Notre Dame landed a verbal commitment from Atlanta Westminster’s Holden Staes on Saturday, and with that the Fighting Irish’s roller-coaster ride of tight end recruiting in the 2022 class has ended.

Staes joins West Des Moines (Iowa) Valley’s Eli Raridon on Notre Dame’s tight end commit list in the cycle. Those commitments make a lot of sense for the Irish.

Staes is from an area that Notre Dame has recruited very well and attends one of the best private schools in the country. Raridon’s father played at Notre Dame and grandfather was a strength coach for the Irish. And this is the tight end position we’re talking about, which Notre Dame obviously recruits extremely well.

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The end result wasn’t a straight line, though.