Get ready to close the book (mostly) on the 2024 recruiting class as the Early National Signing Day/Period begins today and closes this Friday. In case you missed it, you can read our National Signing Day Primer for our beloved Fighting Irish right HERE.
In recent years, things ain’t what they used to be for Signing Day drama both around South Bend and nationally. However, this year we could see some fireworks…hopefully they stay far far away from Notre Dame’s orbit, though.
The Memorial Fax Machine Watch Party
I believe the football office no longer relies on fax machines to have National Letters of Intent signed and delivered. You can scroll through the list of Notre Dame 2024 commits in this list provided by 247 and check the players off as the officially sign.
As usual, the signing period is a heavily eastern time zone affair with a smattering of athletes ready to sign in the other time zones. Here is the full breakdown for the earliest each Irish recruit can sign on Wednesday according to eastern times:
Eastern (7 AM)
CJ Carr
Bryce Young
Guerby Lambert
Tae Johnson
Loghan Thomas
Micah Gilbert
Anyeas Williams
Sean Sevillano
Jack Larsen
Peter Jones
Styles Prescod
Karson Hobbs
Taebron Bennie-Powell
Bodie Kahoun
Anthonie Knapp
Cole Mullins
Central (8 AM)
Cam Williams
Kedren Young
Leonard Moore
Teddy Rezac
Mountain (9 AM)
Kennedy Urlacher
Pacific (10 AM)
Kyngstonn Villiamu-Asa
Logan Saldate
The Race for the #1 Class
Here’s a look at the top team recruiting classes according to the 3 big sites:
247 Composite Rankings
| RANK | TEAM | COMMITS | AVG | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Georgia | 27 | 93.31 | 310.10 |
| 2 | Ohio State | 23 | 93.10 | 299.02 |
| 3 | Alabama | 21 | 92.79 | 291.30 |
| 4 | Florida State | 23 | 91.93 | 291.04 |
| 5 | Texas | 22 | 92.30 | 287.95 |
On3 Industry Rankings
| RANK | TEAM | COMMITS | AVG | SCORE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Georgia | 28 | 91.95 | 94.097 |
| 2 | Ohio State | 22 | 92.01 | 93.327 |
| 3 | Alabama | 21 | 91.97 | 93.089 |
| 4 | Florida State | 23 | 90.81 | 92.811 |
| 5 | Texas | 22 | 91.38 | 92.673 |
Rivals Team Rankings
| RANK | TEAM | COMMITS | AVG | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ohio State | 22 | 3.95 | 2941 |
| 2 | Georgia | 27 | 3.89 | 2927 |
| 3 | Texas | 22 | 3.86 | 2850 |
| 4 | Florida State | 23 | 3.74 | 2684 |
| 5 | Alabama | 21 | 3.76 | 2659 |
Georgia has summited the top of the recruiting rankings once before in the Kirby Smart era. Can they hold on for 2024 once again?
High Profile Flip Candidates
Jeremiah Smith
WR
0.9994
Chaminade-Madonna Prep
Opa Locka, FL
The nation’s top wide receiver and overall no. 1 player in the 247 Composite has been committed to Ohio State for just over a year. While he’s visited Columbus numerous times he’s also been an active visitor of other schools, too. More specifically, the in-state powers of Florida, Florida State, and Miami have all received visits and are actively trying to flip a shaky Smith verbal to the Buckeyes.
