Notre Dame’s 2025 recruiting class officially got underway 592 days ago when Miami defensive tackle Davion Dixon gave a verbal commitment to the school. For this recruiting cycle, the early signing period was moved up and away from bowl/playoff season and begins this Wednesday, December 4th while running through Friday, December 6th.
Last year, the Irish had a quiet 2024 recruiting cycle but these things rarely last forever. If you haven’t experienced ups and down as a fan you haven’t been following recruiting long enough. This class that is about to sign was full of a lot more drama and offered a lot more promise once upon a time.
Notre Dame’s 2025 Recruiting Class
Class Size: Welcome to the 105 Era
In case you missed it, the NCAA removed the headcount scholarship sports and increased scholarship limits for sports based on roster size. For football, programs are allowed an additional 20 scholarships to fill up 105 roster spots beginning with next year’s 2025-26 academic season. That means this incoming 2025 recruiting class will be the first freshmen as a part of this new system.
We may see freshmen high school classes grow in size but the early signs, at least for Notre Dame, are little change so far. In fact, the 24-man class for 2025 is right around the average size for Notre Dame from 2022-24–adding Schmidt yesterday just bumped it over the actual average. From a national perspective, Syracuse (33 commits) is the only program in the country right now with 30 or more verbals.
As mentioned in a previous scholarship article here at 18S, we’d expect the increase to 105 to mostly help walk-ons to become scholarship athletes while it may give the coaching staff a little more freedom to find a couple more pieces in the transfer portal.
Flip SZN: Breakfast for 5
Last year’s class was pretty stable and we didn’t see a big industry around Notre Dame trying to flip some players down the stretch. For 2025, a few more names flipped over to the Irish including the following: receiver/athlete Antavious Richardson from USF, offensive lineman Cameron Herron from Iowa, quarterback Blake Hebert from Clemson, running back Nolan James from Boston College, and kicker Erik Schmidt from Wisconsin.
The Losses: Less Fun
Notre Dame lost 7 commits from this cycle:
S Ivan Taylor (0.9677)
QB Deuce Knight (0.9860)
TE Nate Roberts (0.9328)
DE CJ May (0.8894)
WR Shaun Terry (0.8828)
RB Daniel Anderson (0.8800)
RB Justin Thurman (0.8875)
Taylor committed to Alabama, Knight has committed to Auburn (but continues to flirt with Ole Miss), Roberts gave a verbal to Ohio State, May committed to Louisville, Terry committed to Missouri, Anderson has yet to pick a new school since leaving Notre Dame’s class on October 3rd, while Thurman has given a verbal to Kansas.
Freeman Impact: The Gem Finder
Notre Dame continues to struggle to break through into the elite recruiting programs under Marcus Freeman. Last year’s class bounced back and forth before landing at 9th in the Composite rankings while the Irish sit at 12th nationally today just a smidge ahead of Oklahoma. The current average recruit ranking also sits at 90.48 points, the first time since the 2021 class that Notre Dame has dipped below 91 points on average according to the 247 points system.
Adding More Talent:
In addition to Daniel Anderson mentioned above, the following listed players have a scholarship offer from Notre Dame but remain uncommitted this week:
RB Jayshon Limar (0.8478)
WR Jayce Cora (0.8700)
DE Zahir Mathis (0.9571)
DE Sharlandiin Strange (0.8833)
DE Andrew Hines (0.8514)
DT Isaiah Campbell (0.9825)
DT Tyler Parker (0.8385)
LB Madden Faraimo (0.9679)
LB Nathaniel Owusu-Boateng (0.9499)
ATH Michael Terry III (0.9789)
ATH Jett White (0.8808)
The Irish have faded with Owusu-Boateng after his visit last month which stinks. It looks like he’ll be deciding between Michigan, Colorado, or Texas. Notre Dame was hoping for good things to happen with Faraimo but as of this writing, he was trending towards USC following another visit this past weekend for the Notre Dame game.
There was hope that wide receiver Derek Meadows (0.9463) would come back into the picture with Notre Dame but he remains committed to LSU while figuring things out with a potential flip to Michigan or Alabama.
There was a flip chance for tight end Andrew Olesh (0.9692) after he visited but that too has faded.
Florida verbal and defensive tackle Jalen Wiggins (0.9378) visited last month and could be a flip down the stretch. However, it seems more likely he sticks with the Gators or flips to Florida State instead.
Most Underrated Prospect: Ko’o Kia
I don’t have a great reason for why Kia isn’t more highly rated. He didn’t get a ton of attention from schools east of the Mississippi but that’s not unusual for a Hawaiian prospect. Still, along with Notre Dame he had offers from Oregon, Texas, and USC among several other quality power programs.
A Hawaiian visiting with snow on the ground: good vibes.
