Notre Dame finally added the QB lynchpin to its 2022 class today when Steve “Peanut Butter” Angeli (credit to Eric for that one!) announced for the Irish. The 6’4″, 215-pound New Jerseyan had to wait for a few other dominoes to fall, and to his credit stayed patient through it. The Irish staff had prioritized a few other prospects, most notably five star Ty Simpson, top 100 Gavin Wimsatt, and rising four star Drew Allar. Simpson was initially uninterested, reportedly expressed interest to the staff about a month ago and got an offer, and then committed to Alabama two weeks later. Go figure. The staff likes Wimsatt’s athleticism but he’s facing enormous local pressure to play for Kentucky, and as time goes on it seems more likely he’ll do that. Allar also wanted an Irish offer and finally got one, but the recent buzz has been strong in Penn State’s favor.
He took an independent visit to Notre Dame in December, which made a big impression. Family history had him interested early as well – his great uncle, Pete Berezney, was a starting lineman on Frank Leahy’s 1943 national championship team and his older brother played high school ball with both Quenton Nelson and Brandon Wimbush.
God, Country, Notre Dame…☘️
100% C O M M I T T E D ☘️ #GoIrish ☘️#IrishRising22 ☘️ @NDFootball @CoachBrianKelly @T_Rees11 @bccoachvito @BergenCathFBall @EQBcoach @Hayesfawcett3 pic.twitter.com/R7N5Urf4Xg
— Steve Angeli (@SteveAngeli_125) March 5, 2021
Angeli picked up a Stanford offer a couple of weeks ago, which likely made the staff decide it was time to take the commitment they knew they could get. They’re clearly settling in some sense, given that they chased those other guys, but in all honesty I don’t know how much separation there really is in this quarterback class after the top couple of guys. #1 overall recruit and Ohio State commit Quinn Ewers is your annual sure thing, but after that every prospect has significant question marks. Some have elite arms, some have elite athleticism, but all have question marks. I don’t think the staff felt all that compelled to wait on or chase anyone else given all of that.
Angeli’s 2020 stats weren’t remarkable – 59% completion rate, 7.8 yards per attempt, 6 touchdowns against 2 interceptions. [Stephen A. voice] HOWEVER… There are a few mitigating factors worth noting. First and foremost, this was Angeli’s first year as a starter, and of course it was a weird, six-game COVID season against one of the tougher prep schedules in the country. (You could make the case that he should’ve started in 2019 based on the numbers, but that’s another story.) His high school also traditionally runs a very run-heavy offense; their run/pass mix was 63/37 in 2020, after a 67/33 split in 2019. Angeli only threw 19 passes per game; Allar threw twice that many in his high school’s first 2020 playoff game. Next, outside of Irish DB target Jayden Bellamy, they didn’t have much skill position talent and to compound that the OL was a bit suspect. What I’m saying is, don’t get wrapped up in the numbers. Watch the film below with an open mind and see what you see.
Finally, I’m going to refer to him as Stevie “Five Angels” Angeli. Those of you who are familiar with the Godfather will understand. Those of you who are not, WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR LIVES?!?
Recruiting Service Rankings
247Sports Composite — 4 star (.8900 rating), #375 overall, #16 pro-style QB, #4 in NJ
247Sports — 3 star (88 rating), NR overall, #17 pro-style QB, #5 in NJ
Rivals — 4 star (5.8 rating), NR overall, #13 pro-style QB, #5 in NJ
ESPN — 3 star (not graded, not ranked)
Irish Sports Daily — 4 star (92 rating)
Cohort
In addition to Notre Dame and Stanford, Angeli holds offers from Arizona, Iowa, LSU, Miami, Michigan, Northwestern, Ohio State, Oregon, Penn State, and Vanderbilt, among several others.
Highlights
You can see right away that Angeli’s listed size is legit. He’s a big kid. He doesn’t have the biggest arm in this class but he does have a plus arm – he made a few downfield and wide throws pretty easily, and when needed he can put a little mustard on the medium stuff. We really need more footage on him, but from I see here I like the ball he throws too; he throws a very catchable ball, tight spirals and well placed. I especially like how calm he stays as the play unfolds, whether he has time in the pocket or not – and, as I alluded to above, he often did not. The escape and rollout throw at 0:29 is exquisite. The pocket throw at 3:15 shows confidence, arm strength, and placement. He knew he had a tight window between three guys and he put it there.
