Notre Dame football's 2025 recruiting class isn't lacking NFL pedigree.
As of 6 p.m. EST, the Irish also aren't lacking at the only position they hadn't received a commitment from yet.
Wide receiver Elijah Burress, son of former NFL wide receiver Plaxico Burress, announced his commitment to the Irish on Saturday via Instagram. Burress became the first receiver commit of Notre Dame's top-ranked 2025 class and chose the Irish out of 11 total offers, including Cincinnati, Duke and Marshall.
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The Wayne (N.J.) DePaul Catholic recruit is the third NFL legacy recruit — along with four-star safety Ivan Taylor and four-star tight end James Flanigan — to join Notre Dame's class this cycle.
Head coach Marcus Freeman's program also added four NFL legacy recruits last December through the transfer portal (Jordan Clark and RJ Oben) and high school ranks (Bryce Young and Kennedy Urlacher).
Notre Dame's recruitment of Burress started last month, when new wide receivers coach Mike Brown extended an offer. Nine days later, Burress visited Notre Dame for junior day, his first recruiting visit since last August when he saw Texas. Since his time in South Bend, Burress reported four new offers but elected to not take any more visits before the dead period began Monday.
The 6-foot-1, 190-pound Burress did not have any stars from Rivals when the Irish pulled their trigger on an offer, but now holds a 5.6 rating, which deems him an All-Region Selection with the potential and ability to impact at the college level according to the Rivals recruiting rankings formula. He has no national, positional or state ranking at this time.
"Burress is still fairly raw but he has certain traits that could make him an important part of a receiving corps," said Rivals national recruiting analyst/rankings director Adam Friedman. "At 6-1, 190 pounds, Burress is a sudden route runner with the ability to accelerate to top speed in an instant. That explosiveness can make him a reliable target on intermediate and downfield routes."
In games tracked by MaxPreps, Burress only hauled in four or more receptions in three contests. Burress finished with over 400 receiving yards as a junior, which is more productive from a yardage standpoint than other Irish wide receiver targets — Derek Meadows and Jerome Bettis Jr. — performances last season.
"Burress does show creative run-after-the-catch tools that could help him turn short catches into big gains," Friedman said. "He has a good feel for the defense and understands where the holes are. Look for Burress to work on finding more consistent success during the upcoming season and improve on last year’s 25 catch, 434 yard, and five touchdown catch performance."
Class growing rapidly
At this point last year, Notre Dame's coaching staff and director of recruiting Chad Bowden were locked in on the 2024 class, which in mid-February, had eight commitments: DT Owen Wafle, QB CJ Carr, TE Jack Larsen, WR Cam Williams, OG Peter Jones, CB Karson Hobbs, RB Aneyas Williams and CB Leonard Moore. Wafle eventually exited Notre Dame's class.
Burress is Notre Dame's 15th commitment and his process of shutting things down after one visit illustrates the impact first impressions can make on a recruit. After Burress' decision, Notre Dame is up to 1,753 points in the 2025 recruiting team rankings.
The Irish remain in pursuit of Bettis, Meadows, four-star wide receiver Talyn Taylor, three-star wide receiver Shaun Terry and some other recent offers. After he canceled his trip for junior day due to not feeling well, Notre Dame has ground to make up in four-star wide receiver Daylan McCutcheon's recruitment this spring and summer.
Since Brown was hired, the Irish have offered nine new wide receiver recruits in the 2025 class, including Burress and Terry. At the receiver position, Notre Dame has fluctuated in its number of signees in recent classes: 2024 (three), 2023 (four), 2022 (one,), 2021 (three) and 2020 (three).
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