Kia has really impressive explosiveness and has the archetype of a fast, modern linebacker. His older brother also came back from a mission and was playing well above expectations for Notre Dame before suffering an injury earlier this season. Further, Kia plays at a nationally recognized high school like Punahou–it’s bizarre to me that he’s not even on the radar as a top linebacker in this class.
Strengths: Secondary
Adding more depth was important for 2025 with Xavier Watts and Benjamin Morrison destined for NFL Draft greatness, although the remaining talent level in the Irish secondary is strong enough that this cycle didn’t need to be a major hit. However, the core of Golden, Blair, Zackery, and Richardson (he could potentially play DB) is a tremendous core for this class and there’s a lot to like with Thomas and Long, too. It might not have been a home run type of positional grade for the secondary but it’s very good talent and numbers coming in soon.
Weaknesses: Wide Receiver
Everyone saw this coming all cycle long, and it remains depressing. Richardson is a complete burner with impressive speed and he’ll be needed at receiver for the Irish, although most of his other offers were as a defensive back. We’ll see how things pan out with the famous names of Burress and Bettis. There’s an interesting case to buy low with this group, however, this was a disappointing and frustrating cycle for this position that puts a ton of pressure on the 2026 class.
# of Early Enrollees: 12
It’s pretty much who isn’t enrolling early these days, isn’t it? The following are set to be taking classes and lifting weights with the program in January:
QB Blake Hebert
RB Nolan James
WR Elijah Burress
WR Jerome Bettis, Jr
WR Antavious Richardson
OL Owen Strebig
OL Matty Augustine
OL Cameron Herron
DL Davion Dixon
CB Cree Thomas
S Jadon Blair
S Ethan Long
It’s tough to predict how things will look in the spring in the transfer portal era. However, Notre Dame could potentially have an overwhelming amount of players to use on offense when practices begin in 2025.
According to reports, Hebert will be practicing with the team during playoff prep (like Carr did last year except the Irish were getting ready for the Sun Bowl and not a home playoff game).
Notre Dame’s Predicted Final Team Ranking for 2025: 14th
We should mention that Will Black is a massive recruit and On3’s no. 2 overall recruit which makes him one of the top players to sign with Notre Dame in recent memory. Unfortunately, it’s fair to say that this 2025 class as a whole is far too disappointing. To put things into perspective to see where the bar is set–Georgia has 5 commits ranked higher than Will Black in the Composite, while Alabama and Texas each have 4 apiece.
It’s difficult not to look past the lack of hype with the class on offense, with the aforementioned receiver situation, a re-setting and loss of both running back verbals, and with late flips to fill up the class at both running back and quarterback.
Three or four players who develop into stars in a class can change perceptions real quick, though. Can the Irish find them from this 2025 haul? I’m doubtful of that happening and the more likely route is this class comes through with 8 to 12 really quality players most of whom rise into starting roles down the line. Soon, we’ll turn our attention to 2026.
Of course Will Block is an OL
Just now realized his name is Will Black.
I thought you knew it but were being clever. Either way, he will forever be Will Block to me now. It’s too perfect.
Nope, I just read it early in the morning and it was small font above and it worked to well for it to not be true.
Eric another great write up! However I must take exception to using a pic from the 2023 Clemson game as the header smh lol
Kind of incredible that we got a dynamic, telegenic young coach who appears to be quite competent and is leading the team to 11-1 and the playoff, and recruiting is in such a mid place. 2026 doesn’t look much better right now either.
Occam’s razor is that our NIL situation for high school recruits is bad, notwithstanding some (hints in) reporting to the contrary around Meadows. It’s very odd to me that so little reporting is done around NIL so that we just have to tea-leaf read around this.
It sounds like we had somewhat/mostly caught up in NIL, even with high schoolers. But with a probable big shift coming in the near future with maybe something like a salary cap type situation, schools are just going HAM right now while there are still no rules, which obviously ND is either morally opposed or too slow, probably both as that’s been where we have lived in CFB for the past 2 decades.
So first we hire Freeman and it looks like we are finally catching up in recruiting. Then NIL comes and we aren’t competitive at first. Then we catch up there, just as everyone else steps up to another level. Next I’m sure we will manage to be 1-2 years behind the curve after the next new legislation changes things.
Salary cap ? There’s no players union. Good luck enforcing that.
Many changes would be needed, but it’s talked about a lot as the direction things are going.
My understanding is that it’d be a salary cap for revenue sharing from the schools, but players would still be able to get “NIL” that doesn’t count toward the cap.
Yeah. I think that proposal is officially in the works. Not sure on the time frame. ~$23 mil/team. Will be interesting once it’s finalized what the rules are around it.
As far as NIL goes, I see no way it ever truly goes away. As it is hard to tell people they aren’t allowed to make money on their own.
