2026 RB Brian Bonner Hitting The Road To See Notre Dame, Others
Things seem to be moving quickly between Brian Bonner and Notre Dame.
A couple weeks after picking up an offer from the Irish, the 2026 California running back is set to take a visit to South Bend on March 28th.
“I haven't been there before, but I want to get to Notre Dame because of Coach (Ja’Juan) Seider, the new running backs coach,” Bonner tells Irish Sports Daily.
Seider had been recruiting the 6-foot, 190-pound Bonner at his previous stop and wasted little time reconnecting.
“We'd been building a relationship before he got there, but we're going to continue to build our relationship, especially since he just got the new job at Notre Dame,” Bonner says of Seider. He's just telling me that he wants to coach me. He wants to develop me and make me the best that I could be.
“It makes me feel really special knowing that even though he got a new job, he still wanted to recruit me at his new job.”
Seider’s presence is a major reason Bonner is making the trip, but not the sole reason.
“He develops running backs really well, so I want to be able to see how he coaches the backs there,” says Bonner. “The education's good and I just want to see the program because I know they're a winning program. I just want to be able to get a chance to check out the school and see everything they got.
“I just want to see how they use their running backs, especially with the new running backs coach they have. I want to see how he's going to use the running backs.”
The Valencia High School standout released a Top 8 last month that included the Irish along with Penn State, UCLA, Stanford, Washington, Nebraska, Michigan and Georgia.
“It's just the relationships I built with these coaches and all the schools have what I want,” he says of his Top 8. “They can develop the running backs, they've got good education, all that that I'm looking for.”
He’s headed to Penn State this weekend. He’ll check out Michigan after Notre Dame and also has plans to get to Washington.
He hopes to trim his list even further after those trips.
“That's the goal,” he says. “That's the plan for these visits. I want to take these visits and then I can really narrow down my list of four or five schools and those would be the schools I take my official visits on.
“I think being able to see Notre Dame will help me narrow down my decision after seeing the school. It'll help me know what schools I like more than the others, so it'll help me narrow down my list.”
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