Welcome back to the 18 Stripes Big Board for Fighting Irish Football. Today we are taking a look at Notre Dame offers at linebacker — a position that is almost certainly finito right now.
| Score | Name | State | Ht./Wt. | Temperature |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| .994 | Baron Browning | TX | 6-3/230 | Cold |
| .965 | Drew Singleton | NJ | 6-2/215 | Cold |
| .959 | Nate McBride | GA | 6-2/220 | Cold |
| .956 | Anthony Hines | TX | 6-3/220 | Cold |
| .935 | Nathan Proctor | MD | 6-2/205 | Cold |
| .922 | Leonard Warner | GA | 6-4/225 | Cold |
| .891 | Ellis Brooks | VA | 6-2/230 | Cold |
| .881 | De’Andre Wilder | FL | 6-2/200 | Cold |
In the Fold
The Irish landed three linebackers commitments within a few days of the March Junior Day event. Drew White (.845) hails from St. Thomas Aquinas in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Pete Werner (.897) is our in-state guy — he attends Cathedral in Indianapolis. And the crown jewel of this crop of linebackers is Pittsburgh Central Catholic’s David Adams (.946). Pretty cool news on David Adams this week, too. He just broke his high school’s all-time tackles record. Anyway, all three guys seem like rock-solid commits at this point in time.
“In Play”
Notice the quotation marks. Also notice that every player on this board is listed as COLD. The Irish have a full class of linebackers in the fold already, and they just missed out on the only other guy they were pursuing (more on that below). Don’t expect ND to land any of these guys.
Baron Browning has taken official visits to Michigan and Alabama already. He’s also got an OV to Florida State lined up for this weekend, as well as OVs to UCLA and Ohio State set up for later in the season. The big Texas schools are also in the mix here.
Drew Singleton looked like an absolute lock to Michigan for the longest time, and he may still end up in Ann Arbor. But Clemson has received the last two predictions for him on the 247Sports crystal ball feature. Is he slipping out of Jimmy’s grasp? I guess we will find out in the coming months.
Nate McBride has appeared to be a lock to the Georgia Bulldogs for months now, but an official visit to Oregon earlier this month complicated his decision. Georgia is still the favorite, but the Ducks gave him a lot to think about.
Anthony Hines has things narrowed down to Oklahoma and Texas A&M. Oklahoma already has three linebackers in their class right now, but they’re willing to make room for this Top100 talent. The Aggies have one linebacker currently committed. Sources seem split on which team will land this talented linebacker.
Nathan Proctor has been taking hard looks at Maryland, Penn State, Ole Miss, and Virginia Tech. He’s priority targets for all four of those schools. I’m gonna go out on a limb and predict Penn State to land him (their big win over Ohio State this past weekend likely gives their recruiting efforts a nice boost). I could also see him ending up at Maryland.
Leonard Warner was rumored to be setting up a visit to ND a while back, but nothing ever came of it. He’s taking a look at Georgia, Duke, Florida State, Ohio State, and Stanford. But the Bulldogs are the most likely to land him.
Ellis Brooks is a former Duke commit. Now he’s focusing on Maryland and Michigan, with the Terps the favorite to land him.
Miami is the expected landing spot of De’Andre Wilder. He also seems to like Auburn and Alabama.
Off the Board
Jacob Phillips was the last linebacker Notre Dame was targeting for this class. He’s an elite prospect who the staff liked as an all-around linebacker who also has the ability to rush the quarterback. The Irish battled back and forth with Oklahoma, and Alabama got in the mix for a bit, too. But the Sooners ended up earning his pledge earlier this month.
Levi Draper — Oklahoma
Will Ignont — Tennessee
Josh Ross — Michigan
Sampson Niu — Oregon
Malik Robinson — North Carolina
Dylan Moses and VanDarius Cowan — Alabama
Hamsah Nasirildeen — South Carolina
Antjuan Simmons — Ohio State
Chandler Wooten — Auburn
Seems like this class overall is going to end up being fairly meh, with only a few more 3-star additions here or there, no (i.e., similar results to the last 2-3 classes)? I guess we’re just hoping to keep what we have to even stay there.
