Notre Dame added to its secondary on Wednesday as 2024 athlete Taebron Bennie-Powell committed to the Irish. A 6’1″ 180 pound prospect out of Lakota West High School in Ohio, Bennie-Powell was teammates with current Notre Dame freshman Ben Minich and is slated to play safety while in South Bend.
Following an in-camp performance this past week in front of the coaching staff, Bennie-Powell was offered and immediately set his commitment date a couple days later.
#AGTG I am EXTREMELY BLESSED and HUMBLED to announce my commitment to the UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME ☘️☘️!!! #GoIrish @NDFootball @Marcus_Freeman1 @Coach_OLeary @CoachMickens @CoachAlGolden pic.twitter.com/r19hh7yjYI
— Taebron Bennie-Powell (@TaebronBennie) June 21, 2023
Recruiting Service Rankings
247Sports Composite — 3 star (.8519), #1197 overall, #129 ATH, #49 in OH
On3 Consensus — 3 star (84.89 rating), #1197 overall, #68 ATH, #50 in OH
The 247 Composite and On3 Consensus both combine 247, On3, Rivals, and ESPN rankings.
247Sports — 3 star (84 rating), NR overall, #150 ATH, #53 in OH
On3 — 3 star (86 rating), NR overall, #77 ATH, #61 in OH
Rivals — 3 star (5.6 rating), NR overall, NR ATH, #29 in OH
ESPN — Not Yet Rated
Irish Sports Daily — 3 star (86 rating)
Rivals having Bennie-Powell twice as high in Ohio as other services but not rated nationally is impressive.
Cohort
In addition to Notre Dame he was holding offers from Pittsburgh, Duke, West Virginia, and Kentucky among the Power 5 plus several other offers from Group of 5 programs.
Highlights
If Notre Dame is projecting Bennie-Powell to safety it’s largely based off his size and athleticism. Lakota West featured a pair of 4-star safeties on the team last year now currently with the Irish and Ohio State so he’ll get his shot at playing this position as a senior. Throughout his junior highlights, Bennie-Powell stays close to the line of scrimmage and is largely playing a hybrid outside linebacker/slot corner position. When he’s close to the line, I like his block destruction and nose for the ball.
I thought he looked noticeably thicker, especially in his lower half, during his camp performance recently at Notre Dame. For example, On3 lists Bennie-Powell at 170 pounds and he looks far heavier than that to me. I’d be interested to see what the Irish coaching staff thinks following his camp performance and where they ultimately project him down the road.
Impact
Can he play safety? That’s probably the first major question for Taebron and his commitment to Notre Dame. It appears the Irish are going to be loading up on weapons in the secondary and Bennie-Powell will find a place somewhere. I don’t see the athleticism right now to project to a starting safety at Notre Dame and I’ll be curious to watch him perform at Lakota West as a senior.
If he can bulk up, a hybrid role similar to what he played as a junior isn’t completely out of the question with the Irish. I’m not sure if he’d be anywhere near a starting-level piece to the defense in such a role but it would be a role nonetheless.
Welcome to the Irish family, Taebron!
5 star name!
How would you compare him to Urlacher? Sounds like both project to box safety/rover types.
Yeah both strong safety types, Urlacher probably the more likely of the two to end up growing into a Rover IMO.
We do have some testing numbers from a recent camp for TBP, courtesy of ISD’s Matt Freeman:
HT: 6’1.2″
WT: 182
Wingspan: 75
10-yard: 1.73
40-yard: 4.59
Vertical: 32.2″
Broad: 109″
When he worked out for the staff last week he allegedly ran a 4.60 40 with a 4.3 shuttle.
Those are decent numbers for a HS JR. Not that far off from Brandon Joseph at the combine. A bit taller and lighter at this point.
Joseph’s Combine numbers:
10-yard: 1.56
40-yard: 4.62
Vertical: 30.5″
Broad: 118″
Ah, ok I guess. Hope he didn’t just have the weekend of his life, saw on 247 it looked like ND was rushing to get him to commit by the end of the month and that this recruitment went from 0-100 awfully quick on both sides. Idk why you have to be in such a hurry for a very raw player that isn’t that highly regarded. Hopefully they see something no one else does yet but across the defense they’ve been doing that a lot lately. Guess we’ll see how much the stars matter, but I can’t say I’m looking forward to the results..
I don’t disagree, but also no reason to wait. Not like the class is filling up with 5 star (or 4 star) safeties.
I’m fine with recruiting backup plans but Bennie-Powell is the lowest rated defensive player in almost decade. Why does Notre Dame need to accelerate to get him committed and accept it by the end of June?
