A year after Xavier Watts was deemed a three-star prospect, per Rivals, and the 90th-best wide receiver nationally in the 2020 class, three-star offensive tackle Joe Alt didn’t even make the cut to be rated by Rivals at his position group, which ran 75 deep that year.

On Thursday morning the two Notre Dame football players showed just how far they’ve transcended those muted expectations, and Watts at his third college position played at that.

Unanimous All-Americans.

Watts, a senior safety pondering a fifth year at ND, and Alt, a junior who declared Wednesday for the NFL Draft, joined the rather exclusive club Thursday, when the American Football Coaches Association revealed its All-America first team. It’s the fifth and final such grouping that determines both consensus All-Americans and the rarer unanimous ones.

Watts and Alt become Notre Dame’s 31st and 32nd in the school’s rich history, with four players having done so twice. That gives Notre Dame 36 unanimous All-America selections.

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Only five Irish players had been so honored in the 2000s. Linebacker Jaylon Smith is one of many recent Notre Dame stars who fell short of the requisite five first-team honors from the AFCA, The Sporting News, the Associated Press, the Football Writers Association of America and the Walter Camp Foundation.

Two of Notre Dame’s Heisman Trophy winners, John Huarte and Angelo Bertelli, had the distinction elude them as well. The most recent Notre Dame unanimous All-American prior to Thursday was linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah in 2020. He was also a Rivals three-star prospect.

A huge turning point for both Alt and Watts came in October of 2021. Watts had been moved to rover/linebacker from wide receiver right after Labor Day following a run of preseason/early-season injuries at the position. After All-America safety Kyle Hamilton suffered what turned out to be a season-ending injury, Watts then moved to safety — for good.

Watts did practice on both sides of the ball briefly in 2022, when Notre Dame had a shortage of bodies at wide receiver, but he never played the position in a game that season and barely played it in 2020 when he had zero catches in two cameos.

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Alt started the 2021 season as a niche player, an extra blocker with a tight end number when the Irish wanted to go to power packages. Classmate and teammate Blake Fisher, meanwhile, became the first Notre Dame player ever to start a game at left tackle as a freshman and the eighth freshman to start a game at any of the offensive line positions.

But he went out with an injury in the season opener at Florida State. Alt was the fourth player then-head coach Brian Kelly tried at the position. And in game 6, he became the ninth ND freshman to start a game on the offensive line and the second to start at left tackle.

He hasn’t left the lineup since, a streak that will end with his opting ouf of the Dec. 29 Sun Bowl matchup with Oregon State.

Even when Fisher returned from injury in 2021 for the Fiesta Bowl at season’s end, Alt remained the left tackle and Fisher, a former five-star prospect, became the new right tackle.

In 2023, Alt was the anchor on an offensive line that was a Joe Moore Award semifinalist. According to Pro Football Focus he allowed only four sacks in his Notre Dame career that included 33 straight starts. Three of those sacks came as a freshman in 2021.

He was credited with allowing one against Louisville this season.

Watts led the nation in interceptions, with seven, to go along with 47 tackles, 2.5 tackles for loss, four pass breakups, a fumble recovery and a forced fumble. Earlier this month, he was awarded the Bronko Nagurski Trophy as the nation’s top defensive player.

NOTRE DAME UNANIMOUS ALL-AMERICANS

1929-30 Frank Carideo, QB, (Vernon, N.Y.)

1932 Joe Kurth, T, (Madison, Wis.)

1938 Ed Beinor, T, (Harvey, Ill.)

1946-47 John Lujack, QB, (Connellsville, Pa.)

1949 Leon Hart, E, (Turtle Creek, Pa.)

1949 Emil Sitko, FB, (Fort Wayne, Ind.)

1952-53 John Lattner, HB, (Chicago, Ill.)

1954 Ralph Guglielmi, QB, (Columbus, Ohio)

1965 Dick Arrington, OG, (Erie, Pa.)

1966 Nick Eddy, HB, (Lafayette, Calif.)

1966 Jim Lynch, LB, (Lima, Ohio)

1969 Mike McCoy, DT, (Erie, Pa.)

1971 Walt Patulski, DE, (Liverpool, N.Y.)

1972 Greg Marx, DT, (Redford, Mich.)

1975 Steve Niehaus, DT, (Cincinnati, Ohio)

1976-77 Ross Browner, DE, (Warren, Ohio)

1977 Ken MacAfee, TE, (Brockton, Mass.)

1978 Bob Golic, LB, (Willowick, Ohio)

1980 John Scully, C, (Huntington, N.Y.)

1987 Tim Brown, FL, (Dallas, Texas)

1989 Todd Lyght, CB, (Flint, Mich.)

1990 Raghib Ismail, FL, (Wilkes-Barre, Pa.)

1990 Michael Stonebreaker, LB, (River Ridge, La.)

1990 Chris Zorich, DT, (Chicago, Ill.)

1993 Aaron Taylor, OT, (Concord, Calif.)

2002 Shane Walton, CB, (San Diego, Calif.)

2009 Golden Tate, WR, (Hendersonville, Tenn.)

2012 Manti Te’o, LB, (Laie, Hawaii)

2017 Quenton Nelson, OG, (Holmdel, N.J.)

2020 Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah, LB, (Hampton, Va.)

2023 Joe Alt, OT, (North Oaks, Minn.)

2023 Xavier Watts, S, (Omaha, Neb.)

First Team

WR *Marvin Harrison Jr., Ohio State

WR Malik Nabers, LSU

TE *Brock Bowers, Georgia

OL *Joe Alt, Notre Dame

OL Cooper Beebe, Kansas State

C Jackson Powers-Johnson, Oregon

OL Zak Zinter, Michigan

OL Olumuyiwa Fashanu, Penn State

QB Jayden Daniels, LSU

RB *Blake Corum, Michigan

RB Ollie Gordon II, Oklahoma State

DL Jared Verse, Florida State

DL T’Vondre Sweat, Texas

DL Laiatu Latu, UCLA

DL Jer’Zhan Newton, Illinois

LB Dallas Turner, Alabama

LB Payton Wilson, NC State

LB Edgerrin Cooper, Texas A&M

DB Cooper DeJean, Iowa

DB Trey Taylor, Air Force

DB Xavier Watts, Notre Dame

DB Malaki Starks, Georgia

P Tory Taylor, Iowa

PK Graham Nicholson, Miami (Ohio)

AP Travis Hunter, Colorado

LS James Rosenberry Jr., Florida State

Second Team

WR Malik Washington, Virginia

WR Rome Odunze, Washington

TE Dallin Holker, Colorado State

OL Graham Barton, Duke

OL Taliese Fuaga, Oregon State

C Sedrick Van Pran, Georgia

OL Troy Fautanu, Washington

OL Kelvin Banks Jr. , Texas

QB Michael Penix Jr., Washington

RB Cody Schrader, Missouri

RB Omarion Hampton, North Carolina

DL Jalen Green, James Madison

DL Kris Jenkins, Michigan

DL JT Tuimoloau, Ohio State

DL Jonah Elliss, Utah

LB Jeremiah Trotter Jr., Clemson

LB Jay Higgins, Iowa

LB Trey Moore, UTSA

DB Terrion Arnold, Alabama

DB Quinyon Mitchell, Toledo

DB *Kool-Aid McKinstry, Alabama

DB Beanie Bishop Jr., West Virginia

P James Ferguson-Reynolds, Boise State

PK Jose Pizano, UNLV

AP Xavier Worthy, Texas

LS *Joe Shimko, NC State

*–2022 AFCA All-American

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