Proving that he is in a better state of mind regarding the Irish program than many of its fans, Donovan Jeter announced his commitment to Notre Dame this morning. Jeter is Notre Dame’s 18th commitment from the class of 2017. The 247 Composite ranks the 6’4″/255-pounder as the #276 overall player and #12 strong-side defensive end in his class. Jeter is an early enrollee.
Want to thank everyone that helped with the decision.. but here it is 😬 pic.twitter.com/yR3VYkEzM8
— 5⃣God (@JeteNificent34) September 19, 2016
Recruiting Service Rankings
247 — 4 star (91 rating), #237 overall, #8 SDE, #6 in PA
Rivals — 4 star (5.8 rating), NR overall, #14 DT, NR in PA
Scout — 4 star, NR overall, #29 DE, #7 in PA
ESPN — 4 star (80 rating), NR overall, #28 DE, #9 in PA
247 Composite — 4 star (.8982), #276 overall, #12 SDE, #8 in PA
Cohort
Jeter holds offers from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Michigan, Miami, Michigan State, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio State, Ole Miss, Penn State, Pitt, South Carolina, Stanford, Tennessee, UCLA, West Virginia, and Wisconsin, among others. Whether all those are committable offers or no, that’s still a very impressive list.
Highlights
Something to keep in mind here is that these are junior season highlights, with Jeter about 40 pounds heavier than he is now. He’s playing a different role for his team this year, so he trimmed down and presumably added some quickness. We’ll have to keep an eye out for new highlights to compare this year and last. With that out of the way…
Power, intelligence, and tenacity. Those are the three things that really jumped out for me in this video. Jeter is strong – he flings kids out of the way, he pulls ball carriers to the ground with the tiniest bit of jersey in his hand, he blows up blocks like he’s swatting mosquitoes. But he’s not all cattle and no hat; he shows remarkable patience and discipline on misdirection plays, and stays home to ensure that a reversing ball carrier or screen recipient is met by a large unblocked body. And he’s tenacious getting after the ball carrier, whether the play is on the other side of the field or he has been blocked already. He also shows some really good straight-line speed for a guy his size, often surprising with how quickly he can cover open ground.
I would like to see him play with a little lower base, though; especially in his three-point stance, his backside seems to be a little high sometimes, which makes it harder to win the leverage war against the offensive line. He also doesn’t show great lateral quickness here, although again, with the weight loss and normal physical development he could improve in this area this year. Finally, as we see with almost every high school prospect, he often tackles too high, but that should be fairly easy to correct at the next level.
Impact
Jeter will probably get a chance to get on the field right away in 2017, just as 2016 early enrollee defensive ends Khalid Kareem and Daelin Hayes saw action from game 1 this season. With Isaac Rochell graduating, there will be plenty of opportunity for young players to impress early. Jeter has a college-ready build, so I could see him making a meaningful contribution next year and springboarding off that to further success with the Irish. He has the potential to develop into a player like Isaac Rochell, which is better than a sharp stick in the eye. This is a big grab for the Irish staff and a nice way to cap off an unsavory weekend.
Welcome to the Irish family, Donovan!
He probably watched the defense and was like, hey, I could start right now … at DL or DB.
Given BVG’s scheme, aren’t those the same thing?
Offers from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Michigan, Miami, Michigan State, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio State, Ole Miss, Penn State, Pitt, South Carolina, Stanford, Tennessee, UCLA, West Virginia, and Wisconsin….
@…can’t wait to argue about how he wouldn’t start for any of the un-bolded teams in 3-4 years!@
Has BVG been the primary recruiter for any of our 2017 commits? Wondering if him leaving will have much of an impact on the 2017 class.
No.
From what I’ve heard, he mostly takes a back seat on the recruiting trail, aside from a few in-home visits. He also sometimes looks over film with defensive recruits when they come to visit, and they typically seem impressed by his knowledge
Like Ty says, he impresses recruits with his knowledge and his NFL resume when they’re on campus. He does go on the road very occasionally to visit a specific kid, but he doesn’t do the serious legwork that the more effective recruiters do. From what is out there on the various boards it sounds like he doesn’t reach out to kids much, either.
Currently, he’s the secondary recruiter on Bo Bauer, David Adams, and Peter Werner (Elston is the primary on all three). The only guys he’s signed as a primary are Jamir Jones and Pete Mokwuah.
An article on Jacob Phillips mentioned they talked for a while on his visit this weekend. Not sure if that’s what you mean when he meets with the recruits.
KG, I assume you meant bolded teams?
Kid’s in high school. He may never show up. Or he could be another transfer or Redfield. Let’s see him actually play at this level before we anoint him. Looks like a good recruit, but then most of them do at this stage.
No, I meant the un-bolded teams. Because it’s sarcasm. Because I found it amusing.
He’s got offers from Alabama and tOSU, but at some point we’ll be saying he isn’t good enough to start at Maryland. It is the way of the world.
