Tyler Buchner finally has a backfield mate! Notre Dame added a long-desired running back to its 2021 class today when Logan Diggs announced his commitment for the Irish. Notre Dame made a big move for the 6’0″, 195-pound Louisianan when they offered and he reportedly considered committing, but he wanted to take visits anyway when the quarantine lifted. In the past the staff has been clear that they won’t take commitments from kids who intend to visit other schools. As the quarantine rambles on, it seems that one or both sides softened and they were able to work it out.
COMMITTED.. #GoIrish ☘️ pic.twitter.com/eFfvkQ6O2l
— Logan (@logandiggs3) July 29, 2020
Southern Cal made a recent move for Diggs, which is interesting given that they hardly have to go deep into Louisiana game film to find RB prospects. Opinion on him is pretty divided; ISD, for example, is much higher on him than the national services and fans have debated his film hotly. Many fans have mentioned Theo Riddick as a comparison for him – I’m not sure that’s quite right and I’ll get into why below – before dismissing him as not good enough. I don’t know about you, but I’d take another Theo Riddick. I mean…
Recruiting Service Rankings
247Sports Composite — 3 star (.8668), #610 overall, #37 RB, #17 in LA
247Sports — 3 star (87 rating), NR overall, #39 RB, #17 in LA
Rivals — 3 star (5.6 rating), NR overall, #29 RB, #13 in LA
ESPN — 3 star (78 rating), NR overall, #41 RB, #19 in LA
Irish Sports Daily — 4 star (92 rating)
Cohort
In addition to Notre Dame and USC, Diggs holds offers from Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, Louisville, Memphis, Michigan State, Nebraska, Oklahoma State, Ole Miss, and Vanderbilt, among others. Interesting to see a few programs that are known for finding running backs in there, and doubly so given that his final group reportedly included Memphis and Okie State in addition to the Irish and Trojans. Those two teams have been excellent at scouting running back talent.
Highlights
One of the reasons ISD is more bullish on Diggs is that, as Friend of the Stripes Jamie Uyeyama has noted, his offensive line was… not good. On this junior year highlight reel I counted 22 carries for Diggs and 12 times he had to make a move in the backfield. (Somewhere Barry Sanders nods sadly.) That’s the highlight reel, meaning there were probably plenty of times when he was caught dead to rights in the backfield and couldn’t get out of it. I’m not sure “jitterbug” is a valid complaint against a guy when more than half his carries resemble punt returns. When he has a clear lane, he’s decisive and runs downhill with a purpose. In fact, generally speaking he seems to relish delivering the blow, whether it’s dropping his shoulder for a few extra yards or blocking someone into the ground.
Another knock on him has been long speed. He’s not Will Shipley (apologies for picking at that scab), but I think he’s pretty solid there; note the play at the 2:04 mark. He beats everyone to the corner, and after a massive downfield block by his WR he just pulls away from everyone. There are a few other plays in the passing game where he shows respectable speed as well. And he has good burst, as evidenced several times on this tape. In the second play he goes out into the flat, turns upfield to block when he realizes the QB is going to run, and shoots himself out of a cannon to demolish the DB; and on the running plays where he does have a clear path, he attacks the hole quickly. He shows good hands as a receiver, he’s hard to bring down, and he runs with surprising toughness.
The reasons I don’t think Riddick is a great comparison is that Riddick’s agility was just otherworldly (Diggs is good but not that good) and I actually think Diggs is a little faster and definitely will be bigger (I think his listed dimensions are probably accurate, while Riddick was rather generously listed at 5’10″/185 as a recruit). In fact I think Diggs profiles better as an every-down back than Riddick did.
Impact
I tend to doubt Diggs will make an immediate impact, but there’s a lot of uncertainty around Notre Dame’s running back situation at the moment. The 2021 backfield could include sixth-year Trevor Speights, fifth-year Jafar Armstrong, senior Jahmir Smith, senior C’Bo Flemister, junior Kyren Williams, sophomore Chris Tyree, and freshman Logan Diggs. Experience tells us it’s unlikely that it would, but it technically could. Even if one or two of those guys isn’t in the picture at that point it’s unlikely that Diggs would be needed right away, but that’s the same thing we thought about Josh Adams in 2015 so who knows. Long-term, as noted above, I think he has a ceiling as a multi-year starter or at worst an every-down workhorse who can complement the Chris Tyrees of the world very nicely.
Welcome to the Irish family, Logan!
IIRC, Diggs was the first running back the staff offered after they figured out Shipley was committing to Clemson. Failing Plan A, it’s nice to hit the target with your Plan B guy.
Also came here to share Jamie’s film review. As you mentioned, he’s pretty high on Diggs. Check it out here.
Happy to see that they got a player that they wanted!
Not to be too negative, though, but this class seems to be filling up with quite a few 3 star players. However, it seems like a lot of the talk is that these players are all better than their rankings. Is this just PR / kool-aid / spin, or is there something off with this year’s rankings that makes a lot of these guys underrated? Or is it that they are rated where they should be, but that they all seem to have high upside potential?
