Tag: Notre Dame recruiting

Four Notre Dame commits to play in Polynesian Bowl

Want to watch the future of the football program?

Want to catch a glimpse at some of the Notre Dame stars of tomorrow? Was the All-American Bowl not enough for you? You’re in luck if you’re able to stay up late. The Polynesian Bowl will be played at 11:30 p.m. EST Saturday on the CBS Sports Network, and four recruits who have committed to Notre Dame are on the roster.

The four players to look out for are as follows:

  • Receiver Tobias Merriweather of Camas, Washington
  • Tight end Holden Staes of Atlanta
  • Linebacker Niuafe Tuihalamaka of Mission Hills, California
  • Offensive tackle Aamil Wagner of Dayton, Ohio

Notre Dame commits who previously have played in this game include Chris Tyree, Marist Liufau, Jayson Ademilola, Braden Lenzy and Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa. While making this game obviously is not a reflection of how they’ll play in college, it does make people excited about what the future of the program could be. If you’re curious about that or you simply want to watch more football, this is the game to tune into.

Survey: Notre Dame recruiting director among top personnel people

The Irish have someone special attracting recruits.

With college football on the cusp of bowl season, it’s time to look at areas of the sport not always thought of by the average fan. One outlet doing that is The Athletic, which polled over 30 recruiting staffers from across the country to figure who the best of the best are in that area. The results, which subscribers can view here, declared the winner to be Mark Pantoni, the director of player personnel at Ohio State.

However, Notre Dame also cracked the list thanks to recruiting director Aaryn Kearney. He has held the position since 2016 and remained consistent over that time. More specifically, the Irish never have had a recruiting class rank outside the top 20. One recruiter summed it up well:

“They’ve done an incredible job there, and considering the pool of players they are limited to, and the fact that they have to be spread out nationally, it’s no small feat that they continually sign top classes.”

Congratulations to Aaryn for being recognized by his peers.

Notre Dame makes final cut for basketball recruit Ashlynn Shade

This would be a huge get for the Irish.

After a long period of sustained success, Notre Dame has been in a rut the past two seasons. Niele Ivey’s first year succeeding the legendary Muffet McGraw as coach had a respectable 10-10 record. While an improvement from when the Irish went 13-18 in McGraw’s final season, it still was nowhere near the 30-plus wins they had over the previous nine years. However, the Irish have real cause to hope that a light could be at the end of the tunnel with this tweet from five-star recruit Ashlynn Shade:

The 5-foot-11 Shade, who is entering her junior year at Noblesville, has been turning coaches’ heads since at least third grade. As a sophomore, she averaged 23.9 points, 8.1 rebounds, 4.2 assists and 4.3 steals a game. She’s well on her way to becoming one of the best girls players in the history of Indiana prep basketball.

With Notre Dame and Indiana both on Shade’s final list, it isn’t clear which school has the home state advantage. On one hand, the Irish have had more success in their history. It also will be tough to compete with legendary programs like UConn and Tennessee, programs with recent success like Stanford and Louisville, and schools with solid academic reputations like North Carolina and Vanderbilt. The only thing to say here is may the best program for her be chosen.

Notre Dame presents offer to forward recruit Alex Karaban

The Irish are after a forward that’s on a bunch of schools’ radars.

Notre Dame is going after a player who has every intention of taking advantage of as many opportunities as possible. For the past two years, forward recruit Alex Karaban has played prep basketball in New Hampton, New Hampshire. As a senior, he will attend the renowned IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida. That commitment to excellence was too good for the Irish to ignore, so they decided to become the latest program to make him an offer:

It’s hard to know for certain which direction Karaban is leaning towards. 247Sports believes Penn State and Northwestern, two schools he made official visits to in June, are the top contenders. Rivals forecasts him heading to Indiana. Of course, he also could choose one of the many other schools that have offered him, including Purdue, Boston College, Virginia Tech, Iowa, UConn, Georgetown, DePaul, Marquette, Stanford, LSU, Iowa State, Oklahoma State, Creighton and even Harvard.

Notre Dame receives commitment from 3-star safety recruit Devin Moore

There’s another secondary commitment for the Irish.

At the start of the weekend, Notre Dame’s future secondary received a boost with the commitment of cornerback recruit Jayden Bellamy. Now, it can say it’s receiving a second boost. This time, it’s coming from the safety position. The latest player to say yes to Notre Dame is three-star recruit Devin Moore of Naples, Florida, who made his official visit less than a month ago and received an offer from the Irish in May 2020:

Like Bellmary, Moore was a target of Marcus Freeman and cornerbacks coach Mike Mickens. Both players also will join the Irish for the 2022 season. To have this coaching duo make this kind of progress this quickly is nothing short of amazing, and it only can help.

The Irish had to battle with a plethora of schools to land Moore. They included Alabama, Stanford, Florida State, Florida, Auburn, Tennessee, South Carolina, Cincinnati, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Miami, Virginia Tech, Virginia, Michigan State, Michigan, Nebraska, Mississippi State, Iowa State and Vanderbilt.

Notre Dame presents offer to combo guard recruit Denver Anglin

The Irish have their latest target for their future backcourt.

