Two highly touted prospects in the Keystone State made news regarding their Notre Dame football recruitments Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
Exton (Pa.) Downingtown East<\/a> four-star edge rusher Abraham Sesay<\/a> included the Irish in his top six schools. Then, Malvern (Pa.) Prep<\/a> four-star wide receiver Cade Cooper<\/a> posted on social media that he scheduled an official visit to Notre Dame from June 12-14.<\/p>\n According to the Rivals Industry Ranking, Sesay and Cooper are the Nos. 4 and 12 prospects in Pennsylvania. They play their high school football just 10 miles apart. After Wednesday night\u2019s news, Blue & Gold<\/a> breaks down the latest on each prospect\u2019s Notre Dame recruitment.<\/p>\n Who is Notre Dame battling for Sesay?<\/p>\n The 6-foot-4\u00bd, 225-pound edge rusher told<\/a> Rivals<\/a> national recruiting reporter Hayes Fawcett that his top six schools are Notre Dame, Duke, Florida State, Miami, Penn State and South Carolina. Sesay, the No. 77 overall player and No. 10 EDGE nationally, cut 26 Power Four programs from his recruitment.<\/p>\n The most notable omission was Ohio State, which previously led the Rivals Recruiting Prediction Machine<\/a>. On Nov. 16, Rivals<\/a> vice president of recruiting Steve Wiltfong logged a prediction for Sesay to land with the Buckeyes following a game-day visit. However, Ohio State is no longer in the mix for the elite East Coast edge rusher. Neither are several other major programs. In addition to Ohio State, Sesay omitted Alabama, Georgia, LSU, Oregon and USC from his top schools.<\/p>\n Notre Dame has been one of the programs most frequently linked to Sesay since he visited for the Syracuse game Nov. 22. Penn State is another top contender after hosting him five times. Yet, each of those visits occurred while James Franklin<\/a> was the head coach. Sesay has not yet returned to Happy Valley under the new staff.<\/p>\n Duke was the only school to host Sesay for a January visit. He has not reported trips to Florida State, Miami or South Carolina. Meanwhile, the Seminoles are the only program among his finalists with an EDGE pledge. On Jan. 30, they secured a commitment from Largo (Fla.) Indian Rocks Christian School<\/a> four-star Anthony Cavallaro<\/a>, the No. 36 edge rusher in the class.<\/p>\n Sesay is set to return to Notre Dame for the Blue-Gold Game on April 25. He is also expected to visit Florida State.<\/p>\n When did Notre Dame make a move for Cooper?<\/p>\n The 6-foot-2, 190-pound Cooper is a relatively new Notre Dame target. He stopped by campus Jan. 30 en route to unofficial visits at Big Ten programs Northwestern and Wisconsin. The No. 373 overall player and No. 51 wide receiver left South Bend with an offer from the Irish.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s definitely a big offer for me,\u201d Cooper told Blue & Gold recruiting insider Mike Singer<\/a> in January. \u201cIt\u2019s a school that competes in the College Football Playoff, and they have great talent. Coach Marcus Freeman is a great guy. I can\u2019t wait to meet him. I didn\u2019t get to see him when I was there.\u201d<\/p>\n At minimum, he will do so in June during his official visit. Cooper has not revealed whether he plans to return to South Bend this spring. Schools he has visited include Rutgers, Maryland, Syracuse, Boston College, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati.<\/p>\n In addition to those programs, Cooper holds offers from Virginia Tech, Duke, Nebraska, Ole Miss and West Virginia.<\/p>\n Notre Dame has already landed one notable recruit from Malvern Prep<\/a> in the Marcus Freeman<\/a> era. In the 2024 class, the Irish signed three-star offensive lineman Peter Jones<\/a>, the No. 8 prospect in Pennsylvania and No. 491 overall player nationally. He was also the No. 43 interior offensive lineman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two highly touted prospects in the Keystone State made news regarding their Notre Dame football recruitments Wednesday night.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123805,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[58109,58110,28,30,29],"class_list":{"0":"post-123804","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pennsylvania","8":"tag-abraham-sesay-27-downingtown-east","9":"tag-cade-cooper-27-malvern-prep","10":"tag-pennsylvania","11":"tag-pennsylvania-headlines","12":"tag-pennsylvania-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}