Every time I write one of these scholarship update articles I’m struck by how recruiting continues to evolve and change. Remember when the actual football season was full of more visits and intrigue? No more! Another new change for 2024 is that the Early Signing Period for college football has been moved up.
Last year, the ESP started on Wednesday, December 20th just 9 days before Notre Dame smeared peanut butter and jelly all over Oregon State in the Sun Bowl.
This year, the Early Signing Period begins on Wednesday, December 4th (4 days after the regular season finale at USC) and runs through Friday, December 6th.
***18 Stripes Scholarship Tracker CLICK HERE***
Out of Eligibility Following 2024:
QB Riley Leonard
WR Kris Mitchell
WR Jayden Harrison
WR Beaux Collins
TE Mitchell Evans
TE Davis Sherwood
OT Tosh Baker
DE Jordan Botelho
DE RJ Oben
DT Howard Cross
DT Rylie Mills
LB Jack Kiser
CB Jordan Clark
S Xavier Watts
S Rod Heard
S Devyn Ford
PK Mitch Jeter
The only change from our last update is the season-ending knee injury to Jordan Botelho in the 3rd game of the season at Purdue. That would open the door to a potential 6th-year for Botelho but it’s probably more likely he’ll move on towards preparation for a NFL career anyway.
2025-26 Academic Classes
21 Verbal Commits
23 Sophomores
23 Juniors
13 Seniors
8 Graduates
88 Total Scholarships
Notre Dame is net -2 in scholarships since our last update back on August 11th. Since then, true junior cornerback Jaden Mickey played in the first 4 games of the season and then used his right to save his eligibility and will be transferring after graduating from Notre Dame. Mickey will have 2 years of eligibility remaining at his new home.
The Irish did add Georgia speedster Antavious Richardson to the 2025 class on October 1st, ultimately flipping him from USF after several big schools (including Alabama) had offered. While most schools are projecting him to defense he’s being recruited at receiver for Notre Dame.
A pair of recruits recently left the class, as well. First we’ll discuss running back Daniel Anderson who spent just over a year as an Irish verbal before a mutual parting of ways took place this month. Anderson was an early take that just didn’t pan out.
Most have heard about quarterback Deuce Knight moving on and committing to Auburn back on October 2nd. He becomes the 6th decommit for Notre Dame in the 2025 class.
List of Eligible 2025 Grad Students
Tier 1
WR Jayden Thomas
OG Pat Coogan
DT Gabriel Rubio
OG Rocco Spindler
DT Jason Onye
P James Rendell
Tier 2
WR Deion Colzie
TE Kevin Bauman
Tier 3
CB Chance Tucker
I didn’t move anyone around with these tiers from August but it’s possible some could be lowered. Both Coogan and Spindler lost their starting jobs which in normal times would make me move them down to Tier 2. However, they are back in the starting lineup due to injuries and could play their way back into good graces–and potentially not want to leave school for 2025 anyway. A recent interview with Coogan seemed to suggest he’s not thinking about leaving South Bend any time soon.
It feels like Thomas is in year 6 right now but he does have another year available. With 3 players running out of eligibility–and an underwhelming freshmen class coming in–I would think Thomas is a valued piece to the 2025 team, don’t you?
Both Rubio and Onye are needed for depth at the very least. There have been rumors that Notre Dame has had their eyes on a ‘big’ defensive tackle grad transfer for next year which is badly needed.
Will Rendell have eligibility and stick around?
Neither Colzie nor Bauman are playing that much, it appears they are closing the chapter on their Notre Dame careers. Coming into the season, Tucker was at the bottom of the corner depth chart before he tore his ACL.
Positional Needs
LOW NEED: RB, OL, CB, S, DE
MEDIUM NEED: WR, TE, LB
HIGH NEED: QB, DT
We’re not seeing programs take really large classes right now, even with the increase in scholarship (aka roster) limits. With the Irish sitting at 21 scholarships, they don’t appear to be chasing more than a few more commits for 2025. The players to zero in on as of this writing include:
QB Jaron Keawe Sagapolutele (0.9058) – California
WR Jalen Cooper (0.9123) – SMU
WR Isaiah Mizell (0.8781) – Arizona
LB Nathaniel Owusu-Boateng (0.9601) – TBD
LB Madden Faraimo (0.9645) – TBD
DT Jalen Wiggins (0.9543) – Florida
JKS is the top-rated player in Hawaii and picking up steam for a potential flip from ACC-mate California with Oregon offering in recent weeks, as well. Like Deuce Knight, he’s also a lefty. JKS has been committed to the Cal Bears for just over 3 months and has thrown for over 10,000 yards in his school career.
Another lefty?
