Notre Dame added to its 2024 recruiting class on Friday as defensive lineman Sean Sevillano Jr. committed to the program. The 6’2″ 300 pounder was born in Canada and moved to the United States from Winnipeg just under 2 years ago. Sevillano plays at a small private school Clearwater Academy International and they went 10-1 against an easier schedule (for Florida standards) that at least featured a few tougher programs in the Sunshine State.
Why #NotreDame?
Ahead of his public commitment, defensive lineman Sean Sevillano Jr. spoke with me about his decision to play ball at #NotreDame.
Story: https://t.co/HHI6986q3A@SevillanoSean #IrishIllustrated @247Sports pic.twitter.com/1PaOY1vsaQ
— Tom Loy (@TomLoy247) June 2, 2023
As a junior, Sevillano was a menace finishing with 50 tackles for loss and 20 sacks.
Recruiting Service Rankings
247Sports Composite — 3 star (.8644), #913 overall, #87 DL, #125 in FL
On3 Consensus — 3 star (86.22 rating), #871 overall, #82 DL, #120 in FL
The 247 Composite and On3 Consensus both combine 247, On3, Rivals, and ESPN rankings.
247Sports — 3 star (88 rating), NR overall, #40 DL, #60 in FL
On3 — 3 star (88 rating), NR overall, #66 DL, #87 in FL
Rivals — 3 star (5.5 rating), NR overall, NR DL, NR in FL
ESPN — Not Rated Yet
Irish Sports Daily — 3 star (89 rating)
As per usual, the decaying recruiting service that is ESPN remains behind in their evaluations. Following his junior season, Sevillano remains extremely low-rated and we’ll discuss that more below.
Cohort
Sevillano was offered back in mid-March and visited Notre Dame a couple weeks later.
In addition to Notre Dame, the finalists for Sevillano included Auburn, Miami, and Ohio State. He also carries top offers from USF, Duke, Kansas, Louisville, Wisconsin, Wake Forest, Cincinnati, Iowa State, Georgia Tech, Stanford, Indiana, Maryland, Illinois, and West Virginia.
Highlights
It’s weird to see someone projected to be a 1-tech interior defensive lineman in college standing up and away from the ball so much in high school. You can see Sevillano has some dog in him and he’s really good at working his way through traffic and past blockers. When he arrives at the ball he’s also really adept at making a play to help his team.
Overall, I like the athleticism for Sevillano if we’re talking about a future nose guard. I was hoping to see more burst out of his stance and a little better quick twitch ability while staying low against blockers, though. At times, he’s playing way too upright and using his strength to twist by blockers–something that most definitely won’t work at the next level.
Impact
People will automatically want to know how Sevillano compares to Owen Wafle who committed to Notre Dame 13 months ago but left the Irish class a week ago. When Wafle became a verbal last year he was the #175 overall recruit in the Composite and has since dropped over 200 spots to #405 overall. Obviously, Sevillano is way, way down the rankings right now.
I do like Wafle a little more at this stage. He’s a little taller, longer, and looks more college-ready going into his senior season. If there’s an edge for Sevillano it’s that he’s just beginning to scratch the surface playing football in the United States and while he’s not particularly tall he has the body-type of a stout nose guard of the future. I’m not sure Wafle was going to be that type of player on the interior.
Whatever happened with Wafle, it’s clear that Notre Dame (and some other big schools too) believe in the future development of Sevillano. Ideally, you’d like to see him transfer to another school for more exposure in Florida, although it sounds like his former training center in Winnipeg has a bunch of ties to Clearwater Academy International and he’ll be sticking it out for his final year of high school.
Welcome to the Irish family, Sean!
Waffle and Sevillano will be compared by ND fans well into their college careers.
Always nice to beat tOSU for a prospect.
Not quite as striking of a rankings gap, but it reminds me of when ND picked Jamion Franklin over PJ Mustipher because they thought he was a better fit.
Duke captain Jamion Franklin!
I still don’t understand why we didn’t go after both.
He really has no technique at this point. Just so much stronger and quicker than his opponents. But if you are playing against wimps, you better have the production, and he does. That’s a ton of tackles and TFL for a DT, even if they do basically just have him shooting the A gap on every play.
We don’t have a lot of bodies like him on the team, so glad to get him. Seems like if he is to have success, he will have to take the Jason Onye path. Probably a lot of work reshaping his body while maintaining weight, all while kind of learning football from scratch.
Him and Wafle would have been a nice pair. Sort of polar opposite recruits that would have made us very like to get a quality DT between the 2. Him and Scott (who I absolutely expect to go somewhere else) would make an awesome DT combo.
Agreed. For the latter point you make, I also wonder if one day the plan is more 3 down linemen sets. I know they’re getting DL like crazy but the 210 pound vyper kid could basically be a standup rush player.
Not sure if that will be the permanent base of the defense, but the more it goes to the nickel back basically being a mainstay every down play, someone’s got to go. Get a NT and maybe 2 heavier “strong side” ends and you can mess with the swing guy rushing the passer or as an extra DB when needed. Just something to think on for defensive evolution and schemes to keep up with offenses that keep spreading and attacking more down the field.
I think this makes sense with their safety recruiting as well. They’ve got mini-Urlacher and are still probably going after 2-3 more safeties. Urlacher sounds like that hybrid rover-S type (so like 3/4 S, 1/4 LB). I think MF played with one of those at Cincy, with 2 regular safeties, and it was very effective.