On Saturday afternoon, Notre Dame added the 2nd member of its 2025 recruiting class as tight end Nate Roberts verbally pledged to the Fighting Irish. The 6’4″ athlete hails from Washington, Oklahoma 30 miles south of Oklahoma City. Roberts plays at a small school (2A, the 6th highest level in Oklahoma) but his team is coming off a 17-0 season as state champions.
As a sophomore, Roberts caught 33 passes for 705 yards and 11 touchdowns in 2022.
Recruiting Service Rankings
247Sports Composite — 4 star (.9489), #121 overall, #5 TE, #3 in OK
On3 Consensus — 4 star (91.73 rating), #137 overall, #7 TE, #4 in OK
The 247 Composite and On3 Consensus both combine 247, On3, Rivals, and ESPN rankings.
247Sports — 4 star (92 rating), #55 overall, #3 TE, #2 in OK
On3 — 3 star (89 rating), #249 overall, #12 TE, #6 in OK
Rivals — 4 star (5.8 rating), #160 overall, #5 TE, #3 in OK
ESPN — 4 star (82 rating), #107 overall, #3 TE, #2 in OK
Irish Sports Daily — 4 star (92 rating)
The current 2024 Composite rankings has 7 tight ends inside the top 100 overall rankings. Right now, the 2025 class has a pair of 5-star tight ends and no one else inside the top 100.
Cohort
Roberts was offered by Notre Dame back on March 17th and visited campus about a month later. He’s carrying a pretty impressive offer list that includes Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia, Clemson, Florida State, Texas A&M, Oregon, Michigan, Miami, TCU, Oklahoma State, Penn State, Arkansas, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Kentucky, and several more.
Highlights
With the no. 9 jersey I am picking up a lot of Kyle Rudolph vibes. Roberts definitely looks the part as a modern tight end who is comfortable in the slot or even out wide making plays in the passing game. He shows good speed and looks really fluid being able to run routes. His overall size for a sophomore is good and he shows promise getting after it as a blocker.
Listed at 230 pounds by 247 and 225 by On3, Roberts has a bit of a lean frame right now and is realistically a bit lighter than than reported. With long arms, he’ll have the chance to fill out and develop physically to the point where he should settle in at the 245 to 250 pound range once he’s in a college strength program. I would expect a much more physically imposing tight end by the time he arrives at Notre Dame, too.
Impact
Averaging over 21 yards per reception, against any form of competition, is going to turn some heads as a tight end. Roberts has that type of athleticism and length that should keep him as a high 4-star throughout the 2025 cycle and among the top players at his position.
The 2023 and 2024 classes I would say Notre Dame brought in more traditional-type tight ends and Roberts is poised to be more of that modern pass-catcher with more explosiveness. He’s not quite as tall or twitchy as Eli Raridon from Notre Dame’s 2022 class but I view Roberts in that same mold of playmaking pass catcher.
Welcome to the Irish family, Nate!
Hope they’ll take two to make sure they can snag legacy James Flanigan (Jim Flanigan) who’s also a 4-star TE in ‘25 class. Another legacy at TE is Marshall Pritchett (Wes Pritchett) though it looks like he’s not ranked at this time by 247.
A+ get. I feel bad for the defenders in Oklahoma the next two seasons.
It’s never bad to rack up mid four stars, but whose wife called getting excited about the prospects of 15 year olds “Reading fanfic about high school boys”?
I feel a little bad saying it, but let me know when he gets through his senior year with two functioning knees.
Why follow recruiting if that’s how you feel ?
Legit question, and I’m glad the staff makes it their full time job.
My high school put out one D1 athlete when I was there. Started on D Line at Wisconsin, ended up as Ron Dayne’s blocking FB IIRC. Not a lot of carries for anyone else in that backfield! I just remember seeing him in the locker room as a HS freshmen and he was already six feet tall and ripped. So yes, sometimes you can just tell when a kid is built different at an early age, and the staff needs to be on those commits.
But then again, I have a buddy in da UP whose son is an all-district caliber basketball guard and baseball pitcher, and could be a stud QB if he wanted to but doesn’t love football that much.
He’s not doing camps or too much traveling. Part of it is being in the UP and how much travel you have to do to get anywhere, part of it is he’s just being a high school kid that practices hard and is having fun.
I guess it’s all the camps and travel teams and following these kids with a microscope. Then again, I’m a violin dad, and one of my kids does multiple orchestras, practices 2-4 times a day, etc. as a high school freshmen. It seems what you have to do to be a “top prospect” at top tier music programs (well, maybe 2nd tier). And he likes it, and likes being good at it.
No simple answer. It’s kind of like the ambiguity I have as a medical person watching a sport that will cause significant CTE in a significant number of people who participate in it…
There’s obviously some truth in this, but does it get that much better when they’re 17 or 19 or 21? For better or worse, this is the sport we have chosen to devote precious brain space to.
(Of course, there are some lines – e.g., the Baby Gronk thing is objectively gross if you think about it for more than one second beyond the meme, and it was borderline irresponsible of The Athletic to do a feature on him.)
Are you kidding??? Baby Gronk is Him. He already asked Livvy Dunne to the 2030 prom and she said yes. Just check his Instagram, fool.
I did say let’s get the kid on campus (ie through his senior season) healthy and see what he’s got.
Also in NIL times, let’s actually get him on campus and not lured away somewhere else.