Ten thoughts on Notre Dame’s National Signing Day
By Mike Singer
On the morning after National Signing Day, Blue & Gold recruiting insider Mike Singer shares his perspective, thoughts and more in the world of Notre Dame football recruiting.
1. It was a quiet National Signing Day, but as we will get to shortly in point No. 3, it can’t be understated how important it was that Notre Dame signed all 23 of its verbal commitments it had coming into the day. Think back to last year when Notre Dame only had deflections in the week or two leading up to signing day with drama from Peyton Bowen, Jayden Limar and Dylan Edwards. And even think back to the 2022 cycle when C.J. Williams, Amorion Walker and Devin Moore decommitted late.
Notre Dame not suffering any flips late in the cycle didn’t occur due to a lack of effort by other schools. Ohio State wanted Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa. Missouri wanted Aneyas Williams. Both stuck with the Irish with no drama. And that’s just a couple players who we’ve reported about on this topic; there were others who were pursued by other programs late but signed with Notre Dame — no issue. You love to see it.
2. For most schools, your offensive coordinator leaving a couple days before National Signing Day would create drama. Gerad Parker surprised us all when he became Troy’s head coach on Monday, but it had zero impact on Notre Dame’s 2024 class. And that’s not because Parker is a poor recruiter; he did a really nice job for the Irish as coordinator and tight ends coach.
Notre Dame’s three receiver commits — Logan Saldate, Cam Williams and Micah Gilbert — saw their position coach (Chansi Stuckey) and coordinator who recruited them unexpectedly leave the program within a couple weeks. And why didn’t they look around? In large part because of their strong relationships with a handful of other coaches. It’s not just the position coach that recruits for ND. The coordinator, head coach, other assistant staffers and all of the recruiting office builds important relationships. So when one coach leaves, the recruit doesn’t feel left on an island. This is really important. And of course, we can remember Lou Holtz’s legendary quote as to why the players didn’t look around.
“For those who know Notre Dame, no explanation’s necessary. For those who don’t, no explanation will suffice.”
3. Despite Notre Dame not landing a single new recruit yesterday, the Irish actually moved up two spots in the 2024 Industry Ranking Football Team Recruiting Rankings. How? Because other teams lost commitments which made them drop, while the Irish did not. Florida entered the day with the No. 8 class, and at the time of writing this article, they fell all the way down to No. 16. Florida State also had a tough day, starting it as the No. 4 team in the land and ending it No. 11.
And for those wondering, LSU is a spot behind Notre Dame at No. 10, and Michigan is down at No. 17.
There could still be movement the rest of the week, and the postseason all-star games will affect rankings as well, but if Notre Dame ends up with a top-10 class, it’ll be the first time the Irish have signed back-to-back-to-back top-10 groups since 2006-08, according to the Industry Team Ranking. Brian Kelly never accomplished that feat. Marcus Freeman will have done so in his first three classes. That is wild.
4. It was a wild of a day with national news. That can be fun to follow and report on at times, but let’s just say I’m blessed with his signing day. There were flips all over the place. I was going to write about a few of them, but there are just so many. I wouldn’t even know where to start. The one that stuck out to me the most? Four-star wideout Jeremiah McClellan switching from Ohio State to Oregon. He’s one of my favorite talents in the entire 2024 class, and I don’t remember seeing any rumors about him flipping to the Ducks. That was a surprise.
Recruiting in 2023 is wild. I can’t believe how much has changed since covering my first signing day 10 years ago. The toothpaste is out of the tube, though. It’s not going back in.
5. If you did not see the hysterically amazing video from Fighting Irish Media that Marcus Freeman tweeted out about signing day, stop what you’re doing a press play below. My goodness was this great, and defensive coordinator Al Golden should win an Oscar with how good he is at answering the phone. The man could be a great villain in a movie.
6. I wrote in Tuesday night’s Lucky Charms article that we may see Notre Dame officially announce it six transfer portal additions on signing, including former Duke quarterback Riley Leonard. And they did. That was good to see, and those players will join the program in January. Five of the six transfers are already college graduates. Leonard is not, but from what we’re told, he’s able to transfer to Notre Dame because he’s coming over from Duke and is an outstanding student — just like we saw with Brandon Joseph transferring from Northwestern a couple years ago.
7. At 10:25 a.m. ET, Notre Dame announced that Bellflower (Calif.) St. John Bosco linebacker Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa signed with them. Of course, the last player of the class the Irish announced was Viliamu-Asa, the only player who there was even a sliver of worry about on National Signing Day. I think the Irish staff was trolling us a bit! They probably had that letter of intent from Viliamu-Asa right at 10:00 a.m. but wanted to make us sweat a bit to build some good suspense. And I love it.
And also, everyone needs to take eight minutes and watch Viliamu-Asa’s speech at his signing ceremony.
8. Marcus Freeman’s press conference was really good on Wednesday. He addressed the coaching changes, dove into the recruiting class and transfer portal additions and answered other random questions. If you need some background noise during your work day, I’d recommend putting on Freeman’s press conference in the background. There was a lot of good information he shared, and stay tuned to Blue & Gold today and the rest of the week for stories from his presser.
9. A couple tweets I wanted to share that were really interesting … I don’t know how the NCAA plans to deal with this, but what a mess. Something needs to happen here.
And this tweet from RedditCFB is absolute gold.
10. As I’ve shared on the message board this past week, my wife and I took in a newborn baby for a foster care placement last Friday, and on National Signing Day morning, the state came to my home and picked the baby up to take him to one of his father, who stepped up and claimed him. It’s been a really tough few days emotionally, but my wife and I are very thankful with all the support the Blue & Gold community has shown us. We have been absolutely blown away by the generosity and love.
Thank you all for reading my coverage for another recruiting cycle. On to the 2025 class!
