Going back to our Vox Media days we’ve been handing out grades to each player in the incoming recruiting classes but it wasn’t until 2013 that we unveiled a more codified grading system. You can read our 2020 class overview for more information on said system.
I thought it would be a neat idea to look at my personal grades for players over the last 8 years and see what went right, what went wrong, and everything in between.
One thing to mention as we break down the offense today and the defense at a later date. I am 100% the grumpy grader. Putting this all together it’s pretty clear at times it’s quite excessive at times. For example, there were 38 players over 8 years of recruiting where I was at least 3 points off the average from our team of writers. My grade was lower 34 times!
In my defense, 60% of those lower picks come on the defensive side of the ball. You can usually count on me to hand out one really low grade on defense each cycle.
Anyway, let’s take a look at the offense.
(Writer average in parentheses)
Quarterback
Phil Jurkovec – 95 (93)
Brandon Wimbush – 94 (94)
Malik Zaire – 88 (90)
Avery Davis – 87 (84)
Ian Book – 86 (86)
DeShone Kizer – 83 (85)
Brendon Clark – 83 (82)
Drew Pyne – 79 (81)
Plus/minus difference of 3 points: Avery Davis (+3)
Overachievers: Ian Book, DeShone Kizer
Underachievers: Brandon Wimbush, Malik Zaire
I had no idea I liked Davis so much more than the rest of our group. The fact that he didn’t even stay at quarterback looks bad now but he did excel for one of the best high schools in the country. Size was always an issue but it’s clear he’s more of an 84-type of player today than 87.
For now, we’ll give Jurkovec a TBD but for someone who was the highest rated quarterback by me (and 2nd highest by the group) it’s trending in the wrong direction. Part of me feels bad to put Wimbush in the underachiever category but he did lose his job and fell off a cliff after a transfer to UCF this season. It feels like Zaire’s career was so much longer and more experienced than it really was…he threw just 154 passes (98 while at Notre Dame) and 6 touchdown passes.
I know what you’re thinking, will incoming 2021 recruit Tyler Buchner receiver the highest grade from this list?? I can’t wait to find out!
Running Back
Chris Tyree – 96 (96)
Greg Bryant – 96 (95)
Dexter Williams 91 (90)
Tarean Folston – 90 (91)
C.J. Holmes – 88 (89)
Kyren Williams – 88 (89)
Tony Jones – 86 (89)
Jafar Armstrong – 86 (87)
Jahmir Smith – 85 (86)
Josh Adams – 84 (86)
C’Bo Flemister – 81 (83)
Deon McIntosh – 78 (81)
Plus/minus difference of 3 points: Tony Jones (-3), Deon McIntosh (-3)
Overachievers: Josh Adams
Underachievers: Greg Bryant (RIP)
I famously slept on Tony Jones during the outrage of him being dropped down to a 3-star by one of the services following a nice showing at The Opening. Although, in retrospect his biggest strength coming out of IMG was supposed to be his hands and he only finished his Notre Dame career with 27 catches.
The short Irish career of McIntosh looked like he was well on his way to proving me wrong. After transferring to Washington State he put up 224 yards on 33 touches from scrimmage this past season which is pretty solid.
C.J. Holmes is now at Penn State and was converted to a safety. Would he have made a difference in the Irish backfield this past season?
In my opinion, Josh Adams remains the best running back of the Kelly era. Enough said.
Obviously, the short life of Greg Bryant remains so tragic. On the field, we waited so long for him to break out and it’s almost shocking to look back and see only 57 carries and 303 yards in his career.
Let’s hope Tyree lives up to the hype.
Tight End
Alize Mack – 96 (96)
Michael Mayer – 96 (96)
Brock Wright – 95 (95)
Cole Kmet – 91 (92)
Nic Weishar – 88 (91)
Mike Heuerman – 88 (88)
Durhan Smythe – 88 (88)
Tyler Luatua – 87 (88)
Kevin Bauman – 87 (86)
Tommy Tremble – 87 (86)
George Takacs – 86 (87)
Plus/minus difference of 3 points: Nic Weishar (-3)
Overachievers: Tommy Tremble
Underachievers: Nic Weishar, Brock Wright, Mike Heuerman
Imagine taking a flier on a raw tight end? Not at Notre Dame, folks. If you are recruited to South Bend at this position you are expected to make an impact.