I imagine it will shift over time to something that more resembles how pro teams deal with endorsements. I don’t know how that really works, but maybe something in the CBAs deals with endorsements vs salary.
So any true team salary cap is not coming tomorrow. But having schools actually pay players is a pretty big step in the direction of them being employees and able to unionize. So it’s not crazy to assume some type of CBA is on the horizon.
And makes sense that if teams are worried they will be restricted from paying players in the future, they would go all in now.
Maybe that’s not even correct. Just something I’ve heard thrown around about some of the insane NIL payouts happening this year. Could just be normal growth in bidding wars.
Most 2025 recruiting, for ND in particular, was locked up before the season even started. If there’s a bump coming for current performance (as I expect), it will be for 2026.
Really don’t understand your comment about ’26. We’re off to a very good start there.
Obviously it’s early days in the 2026 class, but right now it seems we’re the leader/presumed landing spot for zero top-100 composite recruits in that class (and we have zero top-100 composite recruits committed).
I’m sure we’ll end up with some either based on new interest and/or recruiting rankings reshuffling, we always do, but right now the class feels like the way the 2025 class did at this stage rather than the prior Freeman classes.
I might be misreading it and I’m just looking at the surface level, not what the insiders are saying on 247, but I saw we’re crystal balled for 2 top 100 recruits (top 20 safety and currently have 2 top 200 commits, plus I trust Mickens pick on the DB who just committed.
Who knows, I try not to care too much until they actually get to campus. It’s too hard to care for me when it’s so far out.
Yeah in short the CBs are more optimistic than recent message board insider chatter. Womack in particular is CB’d to ND but we’re really apparently not the leader there, sadly.
That makes sense, that’s fair. Here’s hoping that turns around.
On 247 ND is ranked #12 as of Tues. night. 8 SEC teams and 3 Big# teams ahead of them. The usual suspects all. What’s so hard to figure out ?
I think the big issue is ND missed on pretty much all of their top recruits from
june 1st on. This was at a time they went on a heater of a season, had a top 5 scoring offense and defense. I don’t expect nd to be top 5 but probably do expect them to hit on a lot of their top prospects, guys who aren’t necessarily top 20 guys from the south but actual program fits and still missed
Honest question(s)….If you were a 5 star recruit and the most important thing in your life (right or wrong) was football, would you choose to go to ND where you are required to attend legitimate in person classes or go to a school where you can take online classes? I personally believe there are more than a handful of 5 stars who qualify academically and would be just fine at ND. But if you can go to another school and focus 75% of your time on football, if not more, why choose ND?
To me, that’s the biggest hurdle ND faces even with an energetic young head coach who is incredibly relatable to today’s recruits.
Because someone responsible pulled you aside and showed you the chance of success in making football your career.
I don’t disagree. But how many 18 year olds does that resonate with. They all think they are going to the NFL regardless of what someone responsible tries to explain to them. So why choose a place where I have to invest at least an equal amount of time to school as I do football. I’m not pushing for online classes, but I do think its a turn off and is a giant obstacle for a lot of blue chippers who have offers to go anywhere they want.
I agree that it’s almost certainly a giant obstacle.
That said, I don’t want it to change. We’re already on a road to where a college football team is like the janitors at a university, ie., employees that happen to wear the university logo on their uniforms. The team members will have no connection to the student body whatsoever.
When I was at ND, I knew players on both the football and basketball players because they scattered them through the dorms. My understanding is that is practice today. It’s always been cool for me to think that those are real students out there, just like me. If they become a professional minor league football team, I have no relation to those players, other than that they wear the logo. I don’t want that.
I am not an alum, but I do not want it to change it either. That’s a great, unique aspect of Notre Dame. It’s what makes Notre Dame, Notre Dame. But I think it’s naive to think it doesn’t have a huge impact on recruiting the best of the best. ND will always get a 5 star or a handful of very high 4 stars here and there that genuinely love football but also recognizes that it’s not the be all end all. I think the fans need to accept that. I’d be willing to bet a large sum of money that if CMF was at good ole’ State U. he would be reeling in high 4 and 5 stars at a high clip. It’s “Choose Hard” for a reason….
Totally, absolutely, and one million % on board with this sentiment, Cubs fanQ
lol good luck with that
Is it possible the money being promised to these top high school kids is getting “silly” in NDs eyes? I see on the latest II podcast, the trio talking about portal players ND is after being better than just fill ins. They hinted they know some names and we might too, when divulged. Is ND, right now, figuring out the balancing act between HS recruits and portal players? Does ND feel promising HS seniors 7 figures$, before they’ve proven anything, is just asking for troubles in the locker room? If ND still had Knight as of last night, how secure would you feel that he’d sign today? If he did sign, how secure would you feel of him being at ND in 14 months ?
