2020 LB Ben Kreul Impressed With Notre Dame Stop

It’d been in the works for a long time and Ben Kreul’s first visit to Notre Dame definitely was worth it. 

“It was a lot of fun,” the 2020 Wisconsin linebacker said of his trip to South Bend for the Irish’s game against Pitt on Saturday.

“Obviously, that was a really good game to be at. The stadium atmosphere was electric, especially in that fourth quarter. Things really did come down to the wire. It was a fun game to be at, really cool atmosphere to see the stadium rocking.”

The 6-foot-3, 220-pounder enjoyed the pregame portion of the visit as well.

“It was really nice,” he said. “I had a tour guide for my mom, dad and I, so that was really nice. It was really individualized for us.

“We got to tour the locker room. I tried on some jerseys, which was pretty cool. We toured the facilities, so we got to see a lot of that stuff. We were able to see Touchdown Jesus and that’s a sight itself. We did walk a little around on campus. Those were the main things we did.”

The Catholic Memorial High School standout was impressed with his tour.

“The campus is really nice,” he said. “My first thoughts, it was really clean. That’s really nice. It was really clean and it was a pretty campus, that stuck out to me.

“The facilities were all really nice. They have cameras, so you can look at your form. They have the machine on the weights to see how much force you’re putting down when you’re squatting and that kind of thing. It’s all really high-tech stuff, which was nice to see.”

And he liked what he saw from the Irish during their 19-14 comeback win over the Panthers.

“Obviously they were down, so I think it was nice to see that they were able to overcome adversity and come back,” he said. “Like Coach (Brian) Kelly said it in his postgame speech in the locker room, that was a Pitt team that they hadn’t seen play like this before. That wasn’t the Pitt team they’d seen on film.

“It was nice that they were able to make changes and overcome the adversity of being down and ultimately get the win. It was nice to see they could make those adjustments and win.”

While in town, Kreul had a chance to catch up with Director of Football Recruiting Aaryn Kearney.

“He said to try and stay in touch throughout the season,” Kreul said of Kearney. “Playoffs are coming up, so that’s my focus right now, my high school. I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it in the next few weeks, but maybe after my season ends. We’ll have to see how things work out. I definitely plan on staying in contact.”

Kreul has offers from Nebraska and Iowa State and is also receiving interest from schools like Stanford, Michigan State, Iowa, Purdue, Minnesota and Northwestern.