Notre Dame is still in the hunt to add more wide receivers–which probably means 1 of the 3 current verbals at this position will ultimately move elsewhere long-term. Mizzel just took a visit to campus and Cooper is coming soon, too.
The Irish are looking to add both blue-chip talents at linebacker mentioned above. Even 1 would be fantastic.
Recently, news dropped that Notre Dame is trying to flip Jalen Wiggins from Florida and an official visit for the USC game is in the works.
The Last December
I joked in our recruiting Slack recently that it felt like our (very late to publish) 2024 class grades and comments just happened and yet the Early Signing Period for 2025 is coming in just 55 days!
However, the December signing period is proving to be unpopular. The later ESP for the last couple of cycles got in the way of bowl/playoff preparation and now the earlier timing starting on December 4th is going to get in the way of conference championship prep–and inconviently come right as many coaching staffs across the country are on the move due to firings and hirings.
Will this be the last December signing period?
They have tabled the decision whether or not to add the June signing period but that certainly looks like it’s coming next summer. That would mean Notre Dame’s 2026 recruiting class, currently sitting at 2 commits to date, would be adding around 20 more names to it over the next 250 days, or a commit once every 2 weeks until the summer. The coaching staff may have their work cut out for them!
I haven’t liked the Eary Signing Periods in any of their forms but if they are going to keep it then one in June, skipping everything in December altogether, and finishing up with a second period in the traditional first Wednesday of February feels like the best decision.
Yet another year of a recruiting class in the low teens, while watching ol purple face land the top player in IN and as many 5 stars as he did in his last 10 classes at ND.
Is the highest rated player in Indiana really a big deal? If it’s a player ND needs go after him for sure, but most of Indiana (and a large portion of the Bend for that matter) hate ND. Southern Indiana starts just south of town…and Southern Indiana might as well be the deep South as far as their view on ND is concerned.
It’s Damian Shanklin, who is a DE that ND went after. The second highest ranked player in IN is WR JonAnthony Hall, who ND also went after, albeit I think a bit too late, and wasn’t a top 100 recruit at the time, and is committed to Stanford.
i meant in general, not any specific year, it isn’t like most state schools that are the top college in their state. My point was ND simply isn’t universally loved in Indiana so between that and the fact that Indiana isn’t producing huge numbers of D1 talent it isn’t as important for appearances to get the top Indiana kid.
Oh yeah. We don’t frequently do all that great in IN. OSU probably does better. It just sucks when BK is reaping the benefits of our lackluster recruiting. Also annoying that a WR, which we desperately need, is going to stupid Stanford.
Craig & Bowen are Indy boys, they’re pretty good, Tae Johnson could be too. FWIW.
Yeah, we don’t totally strike out in IN. Zackery in this class is a top 100 player at a premium position and we’ve landed 1 IN 4 star/year for the past 5 years.
But lately IN has been putting out some decent recruits and we generally aren’t landing them. Here are all the 247 composite 4 stars for the past 4 seasons.
It’s frustrating when we hire a great recruiter and he hasn’t moved the needle in recruiting, while our prior highly unlikeable coach is now out recruiting our better recruiter, even in IN.
2025
DE Shanklin – #49 LSU
WR Hall – #53 Stan
CB Zackery – #61 ND
DE Dye – #111 Tenn
TE Schott – #144 da U
2024
WR Graham – #59 tOSU
CB Edmond – #108 scUM
WR Tuggle – #123 UGA
OL Moore – #182 tOSU
S Johnson – #210 ND
QB Cherry – IU
2023
DE Mickens – #144 tOSU
LB Bowen – #219 ND
S McCullough – OU
DL Spencer – UL
2022
OL Goodwin – #33 UK
DE McCullough – #131 IU
DE Curry – #141 tOSU
OL Tanona – #168 ND
QB Allen – #223 Purdue
QB Jackson – #237 Tenn
OL Craig – ND
DL Grant – scUM
DE Williams – UL
S Jefferson – Pur
DL Strickland – Pur
This really just supports my point. Indiana is never going to be to ND as Ohio is to Ohio St or Louisiana is to LSU. I think that will remain true even if ND makes great headway in the South and becomes a consistent player for the top talent there
I wasn’t disagreeing with your point in general. I don’t particularly care about IN players. I would gladly take the top player out of OH, MI, or IL over the top player from IN pretty much every year.
I do specifically think Shanklin would be a big deal, and think him to LSU is a microcosm of recruiting right now. i.e. not better than BK at ND, not even close to BK at LSU (not that BK is specifically the reason).
Again, generally I don’t care how ND recruits against LSU/OSU. But, I specifically don’t like losing top players to BK (or scUM or USC), especially ones where we presumably have an advantage.
