State, Oregon, Penn State, TCU, Texas, Texas A&M, and USC, among many others.
Highlights
Fun stuff, man… I think James has the look of a prototypical boundary receiver. He’s a big target – listed anywhere from 6’2″ to 6’4″ by the services, but whatever his true height there’s no question he’s a big and solidly built kid. He’s definitely not afraid to get physical; I love that his highlight reel ended with two plays where he just buries someone as a blocker. With the ball in his hands he shows surprising agility for a guy his size and good burst. He’s a long strider who seems to kind of surprise defenders with his speed, which I don’t think is elite but it’s good enough to get behind people. I didn’t see much in the way of precise routes that he was asked to run, so that’s something to look for on senior film, but there’s plenty here to like already. This may just be recency bias, but his physical traits remind me a lot of Kevin Austin – similar size, similar physical development, similar athletic ability.
Also, because this is a big thing with my kids right now, and it cracks me up every time because they have no idea who they’re talking about… At 1:48 – YOU GOT MOSSED BUDDY.
Impact
As alluded to above, the opportunity for James to make an early impact will be there. The scholarship receiver depth chart in 2023 will likely be Lorenzo Styles, Deion Colzie, Jayden Thomas, Tobias Merriweather, James, and whoever else the Irish sign in the ’23 cycle, with Styles probably in his last year in an Irish uniform (booooo). Fortunately I think James shows promise as a potential immediate depth guy at the very least, and depending on how he continues to develop during his senior season he could step on campus as more than that. He’s an exceptionally mature and intelligent kid who will be able to take the transition to Notre Dame in stride while still improving as a football player. Would I take a few more years of Kevin Austin’s talent? Yes, yes I would. Without hesitation.
Welcome to the Irish family, Braylon!
Great and much needed addition, if you could build a WR from scratch this guy is pretty much what you end up with.
I have no doubts with Stuckey + Rees + Freeman driving recruitment, this will be the first of many high end WR’s and soon enough the position won’t be lagging behind.
Also gets a +1 for the LSU fake out.
Comes across quite articulate in his interviews.
How does one get a 5.4 GPA? Are GPAs not out of 4 anymore (with maybe a +.5 for honors/AP or something)?
In my experience as someone who always had the best possible GPA, the celling usually fluctuated between 3.2 and 3.6. I think the 4.0 thing is something made up by TV.
My consistent 3.48 gpa agrees with the above statement.
Yea, not sure how 5.4 is possible. I’ve seen places with 4.3 for an A+ and right something like +.5 for AP or honors but that’s 4.8 and that would be all honors/ap classes (is that even possible?) and all A+’s.
Simple, he visited Stanford and grade inflation happened
It’s a perfectly described event in the theory of QED
(I kid of course)
I don’t know but it has to involve AP courses or maybe faster-than-normal progression. FWIW he has had some discussions with his family about reclassifying to ’22 and enrolling in June – I know that seems unlikely for an ND prospect, but if it’s ever going to happen you won’t find a better candidate than James. He was likely going to be a mid-year enrollee anyway, so we’re only talking about one semester difference, and if he got to that 5.4 by being way ahead on coursework…
If there was ever a year we’d need a player to reclassify to play a year early – it would be this year at WR.
How many snaps a game could he legitimately get next year?
I don’t know. He’s not all that polished, so I don’t know that he would crack the two deep right away, but he could definitely lighten the load on the front line guys during the week. That in itself would be extremely valuable.
He also, by all accounts, is a very bright kid with an outstanding work ethic, so I wouldn’t necessarily rule out that he could make a big jump in-season either.
Let’s roll him out like freshman year Golden Tate. Just run wicked fast and we will throw it as far as we can. Probably pretty similar polish levels coming out of school.
James may be a little further along just because Tate was a running back in high school. He was really completely new to everything about being a receiver.
Your overall point stands, though.
And these days EVERYONE is more polished. Camps, 7-7s, EEs, etc.
Sounds good to me. Wasn’t that freshmen year Fuller too?
Yup
Tate: 6 catches, 131 yds, 21.8 yds/catch
Fuller: 6 catches, 160 yds, 26.7 yds/catch!!!
Wow only 6 catches each their freshmen years! I would have certainly guessed it was over 10. Just goes to show how much of an impact a WR can make with a threat of the deep ball alone. But yikes when they do connect – watch out!
Found this while eating lunch – from his HS website’s course guide:
https://pol.tasb.org/Policy/Download/1152?filename=EIC(LOCAL).pdf&filename=EIC(LOCAL).pdf
Looks like regular classes are on a 5.0 scale, Honors classes on 6.0, and AP/Dual Credit on a 7.0(!) scale. So, depending on what classes he took, his 5.4 might be a non-weighted 3.4.
Edit: Link doesn’t appear to link properly, but just copy and paste if anyone is that interested.
Stanford was an option for him, so I seriously doubt we’re looking at the worst case scenario here (which would still be pretty good).
Impressive research. I grade it a 137 out of 129
Awww….only 106%. I’ll never get my 7.0 with grades like that!
