The pump is slowing down as the gas tank nears capacity on Notre Dame’s 2026 class with Nick Reddish’s announcement of his commitment to the Irish today. The 5’11”, 185 pound North Carolinian rounds out the defensive back class, on the heels of the previous commit Brayden Robinson rounding out the wide receiver class. As the late great Yogi Berra said, it’s getting late early out there – it’s July 11th and we believe there is only one true target left in the cycle, defensive lineman Elijah Golden, who will announce his decision on July 26th. We can’t remember a class being wrapped up that early before; it might be tempting to assume that Marcus Freeman is working on a more aggressive timeline than we’re used to, but a quick glance at Notre Dame’s offer board suggests this is actually a national phenomenon. Notre Dame has offered 185 prospects in the 2026 class, and only 23 of those prospects remain uncommitted – just under 1/8 of the list. Eight of those uncommitted prospects are among the 24 five-stars with Irish offers, which means only 15 of the 161 non-five-star offers (about 9%) are uncommitted. On July 11th… In the July between my junior and senior years of high school I think I was still about eight months or so away from applying to Notre Dame. Insanity.
Another notable element of Reddish’s commitment is his strong ties to another significant program that he eschewed for Notre Dame. Nick has two brothers who currently play for Virginia Tech – projected starting safety Quentin and reserve corner Joseph. Obviously many assumed that made Nick’s commitment to the Hokies a done deal; while they were certainly a serious factor, Freeman and team still managed to convince him that Notre Dame was the best place for him.
Other 2026 commits with connections to other Power 4 programs:
- LB Thomas Davis Jr. – father Thomas Sr. is a three-time Pro Bowler and a Georgia alum
- WR Kaydon Finley – father Jermichael won a Super Bowl with Green Bay and is a Texas alum
- WR Devin Fitzgerald – father Larry is a sure-fire Hall of Famer and a Pitt alum
- S Ayden Pouncey – brothers Ethan and Jordan both played for Florida, Jordan also played for Texas
And 2025 commits with connections to other P4 programs:
- LB Madden Faraimo – sister Megan was a four-time softball All-American at UCLA
- WR Elijah Burress – father Plaxico won a Super Bowl with the Giants and is a Michigan State alum
- LB Anthony Sacca – father Tony played quarterback for Penn State and was a second round NFL pick
And of course 2026 WR Dylan Faison, 2026 OT Charlie Thom, 2025 WR Jerome Bettis Jr., and 2025 TE James Flanigan have Irish family connections and wanted to jump on board too.
Recruiting Service Rankings
247Sports Composite — 3 star (.8769 rating), #681 overall, #57 S, #31 in NC
On3 Consensus — 3 star (87.68 rating), #587 overall, #50 S, #26 in NC
The 247 Composite and On3 Consensus both combine 247, On3, Rivals, and ESPN rankings.
247Sports — 3 star (88 rating), NR overall, #62 S, #27 in NC
On3 — 3 star (88 rating), NR overall, #77 S, #30 in NC
Rivals — 3 star (5.7 rating), NR overall, #17 S, #23 in NC
ESPN — 3 star (77 rating), NR overall, #68 S, #31 in NC
Irish Sports Daily — 3 star (89 rating)
Note: Jamie does the recruit evaluations for ISD, and we trust his evals as much as anyone’s; while the 247 Composite and the On3 Consensus don’t factor in ISD evals, we put a lot of weight on them ourselves. ISD only ranks the top 50 prospects in each class, and hasn’t ranked 2026 yet. Based on past classes a 95 rating would be the bottom end of their top 50.
Cohort
In addition to Notre Dame and Virginia Tech, Reddish holds offers from Cincinnati, Duke, Indiana, Louisville, Missouri, NC State, North Carolina, Ole Miss, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Wisconsin, among others.
Highlights
These are sophomore season highlights, as young Mr. Reddish seems not to be too concerned about posting newer video. Which is fine! Just adds a wrinkle to evaluating the film. I gotta say… I know neither his ranking nor his cohort is astounding, but man, I like this video, especially considering he’s younger. I see speed, explosion, fierce hits, football IQ, and ball production. My reactions and growing intrigue through the first several plays:
- Nice pick and then the afterburners to score. OK.
- Hit stick, my goodness, hold on now…
- Centerfield!
- Excellent play recognition and another boom lowered. That poor tight end.
- Cheetah-on-gazelle chasedown tackle. I’m hooked.
- Another excellent read and this time a pick.
- Fights through traffic in the goal line defense to make a stop, strip the ball, and recover it.
- Another chasedown.
- Another strip and recovery.
- An X Watts-like read and close on a PBU. (I said what I said.)
I don’t know how good the competition is; it’s North Carolina, so it’s probably fair to assume it’s not awful but not great. Even so, this is sophomore film and Reddish shows a pretty damn big toolbox. He looks good in zone and man, on big guys and little guys, short and deep, in traffic and in space, in run support and in coverage, just any situation you can think of is in here. There are even a few kick coverage reps where he just destroys dudes and kick returns where he looks pretty good. He’s clearly a very good athlete.
