How Many Five-Star Recruits Did Notre Dame Offer In 2020?
After a dominating performance at the 2019 Rivals 3 Stripe Camp last June, Jordan Johnson earned an illustrious fifth star to the right of the headshot on his Rivals recruiting profile. It was less than three months after the St. Louis De Smet Jesuit wide receiver committed to Notre Dame.
After seeing news of his fifth star on social media, Johnson described his mood as “lit.” The designation far from guarantees that he will become a superstar in South Bend, but it is indicative of his enormous potential.
That is all team class rankings are about anyway: potential. Year after year, the teams that attract the most sought after high school prospects — the players with the highest ceilings and floors — typically seem to end up competing for the national championship. It is not an exact science. Some five-star players are busts, but more often than not those prospects end up playing on Sundays.
The exception was Clemson until they started to be considered part of the rule with the No. 2-ranked recruiting class in 2020, which included five signees that have the same Rivals recruiting profile designation as Johnson.
For Notre Dame football to truly wake up the echoes once again — which will only come with another national championship — it seems that signing players of Johnson’s caliber must become a more common occurrence.
Fighting Irish coaches and fans point to the academic and regional restrictions that limit the number of five-star players Notre Dame can seriously recruit in a given cycle, but is this sentiment accurate?
For the 2020 cycle, the answer is yes, at least compared to the top tier of college football and Notre Dame’s main recruiting rival.
Scholarship Offer Breakdown
By analyzing the data available on Rivals recruiting profiles, I was able to determine that of the 34 players in the class of 2020 with the talent and high school production to be classified as five-stars, Notre Dame offered exactly half of them.
| School | Five-Stars Offers | Five-Star Signees |
|---|---|---|
|
Notre Dame |
17 |
1 |
|
Clemson |
22 |
5 |
|
Michigan |
26 |
0 |
|
Alabama |
33 |
4 |
This is a smaller number compared to how many Clemson, Michigan and Alabama offered in 2020, but to varying degrees.
It is far from surprising to see the Clemson offer just 22 five-star prospects. The Tigers may not have the academic standards of Notre Dame, but its football program does prioritize culture more than just about every other team in the county.
What is incredible is that Clemson still hit on five of them, signing 22.7 percent of the five-star prospects it offered in 2020. This includes defensive tackle Bryan Bresee, quarterback D.J. Uiagalelei and strong-side defensive end Myles Murphy, the first-, third- and fourth-ranked players in the class.
Even if a team such as Clemson isn’t offering significantly more five-stars than Notre Dame, the issue is that the Tigers could if they wanted to.
The Fighting Irish simply can’t.
On the other hand, it is somewhat bemusing that Michigan, which also ranks among the top 25 national universities according to U.S. News & World Report, offered nine more five-star prospects than Notre Dame, missing on all of them.
That is not necessarily a dig on the Wolverines. This is the first time since 2016 that the Fighting Irish signed a Rivals five-star recruit. During that time span, Michigan nabbed six.
Of the three programs, the most extreme discrepancy lies between Notre Dame and Alabama. The Crimson Tide offered every 2020 five-star prospect except for wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba out of Texas, who committed to Ohio State in the fall of 2018 and never wavered.
This depicts a certain advantage (or maybe “power” is the better word) Alabama has over Notre Dame. They can pursue almost every five-star prospect in the country, and other great players want to join other great players, which often make the recruiting pitch easier for Alabama.
Not All Offers Are Equal
A major caveat when discussing scholarship offers is that not all are created equal. As I’m sure most recruitniks know by now, some offers are committable while others are not.
Just like Alabama and Michigan, Notre Dame offered five-star running back Zachary Evans. But after his on and off-the-field antics this past fall (he was suspended for multiple games this season and sent home from the state title game), it is almost a guarantee that the Fighting Irish would have never accepted his commitment.
Does this put into question the 17 scholarships Notre Dame offered to 2020 five-stars? Not necessarily, but it does give you an idea of just how small the pool of top talent is for Notre Dame in comparison to most of the country.
It is also worth noting how vital Notre Dame’s ability to recruit nationally is to attracting potential five-star prospects, some of which may never intend to leave their region of the country.
In 2020, only four five-stars came from midwestern states: Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Missouri.
On the other hand, 18 five-stars played high school football in the same state as an SEC program or in Texas. Another six played out west in either California or Arizona. The Maryland and Washington, D.C., area has become a major recruiting hotbed in recent years, and had four five-star prospects in 2020.
This also shows how much the pandemic may impact Notre Dame recruiting when a majority of the top prospects are often more than a 10-hour drive away. In fact, the last two Rivals five-stars to commit to playing in South Bend came from midwestern states (Johnson in Missouri and Daelin Hayes in Michigan).
The good news is that three 2021 Fighting Irish commits are already in contention for a fifth star: Avon (Ind.) High offensive tackle Blake Fisher, La Mesa (Calif.) Helix Charter quarterback Tyler Buchner and Pickerington (Ohio) Central wide receiver Lorenzo Styles.
Will Notre Dame strike gold and have back-to-back classes with at least one five-star signee?
It seems plausible and the value of that type of momentum can’t be overstated. Perhaps in three or four years, Notre Dame fans will look back on the 2020 recruiting class as the moment when the Fighting Irish began to sign five-star prospects on a regular basis and the talent advantage between their favorite team and the likes of Clemson won’t seem so daunting.
Until then, enjoy the process.
Johnson is the first Rivals five-star wide receiver Notre Dame has signed since Michael Floyd in 2008 and look how his collegiate career turned out.
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