Also, will this class of 3 stars be competitive at all against powerhouse teams in coming seasons like tOSU? Ohio State has 6 recruits with ratings greater than or equal to ND’s top recruit.
I’d say there is a good chance the rankings this year are less accurate than they normally are due to the dead period and lack of camps this summer, but there is probably a little bit of PR/spin going on as well. I would agree with the notion that the 3-star guys ND is landing all have potential that exceeds their 3-star rating, but it’s obviously not a sure thing that they reach that potential. There’s really nobody in this class that I would point to and dismiss like “Yeah, that guy’s a reach by the staff.”
Yes? I think Ryan Barnes is a clear four star. Tucker probably would’ve blown up if there had been a real track season this spring, but we’ll never know. Diggs is a Louisiana skill position player with a legit USC offer, I think that says something there.
Alt is a fair high-ceiling three star, I think. Probably Coogan too. I think we’re going to land another fairly-ranked high upside three star in the near future too. So it goes both ways.
And, like Ty said, it’s tempting to throw the rankings out right now – with no camps, no visits, and no spring evals, it’s a total crapshoot for us as fans to judge who’s overrated and who’s underrated. Maybe if there’s a fall HS season that’ll change.
I’m a little skeptical of the “recruiting rankings don’t matter this year!” talk from the recruiting mods (at least the usual 247 folks), coming on the heels of ND racking up a bunch of three stars. I think there is reason to think the ratings will be less accurate this year than in previous years, but of course that cuts both ways (e.g., Buchner might be overrated still as a high four-star).
I do think a lot of thought has gone into the CB recruiting, so I suspect if anywhere our guys are underrated there, but it does get a little eye-roll-y when every time we sign a 3-star there’s a “well this guy certainly has some 4-star qualities” commentary.
EDIT, upon further reflection: I should be fair to Prister, who is atypically for 247 is not overly positive on the recruiting front. He said from day 1, even when it looked like we would get him, that Will Shipley is not a 5-star talent (he said he was a definite “high 4-star”).
I know the highlights showed a lot of broken tackles at the line, but I’m skeptical about him not breaking a ton of long runs because of bad line play. Wasn’t his team the state champion? Seems unlikely on a team with a bad line.
I do think he could be a good compliment to Tyree. He looks like he could be the kind of back to grind out short yardage plays, especially when teams stack the box late in games while we have the lead. Let Tyree make the big plays early, with Diggs using his strength and balance late to ice victories.
I mean, look at the highlights – 12 of 22 carries where he has to make a move in the backfield. His line was pretty bad, to the point that I think the takeaway from their state title might be that he was good enough to overcome it.
I don’t know if he can hit home runs consistently. I think there’s some promise on this highlight reel, but he didn’t have many chances where he got a truly clear shot.
I watched the highlights. Maybe the issue is that on the plays were there was great blocking, he didn’t really make any huge plays. I’m not saying he can’t end up being a great player, but he’s rated as roughly the 35th best back in the class for a reason.
Seems to have good acceleration and balance. A lot of initial bad angles by defenders. But as many people have mentioned doesn’t look to have ELITE long speed. I just watched 1 minute of Travis Etienne’s HS highlights (mid 4* recruit) and in the first minute all his highlights were long TD runs. I then stopped watching because it just didn’t seem worth comparing further.
Diggs appears good enough for ND to maintain 10+ win seasons, but I don’t see him as the guy who will take one missed tackle against UGA and turn it into a game changing TD.
I think his highlights would look a lot like Tony Jones Jr if he were running behind the IMG line. TJJ HS tape is a great example of run blocking and taking advantage of good blocking.
You’re right that he doesn’t have elite long speed, but I do think he has decent long speed. Everything else about him looks really good. As for Prister’s eval, whatever. He’s been off a lot lately, starting with when he was convinced Darnell Ewell was going to be a megastar.
I don’t really want to go to the mattresses over this, but… We have good reason to believe he’s better than he’s getting credit for, from a source we trust implicitly, and I’ll leave it at that. He was in a timeshare last year and will be the main guy this year. If there’s football in Louisiana, we’ll see what he can show us.
Let’s not make good the enemy of perfect here. There have been a lot of excellent and super-productive college running backs who don’t have elite long speed.
Legend even says Tony Jones once broke an 84 yarder off on everyone’s darling, Iowa State.
(Still can’t believe those guys are so many hot picks by writers this summer. Purdy didn’t look good at all vs ND and they had like no athletes on defense. Oklahoma and Texas should beat them like a drum)
Yeah. I feel like we all essentially agree on Diggs. I think 10 wins a year requires a lot of good players (and I personally think the impact RBs have is minimal). We were good with TJJ as our starter. I in no way meant to damn Diggs with false praise by comparing him to TJJ.
I think he will be a + contributor, don’t think he is a stretch, but also don’t think he is a 5 star back, which no one really seems to be arguing he is. I think his HS tape looks better than every back we’ve got outside Tyree and Williams.