The last time Blue & Gold published a class rankings article was this time last month, after the Irish landed top-35 overall recruits Oluwasemilore Olubobola and David Folorunsho. Notre Dame’s class ranking catapulted up to No. 5 in the country at that point.
Since then, Notre Dame has continued to add impressive players in the trenches. Four-star pass rusher Jackson Vaughn committed to the Irish at the end of May, and on June 16, five-star pass rusher Abraham Sesay joined the fold.
Between Sesay’s commitment and the average number of commitments used in the Rivals Industry Team Rankings increasing to 15, Notre Dame’s class ranking improved.
The Irish have the No. 3 class in America. Only Texas A&M and Miami are ahead of Notre Dame. Behind the Irish, in order, are Oklahoma, Texas Tech, Florida, Oregon, Ohio State, LSU and USC.
Notre Dame fans’ expectations for football recruiting are to compete for the top class every year, following 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 two five-star recruits, 12 four-star players and four three-star commits in its 2027 class. The blue-chip ratio (percentage of four- and five-star commits) sits at a strong 78 percent.
Notre Dame currently has commitments from six top-100 overall players 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 Industry Team Recruiting Rankings, as of Friday 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 15. This means that of Notre Dame’s 18 commitments, only the 15 highest-ranked players are used in the rankings score.
To further explain, Notre Dame’s 18 commits have an average recruit rating of 91.04, but that is not the score used in the team ranking. From that group of 15, the Irish’s score is 92.304 — 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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