Steve Angeli Thrilled With Jayden Bellamy's Commitment To Notre Dame

Since committing to Notre Dame back in March, Steve Angeli‍ has been working hard to build up the Irish’s 2022 recruiting class.

The New Jersey quarterback has been working prospects on the East Coast, the West Coast and in between, but he didn’t have to go far to get in the ear of the Irish’s newest commit.

Jayden Bellamy‍, who just announced his commitment to Notre Dame, shares a state, locker room and huddle with Angeli at Bergen Catholic High School.

Angeli is thrilled to have a high school teammate become a future college teammate.

“It's awesome,” Angeli says. “Just another Jersey guy and one of my good friends coming in and being my teammate in college, it's something really cool.

“He's such a versatile player. He could play all the positions at DB, but also on offense, he's a threat on the outside. He could play inside with his speed, great catching ability, great route-running. He's the complete player coming to Notre Dame.”

The Irish are bringing the 6-foot-1, 175-pounder in as a cornerback, but as his coach told ISD earlier in the week, Bellamy hasn’t focused on that position much during his high school career.

“He's a team-first guy, definitely,” Angeli says. ”He's the main reason our culture is what it is. He's built our culture up to what it is now. He's a great leader and he does whatever is asked of him from the offense and the defense and he does whatever he can to help the team win.

“He really just wants to do what's best for the team and make sure that he's putting the team in the best position other than himself and do whatever you can to win and win state championships.”

Angeli enjoys throwing against Bellamy in practice.

“It's always competitive,” he laughs. “We're always going at it. We're always talking, competing and trying to make each other better. He makes me better every day and I make him better. Getting a look from a Division-I college corner, a Power Five corner like that every day is really special. He makes me better and he just adds so much to the team and so much to the defense.”

But he enjoys throwing to him more.

“The connection we have is really special,” he says.

But Angeli is just happy to have Bellamy coming with him to South Bend and believes the official visits they took together a couple weeks back was pivotal.

“Notre Dame speaks for itself,” Angeli says. “When you step on campus and you're there with some of the best people in the world, in the country and in college football, I think that he saw just what everybody else saw; the coaches, the administration and the staff, everybody's facing north. Everybody's doing what they can to push Notre Dame over the hump to win a national championship.

“I definitely saw it and I'm pretty sure he saw it too. To know the guys who are going to be coaching him and the players he's going to be playing with and the dudes in our class, the commits, I'm pretty sure that he saw what's so special about it and what we can do for them and what he can do for Notre Dame.”