ND Definitely Among Paschal's Top Schools

It might have been lost in the shuffle of all of the other hoopla surrounding Irish Invasion, but a highly coveted defensive end prospect visited Notre Dame the following week. That visit put the Irish squarely in the mix to land Good Counsel (Maryland) defensive end Josh Paschal.

It was his first visit to campus and unsurprisingly a couple of things really stood out to him on the trip.

“Just the tradition that they have,” Counsel told ISD at The Opening. “They were talking to me about how great the school was and about the connections you can make if you go there. Things like that.

“It was way better than what I expected. I didn’t expect it to be like that. It was a different vibe there. I don’t know how to explain it. It was just better than what I expected.”

One thing that made the visit more enjoyable was staying with former high school teammate at Good Counsel, projected Notre Dame starting center Sam Mustipher. He stayed with Mustipher on the trip and he told Paschal encouraging things about the defensive line getting better and said that it was tough having to go against defensive line coach Keith Gilmore’s pupils every day.

Paschal was able to make a connection with Gilmore on the trip as well. “He’s a really good guy,” Paschal said. It also sounded like he enjoyed what Gilmore and the coaching staff was selling him in terms of his role in the defense as well.

He’s a big body at over 250 pounds and they see him as someone playing on the edge.

“They said they would use me as a defensive end, but they said sometimes with their defensive ends they might send them out as outside linebacker and make them blitz off the edge and stuff like that.”

Prior to this camp I would have had a lot more questions as to whether or not that is something that was in Paschal’s future. I thought he looked like a future three technique to me based on his film, but what I have seen from him so far at The Opening has me tweaking my expectations of where he will fit at the next level.

Now I see more of a Big End if he chooses the Irish and today he showed that he some potential to be a very good power rusher. Other than Josh Kaindoh, Paschal was probably the best end at converting speed to power and had a few offensive tackles on skates in one on ones.

As for where he is at in the recruiting process currently, he’s preparing to cut his list soon, but has no idea of when he’ll make a decision. One thing he does know is that in a top list of what he described as “probably somewhere from three to six”, Notre Dame is definitely going to make that list.

“Notre Dame, Maryland, and Oklahoma. They just got my attention. Just with the recruiting. They’re always talking to me. Telling me about where I’m going to play and how I’m going to play.”

Official visits for him likely won’t take place until after his football season and he did not when he was going to set those up. It seems fairly certain that if/when official visits take place for Paschal, Notre Dame should be receiving one.