As far as closing this fall, the 3-4 guys we’re talking of all had good looks at ND. ND worked like mad to get them. They didn’t bite. What more does ND do ? Add $100,000 ? Other than Meadows , they were long shots at the start and ND almost got there. Did ND not cast a big enough net ? IDK. Certainly the WR room is still lacking after this class. I’ll add that they landed a better RB than originally recruited and a damn good QB as well as a couple other good prospects since the summer. They didn’t stop working.
Times have changed, $$$ and the portal have made HS recruiting much different and a tad less important. You can fix things now with portal and you can screw things up, more than before, bringing in kids who are there for the wrong reasons.
I think the idea of focusing more (to an extent) on the transfer portal is probably the right idea, but I’ll be interested to see what happens in the 12 Team Playoff era. The portal opens next week and closes before the end of the year. A team could be knee deep in prepping for their 2nd round opponent while also trying to close on their top portal target. How much energy will staffs be able to dedicate to the portal? And what about the discontent you might generate in the middle of the playoffs; if ND goes out and grabs a stud DE in the portal, are Young, Traore, Burnham, and Botelho going to be upset? Is it going to cause a rift right at the worst possible time?
ND has clearly had more wins than losses in the portal, and I’m hopeful it stays that way. But it definitely makes me nervous to have all this going on at the most crucial time of the year for everybody to be locked in.
Also, while HS recruiting is of course to some degree a crap shoot, so is the portal: our #2 and #3 portal recruits (Oben and Mitchell) have been busts, whereas the guy who got the least publicity out of the portal (Clark) has arguably been the best portal player over the course of the season.
I think I heard on one of the podcasts that the portal remains open if you are still in the playoffs.
I believe (but am not certain) that this only applies to players on the playoff teams, rather than the teams themselves.
For example, ND can’t go out and get Miller Moss on January 5th, because Moss’s window will have closed.
But Jadarian Price COULD enter the portal January 5th if ND made it to the 2nd round of the playoffs. So if anything, being a playoff team may put you at more of a disadvantage, as your players are allowed to transfer later than other schools’ players.
Is the portal open to declare you are transferring or open for when you can sign a player or both. Meaning, while the portal is open, if I announce I’m leaving, do I have to pick a school while the portal is open, or can I pick a school at any time? I thought it only open to enter it.
Unless the rules have changed (and they may have!) I thought you have to enter and then transfer in this portal window if you’re NOT a graduate transfer.
I could be wrong, but I think graduate transfers can enter and transfer whenever they want.
So, you have to know where you’re going when you enter the portal ? That doesn’t seem right or fair. Not saying you’re wrong.
Unless it’s changed, you don’t have to decide your destination within the window, only your intent to transfer.
I’ve wondered about this question. I’m pro paying players, but I was shocked the Michigan QB was reportedly offered $11 million. Is a 5-star HS QB worth that much? No idea.
$11M is a pittance to Larry Ellison…
Hopefully that will go away as soon as Larry gets bored with wife #5 and moves on to younger/greener pastures.
I know Knight was probably very much selling to the highest bidder, Anderson and Thurman sounded to me, like it was mutual parting of ways. The others, was this NIL, was is program draw (Bama, Oh St)? Terry doesn’t have a ton of success to look at in the receiving core (I think the root of this is a QB issue), so I can see him questioning if he would be developed properly. However the others, we have had strong showings and mid to high draft worthy players coming out of ND in recent years. So it is a bit puzzling to me.
I was hoping we would land two of the three of Meadows, Owusu-Boateng, and Faraimo, but that hope is quickly fading. The longer those signings stretch out though, the more hope I have.
Is there a way to track who has officially signed? Also, is this the year where the “signing” is them just signing their financial aid paperwork, or are they still doing NLI?
https://fightingirish.com/fb2425-nsd/
If they’re listed there, they’ve signed.
Thank you!
For what it’s worth, composite scores of players by class.
Was it you who was the person who figured out .92 composite score is a really important threshold? Whoever figured that out deserves some flowers, as it is a really clarifying way of looking at recruiting. IIRC it’s basically if you’re above that you’re more likely than not to become a starter/contributor and if not you’re more likely than not to be a non-contributor (but of course plenty of exceptions in both camps).
Find Bruce Heggie.
Red spot in 2010 class?
Yuuup.
On the bright side, that chart goes from right to left, chronologically.
Faraimo added.
I think we’re in a frustrating place. CMF is recruiting better than Kelly, but we’re still a step behind our competitors.
Faraimo signs with the Fighting Irish!!
He saw the USC game and wanted a chance to score some TDs
Could somebody please put the sky back where it belongs ?
It’s a good day when a Polynesian LB picks us over USC! Tends to go well for all involved.
You can’t find 3 or 4 stars in this class? Will Black, Dallas Golden, Jim Flanigan. There, found ’em. Plenty of others with potential, too.