I like his accuracy generally but I’d like to see it be a bit more consistent – there are a few throws here where the ball isn’t quite in the right spot and the receiver has to break stride or even stop to catch it. And if there are a few of those on the highlight reel, there are certainly a few more off it. Whether that’s due to inexperience or facing pressure or mechanical inconsistencies or something else I don’t know, but it’s something to watch for. That’s really the only negative I can pinpoint. As a runner he reminds me a bit of Brady Quinn – similar builds, not going to blow past anyone, but mobile enough to make you pay if you give him a lane. And he’s willing to deliver a blow, which I always appreciate.
Impact
No doubt the Notre Dame staff plans for Angeli to learn behind Buchner for a couple of seasons at least. I don’t see him as an instant impact guy; if he is it’ll probably be because something went very far sideways, so let’s not wander too far down that path. I think he has pretty solid physical tools though, certainly good enough to play the position at a high level, and could eventually start for the Irish. He’s the kind of guy that, if he had gone to Stanford, we could well end up lamenting how this kid who profiled perfectly for Notre Dame was carving things up for them. I’ll be very interested to track his 7-on-7 and camp appearances and his senior season to see how he develops.
Welcome to the Irish family, Steve!
[Chris Berman voice]
You’re welcome for the nickname.
And I regret nothing.
Fair.
I’ll be the downer: it kinda seems like Tommy Rees is pretty bad at QB recruiting, no? I would say in a four-year period the over/under on Buchner-level QB recruits at ND is 2.5 – over is good, and under is not so good. We’re at 1.
Here’s the Rees QB recruiting history:
That’s really not good! Hopefully Buchner pans out and it’s all moot, but still, pretty bad on its face, no?
I of course realize this is missing getting Coan to commit, which should certainly count in the positive ledger, but also part of the reason we need Coan is that the QB recruiting the last three years hasn’t been great!
So the Powlus thing makes sense to me b/c I think you are forgetting that (unless I’m wrong, which is very common) Coan didn’t commit to ND until after the early signing day and so at the point when they accepted Powlus as a signee we might have had only Pyne and Buchner as healthy QBs if Clark was injured.
Once Coan transferred then yes we would have had three QBs for the next couple of years but the staff probably didn’t know that Coan was for sure coming on signing day and so felt the need to have a 3rd QB just in case.
You’re correct on timing, but ND was always going to sign *some* grad transfer quarterback who would be higher on the depth chart than Powlus.
We would both like to think that but with the academic requirements a grad student at ND would need to meet it seems that maybe the staff didn’t feel like that was a given that they were going to be able to get a average to above average grad transfer.
But, yes, I completely agree with you in terms of if the staff knew that Coan was coming or some other transfer for sure was coming then why take Powlus…?
To me, I think it’s obvious why Notre Dame is taking Ron Powlus III. His name and his dad’s position. He’s depth and an extra arm, which could be valuable to the program if Clark’s situation plays out either as an injury or if he doesn’t stay past 2021.
I don’t necessarily agree that it’s a wise usage of a scholarship spot, but they have enough this year, so it’s not a huge issue now. And even beyond this is a roster usually that has a DE and a S and a couple WR’s that are upperclassmen and not threatening to hit the two deep. So I mean I guess it’s annoying to not 100% maximize the scholarships but they do have 85 of them. If you’re going to have excess why not at least have it in such an important spot?
End of the year last year they only had Book and Pyne healthy and Pyne had to play vs Bama. It gives a little more depth to at least have another real life QB on the roster.
I get how that’s not a very satisfying justification, though.
Oh I agree with you 100% although I’m of the opinion that the staff knew they weren’t guaranteed to get a grad transfer and while Powlus had obvious interest, maybe the staff was always kind of quietly or rather frantically searching for a 2nd QB once they realized that Clark was really injured.
Of course his dad’s position doesn’t hurt either, lol
I guess I’ll start worrying about stuff like giving a scholarship to Powlus when ND actually ends up stuck on that front, which has basically never happened under Kelly (and even for a while before that) from what I can tell.
Also, I think it’s fair to say that unless anyone actually expects that Powlus would be ready to see the field in the fall, this decision was made completely independent of and with different intent than the grad transfer issue.
“I would say in a four-year period the over/under on Buchner-level QB recruits at ND is 2.5 – over is good, and under is not so good. We’re at 1.”
