6 Thoughts on a Thursday
There was a lot of recruiting noise surrounding Notre Dame at the end of the 2023 recruiting cycle and most of it had to do with the coaching staff working to hold on to the class they had put together.
They kept most and lost a few talented ones, but a lot of the focus was on closing it out before moving on to the transfer portal. The Irish did add some key pieces there and while all of that was certainly exciting, there hasn’t been a lot of noticeable movement with 2024 recruiting during the new year.
There were some commitments added to the group that already jumped on board last summer, led by CJ Carr and Cam Williams, but it’s been relatively quiet in many respects other than Notre Dame offering more prospects this cycle than they did the entirety of the 2023 class.
That’s all changing right now.
Spring ball is full-go and the staff has done a great job of getting some elite targets on campus. It’s not just guys like Justin Scott and Jaden Reddell this past weekend. There’s a swarm of edge rushers set to visit over the next month or who have already been on campus. That’s a huge position of need for the class this cycle.
LB Bradley Shaw (a top-100 prospect in my opinion) was on campus yesterday. They’re getting Jacob Smith and Jerod Smith back for a multi-day visit starting today and this weekend they have two outstanding cornerbacks visiting. There’s a lot more scheduled before the Blue-Gold game and there are going to be more that we find out about in the coming weeks.
By the time they get to the spring game, their big board for this class is going to be a lot more clear than it was even a couple of weeks ago. Based on who they’ve gotten on campus recently, things sure seem like they are about to get a lot louder.
We will have to wait and see how things trend after the dust settles this spring because a lot of these spring visits will lead into official visits this summer and there is still so much time left before the early signing period. It’s easy to forget that with all of these players visiting now.
One only has to look at the previous recruiting cycle to see that there is a lot of ball game left. Notre Dame didn’t offer Micah Bell until March 17th. They offered Joe Otting in May and took his commitment after working him out in camp in the summer. Benjamin Minich, Kenny Minchey, Armel Mukam, and Kaleb Smith (the younger) were all offered in the summer. Dylan Edwards (summer) and Brandyn Hillman (fall) were also late offers for Notre Dame.
Out of those eight players I listed, six of them ended up as composite 4-star recruits. Mukam was not a composite 4-star, but was ranked as a 4-star by 247Sports, On3, and myself at ISD.
There’s a lot of blue-chip recruits who have or will be visiting Notre Dame this spring who will end up signing with the Irish. There’s also going to be some very good prospects who end up at Notre Dame who haven’t even been offered yet. With all of the coaching carousel shenanigans and the delay to the start of spring ball, things were fairly quiet in recruiting and now the volume has been turned up. That’s a very good thing and the staff is clearly hoping to make a strong impression with many of their priority targets.
Evaluations never stop, though. There’s still a lot of the process left and some players who we may have not heard of yet could end up being key pieces in Notre Dame’s 2024 recruiting class.
2. I thought there was some interesting stuff from Notre Dame defensive coordinator Al Golden yesterday with him speaking to the media. These quotes really jumped out with him speaking about the adjustment to his second season at Notre Dame and the advantages of returning with the same system.
“I notice a huge difference. Last year was a confluence of a lot of different things meeting in spring ball. Myself and the systems I’ve been part of, the personnel that was here, Marcus’ system and even to some extent, the guys who were here before Marcus – Mick and CO – some of the things they learned from Clark. All of that came together last year. It was overwhelming trying to get it calmed down.
“That was the first order of priority for me this offseason. Don’t just pick the plays you’re going to run in the spring, look at the opponents first to see what we need to run. We probably practiced some things last spring we didn’t need to and as the season evolved, we needed X, Y, and Z. Now we’re practicing X, Y and Z, and these other things are gone.
“That has been awesome, to be on a staff with Mick and CO and Wash, and obviously what Max (Bullough) brings coming from Alabama. He has brought so much in terms of experience. It has really been a good offseason in terms of that.”
You don’t hear a lot from coaches about preparation for opponents during the spring. Already having a plan to pare down the menu before you even get to the season to be more efficient in March and April is something that I haven’t thought a lot about as a benefit of having a defensive coordinator return, but I love that way of approaching it.
3. 22 defensive tackles were selected in the 2022 NFL Draft. None of them weighed 280 pounds.
I bring that up because Jayson Ademilola weighed in at 280 for Notre Dame’s Pro Day. His size is the biggest obstacle to him getting drafted. He would be an outlier if he gets selected, but I still think it can happen because his RAS (relative athletic score) with his explosion and speed grade are very, very good.
That shouldn’t be a shock to every Notre Dame fan who has watched him play over the last five years. Ademilola wins with twitch. It’s what made him a disruptive player when he’s been healthy and why he’s never looked out of place competing against the teams who have bigger guards who, on paper, should overmatch him.
If teams throw on the tape of the 2020 Alabama game, he’ll pop as one of the best linemen on the field and there were plenty of future NFL players playing that day.
He was tied for 14th in pass rush pressure percentage for Power 5 interior defensive linemen in both of the last two seasons and in a passing league, that combined with his impressive vertical, broad jump, and 10-yard split should matter.
I’ve heard from a source that there has been plenty of interest from teams in both Jayson and Justin despite them not getting an invite to the NFL Combine. All it takes is one team to fall in love with you as well and they are both better in pads than they are in a combine setting.
