Marcus Freeman and Al Golden added another piece to their 2024 defensive haul Friday afternoon when 3-star linebacker Teddy Rezac verbally committed to the Fighting Irish. The 6’4/200-pounder out of Omaha, Nebraska is the the most recent of 15 commitments in Notre Dame’s 4th-ranked (per the 247Sports Team Composite) 2024 recruiting class.
Extremely grateful for everyone who has helped me throughout this process… Committed 🍀🍀 #goirish pic.twitter.com/yH5j8ZriMv
— Teddy Rezac (@teddyrezac) May 12, 2023
This recruitment moved VERY quickly for Notre Dame. Teddy received his offer from the Irish less than a week ago on May 6th and dang near immediately left Nebraska for an unofficial visit to Notre Dame — arriving in South Bend Sunday night and touring campus on Monday. He committed to the Fighting Irish before leaving campus on Monday. Kid knows what he wants and I respect it.
Recruiting Service Rankings
247Sports Composite — 3 star (.8600), #950 overall, #101 ATH, #8 in NE
On3 Consensus — 3 star (86.00), #918 overall, #54 ATH, #7 in NE
The 247 Composite and On3 Consensus both combine 247, On3, Rivals, and ESPN rankings.
247Sports — 3 star (85 rating), NR overall, #135 ATH, #8 in NE
On3 — 3 star (87 rating), NR overall, #54 ATH, #9 in NE
Rivals — Not Yet Rated
ESPN — Not Yet Rated
Irish Sports Daily — 3 star (89 rating)
Cohort
Teddy chose the Irish over other offers from Nebraska, Boston College, Missouri, Coastal Carolina, Colorado State, Army, Navy, Air Force, and a few FCS schools. He just started gathering interest from Power 5 schools over the past month and he may have been in line to receive more offers in the comings weeks with schools like Iowa, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest, Iowa State, and Minnesota sniffing around. With his commitment to Notre Dame, he likely doesn’t receive many new offers moving forward though.
Highlights
The first things that pop out on Teddy’s film are his range and athleticism. He reportedly runs a 4.5 40-yard-dash with a 35.5-inch vertical, and those numbers are believable based on his film. He plays receiver, safety, and linebacker for his high school team and makes solid plays at all three positions. Athleticism aside, he looks like he plays assignment-sound football as well with pretty solid instincts on defense.
For a full film review, check out ISD’s Film Don’t Lie piece on Teddy Rezac.
Impact
Given his athletic testing numbers and current size, it should come as no surprise that Teddy is being recruited to play Rover at Notre Dame. The key for him will be how he develops physically over the next year or two. He’ll probably need a good 20-25 pounds, but he shouldn’t be expected to see the field much as a freshman anyways so there’s plenty of time for that.
Notre Dame is currently fine as far as numbers go at linebacker (and rover specifically), but that will be changing after the 2024 season with Kiser, Bertrand, and Liufau all guaranteed to be moving on. Since Junior Tuihalamaka has been playing Vyper lately, that leaves the Irish with Sneed, Ziegler, Bowen, Ausberry, and Zinter (who could also potentially end up at Vyper) plus whatever signees they get between the 2024 and 2025 classes. With this in mind, I think it’s likely the Irish aim to sign three linebackers in 2024. The names to keep an eye on the most at the moment for 2024 are Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa, Bodie Kahoun, and Chris Cole. Al Golden is continuing to evaluate guys, however, and more offers could continue to go out at the position.
Welcome to the Irish family, Teddy!
Interesting bit of information on Teddy: He has a twin brother named Anthony who plays QB for their high school team.
And he has an older brother and sister who also happen to be twins.
I can see father Rezac selling his wife on the idea of having a third kid now: “C’mon honey, what are the odds you get twins again?“
I can see why ND went after this kid so quickly. He’s fast and long and if he puts on good weight could be a good one in one or two years.
With the transfers and Big German E leaving- are we looking at 28-30 in this class?
Gosh, I have to imagine that’s the standard moving forward. Especially since ND is much more skewed to players transfering out than in. Overrecruit, accept the attrition. Look at the 2020 class with mayer, tyree etc. Havent like half of that already small class left?
If they’re not going to relent on the standards for undergrad transfers, they probably have to do that. I take it as a good sign that they’re going to keep telling guys who are duds that there’s no real place on the team for them and just keep recruiting over people. As long as those guys are still guaranteed a free ride at ND if they stick around but leave the football team, nothing wrong with that.
At this point, it’s not even over-recruiting. It’s just normal recruiting. But yea that’s got to be the plan.
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