Notre Dame has been eager to pursue the combo guard route in its recruiting lately. Last week, the Irish gave an offer to Lawrent Rice of Dayton, Ohio. However, he wouldn’t be able to come to South Bend for another couple of years. Whether it’s related or not, the Irish now have extended an offer to a combo guard who will have to wait one less year to begin his collegiate career: Denver Anglin of Gill St. Bernard’s in New Jersey;

Anglin is going into his senior season, so he already has plenty of offers lined up. They include Northwestern, Stanford, Georgetown, Providence, UConn, Georgia Tech, Penn State, Seton Hall, Ole Miss, TCU and SMU. Many of these schools have strong academic reputations, and Notre Dame is no exception in that regard. He has plenty of options for college, and he really can’t go wrong with any of them, though we’d obviously love to see him in the blue and gold.

Notre Dame gives offer to offensive tackle recruit Ashton Craig

The Irish are after a recruit who could end up with them or in the Big Ten.

With much of his 2020 unit not returning in 2021, Notre Dame offensive line coach Jeff Quinn has his work cut out for him. He will do everything in his power to keep the Irish’s reputation for churning out quality offensive linemen going for as long as possible. To that end, he has presented an offer to a tackle who would need to wait only a year before arriving in South Bend. This latest target is the 6-foot-5, 260-pound Ashton Craig from Lawrenceburg, Indiana:

Craig is very interested in Notre Dame, but he also is giving serious consideration to numerous Big Ten schools. Namely, he is looking at Michigan, Northwestern, Iowa and Nebraska. Other programs in the running include Duke, Wake Forest, Florida State, Boston College, Purdue, Indiana, Cincinnati and Toledo. Wherever he ends up, he has the body that belongs in college football, and any offense would benefit from having him.

Four-star LB Niuafe Tuihalamaka commits to Notre Dame over Arizona State, Stanford, and Texas

Niuafe Tuihalamaka announced his commitment to Notre Dame on Saturday. A four-star prospect, he chose over Arizona State, Stanford, and UT.

The last two weekends have been successful for Steve Sarkisian. He has landed four players after making visits. Three 2022 commits and running back Keilan Robinson from the transfer portal.

Sadly, not everything can go in favor of Texas, as a top priority defensive prospect went a different direction.

Linebacker Niuafe Tuihalamaka announced his commitment to Notre Dame on Saturday afternoon. A four-star prospect, the California native chose the Fighting Irish over Arizona State, Stanford, and Texas.

Tuihalamaka was in Austin on an official visit the first weekend of June. He said Austin “felt like home” and wanted to eventually come back. The Longhorns seemed to have made up ground for the linebacker, but a trip to South Bend sealed the deal for Notre Dame.

On the 247Sports composite, Tuihalamaka ranks as the No. 11 linebacker in the country. He will play middle linebacker for newly hired defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman. The four-star is the No. 10 player from his home state of California and No. 102 in the country.

For Texas, the key remaining linebacker target is Sebastian Cheeks. Notre Dame was thought to be a player for Cheeks but with the commitment of Tuihalamaka, there will be no room.

Jeff Choate has already taken a commitment from three-star Trevell Johnson as well. Landing him and Cheeks would be a successful cycle for Texas’ linebacking core.

Notre Dame one of four finalists for safety recruit Sherrod Covil

Will Notre Dame beat out three ACC schools for Covil’s services?

Notre Dame has made the final cut for safety recruit Sherrod Covil’s college choices. Also among his final choices are ACC schools Miami, North Carolina and Clemson. He will announce his decision Thursday on Rivals. Ahead of this big day, Covil spoke with Rivals national recruiting director Adam Gorney, who asked for Covil’s thoughts about each of the programs eagerly awaiting his announcement:

The fact that Covil considers Notre Dame one of his top-two choices gives the Irish reason for optimism. He particularly gives credit to senior defensive analyst Nick Lezynski for being aggressive in his pursuit of him. It shows how it truly takes an entire coaching staff to bring talent in.

Exports for both Rivals and 247Sports believe it’s a certainty that Covil will choose Clemson. If that’s the case, he put on a nice poker face for his interview. Then again, no recruit really is going to say where they want to go until they make their official announcement. And so, we wait.

Notre Dame gives offer to guard recruit Lawrent Rice

The Irish are after a combo guard.

With Prentiss Hubb entering his senior season, Notre Dame might be a little anxious to figure out its future point guard situation. Whatever the case, the Irish are not waiting for someone in the wings to suddenly appear out of nowhere and say they’ll be all right at that position after Hubb leaves. In fact, they’re going a step further and going after a combo guard. They have presented an offer to Lawrent Rice, who will be going into his junior year at Wayne, which is not far from Dayton, Ohio:

Hours later, Rice announced an offer from Arizona State. It shouldn’t be surprising that he also has received an offer from Dayton along with fellow Buckeye State programs Ohio State and Ohio. He also has offers lined up from such programs as Louisville, Purdue, Marquette, West Virginia and VCU. There’s little doubt that more offers are coming his way, and he has a lot of time to consider his options.