Dylan Raiola
QB
0.9965
Buford
Buford, GA
*********EDIT: Pre-writing strikes again, Raiola flipped to Nebraska on Monday evening this week.
Let the recruiting drama of the top quarterback in 2024 according to Rivals and 247 (On3 has Raiola ranked 4th behind Alabama commit Julian Sayin, Florida commit DJ Lagway, and Florida State commit Luke Kromenhoek) fill your blackened heart with joy. In case you’ve missed how we got here, this is the full breakdown for Dylan Railoa in recent years:
As a freshman and sophomore, Railoa played for former NFL quarterback John Kitna at Burelson High School outside of Forth Worth, Texas. As a junior, he transferred to Chandler High School in the Phoenix suburbs. In the late spring of 2022, Raiola committed to Ohio State then left the Buckeyes’ class shortly before Christmas that year. At the start of 2023, he decided to transfer to Pinnacle High School 35 miles to the south but was facing a 5-game ban from the Arizona Interscholastic Association. In May of 2023, Raiola committed to Georgia and then a month later announced he’d be transferring high schools to powerhouse Buford outside of Atlanta.
Raiola’s red flags have little red flags inside of them.
Buford lost in the 3rd round of the playoffs after being held to 114 yards of total offense and in the weeks since the drama has been ratcheted up. Dylan’s father Dominic (a former Rimington winner and veteran NFL center) attended Nebraska and the family took an official visit to Lincoln last week (their 3rd visit this year) with plenty of smoke that he’ll be flipping to the Cornhuskers.
Amaris Williams
DL
0.9595
Clinton High School
Clinton, NC
The top player in the state of North Carolina, Williams has been committed to Florida since the summer. He cancelled his visit to Georgia recently which should make the Gators’ fans happy. However, he took an official visit to Ohio State back in October and is coming off an official visit to Auburn just a couple weeks ago.
Williams welcomed in-home visits from Florida and Auburn coaches this past weekend with most expecting a flip the Tigers.
LJ McCray
DL
0.9838
Mainland High School
Daytona Beach, FL
Could Florida lose a pair of blue-chip defensive linemen as Signing Day approaches? McCray hasn’t been committed to the Gators for very long (he gave a verbal back on October 21st)
In addition to Florida, McCray has taken official visits to Miami, Auburn, Georgia, and Florida State. He’s also unofficially visited all of these schools right through the fall and winter. He’s affirmed his commitment to Florida after his last round of visits to they should hold on. But if not, it could be Florida State or Auburn.
Zavier Filsaime
S
0.9856
McKinney High School
McKinney, TX
Potentially more bad news for Florida (losing your final 5 games isn’t great on the recruiting trail) as Filsaime was offered by Texas in October and has taken a pair of visits to Austin in recent weeks. A flip here seems extremely likely.
*********EDIT: He also flipped to Texas on Tuesday.
Eddrick Houston
DL
0.9880
Buford
Buford, GA
The teammate of Dylan Raiola and fellow 5-star appears to be looking around at the last minute, too. Houston picked Ohio State back in August in a close race over Alabama and Clemson. However, he’s taken recent visits to Tuscaloosa and Clemson leading up to signing day. Is he actually a flip candidate or looking for a better compensation package from Ohio State?
Georgia has a damn good 2nd QB in their class. (Ryan Puglisi)
A few notes: so Pinnacle is in North phoenix, pretty far from chandler high school (and chandler is a notoriously great program, believe urlacher there now), previous pinnacle football players include spencer rattler, tosh baker, former nd commit elijiah paige and 5 star teammate duce robinson. They were soft as hell and saw them get beat by 50 against our local high school (hey i’m sure it was a natural transition to usc, great culture fit). Anyways that year chandler got eliminated in state semi and shut down. Huge red flag for riola because in general high schools score a lot out here. Pretty sure I heard he was a year older too. like you said ton of red flags, and combined with nebraska history, definitely fading that kid.
looked it up and he turns 19 in the spring . Also they got eliminated 13-0 in az open playoffs last year. gross
Houston flipping to Bama.
OSU’s lost a few top recruits at the end here. Though their class was so strong that it’s still an elite class despite losing a couple of 5 stars.
An entire Big12 team is flipping to Alabama?! And just when I thought maybe Saben was losing a step.
All eastern and Midwest time zones commits have signed for the Irish.
Our entire Mountain time zone group is in. Just KVA and Saldate to go.