If Jayson gets his name called or not in April, he’s someone who I think has a legitimate shot to make a team once he gets to camp. The same goes for Justin.
4. Part of being a fan is being critical. Coaches aren’t infallible. Being passionate about Notre Dame football and questioning decisions is a totally normal thing.
It’s completely reasonable that there are some people questioning why Notre Dame is offering and then taking a commitment from offensive lineman Anthonie Knapp because they see his ranking or his offer list and it doesn’t match what they want to see. That’s fine for anyone to do that.
However, I do think it’s unreasonable to suggest that this is Notre Dame settling by taking Knapp in their class.
For one, this isn’t a recruiting cycle that is loaded with massive Blake Fisher types who are monsters who move like they are much smaller than they are. Even the top guys in this cycle aren’t players I would have considered to be in the same tier as most other classes. If you’re going to go out and grab a prospect (somewhat) early who is an easy mover, but is going to need plenty of physical development, this is the cycle to do it.
The biggest piece of it for me is that the new Notre Dame offensive line coach worked Knapp out at a camp while at Virginia Tech and that he and the staff at Notre Dame got a chance to evaluate his size and frame in person. That matters. A lot. And not just because everyone should have blind faith in the coaches because they know a lot more than the average Notre Dame follower (though, they certainly do). It’s because one of the biggest feathers in Rudolph’s cap at Wisconsin was his ability to identify and develop offensive linemen who weren’t considered elite recruits. He helped many of them become NFL Draft picks.
Michael Deiter was a 2-star guard prospect that ended up becoming a third round draft pick after working with Rudoph at Wisconsin. Walk-on transfer Ryan Ramzyck was a zero-star recruit who ended up becoming a first round pick. These players were already on the roster before Rudolph was on staff there, but he was the one who helped develop these players into NFL prospects.
Rudolph was on staff when they took David Edwards, a 3-star tight end who ended up moving to offensive tackle and becoming a fifth round pick. He was also there when they recruited and evaluated Logan Bruss, a 3-star guard who ended up being a third round pick. He evaluated Tyler Biadasz, a 3-star defensive line recruit who they moved to offensive line on day one at Wisconsin. He ended up being a fourth round pick.
Ramzyck was 245 pounds in high school. Edwards was 245. Bruss was 260. Biadasz was 270. I don’t know, but that would seem to be a pretty strong indication that Rudolph has a good eye for prospects who need to add weight and what they can eventually develop into in college.
Aside from all of that, I think Knapp is a really intriguing prospect with the kind of traits that could see him develop into a multi-year starter. His physical profile isn’t all that different from Peter Skoronski, a player who most projected to the interior, but who ended up playing left tackle at a very high level.
Time will tell with Knapp’s progress over the next year and then going forward in terms of how big he will eventually be. I’ll just state again that while it’s perfectly reasonable to question coaches in recruiting and the decisions they make, it also has to be pointed out that Rudolph knows more than most when it comes to a player like Knapp.
5. There isn’t a ton that can be learned about players from some practice clips or even seeing a handful of periods in person, but I have to admit that Kaleb Smith (the elder) didn’t exactly jump out to me in the brief things I have seen from practice. I certainly trust ISD’s Matt Freeman’s eye when he sees the team and I did take note of him mentioning that Smith moves more like a tight end than a receiver.
Smith is over 220 pounds and he never jumped out as an ultra smooth athlete when I watched Virginia Tech games. The big thing that helped him average 18.2 yards per reception last season was his ability to win contested catches. His 75% contested catch rate on “50/50” balls was tied for second amongst Power 5 receivers last season and he caught only one less deep pass attempt than Wake Forest receiver AT Perry who had seven more targets of 20+ yards.
Replicating those kinds of numbers is going to be what matters with Smith this season. If he can be a boundary receiver who wins the same percentage of contested catches he did at Virginia Tech in 2022, then his deficiencies won’t matter all that much.
6. There goes our guy Matt Freeman again getting the good stuff when he asked Prince Kollie about defensive linemen who have been standing out this spring . It probably was a surprise to many when the name he mentioned was Jason Onye.
While Kollie admitted he was kind of biased, they came in together with the 2021 recruiting class, the fact that he said “they just can’t block him” about Onye certainly piqued my interest.
A definite project when he committed to the Irish, it certainly sounds like he is on the right track to being a factor in his third season at Notre Dame. He came in as a defensive end and has transformed into a defensive tackle. He’s now 292 pounds and when I say he carries it well, it’s not doing him justice.
Check him out at the lacrosse game after practice last weekend (he’s the one with his shirt off up front in the second photo) and you’ll see exactly what I mean.
Last spring I got to see a bit of Onye and while it was clear he still had work to do with his game, it was obvious he was progressing physically and his motor really stood out. He wasn’t ready to crack the rotation last season, but it sounds like he is trending towards that right now, which would be a huge development for the depth at defensive tackle.
No one was buzzing about Onye heading into the spring, but it sounds like we could be by the end of it. I’m excited to get a closer look at him in practice on Saturday.
A big piece of spring ball is learning about your own roster and where you are stronger or weaker than expected. Having some players take a big step who weren’t expected to can be absolutely massive and lead the coaching staff to adjust their plans on both offense and defense. And if what might be viewed as a weakness becomes a strength, it opens up the possibilities to shift players around to make other areas even stronger.
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