Where Notre Dame commits, targets rank in new 2023 On300 national update
There’s no way around it; this wasn’t a positive rankings update by On3 for Notre Dame.
On3 director of scouting and rankings Charles Power explained to BlueandGold.com that Monday’s update was one of the bigger ones of the 2023 cycle. The last update was in October, and there’s been a lot of new information to come about on rising senior prospects.
“We’re basically resetting the whole group. [The drops] aren’t always an indictment on the player,” Power said. “We had almost 70 new players move into the On300.”
Let’s start by taking a look at some of the positive moves for Notre Dame. And it should be noted that Monday’s update is according to On3’s own rankings, which make up 25 percent of the On3 Consensus, a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies.
Tampa (Fla.) Berkeley Prep EDGE and Notre Dame commit Keon Keeley only moved up one spot, but when a prospect moves from the No. 4 to No. 3 player in the country, that’s a big deal. He slid past fellow five-star Floridian Cormani McClain, a cornerback prospect. Keeley is the highest ranked non-quarterback recruit nationally.
“We flipped Keeley and McClain as the No. 3 prospect in the country,” Power said. “Some of that is positional value; Keeley is the top pass rusher in the country in our opinion. He’s obviously long and very athletic, but a differentiator between he and [five-star EDGE] Nyckoles Harbor right now is that Keeley is more polished and is very productive. We really like Keeley’s curvilinear movement; how he is able to bend and turn corners for a taller guy. He’s very good in that regard.”
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Keeley’s junior season was nothing short of sensational. He recorded 61 tackles, 34 tackles loss, 16.5 sacks, 19 quarterback hurries and one interception, and broke up three passes and forced two fumbles. And that’s just in 12 games; stats for his state title game in which Berkeley lost were not made available.
“We were really high on him going into the season, and he exceeded our expectations,” Power added of the key Notre Dame commit. “He looks to be a guy who is polished and productive but also has a lot of upside left. The quarterback group is so strong, so it says a lot for him to be the No. 3 player right now. That speaks to how highly we think of him.”
Another positive mover on Notre Dame’s commit list was Denton (Texas) Guyer’s Peyton Bowen, who moved from No. 49 to No. 36 in the On3 national rankings. He moved up a spot in the safety positional rankings and sits at No. 4 nationally.
“Moving up 13 spots in the top 50 is pretty notable when you have so many guys moving around,” Power said. “He’s one of the better safeties in what is a very strong cycle at the position. I watched five or six Guyer games during the season, and he was always one of the best players on the field in every game I watched him play. He’s a really good athlete. He has great range.
“You love to see safeties with a playmaking gene and those traits to impact the game, and Bowen is a great return man. He played well on offense in the state championship game against Austin Westlake. He was their best athlete, and he immediately made an impact.
“I love Bowen as a prospect. He’s a guy who is a surefire top-50 player and is one of the top safeties in the country. Landing him out of Texas is a huge get for Notre Dame.”
Perspective on some of Notre Dame’s drops
Seeing Mentor (Ohio) High defensive lineman and Notre Dame commit Brenan Vernon fall 53 spots to the nation’s No. 175 player isn’t ideal for Irish fans.
Power and other analysts involved have hundreds upon hundreds of prospects to rank and have to compare apples to oranges in terms of slotting prospects who play different positions. And in Vernon’s case, there was little junior tape made available to evaluate him on.
“His movement was more about other defensive lineman who we had more video on and a really good sample size of,” Power noted. “How the list works out is that if you get jumped by four or five players in your position, then that’s naturally going to push you down a couple dozen spots at least based off the other positions having to slot in. We didn’t want to penalize other defensive linemen who we have more on than Vernon right now.”
Merrillville (Ind.) Andrean linebacker Drayk Bowen had a sensational junior season, leading his squad to an Indiana 2A state title and earning the state’s Gatorade Player of the Year award.
But in this rankings update, a handful of the top linebackers nationally fell, including Notre Dame target Troy Bowles. Bowen also fell nearly 60 spots.
“We really had to reset the linebacker group,” Power explained. “Our No. 1 linebacker [Bowles] is No. 63 [falling from No. 36]. That group isn’t as good nationally right now. Bowen’s drop was a by-product of the whole group moving down. We had a couple guys who were new entries, but not many linebackers moved up — several dropped 70, 80 or even 100 spots.
“Bowen is a really good high school player. We want to see what he looks like athletically and get a better idea of his size and stature. He plays pretty close to the line, so we want to get a better idea of how he can play out in space and how athletic he is.”
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The biggest faller among the Notre Dame commits was Irvington (N.J.) High safety Adon Shuler. He was ranked as the No. 119 player but fell to No. 289.