It may be presumptive to put Tremble in the overachieving category already but if he stays for the next three seasons he’s probably going over 1,000 career receiving yards.
Mike Heuerman–who was profiled in this excellent piece by WNDU about his battles with injuries and addiction–had to medically retire without ever catching a pass for the Irish. Weishar was really well thought of by our writers and while he played a lot he finished with only 18 catches while becoming a blocker for most of his career. The same can be said for Brock Wright who only has 4 catches to date and doesn’t look like he’ll be primed to catch a bunch more throughout the rest of his career.
I hesitated to put Alize Mack as an underachiever although I’m sure many will say he didn’t live up to the hype. Still, he finished with 68 receptions and 716 yards in just 3 years. He didn’t reach the heights of 2019 Cole Kmet but Mack finished his career with 8 more catches.
Wide Receiver
Jordan Johnson – 97 (96)
Kevin Austin – 96 (95)
Justin Brent – 93 (93)
Braden Lenzy – 92 (93)
Javon McKinley – 92 (92)
C.J. Sanders – 92 (91)
Xavier Watts – 90 (91)
Equanimeous St. Brown – 89 (91)
Chase Claypool – 89 (90)
Jalen Guyton – 88 (89)
James Onwualu – 87 (88)
Michael Young – 87 (86)
Tariq Bracy – 87 (85)
Lawrence Keys – 87 (84)
Kendall Abdur-Rahman – 86 (86)
Torii Hunter – 86 (86)
Miles Boykin – 85 (89)
Corey Holmes – 85 (88)
Jay Brunelle – 85 (85)
Cam Hart – 82 (82)
Kevin Stepherson – 81 (84)
Will Fuller – 80 (85)
Corey Robinson – 80 (82)
Micah Jones – 79 (81)
Plus/minus difference of 3 points: Lawrence Keys (+3), Miles Boykin (-4), Corey Holmes (-3), Kevin Stepherson (-3), Will Fuller (-5!!)
Overachievers: Corey Robinson, Will Fuller, Kevin Stepherson, Miles Boykin, James Onwualu
Underachievers: Justin Brent, Javon McKinley, C.J. Sanders, Jalen Guyton
Okay, I’m just going to say that in my defense I remember there being precious little film available on Will Fuller and we didn’t know all that much about him when he signed. Either way, he is by far the biggest recruiting miss for me and for many others, as well. Of course, Stepherson was Fuller 2.0 in many ways so that’s another miss.
For some reason, I liked Keys a lot more than the group. I can’t really put my finger on why that was even a few years later. Normally, we tend to shy away from the really small receivers (see Stepherson, Kevin and Fuller, Will).
This is a really nice group of overachievers, all of these players put together at least one really high level season, including Onwualu who came in as a receiver but finished with 145 tackles at linebacker.
Brent flip-flopped between receiver and running back while garnering 0 touches from scrimmage at Notre Dame before making 27 tackles as a safety at Nevada. McKinley totaled 268 yards and 4 scores this year for his first career numbers but a lot of that was garbage time production and we’re not sure he’s coming back for a fifth year.
I may be rough on Sanders who had 2,019 kick return yards and 323 punt return yards at Notre Dame but he only finished with 315 yards from scrimmage before transferring to SMU. Guyton was gone in a blink of an eye at Notre Dame without registering any stats for the Irish. To be fair, he lit it up in two years at North Texas with 1,580 receiving yards.
