The Irish have seen their ups and downs in the 2021 recruiting cycle, but at the current moment Brian Kelly’s class of ten players ranks among the best in the nation. Rivals this morning took a look at their 11th ranked class in the country, with a local and national view of Notre Dame’s class.
Mike Singer, who covers the Irish for Rivals, sees the class from a quality not quantity perspective noting the “Irish are likely not even going to sniff 25 total signess, so it will be hard to have a highly ranked class. However, it should be very good when it comes to sorting by average star ranking.” Defensive end Jason Onye, the lowest committed player in the class according to Rivals, is seen as the 44th best prospect at his position. Not bad when looking at the class as a whole.
Singer mentions two prospect’s the Irish would love to see commit, Dont’e Thornton Jr. and Rocco Spindler. Both of them have recently released their top school lists and Notre Dame is in a great position to land both of them. He does say if the staff missed out on Spindler that “many would consider the offensive line class a failure” but it can’t be looked at by just star ranking. The base of Blake Fisher and Pat Coogan gives the offensive line class a great start, and missing out on Spindler would hurt, but it shouldn’t be seen as a failure if the Irish are unable to land a commitment from the talented guard.
As for the national outlook, Josh Helmholdt was quick to point out that the Irish haven’t had many recruiting wins since the mandated dead period. “Notre Dame is maybe the best national recruiting team in the country, but in order to maintain that distinction it needs to get kids on campus, so the visit shutdown disproportionately affects the Irish,” is how Helmholdt sees it. It’s hard to disagree with his assessment, as many other schools have jumped the Irish in the team ratings during the dead period. The feeling a prospect gets when in South Bend just can’t be replicated with Zoom visits.
If Helmholdt is right, and we surely hope he is, the return of on-campus visits should see a boom in the Irish’s class. Unfortunately for Kelly, the NCAA has yet to make an announcement as to when they will stop the dead period, so the addition of more prospects might just have to wait a little longer. We’d like to believe that Singer is correct as well, when all said as done the Irish might not have a highly ranked class, but the quality will be among the best in the nation.