Yeah, it always sucks to lose a player to the meat chickens or the condoms.
It’s the least exciting class in a while, I feel.
I’ve said it before and I feel like it’s increasingly true over time: CJ Carr is the single most important ND football player/recruit to my memory, and probably historically since Randy Moss. It feels like if he’s a hit, Freeman can get the recruiting back in gear and really make it/potentially even build a legitimate championship contender. If not, the case for Freeman as head coach seems to be waning a bit given that he’s not really recruiting at the level we would have intended.
Losing our QB certainly makes the class feel less exciting because we’re currently shut out at QB with a weak-ish WR class, so the premium offensive positions are lacking. However we have arguably the best corner class in the country and a big time defensive end coming in, so we’re looking good for the premiums on defense.
If we flip a four star QB, JKS [or Bachmeier or Baker or surprise candidate] and shore up WR with someone with a high ceiling I can look at this class as pretty successful, if not terribly deep anywhere other than DB.
Regarding CBs. tOSU basically has the CB equivalent of their 2024 WR class. The top 2 CBs in the country (#4 and #6 overall players). Without any research, possibly the best CB class in history. And they also have a top 50 S commit.
After them, probably us (#61, #87), Bama (#31, #97), and aTm (#32, #135, #185, #245) in a clear second group. For 2nd best overall DB class it’s really us and aTm as Bama has no safeties committed.
Also, not trying to suggest you are wrong. We truly have an exciting DB class. Especially when you account for how good Mickens has been at evaluation and development, I could see us ending with as good CBs when all is said and done. The tOSU class is just ridiculous and I thought worth mentioning.
Guess I don’t see the point in keeping Coogan AND Spindler, I know the staff doesn’t like to force people out.
But if Craig, Schrauth, and Jagusah come back healthy, Wagner and Knapp stay solid, and you have Pendleton and Absher for depth, along with a couple of 4 star freshmen, why are you burning roster spots?
MotS self-reply, but somehow left Lambert off there, and heard on a pod that Lambert may already be pushing Knapp for the starting LT spot. Next year could be Lambert-Schrauth-Craig-Wagner-Jagusah, second team Knapp-Pendleton-Otting-Absher-Black. Who’s still around for depth on top of that? Chan, Prescod, Terek, Strebig.
I feel like Chan has to be on the grad transfer route for next year. Even with all the injuries he hasn’t sniffed the 2 deep.
Trying to go through all the possible lineups next year…
By the way, they voted to remove National Letters of Intent today:
https://www.si.com/college/florida/recruiting/ncaa-to-scrap-the-need-for-national-letter-of-intent-01j9s2kj7sh2
Well no more early signing period
We are trending that way…
The article I read on CBS said they didn’t even set a timeframe for this. So you can kind of sign whenever, including up until you enroll. That would be miserable, but the NCAA is great at drumming up misery for all involved.
Rendell as Tier 1, we sure about that?
Also, I think there’s a better chance Botelho comes back than you do. I’d imagine he could make more money in ND NIL next year than he would anticipate making if he goes pro – he hasn’t really put that much good stuff on tape until this year at DE, and then he got hurt. It seems like the right business decision for him is take a six-figure payment to stay at ND and play himself into a higher draft pick position.
I’m not getting into any punting talk after last week’s debate!
Yeah, I could see it for Botelho I guess. Especially since his knee may not be close to ready for NFL prep in a few months.
Was it really a debate? Or just me shouting my not-even-close-to-qualified opinion? 😀
No, we are not sure. The rest of this season will decide that. Perhaps it’s been a comfort issue with him and he continues to improve. If not they’ll hit the portal.
Re: Botelo, I think it would be advantageous to offer him an NIL package commensurate to 1 year of an 6th round pick.
Based on:
I *think* he’d be evaluated around a 6th 7th rounder now based on upside offset by lack of production and injuries. 6th rounders last draft had $218000 signing bonus, and that’s their only fully guaranteed money. Their avg. Annual contract value is $1mil (not guranteed), not sure if we can give him that, but maybe go like $350k (exceed a 6th rounders guaranteed money) + the opportunity to improve his upside into a 3rd or 4th rounder with a full healthy season. Keeping bodies, especially one performing at his level prior to injury, on the dline is a petty big deal, so I say pony up for the man!
If I were him I would definitely be entering my name in the portal. He’s never been a true #1 guy at ND (not that I necessarily think he’s earned that role), and the young guys have so much potential, that even if he were to grab the starting role, he’s probably playing limited snaps. I would want to see what else is out there in terms of NIL money and rep opportunities.
If ND wants to keep him, hopefully they’re working on that NIL money right now.