Notre Dame added its 6th verbal for the 2024 recruiting class as Malvern Prep star offensive lineman Peter Jones committed to the Irish on Sunday. He becomes the first offensive line commit in the ’24 class and brings Marcus Freeman and Harry Hiestand a big win over Penn State for one of the top players in the Midwest. Both of Jones’ parents went to Penn State, which makes it that much sweeter.
Jones was offered a scholarship by Notre Dame on March 17th and came to South Bend on a visit on April 2nd in which things really started to heat up in the Irish’s favor.
Recruiting Service Rankings
247Sports Composite — 4 star (.9296 rating), #177 overall, #12 IOL, #5 in PA
On3 Consensus — 4 star (90.80 rating), #132 overall, #8 OT, #4 in PA
The 247 Composite and On3 Consensus both combine 247, On3, Rivals, and ESPN rankings.
247Sports — 4 star (90 rating), #222 overall, #11 IOL, #5 in PA
On3 — 3 star (89 rating), #260 overall, #19 OT, #6 in PA
Rivals — 4 star (5.9 rating), #98 overall, #4 OG, #7 in PA
ESPN — 4 star (81 rating), #202 overall, #17 OT, #6 in PA
Irish Sports Daily — 4 star (92 rating)
Is he a tackle? Is he a guard? Is he a swing guy? One thing is that Rivals loves Jones right now while 247 not as much and On3 a little less. I think he’ll end being classified as a IOL/guard by the time the rankings solidify over the next couple of years. Eventually, that should help him get a little bump from On3, specifically.
Cohort
Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Maryland, Boston College were the first teams to offer Jones last year prior to the start of his sophomore season. Since the New Year began, his offers started to heat up. In the winter and spring offers came from Pitt, Penn State, Cincinnati, Nebraska, Michigan, followed by Notre Dame then Oklahoma and Texas A&M.
Highlights
Jones is one of the largest linemen in recent memory who is listed under 300 pounds. You have to think just looking at his body-type and I-have-3-kids-and-a-wife mature looking face that this guy is a future mauling left guard for the Irish. But, he’s super athletic! He moves really, really well for his size and I wouldn’t discount him getting a look at tackle early in his Notre Dame career.
I’d say Jones has a floor of becoming a decent right tackle in college. However, it’s hard not to imagine how he’s going to develop physically (my goodness it’ll be 3 more years until he’s completed a redshirt year in the Notre Dame S&C program!) and him stepping foot on campus somewhere in the range of 310 pounds. I’m thinking this is a mega-prospect at guard for the Irish.
Impact
From the 2021 to 2024 recruiting classes, Jones is right up there with Rocco Spindler and Billy Schrauth as the most highly coveted guard prospects for Notre Dame. Of course, it’s difficult to project so far out but Jones does have things lining up for him to really make an impact early in his career. By 2025, Spindler would be a 5th-year player if he’s still on the team and Schrauth would be coming into his true senior season academically.
Notre Dame has only offered a few other tackles so far in the 2024 class. One of those is the more lightly regarded Kyle Altuner (0.8700) out of Good Counsel in Maryland who may project more to guard for Notre Dame. It’s highly likely Jones is the the prime guard commit in the Irish class.
Physically, Jones should be ready early in his career, too. His rankings won’t blow the doors off Irish fans as we’re used to some really fantastic recruits coming in on the regular. Still, Jones is the type of athletic guard even Notre Dame can struggle bringing in on a regular basis. He may never rise into a top 100 recruit but he’s a major cornerstone piece of this 2024 class.
Welcome to the Irish family, Peter!
This is a really intriguing commitment. Generally, if we’re taking an OL prospect rated around 200, I just assume it’s Harry Hiestand going after an easier prospect that he isn’t going to have to recruit too hard or fight for. But in this case, the kid has a PSU offer and is a double PSU legacy? Harry must really see something here that the services haven’t had the chance to see yet.
I wonder how big he ends up; we’ve had some enormous dudes on the line the past decade, and this kid could be right up there with the biggest by the time he’s actually getting playing time for the Irish.
It sounds like this guy was HH’s absolute top pick for the interior. We’ve basically only offered like 5 total OL at this point because HH was waiting on him before he offered any other potential interior guys.
Good point. If anything, I’d chalk it up to recruiting services being a little behind on a still young OL and not having seen enough to rank him properly. From the video it looks like he could/should be in the 100’s and not the 200’s at this point.
As others said, I think this is kinda an Elijah Page case, where Hiestand probably likes the kid A LOT more than the services right now. We’ll see one day I guess if he is right or wrong, but looking at his size and profile, feels like a good take to me and not just an easy case to win.
It seems that he not only has the size but is very athletic for that size and age. Jamie U thinks he can be a more athletic version of Tommy Kraemer.
A more athletic version of a five star who started for four years and appears to be sticking in the NFL. Sign me up.
Do we have evidence that HH is afraid to recruit hard and fight for players? I don’t assume they’ve even given up on Monroe Freeling and are still calling him regularly, for instance.
I think with Freeling it’s partly that we’ve filled up the class and HH may think more highly or at least equally of the other tackle prospect we already have.
Yeah I think once Paige got to campus (a week prior to Freeling’s visit) and was even bigger than listed, they decided that MF was more luxury than necessity.