Offensive Line
Tommy Kraemer – 96 (96)
Zeke Correll – 95 (95)
Quenton Nelson – 94 (94)
Tosh Baker – 93 (95)
Parker Boudreaux – 92 (91)
Hunter Bivin – 92 (91)
John Montelus – 91 (92)
Josh Lugg – 90 (94)
Liam Eichenberg – 90 (93)
Steve Elmer – 90 (92)
Tristen Hoge – 90 (91)
Michael Carmody – 88 (87)
Andrew Kristofic – 87 (89)
Aaron Banks – 87 (88)
Alex Bars – 86 (91)
Robert Hainsey – 86 (89)
Jarrett Patterson – 86 (86)
Quinn Carroll – 85 (87)
Jimmy Byrne – 85 (85)
Trevor Ruhland – 83 (84)
Mike McGlinchey – 83 (83)
John Olmstead – 83 (83)
John Dirksen – 82 (83)
Sam Mustipher – 81 (87)
Luke Jones – 81 (82)
Colin McGovern – 80 (83)
Cole Mabry – 78 (83)
Dillon Gibbons – 78 (80)
Plus/minus difference of 3 points: Josh Lugg (-4), Liam Eichenberg (-3), Alex Bars (-5), Robert Hainsey (-3), Sam Mustipher (-6), Cole Mabry (-5)
Overachievers: Sam Mustipher, Mike McGlinchey
Underachievers: Parker Boudreaux, Hunter Bivin, John Montelus, Tristen Hoge
Judging by our numbers, it’s usually pretty easy to figure out which offensive linemen won’t make an impact. From the bottom ten listed above you have a pair of multi-year starters and one journeyman (Ruhland) who started a few games this past year due to injuries.
Hunter Bivin always seemed on the cusp of making an impact across his 5 years but only made 1 start which is unbelievable. He’s now the Director of Player Development for the Irish which is pretty cool. Things didn’t work out for Boudreaux but he’s a starter at UCF now. Montelus wasn’t much of a factor at Notre Dame then made 10 starts his final year at Virginia, while Hoge left Notre Dame and just finished up his career at BYU with a handful of career starts.
The McGlinchey grade looks silly in retrospect but some will remember how incredibly raw and undeveloped he was prior to coming to South Bend. That he made 39 starts and became a 1st round pick for the 49ers is a really cool story compared to a lot of the other big time Notre Dame prospects.
So what you are telling me is that this freshmen class has some of the best prospects we’ve had in the last 7 years since there are players from that class in the top portion of all positions here. I hope you are right!
Very brave to go back and own the hits and misses, it’s also impossible to predict how careers will go but fun to take peeks back especially with all the data and history that you guys have. Great stuff.
What stands out to me is not hitting on a QB in the last decade, from Quinn to Clausen in the ’00’s it was so much better than the ’10s.
And how tough it is to predict the futures of the WR’s. Several of the better looking prospects didn’t amount to a lot. Some of the lower rated guys had NFL futures (Fuller, Boykin) or could have if not for off field issues (Stepherson). Seems weird that the WR position is so difficult to know in HS, which isn’t an indictment on these rankings but speaking more towards just the huge volatility of how unpredictable college career paths at that position can be.
Think you could make an argument Nelson overachieved even with a score of 94. Probably be a 99 in retrospect, right?
And in the flip side would argue Kramer underachieved. He would have the highest score of the kelly era (including Stanley and the martins) and he won’t be one of the 10 best lineman.
Either way I always enjoy these macro retrospective looks at recruiting and Nd football in general
I’d buy that RE: Nelson. Being as the 90-94 range is “Multi-year starter with All-conference level potential”. So he was expected to be right on the edge of All American, ended up being by far the best lineman in the country, arguably in a very long time. That’s an over-achieve even with a high bar set.
https://www.southbendtribune.com/tncms/asset/editorial/80c00412-2dc6-11ea-a9fb-2b017b5b1c60/
Speaking of recruiting, this story is a little frustrating. II had some similar inside info last week. Kelly needs to step up effort on the recruiting trail for a shot at being elite.
I saw that too — this new info seems to contradict those statements last week about BK’s aspirations to make ND a top 5-10 recruiting program.
I’m not sure what to make of that article. On one hand it’s incredibly disappointing, adding McMillan would have been the top two wr of the kelly era (plus watt, who a lot of people really like) and random would have been maybe second best db recruit. I mean this changes this class A LOT. And if head coach communication and willingness to grind was the only difference, that sucks and would make you wonder what other top prospects he may have had them miss on.