ND is in on 4-star Malcolm Ziglar and just had him visit just missed on a 4-star in Paul Mencke that I believe reading between the lines they also were kinda in like commit “now or never” mode with him and that didn’t work.They might just say they hell with it and take 3-4 safeties, but I do kinda wonder about the consequences of accepting so many iffy prospects so early on in the process.
I guess just pictured Freeman to be getting the Peyton Woodward’s or Peyton Bowen’s of the world, not fast tracking accepting multiple low-end targets where they either see something no one else does or are wasting a spot and their own time/opportunity costs to bring in someone better.
Which I realize if the 5-star or high-4 doesn’t want to come or aren’t a fit, then obviously there’s not much a coach can do, but I don’t think it’s asking much to do a little better than the defense recruiting class has been so far for 2024. It’s high on quantity but (so far) unappealing in quality.
He’s from the same high school as Ben Minich, so I’d assume that there has been a more lengthy scouting of this guy than it maybe looks like on the surface.
Maybe, but he didn’t even play the position last year that reportedly they’re taking him with in mind so I doubt it’s scouting find. By all accounts they were impressed by his size and athleticism more than most, considering the meager offer list.
Hopefully he balls out and raises his stock and dissuades some of that, but I don’t see why this is a priority when similar player in Urlacher is already in the fold.
I don’t think he is a priority. He’s just the only one who wants to play at ND. It isn’t like having him wait will stop good players from joining the class.
If they thought they were going to land a significantly better prospect to fill the same role, they would be going after the better prospect.
The staff is not willingly taking low ranked projects over better players. They are aware that their safety recruiting is trash this year and are collecting bodies and putting all their hopes on Brauntae Johnson, who is also a project, but at least a long, athletic, highly rated project.
Examining the ND offers for Safety (23), almost all the offers were made prior to March ’23, many in ’22 and some even in ’21 (Woodyard). Except for him, the first eight were all from the South and evidenced no interest in leaving there. Same with Dixon (Clemson) and the two from Alabama (Thompson and Pruitt – Miami). Both of those, Oden (Michigan) and Toure (PSU) are from public high schools who may have had offers contingent on meeting academic prerequisites and achievement. That narrows the recruiting pool for Safety to ten.
Lane (Gilman, Baltimore, PSU commit) did not seem to ever consider us. Lopa (Sacramento, Oregon commit) is staying on the West Coast.
I don’t see any visits anywhere by the other Bosco recruit – Mitchell (#237 overall). Seven.
Realistically, despite the number of offers, we were looking at those seven and a couple of prospects rated as Athletes (Johnson and Robinson) McClain (#241) chose Ohio State over us. Mencke wanted to continue taking OVs. We’re still in the final groups for Ziglar, Gallegos, and Miles with the commit from Urlacher.
As you say, many are just not the right fit. So far, ND has offered nine 2025 Safety prospects. The top ’25 Safety ranking reflects much the same geographically.
And therein lies the problem. If the motto is challenge everything, then why are “we” confined to be looking at those seven in the first place? Why have multiple non blue chips been not only targeted but fast tracked for accepting commits? Why have we heard little to nothing on guys like:
From looking through prospects for like 2 minutes, why not:
Koy Beasley, #123, from a Catholic high school in Cincinnati, crystal balled to Pitt, interest in Wiconsin and Purdue
Jason Mitchell, #237, St. John Bosco
Ziglar, #280 (visiting, so at least they’re trying)
Kaj Sanders, #390, Bergen Catholic
That’s more the aisle Notre Dame needs to be going down and pulling from. I don’t buy fit or being from the south as excuses for every single prospect. Getting the #800-1,100 prospects like Urlacher and Bennie-Powell is less inspiring, let alone multiple ones in the same cycle.
Any way you slice it, quality of safety commits has got to increase. Luckily it will this weekend with Johnson, but guys like him should be the rule and they’re becoming more of the exception of the profile that ND is working on at that position these days.
The only one of those guys I’ve seen any real intel on is Ziglar, and the vibe there seems to be that he may be more of a workout guy than a game guy and that the staff isn’t really pushing for him.
On the others, I would just point out that Freeman and Mickens have plenty of contacts in Cincinnati to help them scout kids and they still haven’t offered Beasley, and that ND just took two kids from Bergen Catholic in the 2022 class, one of whom was also a DB, and they likely had plenty of chance to get a first-hand perspective of Sanders and haven’t pushed for him. I don’t know anything really about Mitchell but given that nobody on the ND beat has mentioned him I wouldn’t count on it.
There are only four guys between Mitchell and #91 Demello Jones, a Georgia native committed to the Bulldogs. To me this safety class, at least in terms of rankings, was almost Peyton Woodyard or bust, they lost out on Woodyard, and now they’re busting. Maybe TBP will blow everyone out of the water in the fall when he plays his natural position; his coach thinks he will, and his coach has a 15-year track record of cranking out productive defenders.