I think you’re right, but I think that’s just how Kelly and Notre Dame operate and maybe just disappointing that Rees isn’t expanding on the situation. They’ve shown not going to push very hard for a top recruit and tough competition in Allar (only recently an offer) because they got Buchner the previous cycle. If they didn’t have Buchner, I’d like to think they would have been much more aggressive on Allar or Wimsatt or another top player.
Unlike a place like Clemson who will sign high QBs every year and be fine with the backup probably transferring regularly, it seems like ND would rather take developmental QB’s who will stick around. Taking Angeli over really working for Allar or Wimsatt looks firmly in this mindset.
Similar situations to the post Wimbush and Jurkovec cycles, IMO. But, like you mention, that does lead to consternation if the prize target doesn’t work out. If you’re Clemson and bringing in Lawrence or DJ U, you’re fine for 2-3 years. If not…
I think there’s a lot of projection here in how hard they worked and realistic those other guys may be. Allar didn’t really have any of these major offers until he blew up over the last few weeks, and is probably going to PSU who offered at the very end of January. The Buchner thing you’re assuming is cause and effect in one direction and not another (not that they arent going aggressive because of him, but that the recruits are not as excited because of him).
I’d rather have other guys than Angeli but the original Tommy critique is basically putting the most negative spin you can on his recruiting. I’d like Pyne to be bigger but despite some misses he was 5th at Elite 11. Buchner versus McCarthy is a coin flip and we have no idea how it will play out right now. the Powlus thing I don’t get but it’s basically a roster management decision yes or no do you want this guy for depth, so putting it on Tommy feels weird.
The bottom line is there’s probably one sure thing QB in this class and than a bunch of projectable guys. Seems like a lot of gravity toward the faster / cannon arm guys, which is understandable, but we know from the Wimbush/Zaire years that those tools are all super great until they don’t have other things and then we wish they were the backup or other recruit.
Interesting that you mention Clemson. Here’s their year-by-year QB recruiting under Swinney:
Backing up elite QB recruits to each other is super rare. Especially now, because guys want to play right away. I can 100% guarantee you there are kids in the 2022 class and even the 2023 class who are less interesting in ND because of Buchner. That’s the reality of modern QB recruiting.
If you’re curious, Ohio State in the same time frame:
Hell of a run over the last three cycles, but before that it looked very much like our trend. Especially if you consider that Tiny Tate Martell, who has since transferred twice and moved to WR, was laughably overrated at #56 overall.
The cynic might conclude that Ohio State really wanted his high school roommate, DT Haskell Garrett, #68 overall. And the cynic might also wonder why Garrett, who was from Arizona and had never visited Ohio State, committed a week after he was offered. But that’s all another story.
Also going to add on here that I’ll pretty much guarantee that at least one of McCord and Ewers won’t be at Ohio State in 2023. If Stroud hits they could both leave, if he doesn’t whichever one loses out will probably leave. It’s what QBs do now.
That timeline also points out how royally f-cked OSU would have been if Fields hadn’t transferred there AND been immediately eligible. It would be nice if there were one point in this entire goddamn century when everything didn’t completely fall their way.
That’s 3 five-star QBs in a 4 year stretch. We can’t get 1 five-star QB in a 4 year stretch…
Also we basically had to land Coan because PJ, the top 100 QB that Rees recruited, didn’t want to wait one more year to start. Not because QB recruiting has been so bad. Also also, McNamara blocked #171 Dylan Morris from committing – he called to commit and the staff said McNamara took his spot, and he committed to Washington – and prevented us from chasing #61 Graham Mertz earlier. And we almost flipped Wertz from Wisconsin anyway.
Even conceding for the 2019 cycle that poop happens and we get what we get, PJ -> Clark -> Pyne -> Buchner -> Angeli is a pretty normal sine wave of QB recruiting (see the Clemson and Ohio State timelines below). That’s not to say they did as well as they possible could’ve, but nobody aside from Alabama does that well, and even that is only recently.
Jurkovec committed in 2016, Rees was hired in 2017. I just happened to check that a day ago, as I knew there would be a flair up with the “recruiting guru’s” over Angeli. I absolutely agree with you and Eric that only time will tell with Angeli. He was a bit of an unknown when ND offered and has done nothing to make that look unwise.
As far as the other three guys, after watching tape, I think Simpson is small and is going to struggle vs. better athletes. Wimsatt’s film looks like a high school kid playing against Pop Warner teams. Allar has some funkiness in his delivery. Don’t those shortcomings sound familar, as I’ve seen each used to describe ND QB recruits. None of those can be said about Angeli.
