By this time last year, Notre Dame already had four pledges in the 2021 class, and the staff had all but one of its eventual signees in the 2020 cycle committed (Ramon Henderson).
Brian Kelly and Co. were able to use spring-summer official visit period to land two-thirds of its 2020 class, which gave the Irish a head start on the next recruiting cycle.
Well, Notre Dame didn’t exactly have the same luxury this year. Notre Dame hasn’t had a recruiting weekend since Feb. 1 due to the pandemic, so to land 11 new commitments since April (two of which have been able to take formal campus visits), the Irish had to work hard virtually.
I’ve been covering Notre Dame football recruiting since May 2019, so I’m still green in covering the program. But to compare Notre Dame’s recruiting efforts last year to this year, I believe there’s been a clear improvement.
The early commitments in the 2021 class wanted Notre Dame as much as the Irish staff wanted them. And for the three verbals thus far in the 2022 class, the same argument can be made.
The Irish laid the groundwork last fall to land eventual class of 2021 commitments from Chicagoland prospects Pat Coogan and Justin Walters earlier this year. But the majority of Notre Dame’s commitments this calendar year are from prospects the staff didn’t start working on until the spring.
