A little over a year ago I published my annual Way (Way) Too Early Guess at Notre Dame’s Recruiting Class of 2020.

As always with these posts, there is a ton of projection and guesswork involved. At this point in February, the Irish are still going through some evaluations, loads of kids haven’t even started making visits as rising seniors, and it’s a little early to tell if some kids are going to qualify academically. With all that in mind, it’s still actually really impressive how bad my prediction ended up being.

via GIPHY

The Best Guess

Players in bold were correct predictions, players in italics were commits at the time of publishing my best guess.

QB —Drew Pyne

RB — Tirek Murphy

WR — Jordan Johnson, Jalen McMillan, AJ Henning

TE — Michael Mayer, Kevin Bauman

OL — Tosh Baker, Zak Zinter, Jimmy Christ, Andrew Gentry

DE — Alexander Ehrensberger, Braiden McGregor

DT — Rylie Mills, Aidan Keanaaina

LB — Cody Simon, Cullen Coleman

CB — Jalen Huff, Dontae Manning

S — Lathan Ransom, Alaka’i Gilman

The Reality

QB — Drew Pyne

RB — Chris Tyree

WR — Jordan Johnson, Xavier Watts, Jay Brunelle

TE — Michael Mayer, Kevin Bauman

OL — Tosh Baker, Michael Carmody

DE — Alexander Ehrensberger, Jordan Botelho

DT — Rylie Mills, Aidan Keanaaina

LB — None

DB — Caleb Offord, Ramon Henderson, Clarence Lewis, Landen Bartleson

LS – Alex Peitsch

The Review

Not my best work — but to be fair — the crystal ball of Notre Dame recruiting was even more hazy than usual last February. We had no idea who any realistic options were at cornerback, Lance Taylor was very recently hired as the running backs coach so we had no idea how things would go there (pretty darn well, if you were wondering), and it was oddly tough to project who Jeff Quinn was really going to push for along the OL aside from Tosh Baker and Jimmy Christ.

Going 3/16 on the uncommitted prospects in my guess is still laughably bad, though. And it should serve as a great reminder that recruiting tends to change A LOT between February and December. I’ll go ahead and break it down — position by position — and you’ll see what I mean.

QUARTERBACK

Drew Pyne committed to Notre Dame waaaay back in April of 2018 and never came close to wavering in that pledge. A couple of other programs kicked the tires on him throughout the process after his ND commitment but they never got anywhere with him.

RUNNING BACK

I’m pretty confident in saying that if Notre Dame had decided to push for 4-star Tirek Murphy, this prediction would have been correct. Once top-of-the-board target Chris Tyree committed to Notre Dame, though, the Irish were done at the position. Murphy ended up signing with Purdue.

WIDE RECEIVER

Never again will I fall into the trap of “he’s a Fresno kid but he really likes ND and he’s a great fit.” Jalen McMillan committed to Washington out of nowhere near the end of last summer, despite being in the process of setting up a fall visit to Notre Dame. He considered flipping from the Huskies after Chris Petersen announced his retirement, but stuck to his original commitment.

With every Notre Dame visit that AJ Henning took, fans kept wondering “is this when he finally pops for ND?” It never happened though. Rumors were that he might have been concerned with his own fit at Notre Dame, both cultural and academic. He ended up signing at Michigan.

Borderline five-star Jordan Johnson picked the Irish back in April of 2019. He was later joined by Jay Brunelle and Xavier Watts, who picked the Irish over Michigan and Nebraska, respectively.

TIGHT END

This position group was just as cut-and-dry as quarterback. The Irish already had blue-chip commits in Michael Mayer and Kevin Bauman. The former ended up as a five-star and the top-ranked commit in the class.

OFFENSIVE LINE

The Irish landed their top-of-the-board target in Tosh Baker. He made his way from a 3-star to a Top 100 player when all was said and done. Their next top target, Jimmy Christ, decided to stay close to home and join his older brother at Virginia — but then later flipped to Penn State.

Zak Zinter was a heavy Notre Dame lean and I’m confident he would have ended up at Notre Dame if they wanted him, but he was an interior prospect all the way and the Irish wanted to focus on prospects who could play tackle. Zinter ended up signing with Michigan.

Things kind of just fell off between Notre Dame and Andrew Gentry. He wasn’t really much of a target down the stretch, and he ended up signing with Virginia.