To nitpick a bit, Jurkovec was not a Rees recruit – Tommy came back to ND as QB coach in Jan. 2017, and Jurkovec was already committed for the previous 7 months. He was primarily recruited by Mike Sanford.
I’m also not sure that the Clemson or Ohio State numbers you show are particularly helpful to your point, unless you’re arguing I should bump my over/under number from 2.5 to 2. They are both now getting a (often much better than) Buchner-level QB every two years. And even in the early part of the decade when they weren’t getting high-ranked guys as frequently, the guys they were getting and needed to hit as QBs were higher ranked than Buchner.
I’m being very precise when I say a Buchner-level recruit – I mean a top 100 guy who is not a five-star. If we end up getting a top-10, 5-star level QB recruit, we could feel more comfortable going a couple years with this level of recruiting. It’s that if we’re not getting the sure things, we need to start stacking them at least every two years and probably more frequently than that.
So basically get Arch Manning to commit and all is forgiven.
I stand corrected on PJ – I forgot how early he committed.
My point on OSU and Clemson was that they’re not recruiting five-star QBs every single year. Nobody is, not even (gasp!) Alabama. I’m *not* saying that therefore ND is recruiting the position just as well as those schools. I’m saying that the oft-repeated argument that “we need to do what Clemson does and load up with a five-star QB every cycle!” is divorced from reality.
In the last six cycles, looking at just the “lead” QB signed, Clemson landed #30 (two-time washout)/#1 (mega hit)/#216 (anonymous)/#10 (looks good early)/#384 (who?)/#74 (after their first choice picked Bama, also a guy ND passed on offering).
In the same timeframe OSU has landed #56 (comically overrated and everyone knew it)/#331/literally nobody/#42/#27/#1. From 2017-19 they didn’t land one guy who projected to be an above-average starter. Again in that same timeframe, Alabama landed #32 (Tua)/unranked (yes, it’s true!)/#180 (Tua’s brother)/#2 (probable starter this year)/#81 (dual-threat guy)/#27 (the guy they stole from Clemson).
For comparison, ND landed #246 (Davis)/#83 (PJ)/#521 (Clark)/#225 (Pyne)/#70 (Buchner, IMO underrated)/#375 (Angeli). Clark “should” have been either #171 Morris or #65 Wertz, had McNamara either flaked out sooner or settled on his natural Michigan Man(tm) fit first. I know crap happens to everyone, but #83/#65/#225/#70/#375 is not an unreasonable QB progression. The Lawrence/Uigalelei/Young level recruit isn’t in there, and I’d like to see one of those guys obviously, but it’s both not as bad and not as unusual a pattern as many suggest it is.
Also worth noting that before this window, Kelly landed, in order, #267 (Golson)/#26 (Kiel)/#162 (Zaire)/#242 (Kizer)/#46 (Wimbush, after #23 Blake Barnett flaked out)/#517 (Book). Again, a pretty normal progression. Could it be better? Yes! Is the trend awful and/or unique? No.
I, like some others here, am a little disappointed with this pickup. But at least he isn’t under 6 feet!
I agree with nd09 that the QB recruiting has been a bit underwhelming. Based on the QB development I have seen at ND over the past 10 years (or lack thereof in some cases), if I was a top prospect, I would probably look at other schools first. I’m not trying to be overly negative, but the reality is that QB is a spot where ND seems to be consistently and clearly behind the OSU’s, Bamas, and Clemsons.
Yeah, I suppose perhaps the most unfair I am being above is only naming Rees and not ascribing any of it to Kelly. He really hasn’t done anything in his tenure at ND that should make high-level QBs want to play for him.
I’m just a little more optimistic that playing QB at Notre Dame should be a draw that attracts QBs, regardless of who the coach is. After offensive line and maybe tight ends, there really isn’t a position I think better suited for ND recruiting.
As Pete Sampson says everything is a referendum on the state of Norte dame football and I hate to make this some litmus test for the state of recruiting affairs but it’s hard not to look at this as a disappointment and a microcosm of the general direction of recruiting. As Eric pointed out in his DB recruiting article, this Nd staff has a tendency to do what’s comfortable and this felt like that.