We’ll see. However the rest of the cycle shakes out the results have been underwhelming to this point.
Well put. That’s believable, but like you said disappointing to bust at that position on Woodyard a year after the Bowen fiasco is the main takeaway for me. That’s perhaps not O’Leary, Freeman or Notre Dame’s fault (especially in Bowen’s case as we all well know), but the results are what they are.
I don’t think we are actually in Gallegos final group. Word was that we cancelled his official after feeling really good about Mencke’s. Whoops!
If we learned anything from the post-BVG era as applied to assistant coaches, it’s that you have to get rid of the recruiting duds sooner rather than later (Lyght, Denson, Alexander). With that as a guidepost, I’m kind of thinking this should probably be O’Leary’s last season at ND.
O’Leary in the last few months has added Andre Carter (transfer), Bennie-Powell, Urlacher, Johnson (I expect a commit), and Talich (PWO). Menke verbaled to Duke, but is taking two more OVs – Washington, Stanford. That kind of commitment means nothing. We could take another (after Johnson) with the expectation Urlacher develops into a LB.
We’re in the top three for Gallegos (with USC, Oregon), top four for Ziglar (and only school outside of the Carolinas) and top two for Miles (with Texas Tech). We were in the top 2 for McClain prior to OSU commit.
At CB, the staff got commitments from Moore and Hobbs and are trying to flip Beasley from Tennessee.
Not sure if you’re agreeing with me or not, but even if we get Johnson the safety recruiting over the past two years has been (apparently) pretty bad!
That said, agree with the general sentiment that it’s ok so long as we’re taking bigger classes and pushing people off the team after a year or two. But ideally they’d be doing that with high-3 stars/low 4-stars who don’t pan out instead of mid-3-stars. Perhaps beggars can’t be choosers, but we’re recruiting basically every other position on the team better than safety.
I agree that Safety recruiting has been bad the last couple of years, was a priority for 2023 and would look worse if we had not landed Carter for two years. IMO it’s too early to pull the plug on O’Leary. We’re months away from early signing and how will the DB class look if we add Ziglar or Gallegos at S and Beasley at CB. I haven’t heard much about Anthony Richardson lately but I imagine the staff stays in touch.
Not to poo in your punch bowl, but… We’re not landing Ziglar or Gallegos. The staff doesn’t seem that interested in Ziglar, whose Composite ranking is buoyed significantly by an On3 eval that’s waaaay out of line with everyone else, and there have been hints from the beat guys that there was something that broke off ND’s (and other programs’) interest in Gallegos. I don’t get the sense it’s about academics or money or character, fwiw. My guess would be his circle might be very difficult but that’s 100% a guess.
You aren’t. I fully expect Gallegos to remain on the West coast, Ziglar to remain in the Carolinas and Beasley to stay with his Tennessee commit or in the South if he decommits.
At least the staff including O’Leary got the two Safeties on campus for visits as well as McClain. If I wasn’t clear, it shows the small recruiting pool for Safeties for ND recruiting based on recruiting rankings.
This is a position where ND continues to also look at the Transfer Portal for a player and rely on O’Leary to develop the high ceiling guys.
Can’t cry about those recruits who are looking for immediate returns in this era of NIL.
USC already has the #1 ranked Safety recruit in ’25 and Oregon picked up two Safeties for ’23 in the Portal. We’ll see where Gallegos ends up.
I’m going to get downvoted to hell for this comment, but I feel like ND being #3-4 on recruits’ finalists lists always means “hey my family is proud that I academically qualified for ND but I’m totally going somewhere else.”
Why apologize for this? This might very well be the case with some recruits
Mickens is responsible for CBs (i.e. Beasley). He has an excellent track record so far. Even if we only land the current CBs, and they don’t move up the rankings, he’s earned some benefit of the doubt, especially as an evaluator for the current guys.
O’Leary has commitments from 2 mid-3-stars, will probably get a mid-4-star. Last year, he got commitments from 2 low-4-stars, 1 rising-4-star (who sadly goes to Michigan now), a PWO, and 2 pretty good transfers. Don’t remember when he joined the staff, but the year before we got 0 safety commits out of HS, and Brandon Joseph.
So basically, O’Leary is good at recruiting transfers.
From an on the field performance side, he’s been OK, nothing special. He lucked into Kyle Hamilton, and managed some decent safety play after KH was injured. Did Nothing special last year, Joseph was a flop considering the hype.
In my opinion, if X Watts and someone else take big jumps, and we get great safety play, then he will have earned another year. Anything other than that, and he is essentially replacement level, so why not take a swing at someone better.