Michael Carmody, the younger brother of current ND basketball player Robby Carmody, joined Baker as the 2nd offensive lineman in the class and the Irish were finished at the position from there.

DEFENSIVE END

Alexander Ehrensberger committed to Notre Dame in January of 2019 and stuck with his pledge. He is currently on campus as an early enrollee and the 6’7″ German is supposedly looking pretty impressive so far.

Braiden McGregor infamously snubbed Notre Dame in favor of Michigan last summer. Leading up to a commitment event at his school, it seemed like absolutely nobody knew what he was going to do. Turns out he had been a silent commit to Michigan for weeks, never mentioned it to anybody on the ND staff, and coordinated with Michigan staff members and insiders to keep it a secret until his announcement — effectively wasting the time of Notre Dame, and maybe more notably Mike Elston (a man who McGregor himself claimed to be extremely close with). True Michigan Man™.

The Irish landed the commitment of Jordan Botelho a few weeks before McGregor’s announcement and is arguably a better prospect anyway. This guy is explosive, plays with a ton of attitude, and should be extremely fun to watch in South Bend.

DEFENSIVE TACKLE

Three star Aidan Keanaaina verbally committed to the Irish mere days before I published my best guess, otherwise I would have been 4/17 on uncommitted prospects. This is a big boy who moves really well for his size. Should make a good nose tackle.

Rylie Mills is technically listed as a defensive end by the recruiting services, but he’s destined to grow into a 3-tech. At 6’5″/280 pounds already, he could be physically ready to play this fall — although that shouldn’t be necessary.

There were no real targets left at tackle with these two in the fold.

LINEBACKER

In a move that hasn’t sat well with some in the Notre Dame fandom, the Irish decided to completely pass on signing a linebacker this cycle after taking four in the class of 2019.

Passing on Cody Simon in particular has earned the ire of some fans. The younger brother of current ND linebacker Shayne Simon ended up ranked in the Top 100 and signed with Ohio State.

Three-star Cullen Coleman decided he wanted to play running back last summer, at which point he and Notre Dame decided to part ways. Not sure if he’s open to playing defense now, but he is still listed as a LB by the recruiting services and he signed with Northwestern.

DEFENSIVE BACK

Normally I would separate corner and safety here, but the guys Notre Dame ended up landing each have some level of position flexibility and could play either spot. Clarence Lewis is probably best suited to play safety, early enrollee Caleb Offord is likely to play corner, and it’s not entirely clear which spot Ramon Henderson will play (although I’m of the opinion that he should play safety). Signee Landen Bartleson was bound to play cornerback, but he will no longer be welcome to join the Irish program after being arrested and charged with burglary, criminal mischief, and receiving stolen property last month. None of the four were really on the radar this time last year.

via GIPHY

I completely whiffed at predicting corner this cycle, although I did warn you this may happen. Jalen Huff did end up de-committing from Oklahoma, but he ended up signing with in-state Georgia Tech instead.

Dontae Manning made a huge leap in the rankings and ended up as a five-star. He originally committed to Oklahoma, then de-committed and seemed bound for Texas A&M. He ended up signing with Oregon instead, then rumors swirled about him looking to get out of his letter of intent after his position coach left for USC. It now appears he will be staying at Oregon.

This time last year, it seemed like a Notre Dame/Stanford battle for blue-chip safety Lathan Ransom. I liked those odds. Unfortunately some of the real recruiting blue-bloods started to get involved, and Notre Dame eventually ended up in second place behind Ohio State. He considered flipping once DC Jeff Hafley left to be Boston College’s head coach, but decided to stick with his OSU pledge.

I still wish Notre Dame had decided to offer Alaka’i Gilman. He’s smaller than his brother Alohi (who isn’t particularly large himself), but he’s just a player. He camped at ND last summer and looked good, but for some reason decided to forego some of the testing and chose not to run a 40-yard-dash for the coaching staff. That probably removed any chance of him receiving a scholarship offer. He originally committed to Washington State, then flipped to Stanford late in the process.

LONGSNAPPER

I didn’t think that the Irish would be targeting a specialist this cycle, but it makes sense with longsnapper John Shannon deciding not to return for his redshirt senior season. Enter Alex Peitsch, the #1 rated longsnapper in the class of 2020.

 

And that’ll do it for this review. Keep an eye out over the next couple of weeks for my way-too-early guess at Notre Dame’s class of 2021! I’m certainly hoping to do better this year.