Notre Dame landed three blue-chip recruits in the 2027 class last week in wide receiver Julius Jones Jr., defensive lineman Segun Alexander and offensive lineman Albert Simien.
This didn’t change Notre Dame’s position in the Rivals Industry Team Ranking, because there’s not much movement left to be had for the Irish. Notre Dame entered last week with the No. 2 class in the country, which is where they remain today.
However, the Irish’s class score improved from 92.282 to 92.732 with those additions, helping Notre Dame close the gap on Texas A&M, which holds the No. 1 spot.
The Aggies landed a commitment Sunday from wide receiver Eric McFarland, a top-50 overall prospect. That increased Texas A&M’s score to 94.003.
That will be a tough gap for Notre Dame to close, but as the average number of commits used in the rankings score increases, the Irish’s chances to jump the Aggies will as well.
Taking into account every recruit in both classes, Notre Dame has an average recruit rating of 91.40, slightly better than Texas A&M’s 91.35. The Irish have the better blue-chip ratio than the Aggies as well (81 percent to 64 percent).
Notre Dame has three commits who rank outside the top 450 nationally per the Rivals Industry Ranking. Texas A&M has eight. However, the Aggies are loaded at the top of the class with 11 top-100 commits, while Notre Dame has eight.
Will the Irish overtake the Aggies for the top spot? It’s too early to tell, but Notre Dame may need to steal away one of Texas A&M’s five-star commits in order to make it happen.
Behind Notre Dame in the rankings are Miami, Oklahoma, Ohio State, Texas, Florida, Texas Tech, Oregon and USC, in that order. The Irish have a strong lead over the third-place ‘Canes with a score of 92.140.
Notre Dame fans expect the program to compete for the No. 1 recruiting class every year, especially after an exceptional 2026 class that ranked No. 2 overall. However, it’s been nearly 20 years (2007-08) since Notre Dame signed back-to-back top-five classes. If the Irish’s current position holds — or improves — then Marcus Freeman will break that streak.
Per the Rivals Industry Ranking, Notre Dame has three five-star recruits, 14 four-star recruits and four three-star commits in its 2027 class. The blue-chip ratio (percentage of four- and five-star commits) sits at a strong 81 percent.
Notre Dame currently has commitments from eight top-100 overall prospects nationally according to the Rivals Industry Ranking. In the No. 2-ranked 2026 class, the Irish signed five in the top 100.
This cycle marks Marcus Freeman’s fifth full recruiting class as Notre Dame’s head coach. In 2023, the Irish signed the No. 10 class, and they followed with the No. 11 group in 2024. For the 2025 class, the slight downward trend continued as Notre Dame signed the No. 12 group.
But in the 2026 cycle, Notre Dame signed its best recruiting class of the internet era, which dates back to 2004.
Below is a look at the top 10 schools according to the 2027 Rivals Industry Team Recruiting Rankings, as of Tuesday morning.
Understanding Rivals’ team rankings system
The Rivals Industry Team Recruiting Ranking utilizes all three major recruiting media companies: Rivals, 247Sports and ESPN.
It uses a score average of the player rankings, which solves the problem of varying class sizes during the recruiting cycle. It compiles the highest-rated commits for each team up to a total based on a rolling average of commitments among Power Four schools.
The current average number of commits in the 2027 class used in the rankings score is 17. This means that of Notre Dame’s 21 commitments, only the 17 highest-ranked players are used in the rankings score.
To further explain, Notre Dame’s 21 commits have an average recruit rating of 91.40, but that is not the score used in the team ranking. From that group of 17, the Irish’s score is 92.732 — the number used for the class ranking, as seen in the image above.
With this model, there are no bonus points for having more commitments than other teams, and only small deductions when a team has fewer commitments than the rolling average. Unlike distribution (bell) curves, this model doesn’t disproportionately weight a team’s top three or four highest-rated commits and is a more accurate representation of an entire class.
Notre Dame Rivals Industry Team Ranking History
Year: Ranking
2004: 24
2005: 26
2006: 4
2007: 5
2008: 4
2009: 17
2010: 10
2011: 11
2012: 12
2013: 4
2014: 11
2015: 12
2016: 14
2017: 15
2018: 11
2019: 14
2020: 18
2021: 12
2022: 6
2023: 10
2024: 11
2025: 12
2026: 2
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