Notre Dame landed its third and, with all due respect to long snapper Sean Kraft and blue-chip linebacker Ellis McGaskin, loudest commitment of the 2027 cycle today when elite signal-caller Teddy Jarrard announced for the Irish. The 6’3, 200-pound Georgian has a sophomore offer list that’s a Who’s Who of Power 4 programs and just finished lighting it up at the Rivals Five-Star Challenge camp, in which he garnered QB MVP honors despite being a class behind many of the participants. In fact, according to Rivals/On3 analyst Charles Power, it wasn’t even a close call, and it wasn’t just him. Yahoo Sports said Jarrard “steals the show” at the event and our old buddy Steve Wiltfong said Jarrard is “arguably the No. 1 QB in the 2027 class.” You’ll see below that his rankings right now range from pedestrian to just OK, but that will likely change in short order.

Jarrard visited Notre Dame on June 5th and got his official offer on June 21st, the same day the Irish offered Peyton Houston. The pair were Gino Guidugli’s first offers at the position in the 2027 class. It was an interesting move to offer both at the same time and, of course, many fans wondered if there was a pecking order. We now seem to have our answer, as the staff took Jarrard’s commitment while Houston was still uncommitted. Houston has a big arm and is an excellent runner, but he and Jarrard are wildly different physically – Houston checks in at 5’11” – which again makes the pair of offers very interesting. With Jarrard’s size he’s more of a classic profile for the position, although he can move pretty well too and has no problem throwing off-platform.

Recruiting Service Rankings

As noted above, take these ratings with a grain of salt for now because he’s going to rise in a big way.

247Sports Composite — 4 star (.9278 rating), #195 overall, #15 QB, #28 in GA

On3 Industry Comparison — 4 star (90.89 rating), #171 overall, #12 QB, #24 in GA

The 247 Composite and On3 Industry Comparison both combine the major service rankings.  On3 acquired Rivals on July 1st and is now using their branding for the “Industry Comparison” composite ratings and Rivals branding for their individual service rankings. Go figure.

247Sports — 3 star (89 rating), NR overall, #18 QB, #35 in GA

Rivals — 4 star (5.8 rating), #230 overall, #21 QB, #25 in GA

ESPN — 4 star (80 rating), #210 overall, #15 QB, #30 in GA

Irish Sports Daily — 4 star (92 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 2027 yet. Based on past classes a 95 rating would be the bottom end of their top 50.

Cohort

In addition to Notre Dame, Jarrard holds offers from Auburn, Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Georgia, Miami, Michigan (lol), Ohio State, Penn State (lol), Vanderbilt, Virginia Tech, and Wisconsin, among many others.

Highlights

How did anyone watch this kid play and rate him as a three star? Hilarious… This is sophomore film and showcases more versatility and polish as a passer than the vast majority of other prospects’ senior film. It’s very easy to see why the staff was interested in Jarrard and why at the Five Star Challenge he won the accuracy competition and turned heads in seven on seven play. His accuracy is fanastic, almost Jimmy-Clausen-in-the-Hawaii-Bowl levels of pinpoint. It’s hard to tell just from this of course but I think there were even some plays where he adjusted the ball placement to keep it away from a defender – for example, a red zone score that he threw slightly behind and low with a defender screaming downhill. He goes through reads quickly and confidently and with complete disregard for any traffic in front of him or even literally at his feet. He keeps his eyes downfield when he leaves the pocket and can make any throw off-platform – and he looks like a more than capable runner, so he’s truly a nightmare to deal with.

The only thing I can really find to complain about here is that sometimes the gunslinger mentality goes a little too far – it’s a highlight reel, so obviously everything has a good result, but even so there are a few plays where my initial reaction was “ooh, he really shouldn’t have put that ball there.” The flip side I suppose is that he only threw five interceptions in 291 attempts last season, but I would still imagine that’s something Gino will want to smoothe out a bit. Otherwise, wowza.

Impact

I can’t believe this kid has two more seasons of high school play ahead of him. Absurd. You would imagine that he’ll keep progressing, somehow, so it’ll be very interesting to see where he is by the end of his senior season. I think it’s not out of the realm of possibility that he could push for immediate playing time if CJ Carr has moved on by then, which is very possible if CJ’s arc goes as expected. A lot of course will depend on the development of ’25 signee Blake Hebert and ’26 commit Noah Grubbs and how much leeway either of them leaves for a young gun. However it works out, it feels like a small leap indeed to say that Jarrard has the potential to become an elite player under center for Notre Dame and a multi-year starter.

Welcome to the Irish family, Teddy!