Notre Dame football has pulled surprises in the 2025 class.

The Irish landed a commitment from three-star defensive lineman Gordy Sulfsted seemingly out of nowhere in May. Notre Dame kept its fall recruitment of three-star offensive lineman Cameron Herron under wraps until he visit the Irish as an Iowa commit shortly before flipping to Notre Dame. The Irish went extra covert to flip four-star quarterback Blake Hebert from Clemson in October. Then even this past weekend Notre Dame hosted three-star kicker/punter Erik Schmidt for an unannounced official visit before he flipped his commitment from Wisconsin.

Maybe Notre Dame pulls a surprise Wednesday on the first day of the early signing period for the class. But all indications are the Irish are in line for a quiet first signing day. That includes Notre Dame signing all 24 of its current verbal commitments, which should be celebrated. But that also means the Irish likely won’t add four-star linebacker Madden Faraimo, who seems likely to commit to USC, and four-star defensive lineman Jalen Wiggins, who seems likely to stick to his Florida commitment.

Those were the last two recruits Notre Dame was pushing for entering the week, according to Inside ND Sports sources. Missing on those targets would end a stretch of nearly two months in which the Irish didn’t have much good news in the 2025 class. Since Herron and Hebert announced their commitments to Notre Dame on Oct. 14, the Irish have only added two more commitments: three-star running back Nolan James Jr. and Schmidt.

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The good news is the Irish only lost one commitment during that stretch: three-star running back Justin Thurman. And that was a mutual parting of ways between Notre Dame and Thurman. Notre Dame lost seven previous commitments in total in the 2025 cycle, some of which were mutual. But two were the most painful: four-star quarterback Deuce Knight and four-star safety Ivan Taylor. Knight flipped to Auburn, but he continued to flirt with Ole Miss heading into the signing period. Taylor flipped to Michigan, but he made another flip to Alabama in November.

In addition to those lost commitments, Notre Dame failed to cross the finish line with big targets like five-star linebacker Nathaniel Owusu-Boateng and four-star wide receiver Derek Meadows. The list of missed four-star wide receivers is much longer than Meadows, too: Talyn Taylor (Georgia), Tanook Hines (USC), JonAnthony Hall (Stanford), Dylan Robinson (Washington), Isaiah Mizell (Arizona), Jalen Cooper (SMU) and Antwaun Parham (Tulane).

But misses shouldn’t be what defines a recruiting class. The recruits Notre Dame signs this week are what matters for the Irish moving forward. And there’s things to like about Notre Dame’s class. The Irish have five recruits ranked among the top 105 in the class, according to Rivals: offensive tackle Will Black (No. 19), strongside defensive end Christopher Burgess Jr. (No. 45), cornerback Dallas Golden (No. 66), outside linebacker Anthony Sacca (No. 102) and offensive tackle Owen Strebig.

Notre Dame’s defensive back haul is particularly impressive. The Irish gathered three four-star cornerbacks — Golden, Mark Zackery and Cree Thomas — to complement a pair of four-star safeties — JaDon Blair and Ethan Long — and three-star athlete Brandon Logan, who was recruited as a safety. That might be the deepest group of defensive backs the Irish have signed in recent memory with a combination of speed, athleticism and length.

Notre Dame’s offensive line class is very talented as well. Black will become the first Rivals five-star offensive lineman to sign with Notre Dame since Blake Fisher in the 2021 class. Strebig and Matty Augustine are both four-star recruits in the Rivals250 with Augustine at No. 245 overall. And Herron may be underrated as a three-star recruit out of Indianapolis Warren Central.

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The class as a whole doesn’t quite stack up to the previous two full recruiting cycles under head coach Marcus Freeman. Rightfully so, Freeman and general manager Chad Bowden have raised the recruiting expectations for the Irish. Notre Dame signed the No. 11 class in the country in 2023 and No. 9 in 2024. Both classes averaged 3.83 stars per signee and the Rivals team rankings formula awarded the Irish at least 2,500 points (2,504 in 2023 and 2,528 in 2024). The star averages and point totals were Notre Dame’s best since the 2013 class.

Barring major shakeups in the final prospect rankings in January, Notre Dame may fall short in the 2025 class with all three of those categories. Notre Dame entered Wednesday with the No. 12 class, a star average of 3.67 and a point total of 2,360. The current point total is still better than the average for previous head coach Brian Kelly’s 11 full recruiting cycles (2,224), but it doesn’t keep raising the bar on what Notre Dame’s already done under Freeman.

That’s OK, even if OK doesn’t feel adequate enough for a season in which Notre Dame will host a College Football Playoff game. But Notre Dame’s early season loss to Northern Illinois threw a wrench in trying to finish strong. And a weak home game schedule that ended in mid-November didn’t make the job any easier for the Irish staff on the recruiting trail.

Notre Dame can make amends for the misses in the 2025 class through the upcoming transfer portal wave and in the 2026 class. A great season on the field tends to impact the next recruiting cycle more than the current one, so the Irish need to find a way to carry that momentum into a 2026 class that has four early commitments.

Pick one of Freeman’s mantras to describe Notre Dame’s 2025 class. Maybe it’s the bumpy road to better. Maybe it’s process over results. But in the spirit of challenging everything, Notre Dame needs to keep challenging itself for more on the recruiting trail.

One class, one life. Reload.

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