Scuttlebutt is that we will probably land a huge target at DB, actually. One that would be the highest rated guy in our class. I’ll bring that up in next week’s update, though.
Aside from that, though, you’re right about that first part. Odds are we take guys in the .85-.90 composite range at WR, OL, DE, and DB. And we’re probably going for one more from each of those positions (possibly two at WR/DB).
I’m also not too worried about any more defections in this class, assuming BK stays as HC. Not saying it couldn’t happen — this is recruiting after all. I just think we’ve got a ton of rock-solid commits in this class, and the guys we might be worried about have given no signs of really looking elsewhere up to this point.
I agree, I think the class is going to stick together. Jeter is most probably an outlier – he was a surprise commitment even for the staff, and it seems like somebody (cough cough) got in his ear and fed him stuff to say, since other recruits have come out and said they have no idea what he’s talking about.
There are some plus guys in this class. Including what Tyler’s hinting at (we’re such teases!), this could end up being one of the best Irish DB classes in a very long time. Bryan Driskell at Rivals thinks Lugg is behind just Sarell and Trey Smith in terms of upside in this class. Hainsey and Brock Wright are top 100 players. Ewell is a really good get at DT, the kind of talent we have trouble pulling. I love the LB class. DE is going to be filled with projects, and WR is probably going to be filled with “potential” guys too but (a) we can afford some busts there and (b) the staff has shown themselves to be pretty good at picking those guys. At RB, man, I really like CJ Holmes. I think he’s going to be a fun one to watch.
I agree that we’ll probably end up ranked around the same as the last couple of years, absent a five-star surprise that could push us into the top ten. Other than missing an instant contributor at WDE, though, I really like the composition of this class.
Speaking of really good DBs, did anyone ever confirm whether Grant Delpit actually made it to campus with Hainsey? I would guess you are referring to Graham, but the more IMG guys we can get to campus the better.
Yes, Delpit was on campus
Delpit did make it, enjoyed the visit but didn’t seem blown away. A flip seems unlikely at this point but not impossible, just like time travel or anti-gravity devices.
Kind of what I figured. Thanks.
Thanks to you both – I appreciate y’all providing the perspective. Reading the (at least free) stuff on the ND sites really keeps things a little too rah rah for my tastes, because it seems like all of our reporters think 80%+ of our recruits are at least slightly underrated all of the time, which clearly cannot be the case (and, based on recent on-field results, definitely is not the case). I will be a little more optimistic than I was this morning though; I guess the future is all we have to go on at this point anyways.
Heh.
For the Class of 2017, I would say we have a few guys that are a little underrated, but for the most part I think they’re pretty accurate.
I actually think Drew White should be rated a couple hundred spots higher in the 247 composite. He’s at #898 right now, and I’ve heard part of the reason for that is that he didn’t go to any of the summer camps run by a certain site.
I think CJ Holmes is better than the #295 player in the country. I consider him a Top 200 talent, but then again he was injured for most of The Opening and he’s from CT. Totally understandable why he’s not higher.
And Jordan Pouncey has been having a really, really good senior season. He’s probably due for a boost from his #671 spot.
Other than that, I don’t think I would try to make much of a case for anyone else to get any kind of significant bump. Solid class we’ve got built up right now, but not a lot of star power.
I believe another contributor (initials EM) believes Hinnish is underrated.
I mean, you look at guys like Stepherson, Studstill, Love, and Jamir Jones, who are all seeing a good amount of play as 3-star true freshmen and it’s a little easier to believe we have some underrated guys in the fold. Obviously some of that has been necessity, but you see guys like Steph and Love playing over older players. You see this mostly with skill position guys, which I think is because it’s easier to distinguish the elite linemen and big skill guys by height/weight and athleticism.
“this could end up being one of the best Irish DB classes in a very long time”
I really hope this proves true.