Five-star OT Grayson McKeogh signs with Notre Dame football

Notre Dame football signing a five-star offensive lineman has become routine for the Irish in recent years. But when Notre Dame started its pursuit of five-star offensive tackle Grayson McKeogh, who made his verbal commitment official by signing with the Irish on Wednesday, McKeogh wasn’t a five-star prospect.

When Notre Dame offered McKeogh in March, the Rivals Industry Ranking slated McKeogh as the No. 28 offensive tackle and No. 354 overall in the 2026 class. In the last six months, Rivals made it clear how much it loved McKeogh as a prospect. After McKeogh was previously ranked No. 181 overall as the No. 17 offensive tackle in the class, he became Rivals’ highest-ranked four-star recruit in the 2026 class in July as the No. 13 overall recruit and No. 4 offensive tackle.

Rivals gave McKeogh a five-star rating in September. In the most recent update last month, McKeogh became the No. 9 overall recruit and No. 3 offensive tackle in the 2026 class.

“McKeogh has looked better and better as the season has gone on,” Rivals director of scouting and rankings Charles Power said last month. “He’s such a loose, fluid mover at the position and plays against strong competition. Watching where he was from game 1 to game 11, he’s shown steady improvement and progress, which is what you want to see for a player with limited experience at a position.

“He’s put on really good mass in the past year; he’s holding it well and plays with more power. McKeogh is a very high upside player, and when you look at the tackle group nationally — in an interesting way — he’s maybe the most battle-tested in terms of the competition he plays, despite being new to the position.

“We have four five-star offensive tackles, and you could make a case for any of them to be the highest drafted tackle out of this class. McKeogh gives Notre Dame another really high upside offensive tackle. He has the makings of a potential first-round pick.”

The 6-foot-7, 280-pound McKeogh might not be the only potential first-round pick on his own high school team. Rivals ranks teammate Joey O’Brien as the No. 1 safety and No. 25 overall in the 2026 class. The Wyndmoor (Pa.) La Salle College High duo both committed to Notre Dame in June.

The Irish were in pursuit of O’Brien for longer, but McKeogh became a coveted prospect for offensive line coach Joe Rudolph. McKeogh made an unofficial visit to Notre Dame in April then returned for an official visit in June. The official visit to Notre Dame, which followed an official visit to Penn State and led to a cancelled official visit to Texas, made McKeogh’s decision clear.

“I said it before: the official visits would be the deciding factor,” McKeogh told Blue & Gold in July. “Right during the official visit is when I knew.”

Penn State and Texas were the top contenders with Notre Dame for McKeogh, but he also received offers from the likes of Ohio State, Alabama, Ole Miss and Indiana. McKeogh became part of a supersized offensive line class for Notre Dame with five others: Gregory Patrick, Charlie Thom, Ben Nichols, Tyler Merrill and Sullivan Garvin. Rivals rates Patrick, Thom and Nichols as four-star recruits and Merrill and Garvin as three-star recruits.

“It definitely was the people,” McKeogh said of why he committed to Notre Dame. “The people I got to spend time with on the OV — the different commits that were there and the different players they were close to getting. Being able to spend time with them, knowing those are the guys I’m going to play alongside definitely helped.”

McKeogh gained close to 80 pounds in the last two years. He was slightly above 200 pounds as a sophomore playing on the defensive line. He played his first season as an offensive lineman at 245 pounds as a junior. He rose above 280 pounds for his senior season.

McKeogh believes Notre Dame can get him to fulfill his five-star potential as a future NFL Draft pick. He’s certainly aware of the offensive line tradition at Notre Dame.

“I definitely believe in their process for me,” McKeogh said. “I’ve judged it a lot on their former players and what they’ve been able to do with guys like Quenton Nelson or Joe Alt. I believe that is going to be my pathway to follow. And if I’m able to put in the work over the time that I’m there, then it’s going to be a good result.”

So long as McKeogh’s five-star rating holds through the final update in January, he will extend Notre Dame’s recruiting streak with five-star offensive linemen to six consecutive cycles. In each of the previous five recruiting cycles, the Irish have signed an offensive lineman rated as a five-star recruit by Rivals or On3. The streak started with Blake Fisher, who Rivals rated as a five-star recruit in the 2021 class and continued through Aamil Wagner (On3, 2022), Charles Jagusah (On3, 2023), Guerby Lambert (On3, 2024) and Will Black (On3 and Rivals, 2025).