2/19/2024 football Edit

Freshman DE Loghan Thomas sizing up his path to playing time at Notre Dame

Early enrolled freshman defensive end Loghan Thomas has added roughly 10 pounds to his 6-4 frame since enrolling at Notre Dame in mid-January. (YouTube photo)

Eric Hansen • InsideNDSports

Publisher

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Early in Loghan Thomas’ high school career, longtime recruiting analyst Tom Lemming visited the now-Notre Dame early enrolled freshman football player at his high school in Katy, Texas,

And marveled at his elite lateral speed and uncanny burst when rushing the passer.

“You just don’t see get-off like that very often,” Lemming recalled last week. “But I thought he was a linebacker.”

Thomas showed up at Notre Dame sort of looking like one — and on the lighter side even for that position — measuring in at 6-foot-4, 196 pounds. With aspirations of being in the mix for playing time as early as this fall at ND’s vyper end position.

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The returning players at that position for the Irish — grad senior Jordan Botelho, junior Junior Tuihalamaka and sophomore Boubacar Traore go 258 pounds, 249 and 236, respectively. And

Traore is considered on the light side.

Even fellow freshman end Cole Mullins, likely a long-term field end prospect but starting at out vyper this spring, is 6-4, 239.

“My personal goal is to be 230 by the end of the summer,” Thomas said On Feb. 9 in an interview with the Irish beat media.

Hello Loren Landow.

Most of the record 15 Irish early enrolled freshmen figure to benefit the most from an early run at the Notre Dame playbook, 15 spring practices and getting used to ND’s high academic demands.

For Thomas, it’s clearly what Landow, Notre Dame’s new director of football performance, can collaborate with Thomas on between now and the start of spring practice, March 7, and each succeeding day until the Irish open the season Aug. 31 at Texas A&M.

Until then, it’s about who Thomas could turn into. And it really has been since he shot up into the Rivals250 rankings after taking home MVP honors at the All American Bowl National Combine in San Antonio back in January of 2023.

Not that he hasn’t been productive at his current size. He helped Katy Paetow High to a Texas 6A state title as a sophomore, then was a key figure in Lakewood St. Edward High’s Ohio Division I state championship this past fall after moving to the Cleveland area to live with his mother, Erica Thomas, and near extended family.

“Obviously, leaving your friends your senior year of high school was hard for me,” Thomas said, “but being close to the family was a big part of it. I just took it as a new opportunity for me going to a new school, a private Catholic school, a way to push me closer to my faith also.”

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The Irish offered him a scholarship less than a week after his breakthrough performance in San Antonio last January. Thomas visited ND for the first time in late March and he verbally committed to Notre Dame om May 24, less than a week after his second visit to the ND campus.

“What stands out most about Thomas' game is that he plays with relentless energy coming off the edge and he has get-off like he was shot from a cannon,” Rivals national recruiting director Adam Gorney said at the time of Thomas’ commitment.

“He can stand up. He can play with his hand down. He can track players to the sideline and he can drop in coverage and play in space. It doesn't take him long to get up to full speed, and his aggressive nature allows him to blow by offensive tackles. He will need to continue to add weight to his frame, but with his length and motor, he's going to bring special things to Notre Dame's defensive line.”

Thomas was special enough in track and field while at Paetow High that he ran the 200-meter dash and was an intermittent member of the school’s 4x100 relay team.

Now it’s all about building muscle to go with that speed, not that he was indifferent to the task in high school. But Thomas too often didn’t eat enough or ate the wrong things. And when it came to the weight room?

“Being on a high school schedule they only had 45 minutes,” he said. “There was only so much work you could get done in those 45 minutes and also being 400 or 500 kids in the weight room at once. There’s not a lot of 1-on-1 time to get with your coaches compared to here.”

His first month of 1-on-1 time at Notre Dame, he said, produced a net gain of almost 10 pounds, up to 205.

“The biggest thing for me is when I started eating right I started noticing a big difference in my workouts,” he said. “More energy, less fatigue, less soreness. Just wanted to keep that same energy.

“Day in, day out we attack the workouts the same way and just work our hardest and just know our hard work will pay off the way we want it to.”