You guys made some good parallels to how Clemson and Ohio state web recruiting went in the past especially Clemson but there’s a big difference between winbush, jurkovec, Buchner vs Watson, Lawrence, DJU. Their “hits” are way more sure fire and all higher rated than our highest.
I don’t want to take it out in the kid but I would have liked to have pushed for a higher ranked kid and this felt like settling and early. He has limited high school experience and put up blah numbers in that limited experience no markedly special tools. Given how many question marks there are around Buchner I would have liked to see Nd bring in a guy to challenge him. And now you have 2 qbs in successive classes in pow pie and angeli who are essentially good depth guys.
Some of you are awfully quick to write Angeli off as if we didn’t just have a short, mid-3 star kid beat out 2 different top-100 players for a starting job.
Ian Book was either the best or second-best ND quarterback over the course of a decade, depending on how you feel about 2015 Kizer. He was very good for Notre Dame football. Also, if ND is ever going to win a playoff game – much less a national championship – our quarterback needs to be significantly better at football than Ian Book.
All of those things are true. I think the reaction is that everyone kind of realizes all of that, and this commitment does not do anything for us on that front.
Banking on mid-3 star kids to consistently beat out top 100 kids isn’t a great plan. Be glad it happened instead of hoping to hit that hot dice roll over and over.
I don’t think anybody banks on that happening, so that wasn’t really my point.
It’s just a bit early to dismiss a guy who’s just barely below 4-star status right now — especially given the crapshoot that QB rankings tend to be outside of the one or two can’t-miss guys every year.
Something I’d be very much in favor of is completely removing the “star” designation from the lexicon of scouting and rating prep football players, as if we’re all still living in the nuance-free stone age of Lemming and SuperPrep fax reports. It’s 2021 and we can all do better than that.
I’ll weigh in…
It’s okay to be disappointed. I agree everything feels like a referendum on the program but such is life right now. It’s things like this that make it feel like ND is “stuck” in the recruiting game.
It’s probably not too important to overreact to one recruit, even a QB. Angeli at least has some decent upside (taller, moves well, lively arm). And while I detest the “trust the staff moniker” and “fit” and all that they must see a lot of positive qualities about him even though he hasn’t produced or played a ton in high school. At least, they’ve done their homework.
Also, not real important to polish a high 3-star who maybe ends up as a low 4-star. I’ve seen “he could win games at ND” a bunch of times over the last day and it’s like, well okay we’re not Illinois here just trying to beat a few teams here or there. I’m not a big fan of that type of belittling standards, even though most of the time recruitniks do it to be kind to the recruit.
I’m not sure we rushed things, either. Angeli was the first offer (did they fall in love with lower hanging fruit?) back in August 2020. Had he committed at the time then yeah, that’s way too early. But with early NSD we’re 10 months away from wrapping the class up. Seems like they wanted Allar, made a push, and he’d rather be at Penn State.
I agree with you on “he could win at ND” comments. That said is getting a QB ranked 6th by a recruiting service, instead of 13th, any guarantee ? Kiel, Wimbush and Jurkovec to different degrees prove it’s not. I see very few comments on the site about what Angeli and the others can actually do or not do. Few comments on their strengths and weaknesses. I wonder how many are commenting without even looking at the film of these guys?
It’s a good question, once you get past the elite recruits does it matter if you’re grabbing a mid 4-star or low 4-star? For one guy, probably not. But, over multiple classes and dozens of players I think it’s pretty important.
Ultimately, I wouldn’t expect anyone to be happy with Angeli just because he could be good. You could say that about any recruit.
It’s also tough with Angeli because he hasn’t played very much. One (shortened) year of starting at a school that doesn’t throw the ball much. Some quick math and he’ll probably finish his high school career with about 300 passes and 2,400 yards. 3-star + not much film + not a huge athletic ceiling and I get why some people are sighing.
As I said above, I can find something to complain about with the three QBs ND “missed” on. When you’re talking about an individual, previous classes don’t enter into the equation. You can use that to assess the staffs ability to evaluate talent. You can say, I don’t trust this staffs judgement. But it doesn’t factor into the talent of an individual player. You can’t say this kid isn’t good because the kid in 2015 wasn’t.
Angeli may not end up with outstanding stats, or enough film for us to better evaluate him. That said, I don’t see a major weakness. He has size, mobility, a good arm, and what looks like good mechanics and he has played vs. quality competition. He’s not going to be the QB in 2022, so the question is, what he could he be by 2023 or 24 ? There’s a lot to work with, I think.