Coach | 2025 Notre Dame LB Target Antoine Deslauriers Is Elite
It was no surprise to Derek White when Notre Dame offered 2025 linebacker Antoine Deslauriers a scholarship last week.
“He's a freak,” the Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School head coach says of Deslauriers. “Everybody who watches his tape offers him.
“He's right at 6-2, 235 pounds, runs a 4.5 laser with a 39-inch vertical. He's freaky. You wouldn't think that he's that flexible or that fast of a guy.”
Originally from Quebec, Deslauriers enrolled at Rabun Gap-Nacoochee in July.
“He was everything that I expected,” White says. “When we started this process and I first saw his film over a year ago, I knew the kid was explosive and everything he hit, he destroyed. I knew that he would have a great career. He can run really, really well, sideline to sideline. I knew it was just a matter of time before everybody started seeing him play, to watch his tape and meet him.”
White is convinced Deslaurier’s best football is still ahead of him, which is saying something.
“ I think he's the top linebacker in the country,” the coach says.
And Deslaurier checks the boxes off the field as well, according to White.
“He is unbelievable,” the coach says. “He's a 4.0, straight-A student, genius guy. He's all business. He's Mr. Professional, dressed perfect every day. He's probably one of the most put-together 17-year-olds you've ever seen in your life.”
Deslauriers’ offer sheet is growing fast and currently includes schools like Florida State, Miami, Tennessee, North Carolina, Auburn, Ole Miss, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas A&M and Missouri among several others.
Still, the offer from the Irish caught his attention.
“Very big,” White says of what the offer meant. “Very big with Notre Dame's tradition. He's a very humble kid. The academics of Notre Dame and the fact that he's Catholic. That's three good things for a kid like that.”
While his list continues to grow, White and Deslauriers have been talking about trimming it, but he’s likely to make visits as he goes through that process.
“He's starting to narrow down,” says White. “He's getting just about everybody in the country.
“I think he's narrowing it down, but I'm sure that Notre Dame is one of those that's going to be a place that he is absolutely 100 percent going to visit.”
White expects Deslauriers to get to South Bend sometime this spring.
Deslauriers isn’t giving too much away in terms of where he may currently be leaning, but White has a good idea of what will matter most in the end.
“I know this, football and academics are going to both matter the same amount.”
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