Don’t worry. Just step foot on campus at Stanford and, as Tree Hating mentioned, that grade will suddenly become a 7.0.
Meh…..I’m good.
At least you’d have the stadium to yourself…if it’s a gameday
One other postscript that I should’ve included in the article – James joins Keon Keeley, Drayk Bowen, Peyton Bowen, and Brenan Vernon to give the Irish five top 100 commits in the ’23 class. That’s one off the Kelly-era high of six, set in 2011, and within range of the internet era high of nine, set by Charlie Weis in the 2008 class. That class included Michael Floyd, Dayne Crist, Kyle Rudolph, Ethan Johnson, Darius Fleming, Trevor Robinson, Steve Filer, Deion Walker, and Jonas Gray.
Looking at reasonable-probability prospects, our final top 100 list in this cycle could look something like this:
(Dante Moore), Keon Keeley, (Samuel M’Pemba), Drayk Bowen, (Jason Moore), Peyton Bowen, (Charles Jagusah), Brenan Vernon.
There are some other guys we have a real shot at too even if I wouldn’t say we lead right now – guys like Carnell Tate, Dalton Brooks, and Monroe Freeling, plus some guys on the cusp of top 100 status who could move up, like Rodney Gallagher, Jaden Greathouse, and Christian Gray.
Whee!
Yes, this is looking fun! Not only 8 top 100 but 2(!) top 10!!!! It would be interesting to track the last few years of top 100 players for the top 5ish teams (Bama, Georgia, Clemson, OSU, Oklahoma or whoever else jumped into having a lot of top 100 players in a particular year) and see how much ground we are making up on those top teams (and see if there’s goes down at all with teams like us, USC, A&M presumably making some headway into the top 100)
Jamie U has got U! With a specific look at top 100 QB, WR, DBs compared to Clemson.
https://irishsportsdaily.com/s/17637/getting-into-the-club
That’s pretty interesting comparing those particular positions – showing where we’ve (I suppose it’s obvious) been outshined. I would hazard a guess that most of our top 100 prospects in the last decade have been OL/TE.
Since 2011:
I didn’t count, but eyeballing it the list is quite clearly *not* dominated by OL and TE. They’re represented but not overwhelmingly so, particularly among top 80-ish prospects. Our problem isn’t so much which positions we’re landing as just flat out not landing enough of them at every position.
Yea not as many elite OL/TE as I thought despite producing a ton of great ones!
No doubt just not enough of them at every position.
Pos #
LB 7
WR 6
OT 6
TE 5
QB 4
S 4
DE 3
RB 3
CB 2
OC 2
OG 1
DT 1
Also 2022-2023 are already an outsized portion of this list (and at some more premium positions)!
For sure. 3 DE is really sad, especially considering one hasn’t had the chance to sign yet (Keeley), one was awesome but an interior 3-4 base DE (Tuitt) and the other was Aaron Lynch (sigh).
The perennial playoff teams have consistent really high draft pick DE/edge rushers. Other than probably the obvious (QB, WR, CB) that’s probably the real biggest talent level gap to overcome that possibly goes unnoticed.
Something that stands out to me from this list is how many of these players didn’t make much of a splash, or didn’t turn into significant pro careers. Of the players who truly became high impact players, and/or had strong pro careers, there do seem to be more OL/TE than skill positions.
Has anyone looked at the overall hit rate for top 100 players, in terms of A) being a multi year starter, high level college player, and/or B) being a high NFL draft pick? I’d be interested how our hit rate with these top 100 players compares to other programs. Obviously some of that would be luck, but seems like there could also be some evaluation or development differences.
I kind of had the same thought – but I also have that same thought when the “Your Best Recruit Ever” (or whatever they’re called) articles come out and see how often 5 star guys seemed to have not lived up to expectations.
Even if it were a relatively low hit-rate you’d have to compare it to other teams to know whether identifying or developing was the problem.
The problem is with so few top 100 guys you have to hit close to 100% even if the normal hit rate is more like 50 or 60% for top 100 level guys. And with so few your hit rate might look much worse but it’s basically a small sample size problem. If Team A regularly gets 6-8 top 100 level guys and hits at a 50% rate on average then you know they are going to hit on 3 or 4 guys per year. But if you only get 1 in many years, sometimes 2, then it wouldn’t be shocking if many of them don’t hit (0/1 is not much of a sample to work with).
Well put, agree with all of that.
I believe there is the data that shows, while there are always the anecdotal examples of hits and misses (Luke Kuechly was a 3-star and awesome, Ishaq Williams was a 5-star and a dud!) that overall stars and rankings do matter.
As in, a team full of “average” top-100 players would trounce a team of the “average” 3-star players (i.e. not just the outliers like Kuchely).
So when you’re a power (tOSU, Bama, Georgia) and you’re signing 13-15 top-100 players, even when some wash out, you’re probably looking at 6, 7, 8 high-end starters (and potential really high NFL draft picks) out of one class alone. Do that 3-4 years in a row and you have a juggernaut on your hands.
