Welcome to our individual breakdowns of the Notre Dame 2024 recruiting class. In case you missed it, you can read our overview of this Fighting Irish recruiting class, the second full group of the Marcus Freeman era.
Today, we finish up the class with a look at a big secondary haul.
As a reminder, here’s our standard grading scale for this exercise:
95-100: Truly elite prospect with All-American potential
90-94: Multi-year starter with All-conference level potential
85-89: Eventual starter with chance to play as underclassman
80-84: Raw prospect with decent potential but a couple years away from impact
75-79: Likely a backup
70-74: Reach by the coaching staff
CB Karson Hobbs
Eric: 88
We’re on a run now of at least 1 freshmen corner coming in and immediately announcing themselves as a great player. I think Hobbs is really underrated and will be that type of corner at Notre Dame. He’s built well, can play press coverage, and is comfortable staying on a receivers hip to make a play on the ball. I don’t know if he has a super insane high ceiling but I feel like he’ll come in and respond well to competition.
Tyler: 87
I like the CB duo that Mike Mickens landed this cycle. Both lengthy, physical, athletic guys. Mickens is one of the best in the country at developing guys and there’s a lot to work with here.
CB Leonard Moore
Eric: 86
Moore’s photo for 247 has been the same since he committed and he looks 11 years old. Since then, he’s matured a ton and looks like someone ready to make an impact in college. As a pure corner, his skills are pretty solid. Overall, he’s a tremendous playmaker at the high school level and shows nice burst getting out of breaks or on a punt return. He looks really long and rangy and I’ll be interested to see where he fits in at corner or elsewhere.
Tyler: 87
Moore has long arms and plays physical — perfect for playing press coverage. He has great ball skills and a nose for the football. I wish he had actually shared his senior film, because his junior film is impressive and I would have liked to see what kind of strides he’d made in his final year as a high school player.
S Brauntae Johnson
Eric: 87
Johnson’s high school team had a tough year, he injured his shoulder, he was playing quarterback there for a while, and it’s just so hard to know how he will develop at safety. Is he even going to stay at safety long-term? I went with a 87 based on his size and athleticism. I hope we look stupid in the future for this type of grade.
Tyler: 86
He’s one of the highest-ceiling guys in this class, but he’s also one of the lowest-floor guys. I think Chris O’Leary has done a pretty good job coaching up the safeties (a take which many people would have vehemently disagreed with a year ago) so I’m optimistic about taking the long-term approach with Tae. I’d be surprised if he saw the field that much in ’24 or ’25, though.
S Kennedy Urlacher
Eric: 81
The blood lines are great and Urlacher certainly brings a sharp physicality to his game. I didn’t think his quickness was great when he committed but after another review he looks pretty solid in that area. I’m guessing he’ll be a valuable special teams player as an underclassmen. I’m not sure if he can grow into a starter but he’s the type of depth at safety Notre Dame can’t afford to ignore right now.
Tyler: 80
Odds Kennedy gets about three inches taller, gains 40 pounds, and ends up a first round draft pick at linebacker like his dad? I kid, of course, but the idea that he eventually grows into a hybrid linebacker role is one that has been thrown around a bit since he committed.
S Taebron Bennie-Powell
Eric: 78
It’s refreshing to watch a high school safety play safety and not a do-it-all type of havoc machine. I think TBP will come to Notre Dame with a solid base of secondary knowledge. His athletic ability doesn’t jump out to me. He’s a bit of a long strider with a really good frame to grow bigger in college. I envision him being a solid backup strong safety with a comp not unlike DJ Brown.
Tyler: 81
There was a lot of grumbling on the message boards when Chris O’Leary decided to take TBP. To be fair, he played his entire junior season out of position at linebacker so there wasn’t much film of him playing his projected position. He made the move to safety as a senior and looks like he could be a solid player for Notre Dame. I haven’t seen any verified testing numbers for him, so there might be some questions about speed. But he plays smart and phsyical.
Is this the thread where we share our feelings about Ivan Taylor? Because Michigan sucks.
Went to a PGA tournament this past weekend (in IL). We were walking in a parking lot to get to get on a shuttle to get to the actual course and my wife was pointing out to our kids some of the out-of-state license plates in the parking lot. She noted a plate from Michigan and my 10-year-old said that he hoped everyone had a good time at the tournament, except for that car, because “Michigan sucks”.
Never been prouder.
After losing Taylor the ’25 crootin class feels pretty meh/more Kelly-like than Freeman’s two other classes. Stinks.
But, I think the bottom line is the Carr/Knight back-to-back QB crooting (and you can throw in Grubbs, though he seems a little less exciting than the other two) is the thing we can point to as the hope coming out of the recent recruiting stretch. Ultimately, to pull the overall crooting level up, it seems like Freeman has to put up a very good to great season in at least one of the next two seasons (ideally both!), and if we can do that plus transition to a true homegrown star QB in the next couple years, we might be cooking with gas. Or at least that’s the hope.
Please, geothermal. ND just tore up the stadium parking lots, at least use the renewable source.
Wait what? Like, permanently?
I don’t think permanently – just to put in geothermal piping. I assume they’re back to normal now.
The tailgate lots are now reserved for Peacock Premium subscribers
Speaking of Kelly recruiting. It would be disheartening if Meadows committed to BK next week.
If we hit down the stretch on a big time WR and LB that might feel a bit different than the Kelly classes.
But even this “down” class would be closer to the top of Kelly classes. And for whatever reason it seems like Freeman’s guys have “hit” more often than not. By that I mean whether it’s the top recruits actually coming in and impressing (or actually playing early and doing well) or guys from the bottom half of the class being athletic enough to actually develop into a starter. With Kelly’s classes it seemed like a lot even our top recruits never quite hit it big (a few did of course but the %’s seem much lower).
And yes the QB recruiting seems way up. Carr and Knight seem like studs and Grubbs is at least Buchner kind of level (where before we thought bringing in a Buchner level recruit was as good as it got for us).
Since this is a recruiting post, seems like a good place to bring up a headline I saw. It said that the NCAA is removing the limit on the number of coaches, but keeping it so you can only have 10 coaches that do recruiting.
The limit is for off-campus only recruiting, specifically.
Interesting. So do you think ND will hire more coaches? Or maybe hire more recruiting only types?
How could we not? I’m sure now we can get coaches who can actually coach the position to be on the field doing that (even if as “assistants”) while coaches who specialize in recruiting can focus more on that.
Now there is no excuse not to have 10 guys who can recruit super well on staff. You can always supplement them with an assistant on the field to teach the technical skills of the position.