Made more sense to me if it were the bolded ones IMO. I’ve never said we don’t have more talent than the Marylands of the world, and haven’t seen others post that either. But against the big boys? There’s a reason we get blown out by them. Some of its coaching, surely. Some of its relevant talent as well. These kids have been taught to tackle since grade school, but they aren’t getting it done vs the really talented guys, who are harder to bring down.
Dont you actually want to see Jeter play to see how good he is? Or whether he actually gets here? Right now the commitment has no permanency based on past experience. And lots of guys with similar offer lists don’t pan out, whether here or at Bama.
I don’t have a bone to pick with you, it’s just that I ignore most recruiting stuff because there are so many unknowns til the guy actually shows up and plays.
You are taking my comment as if I were serious. I was not. I’m poking fun at the current arguments that we’re all taking a bit too seriously because we’re all pissed over the loss. Hence, I’m exaggerating.
By the way, was there something untrue in my second paragraph?
Dude, if you want to ignore professional services that evaluate players for a living and ignore the law of large numbers, that’s your business and we can’t stop you. But please remember that many of the same defensive players under Weis who were accused of having no talent flourished under Diaco and then went to the NFL. Or do you also believe it’s only coincidence that the offensive recruits live up to their talent but the defensive recruits don’t, and that outcome has nothing to do with the coordinator?
Dude, you seem like an excellent follower. Believe all the numbers you want, that’s your business. Our best player last year was Fuller, rated a 3.
The so called professional services are selling their stuff to fans who want to believe. I prefer to believe what my eyes see. Most of those doing these ratings are just folks who created a gig for themselves.
So fine, you believe in all that, I don’t. Not sure why that rustles your jimmies, but so be it. Dude.
Best player last year was Jaylon, rated a 5. (just saying)
I should have been clear, I meant on offense. And Fuller was a true difference maker and first round pick.
This is what I mean about the player ratings. I think Kizer was a 3 or maybe low 4, Fuller a 3, Jaylon a 5, Redfield a 5. It’s sausage making. One played up to expectations, one well below, and two greatly exceeded expectations. There are many other examples, but you get the point.
I think maybe we’re talking past each other on all this class ranking stuff. My comments are couched in the assumption our goal is the national championship. If that’s the goal, you MUST recruit competitively with Bama, OSU, FSU etc. We aren’t able to get the players they can get for reasons I thought everyone knew:
1. Their coaches are much more attractive to recruits than ours are. Want to play for Saban, Meyer, Jimbo, etc, or would you rather play for Kelly?
2. Grades
3. Real classes
4. Discipline— “You can get kicked out for THAT?!?!”
If on the other hand, we just want to be competitive and relevant, winning 10 games a year, yeah we likely can do that with the talent and coaches we get, but probably not as often as many here think. What are we, 2 out of 5 starting in 2012? And Kelly is considered a significant upgrade from his immediate 3 predecessors.
This correction was given elsewhere on here but Fuller was a 4 star.
It’s not a matter of this or that player, who was a three star, being good. Classic cherry picking. Lots of them are good. Even more don’t amount to much. Of those who get ND offers, I’d bet the percentage of three stars who develop into good players is even higher (i.e., due to nonrandom differences between three stars with offers and those without). If we only got commits with Jeter’s cohort, we’d be in a much better place. Even then, some would and wouldn’t work out. But the probability of that guy working out is far greater than reaching for Turner, Hegge, etc., and hoping they’ll become Eifert or Fuller.
Side note: what’s with all the people who keep saying Fuller was a three star? Dude was clearly four stars on multiple services (http://247sports.com/Player/Will-Fuller-16054?PlayerInstitution=26675). I’m not picking on anyone here. I’ve read numerous articles that refer to this “fact.”
I prefer the composite rating to the stars because it allows for greater variation. Then again, there’s probably a fair amount of measurement error. With that said, it’s probably best at picking out the players in the tails.
Should be noted that Fuller really didn’t have a great offer list, either. So in his case, coaches actually underrated him and the recruiting services were more accurate.
Fuller was NOT a 3 star recruit. He was rated 4 stars by everyone but ESPN (who is a joke every year and almost rated him 2 stars). He was the composite #277 player in the country. He was rated top 200 by Scout and Rivals.
No, nothing untrue necessarily in your second paragraph. It had nothing to do with my joke, though, so I didn’t feel the need to respond to it.
Of course I want to see what he can do, and hope he’s a good player. Hence my comment being sarcastic, as noted by the @ and @ around it.
Waitasecond…are you being sarcastic RIGHT NOW???
Just his “and” was sarcastic. It was a sarcastic and.
I laughed way too hard at this. Well done.
Sorry, I didn’t realize you were joking.
Is it known yet if any of the 2017 recruits are going to go the EE route?
@Doesn’t matter, they all suck anyway@
Jeter is.
I want to say Brock Wright is.
I think Lugg was planning to, but his school won’t let him.
Or I may have that backwards. Anyway, I’m not sure on everyone else.
According to 247, only Hainsey, but Jeter definitely intends to enroll early also. If they confirm that someone is enrolling early, they put a little clock icon next to his name in the commitment list.
http://notredame.247sports.com/Season/2017-Football/Commits