Star ratings in college football recruiting aren’t everything. You hear the stories of JJ Watt not being a star recruit and he seems to have done alright in his football career. There are plenty of others as well and each year walk-on players at almost every school make a difference.
That said, they’re certainly not a nothing, either.
247Sports determines their stars for players based off of essentially doing their own first round of a draft but instead for high school players in each class. They give out 32 five-star statuses each season, one for each NFL team.
Now think of the NFL and if the New England Patriots or Kansas City Chiefs were getting more first round picks than anyone else every year. It’s been hard enough to beat those two in recent years anyway, now just think how hard it’d be if they were bringing in more young talent than everyone else year in and year out. That’s essentially what competing with the likes of Alabama, Clemson, Georgia and LSU has become.
Notre Dame did get good news in that department Wednesday though as 247Sports updated their rankings. In them, long-time Notre Dame commitment Tyler Buchner was awarded a fifth-star, making him one of their top-32 prospects in the 2021 recruiting class.
Does it really matter for Notre Dame? Not really, Buchner has been committed for over a year and doesn’t appear interested in re-opening that at all. It will matter in terms of final team rankings but he’s still the same prospect he was two days ago, when he didn’t have the fifth star.
However, it’s still something worth celebrating for the future Notre Dame signal caller. He’s had an incredible high school career already and now only more eyes will be on him during his senior year of high school.