On the other hand what did his comments mean last week, what changed about his ceiling for the program recruiting wise? With his more hands off approach to offense and defense does that mean he’s going to get out there and recruit? I think he’d be really good I just don’t see that changing 10 years in
Feels like it’s been a pretty newsworthy week all things considered but will be interesting to see if they’d kick the tires at all on Harry Hiestand at o line or joe Moorhead at OC. Feel like a couple of those changes I’d talk myself back into next season and kmets loss not being that big
FWIW Sampson said there was “very little interest” by Hiestand on a return to Notre Dame, so it doesn’t sound like that has any traction.
Moorhead would be interesting and worth a call, for sure. Shane Waldron as an up-and-comer in the NFL and a former Irish GA is probably the ideal external candidate IMO, but it seems like he’s angling for NFL promotion.
It’s also interesting to reflect on in comparison to St. Brown’s dad’s comments concerning Amon Ra’s recruitment by Kelly, where he basically said Kelly made it incredibly hard to choose against ND.
It seems that BK picks and chooses a very small handful of specific guys he is interested in each year, and the rest he lets come to him, and he’s pretty good at selling once they’re on campus. I think that will have to change to a (much) more active role if he wants to get to that top-5 level with any consistency.
I won’t question what the two players said but, I don’t believe much of what Lemming said. My experience with him is he’ll say what he thinks his audience wants to hear. Also, how many times have we read what great relationships the recruits have with the ND coaches ? Each kid is different, each case is different. Also, ND is different in many ways, than some of these other schools.
There have been a number of guys each year for the last few years who have said similar things (Tom Loy typically posts those kinds of rumors/nuggets the day after signing day for II subscribers; not sure why that info isn’t presented in real time, but whatever).
I think the only possible justification for the approach is that maybe BK thinks that guys who need that level of attention aren’t worth the trouble. But, as somebody below pointed out, Tyree and Johnson more or less fell into that category, but Long made it happen.
“Gary Berry is having the time of his life!”
Tom Lemming can go fist himself with the $700 some-odd I paid him via his 900 number back in 1996.
Now that I have had an Irish Illustrated subscription for a few years, I’m realizing that this is a trend and not one-offs from frustrated recruits. BK is a medium-effort recruiter. If they want to step up their recruiting results, the first step is for Kelly to turn into a high-effort recruiter. He’s a good salesman when he wants to be; the issue (for top-level recruiting purposes) is that he doesn’t with the frequency of other coaches, as this article basically states.
I can buy that. From what I’ve read it seems like Notre Dame wasn’t really on either of Johnson or Tyree’s radar at all until Chip Long basically wouldn’t take no for an answer and sold them on how ND needed them. Obviously the program was able to hold the commitments after Long’s departure, but it still is going to take that dogged recruiter to find fits and right players who may not be predisposed to be the naturally interested prospects.
I would assume if Kelly has aspirations to get top 5 recruiting classes he would realize the change starts with his approach and how it’s going to have to be his inputs to get there.
McGlinchey was a top 200 composite player. That seems like he must have been at least a little developed.
True, but he was like 260 lbs as a freshman.
An eye opening story in the SBT about recruiting. A lot of people say that academics and fit are the main reasons (and it probably is to some extent) for ND not recruiting with the big boys. This story challenges that view. https://www.ndinsider.com/recruiting/explaining-notre-dame-s-two-toughest-misses-in-the-recruiting/article_6eef15ae-7f01-5030-b9f5-65aa6b1f2a3d.html
Thanks — but the SB Tribune blocks access from outside the US (well, in France anyway). Who wrote it, maybe I can get on to it that way.
Carter Karels
Thanks!
I sense a theme that you and the staff tend to undervalue raw prospects who are especially talented at multiple sports (DeShone Kizer with baseball, Mike McGlinchey with basketball). If I remember correctly, there is evidence to suggest that these are exactly the types of athletes who will outperform expectations at the collegiate level. Perhaps something to keep in mind for future evaluations!