“It’s a really strong safety group; you can argue it’s the deepest of the cycle,” Power said. “A lot of the guys jumped him who we thought move better and show better play speed on video. We want to figure out how he stacks up athletically and from a play speed perspective.”
Hang in there, Irish fans. We’re almost through this.
A couple Notre Dame verbals fell out of the On300 entirely. Concord (Calif.) De La Salle tight end Cooper Flanagan was the nation’s No. 253 player but is no longer in the top 300.
“He’s remaining a four-star,” Power said. “We had a ton of tight ends in the On300 early, so some of them bumped out naturally by other positions. We added a lot more offensive tackles. For us, it was easier to identify the tight ends earlier.
“He plays both ways at De La Salle, and they have a pretty good track record with guys like him. They’ve had multiple tight ends drafted. We’ll keep looking at him closely and get a better feel for him as a pass catcher since he plays in a veer offensive in high school.”
Las Vegas Bishop Gorman cornerback and Irish pledge Justyn Rhett also fell out of the rankings from the No. 265 spot.
“He’s really developed and polished,” Power said of Rhett. “I believe he’s older for his class, so he’s going to be more physically mature than others at the same stage. He plays in a pretty loaded secondary at Bishop Gorman. He’s one we’re eager to watch in the camp circuit and see where he shakes out among the corners.
“Cornerback is one of the positions where you may see the most movement in the offseason. Track times and what not really help us evaluate cornerbacks more so than other positions.”
Notre Dame has nine commitments in the 2023 class, five of whom rank inside On3’s top 300.
There are net-positive rankings updates. There are net-negative updates. This was the latter, but we’ll all get through this together.
Moves among Irish targets
There are 14 five-star prospects in the 2023 class per On3, and Notre Dame is a top contender for two of them specifically. Rock Island (Ill.) Alleman’s Charles Jagusah earned five-star status and is now the No. 1 offensive tackle in the nation. He’s now the No. 7 overall player per On3.
“We’ve been high on Jagusah since the initial 2023 rankings last fall,” Power said. “Even though he was mainly being recruited as a defensive tackle at the time, we felt like he had the potential to be the top offensive tackle in the cycle. His functional athleticism and fluidity are differentiators in what is a strong offensive line group nationally.”
Hoschton (Ga.) Mill Creek’s Caleb Downs is the nation’s No. 1 safety and a five-star prospect at No. 13 in America. BlueandGold.com has the latest on his recruitment from seeing him in person on Sunday.
Bradenton (Fla.) IMG Academy’s Carnell Tate is the No. 3 receiver in the country and sits just outside of five-star status at No. 17. He moved down one spot from the previous ranking.
There was quite the intriguing move in the quarterback rankings, with Birmingham (Ala.) Briarwood Christian’s Christopher Vizzina moved to the No. 4 signal-caller nationally and No. 20 overall player. He slid past Detroit Martin Luther King’s Dante Moore, who is now No. 49 overall and the No. 5 quarterback. For more on these two and Power’s breakdown of them, check out BlueandGold.com’s story.
A few notable Notre Dame targets who rose in the On3 rankings were Mount Pleasant (S.C.) Oceanside Collegiate Academy offensive tackle Monroe Freeling (No. 52 to No. 39), Marlin (Texas) High linebacker Derion Gullette (No. 240 to No. 56), Lakeland (Fla.) High wide receiver Tyler Williams (No. 130 to No. 57), St. Louis De Smet cornerback Christian Gray (No. 164 to No. 132) and Austin (Texas) Westlake wide receiver Jaden Greathouse (No. 251 to No. 182).
One of the more interesting drops was Bradenton (Fla.) IMG Academy athlete Samuel M’Pemba, who was an On3 five-star but dropped to No. 103 in America.
“We took a shot with him as a five-star prior to him moving to IMG,” Power said. “Some of the stuff he showed at his previous high school in Missouri was really intriguing as a sophomore. We were projecting him as a pass rusher, but last season at IMG, he mainly played H-back. We believe he’s much closer — in our opinion — to his ranking now than being a five-star.”
Notre Dame targets new to the On300
Three key Notre Dame targets made their debut in the top 300 national rankings.
Cincinnati Lakota East offensive lineman Austin Siereveld jumped from outside the On300 to No. 137 nationally.
West Chester (Ohio) Lakota West safety Malik Hartford didn’t even have an On3 ranking before Monday and now is the No. 143 prospect in America.
Hagerstown (Md.) St. James School defensive lineman Devan Houstan became the No. 265 player in America.
Notre Dame’s newest offer in the 2023 class is St. Louis Christian Brothers athlete Jeremiyah Love, who moved from three-star status to No. 127 nationally. The Irish offered Love on Monday morning.
