As a high school junior at Ardrey Kell in Charlotte, N.C., Julian Okwara carried a slight frame as a 6-4, 195-pound defensive end. Thus, even as the younger brother of then-Fighting Irish standout Romeo Okwara, Notre Dame defensive line coach Mike Elston wasn’t sure such a prospect warranted a closer look.
But on a trip to Charlotte in the fall of 2014, Elston was forced to adjust plans. The running back he was in town to scout suffered an ankle injury. Instead, at an Ardrey Kell High School football game, he got his first in-person look at the type of electric talent NFL Draft analysts would one day salivate over.
“[Okwara] ran down on every kickoff and made the tackle, he blocked the punt, he had three sacks, he had an interception for a touchdown,” Elston said. “We offered him the very next day.”
Elston knew that once Julian got to campus to develop, his motor and God-given abilities would shine through. Between his sophomore and senior college football seasons, he recorded 15.5 sacks and 24 tackles for loss before becoming a day-two NFL Draft selection in 2020.
Notre Dame found similar success in developing another 2016 defensive end recruit: Ade Ogundeji. After working under director of football performance Matt Balis for five seasons, the once skinny and raw prospect Notre Dame flipped from Western Michigan went on to lead the team in sacks in 2020.
“I believe strongly that the evaluation process that Coach [Brian] Kelly has developed allows for a player like a [Sheldon] Day and Julian, who were not four-star prospects, to come in and develop,” Elston said. “And then have an opportunity to further their career in the NFL.”
Five years later, the long athletic frames and the electric twitch Okwara and Ogundeji possessed as undervalued high school prospects have become essential characteristics of the defensive end recruiting profile at Notre Dame.
That is evident in the defensive end trio the Fighting Irish signed in 2021: Jason Onye, Devin Aupiu and Will Schweitzer.
Each is a long, raw prospect with the potential to develop into an early-round NFL Draft pick after a few offseasons in Notre Dame’s strength and conditioning program.
“We are and will be a developmental program,” Elston said. “Whether it's a guy that’s got a high rating or a low rating, we’re looking for a young man that has a high ceiling, and we want his best days of football to be ahead. We certainly don’t want him to be peaked out in high school.
“We’ve had to play freshmen in the past and that’s not a lot of fun when you have to play them. It’s great when you can play them, which we have been doing over the last three or four seasons. It’s fun when you can put them in the cooker a little bit and let them develop and then play them.”
Of the three incoming ends, Aupiu and Schweitzer are mid-year enrollees. Both project at vyper end, a position requiring great versatility. In recent years, Okwara, Daelin Hayes and Isaiah Foskey have all thrived in this role, always at the line of scrimmage in a two-point stance but prepared to pick up a running back or tight end in coverage or rush the passer.
With added weight and strength, this should be a position where Aupiu will blossom. Not only does he have the necessary speed and suddenness, but he’s a technician at heart.
“The great thing about Devin is that he’s a football junkie,” Elston said. “When we talked during the recruiting process, it wasn’t about the glitz and the glamour, he wanted to talk about football. He wanted to know, ‘Why is Daelin in a two-point stance with his outside foot up and his inside foot back?’”
At 6-4 and 215 pounds, Schweitzer holds similar traits but played linebacker at the prep level and is comfortable dropping into coverage.
Onye, a massive high school prospect at 6-5 and 265 pounds, projects as a big end and could even move inside and play three-technique. He needs to be stout against the run, set the edge to the field and rush the passer. With limited football experience — his football career began as a high school sophomore looking to meet new friends — he’s one of the rawest prospects in the country but possesses incredible upside.
Each position is different, but Notre Dame has taken a similar approach with three-star prospects at other positions as well.
Of course, each recruit, no matter their on-the-field potential, must be an academic and cultural fit as well. If a player fails to make the cut on the field, in the classroom or to mesh with his teammates and coaches, the chances he reaches his potential in South Bend are slim to none.
This is indicative of why Notre Dame prefers to evaluate the ranking of its recruiting classes three to four years after signing day.
“Nobody really knows on signing day if you have a top-10 class, a top-five class or a top-three class until you see the fruition on the football field,” Elston said. “Well, let’s face it, you’re going to put them through a developmental process within your program, and then you’re going to find out what kind of class you signed. You’re not going to know what that class looks like until they go through your process.
“We believe here at Notre Dame, Coach Kelly has a developmental process with the support staff and with our coaching staff that is second to none.”
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