There’s plenty of evidence on why recruiting rankings matter, when the same 4-5 teams sign a majority of the top-100 players every single year, and those are also the teams who are winning the playoff games against other teams who have to settle for lesser ranked players.
Found a site that says about 1% of 1/2 stars get drafted. 6% of 3 stars (this seems very high). 19% of 4 stars. 49% of 5 stars.
For ND (excluding players still in college)
5 stars (50% drafted): Drafted – Jaylon, Lynch, Tuitt. Bust – Williams, Kiel, Redfield
4 stars (28% drafted): Drafted – Koyack, Nelson, Wright, Eichenberg, Kmet, Hainsey. Busts – Wimbush, Shepard, Bryant, Neal, Morgan, Hegarty, Mack, Griffith, Shumate, Hoge, Simon, Williams, Brent, Bivin, Lamb
If you look at the players drafted vs draft probability, ND falls right on the average line.
https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/i-created-a-propensity-model-that-predicts-the-likelihood-of-getting-drafted-in-the-nfl-for-every-df53cb6b8965
Great find and makes sense. Aren’t you missing a lot of 4 stars there (like Tillery, Boykin, St. Brown, etc.)? Or was that meant to just be a sample of names?
One would think that if one did a deeper dive and distinguished among 4 stars that the players ranked 30-100 (for example) would have a higher percentage typically than the other 4 stars ranked 275-350 (don’t 4 stars roughly range from 31-350?) so that basically the higher a player is ranked the greater chance he has to hit so that one (obviously) needs to get more of the higher ranked players to have a better chance at getting a bunch of good players on your team.
That was just the sample of top 100 that Brendan listed (with players still, or not yet, in school removed). So it should be higher than 20% draft since it’s the top quarter of the 4 stars.
Not sure exactly the draft rate of top 100 players, but I would guess it’s around 30%. 50% higher than the rest makes sense to me.
ahh ok that makes sense.
Also, my designation of Bust was just a short way to write not-drafted. I wouldn’t call Morgan, Williams, or Shumate a bust. And Brent performed admirably courtside.
Jamie Uyeyama does occasional stuff at ISD that tracks the blue-chip rate for top teams and how ND stacks up against them. We were at 55% a few years ago compared to around 80% for Alabama, Ohio State, and Georgia. I think Clemson was just under 70%. We do tend to be good at finding underrated guys and developing them, which closes the gap some, but not enough.
We’re at 100% so far in this class – all nine commits to date are four stars, thanks to Preston Zinter recently getting a little bit of a bump.
EDIT: Clarifying what “blue chip rate” means… In terms of the roster ratio, it means the percentage of the roster that is made up of four or five star recruits. Obviously not all blue chips are made equal – there’s a significant difference between Keon Keeley and Zinter, for example – but broadly speaking, it’s no accident that the teams that dominate blue chip rate rankings dominate playoff appearances as well.
100% blue chip rate would certainly help make up for having much less top 100 (or top 50 players) than the rest of the top teams!
Indeed. 🙂 I doubt it’ll hold at 100%, but who knows. Only 13 of our current 141 offers in this cycle are sub-four-star status, and only one – ATH Ronan Hanafin – is on our radar to any serious degree. So maybe!
I know that’s the crazy part that when you look at the offers there aren’t many 3 stars in there. It’s obviously very unlikely to be 100% but depending on numbers something above 80% (20 out of 25) doesn’t seem to be out of the question.
But, is that even allowed?
Even if they take a few 3*…2022 was 81.8% ans ’22+’23 current commits is 87.1% so there’s a little room to take promising high 3* or projects with high ceilings but low on technique or experience. For reference, that 87.1% figure is well ahead ofvthe combined ’13 and ’14 classes which were 77.8%…and this time around it feels a lot more solid
I think there were a few words in my few that never left my head and got typed. The gist would’ve been that I’m not worried about adding some 3* in the class because we’re already so far ahead of the previous peak.
Also, apologies if this clarification musdied the waters…it’s my Saturday and it’s 420 lol.
All that makes a lot of sense to me, even just bottom lining it, the data you and Brendan are laying out makes it very clear that:
A) Marcus Freeman is aiming for a higher level of athlete, generally speaking, than what we’ve seen in the past
B) Notre Dame is now pursuing that higher quality player in higher quantity as well. It’s pretty cool now that so many top-50 and top-100 players are at least in the mix, if they have any interest whatsoever.
Yup last year’s class was great in that regard – 81% blue-chips and while there still was only 1 top 100 player there was a significant increase in 100-200 range and of course the overall # of blue-chips.
So if we could follow up with another 80%+ blue-chips (which would be something like 20 out of 25) and increase the top-end talent (this time more top 100 players, more top 100-200 and less of the 200-350 4 stars) that would be an improvement on last year’s class and put 2 really good classes together. And we do that two more times then that’s something close to what Bama, Georgia, OSU, etc. are doing. That’s playing with the big dogs then.