Impact
Just like with the receivers in the 2025-2026 classes, there’s a lot of uncertainty around the secondary pieces on the roster now and a lot of plus prospects coming in these two classes. Reddish, Pouncey, Joey O’Brien, Khary Adams, and Chaz Smith from this class join Dallas Golden, Jadon Blair, Mark Zackery, Cree Thomas, Ethan Long, and Brandon Logan from last year’s class to form a massive infusion of talent. It’s impossible to sit here today and project in any meaningful way how all that will sort out. If Reddish sticks at safety he’ll compete with O’Brien, Pouncey, Blair, Long, and Logan plus whatever upperclassmen are still around. He may be able to make some noise there, but after watching his tape I think he could actually develop into a really good nickelback. He doesn’t have the stupid mix of size and athleticism that O’Brien does, for example, but he’s so good at so many things that it just seems like a natural fit for the nickel.
Whatever the recruiting services think of him, the Irish staff loves him – if rumor is to be believed, the higher-ranked Donovan Webb canceled his official visit to Notre Dame because the staff either had Reddish silently in the bag or felt confident enough that they advised Webb not to waste his time. It’s easy to see why they like him so much.
Welcome to the Irish family, Nick!
3 star? HAHA
There can’t be much junior film as he was injured . Which explains his lower ranking I guess.
Random observation: he seems to cover high-low routes well, or at least the coaches really trust him to make the decision well, which says a lot.
Very few, if any plan B commits this year. Even the consensus 3 star guys, like Reddish, were early offers and priority targets for the staff. Any DB Mickens offers early is OK in my book.
I think Fitz and Thom are the only commits who were late offers, but that was more because they were late bloomers than plan B. Fitz maybe, since we didn’t have much traction with other bigger WRs, but he could end up as our second highest rated WR in the class if his SR year looks anything like what he’s doing at camps.
Thom kind of came out of nowhere – he was a tight end at a smaller program his first three years, then transferred to Avon Farms and blew everyone away in workouts as an offensive tackle. Credit to him for fully embracing the switch.
Fitzgerald maybe is a mix of being a late bloomer and originally behind some other guys on the board, but I agree, he coul dmake a big jump this fall.
On the flip side, we’ll have to see if their Plan A/Plan B assessments were right elsewhere, particularly at QB. Noah Grubbs hasn’t looked bad but that’s about what you can say. Dia Bell, #13 overall in the 247C, would’ve committed if he had a green light and just tore up the camp circuit.
Yeah, I’ve heard a lot of “we could have had Bell” and haven’t heard too many people overly impressed with Grubbs at this point. I am assuming this is a large factor in why they waited way longer to offer 2027 QBs. But hey, when have our QB evals ever been wrong? To be fair, Minchey was probably a good one, but we might never know. Hard to judge Carr when he was an obvious take.
But also, to the “we could have had Bell” crowd. Who knows if we really could have. Even if he explicitly told the coaches he wanted to commit, so did Deuce Knight and Dante Moore. I’m a lot more skeptical that the #13 overall prospect was so dying to come to ND he would have committed and shut down his recruitment.
Related to scouting the other positons.
I fully trust 3 star commits from OL, TE, and DB.
We don’t get 3 star commits from RBs.
We have enough 4 star LB commits, I’m fairly unconcerned about whether the 3 stars are consistently good.
Who knows with WR. Brown hasn’t been here long, but Richardson and Burress are getting positive reviews already (no judgement on Bettis Jr).
To me, DL is still a big question. Young is a big plus. He was no where near a 4 star when he committed. Vernon, Houstan, Ford (before Washington?) are minuses. Traore is a push as he was a consensus 4 star.
It will really come down to Mukam, Sevillano, Mullins, Reiff, Sulfsted, and Dixon, for me to judge the evals. Especially Sevillano, Reiff, Dixon, and Mullins who were early commits. Could be a few years before I draw a real conclusion, but I’m fairly optimistic so far. Or our recruiting keeps rolling like this year, none of those guys ever play, but it isn’t really a knock on them because we have started landing studs.
Side note: Rankings can make no sense sometimes. Sevillano and Dixon are very big dudes who were insanely productive. They seem like they should have been top 100 types. But they weren’t, so big props if one/both turn out to be good players.
Some Dixon HS stats: 297 tackles, 109 tackles for loss, 40 sacks, 73 quarterback hurries, 11 forced fumbles, six pass breakups, two fumble recoveries, two blocked field goals, and 1 safety. 4x All Dade County selection. Varsity wrestler. 6-2, 290lbs. This is somehow the #813 composite player. I get it might have been a smaller FL league (I know nothing about FL HS divisions), but how does this leave him as the second lowest ranked recruit under MF? With the lowest being Bettis.
Yeah, the Bell committing stuff raises more questions about what the coaches saw that made them not green-light him than about their evaluation. It’s obvious Bell is great, and he fits the apparent strategy of grabbing anyone with pro DNA they can find, so it seems likely to me that they saw something that made them think it wouldn’t be a great idea for him to come (which is not to say there’s anything wrong with the kid, ND fits don’t always turn out great and not every great kid is a ND fit).
i don’t know anything about the Bell situation…but a kid who wasn’t offered and never visited was thought to be a lock at some point?
Some interesting recruiting ranking/industry updates from On3. Apparently they bought rivals sometime recently, and are now dropping/rebranding On3 high school rankings so it’s just Rivals.
They also completed a re-ranking and good moves for ND. Some fun highlights from Rvials (nee On3 rankings)
With this update, we now have 2 five stars, Dunham/O’Brien, and 2 other top 50 players, Adams/Premer, per the 247 composite.
On3………….god awful name for a company.