No drama 🙂
https://x.com/Marcus_Freeman1/status/1737503977544069187?s=20
24 K baby!! Tons of fun, thanks for pointing it out !
We had to create our own drama.
Which is really good — no drama on NSD, that’s my motto!
I prefer my coaches doing cringe-worthy dances with recruits instead of cool hype videos.
Dante Moore ironically transfers to Oregon despite the Ducks signing Dillon Gabriel. having Austin Novostad redshirt there a year (who replace Moore in their ’23 class) and signing a QB in their ’24 class. Despite Thompson transferring, they should have a sound QB depth chart.
Rushing signed with them. They flipped Jeremiah McClellan from Ohio State. Ducks ranked 6th with 23 signees and finishing off their 2024 with five transfers. Over two years Oregon has signed fifty-two recruits with twenty transfers in. Thirty-three of the fifty-two are blue chip recruits.
Cristobal leaving was a blessing occasioning Lanning’s hire and with many of Mario’s assistant coaches staying in Eugene and keeping that connection with recruits. Moore does not seem to have been an Early Enrollee at UCLA, so has one semester of academic credits to transfer to Oregon. Moore seems to accept that at best he will be the number two QB. We dodged a bullet there.
Kudos to the Irish staff and for a great video. I’ll have to look at Oregon State to see how the Pac 2 situation has affected them and Colorado for the Prime effect though both will continue to fill holes with transfers.
If I were Oregon I would be very happy with my coaching situation. Still needs to improve in terms of big games (which are always the hardest) and probably plenty more coaching stuff. But he is 37 and off to a great start.
Jeremiah Smith sticks with Ohio State.
……he hasn’t sent in his LOI yet……
Amaris Williams flips to Auburn.
Was just watching some SR season highlights of these guys and I’ve got a hot take.
Styles Prescod’s film looks better than Lambert’s.
The caveats: 1. I only watched about 2-3 mins of each, so maybe Lambert backloaded the best while, while Prescod front loaded them. 2. I know nothing about how to judge technique or anything around what makes someone a good prospect. 3. No idea on the level of competition.
So not suggesting Styles is or will be better. But in the couple minutes I watched, Styles is destroying kids, while Lambert is mostly falling on top of kids (in a good way).
For the Sun Bowl, Oregon State will be without their four year starter at LT, Joshua Gray, and their 1,000 rusher, Damien Martinez, in addition to their starting RT (a second string All-American) and a WR tied for most receiving yards on the team who are both declaring early for the draft. Additionally, Oregon State will also be without their starters at QB and TE, two leaders on their defense, who rank first and second in tackles, their second string QB and four other players who are transferring.
New MSU HC Jonathan Smith, has stripped the Beavers of many of their prospects. Eight recruits of MSU’s ten flips in the 2024 class are from Oregon State, where Smith spent the last six seasons leading his alma mater. Those eight former Oregon State recruits make up almost half of MSU’s eighteen signees. Two former OSU commits will be headed to East Lansing from Hawaii.
El Paso always shows out for the Sun Bowl, but especially for Notre Dame. For fans living along the latitude through the Great Lakes from Chicago to Buffalo and who are traveling there, it will be a welcome respite with a warm reception.
Warmer than last time ND played in the Sun Bowl?
The snow the night before must have made it almost magical and more special to the community. El Paso is more than 75% Catholic and more than 85% Hispanic. The impact on a smaller city, west Texas and southern NM than most that hosts bowl games will be greater and further spread its warmth towards Notre Dame.
Notre Dame football 2010 Sun Bowl appearance through the lens
Promoting El Paso for Over 84 Years – Sun Bowl Association
Why is the Sun Bowl important for El Paso? Here are 3 reasons
With they Dylan Raiola flip, the top 14 recruits by 247 (too lazy to look up consensus) are now headed to 13 different schools.
Top 20 of On3’s industry ranking has 15 different schools, Top 20 on 247 composite, 16 different schools.