As we have learned, ND coaches cannot rely on transfer recruiting. As I think even MF noted in a recent interview with Prister, they realistically can only go after grad transfers and possibly those who have only had one year in college
I think until some of the recruits start playing, and we see what they are or aren’t doing on the field, we won’t really know. We have the 2 four stars in the 23 class in Shuler and Minich. Of course 22 was a big 0, but landed Joseph in the transfer portal. I don’t think we can say O’leary is a waste yet. I don’t think the 24 recruits look particularly promising, but I don’t evaluate players either. Maybe they have something I don’t see and the coaches do.
That’s fair, it’s still early. I’m not on a bash O’Leary mindset just yet, more speaking to the overall program recruiting strategies and timing, we’re seeing it at LB too.
TBP has 3 MAC offers and 1 SEC (Kentucky) offer. He’s from Ohio and not on Ohio State’s radar or any other premiere school besides Notre Dame. We might not surely “know” what he has or doesn’t have, but no one else across the country has seen it yet, which I’m afraid speaks to something.
Time will tell and I wish him well, but it also stands out to be so eager to bring on so many non-premium recruits. Just wish they were shopping more down the Woodward/Mencke/Ziglar/Johnson aisle and less down the TBP/Urlacher one..
Johnson as in Tae Johnson? Keep an eye out Saturday for that one.
Agreed. And that’s a good one that I included for fairness, but the ol blue chip ratio at the position lately is lagging a bit.
But who knows, maybe they’re gung ho on this kid since he hasn’t played safety in HS and is about to skyrocket. They saw something they clearly believe in when he tested, so the positives are surely there.
Hey, at least the 2022 class didn’t hurt the BC ratio!
It isn’t usually my thing to be optimistic, but this class has room to keep growing. I can see taking some depth pieces that the staff thinks are underrated while waiting on a bigger fish.
That’s where I am, especially for the LB aspect. I’ve got no problem with taking a few flyers because they’re still recruiting and signing top ranked prospects to go along with that with regularity and the strategy is going to be pulling in huge freshman classes to fight attrition they can’t replace from inevitable outgoing undergrad transfers.
My problem with safety is that I don’t think there are enough “bigger fish” in the mix. I would give a pass for 2023 since there were variables outside of team control on Bowen and Hillman but stacking that with 2024 (and 2022 as juice alluded to) becomes alarming.
Maybe Peyton Woodyard will decommit from UGA. Our best safety commit since Hamilton, could end up being UGAs like 4th best safety in their class.
On the one hand, I see the case for taking some high 3 star recruits hoping that one will pan out. However, it seems like they did that a few years ago for CB (e.g., the Riley group) and I don’t think any of those guys worked out (but I may have overlooked someone).
Perhaps with the transfer portal emergence, MF is okay with trying for a lowly rated, but athletic boom-or-bust type recruit instead? Instead of a high 3 star who has at least one noticeable flaw.
if you are cycling through recruits more because they are transferring out if they don’t work out, then it can work out a little better to take a few more boom or bust type players. (*can* being the operative word).
With spring enrollments, we can get them through a semester of college, see them in spring camp, and have them in the portal before their first season even starts. We can take 50 recruits a year and keep the 20 or so most promising into the fall. Plus 50 3 stars has to be greater than Georgia’s 6 five stars and 12 four stars. Also, with those three stars, no prima donna’s. They don’t transfer because they expect more playing time, they transfer because we tell them there is no room for them on the roster. Seems like a win/win/win scenario.
Tae Johnson is announcing his commitment on Saturday, would be good for the all name team to have Tae Tae and Taebron patrolling the defensive backfield together.
ND may not be able to use the portal to get many players in but, I think they are more than willing to use it to free themselves of under performers. At positions they are struggling with in recruiting it is probably wise to take some shots with guys with possible higher ceilings, even if their floors are pretty low. They can take larger classes and not worry about getting down to 85. Not a perfect fix but maybe they find a surprise gem occasionally.
Yeah, especially this year. The class doesn’t sound particularly strong at S. And based on Freeman’s comments, they are looking for elite traits. So for this year, might as well load up on guys with those traits. 3 commits will hopefully turn into 1 quality starter.
Worth noting that TBP’s 247 grade was just bumped from an 84 to an 88.
247 Composite grade is now .8689
Woot woot. That is nice, if he does develop into something then ND will look mighty smart being an early believer. Hard to believe he only had like 4-5 P5 offers, I wonder if teams might put him on the radar to see if they can see what ND did and sniff around him a little. I just hope he takes a Spanish class or two so he doesn’t end up at the Notre Dame backup school up north.
I’ve been reliably informed on the 247 message board that the 247 ratings folks hate Notre Dame. How could this happen?
Dohn and Ivins must not have been in the room when the discussion to adjust TBP’s ranking took place.
Well that moves him from 1197 overall to 866 overall. If all commits can make a jump in the rankings like that, we’ll have a damn fine class.