SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Last winter, Notre Dame signed the best recruiting class of Marcus Freeman’s head coaching tenure. The Irish pitched a near-perfect game with their official visits: Of the 19 prospects who visited campus last summer, only one didn’t sign with Notre Dame in December. That class finished ranked in the top five of most major outlets, the program’s highest rating on National Signing Day in more than a decade.
Following that success was always going to be a challenge, particularly without the afterglow of a run to the national championship game casting a blue-and-gold tint on every recruiting pitch.
Yet Notre Dame’s encore performance doesn’t feel much different as the July recruiting dead period arrives. And in some ways, the class Freeman and general manager Mike Martin are putting together for 2027 might feel more in tune with Notre Dame’s identity than its 2026 counterpart.
Notre Dame 2027 commitments
PlayerPositionStarsRankingState
Olu Olubobola
OT
5
13
NJ
Albert Simien
OG
5
14
LA
Abraham Sesay
DE
5
27
PA
David Folorunsho
DT
5
31
IL
Xavier Hasan
CB
4
42
NC
Julius Jones Jr.
WR
4
77
FL
Ace Alston
CB
4
88
OH
James Halter
OG
4
92
PA
Aidan O’Neil
DE
4
118
NJ
Lathan Whisenton
RB
4
140
TX
Zayden Gamble
S
4
152
FL
Jackson Vaughn
DE
4
181
NJ
Isaiah Rogers
RB
4
197
MA
Wonderful Monds IV
QB
4
260
FL
Titus Hawk
TE
4
374
OK
Segun Alexander
DT
4
401
GA
Richie Flanigan
DT
4
402
WI
Jackson Hill
OT
3
476
CA
John Gay
S
3
767
FL
Jackson Coleman
WR
3
897
CO
Sean Kraft
LS
3
1877
NC
Here’s what we learned about Notre Dame recruiting as official visit season comes to a close.
Building from the inside out
Freeman likes to talk about having an offensive line- and defensive line-driven program. He has an incoming class that couldn’t reflect that philosophy any better.
The ’27 haul is built around offensive tackle Olu Olubobola, offensive guard Albert Simien, and defensive ends Abraham Sesay and David Folorunsho. All four rank in the top 50 in the 247Sports Composite. That gives Notre Dame more top-50 linemen than in Freeman’s previous five classes combined, which had Rodney Dunham, Guerby Lambert and Will Black. It’s also more than the total of three from Brian Kelly’s 12 recruiting classes: Aaron Lynch, Stephon Tuitt and Tommy Kraemer.
Notre Dame has more top-50 prospects committed along the lines than any program has top-50 prospects committed at any position, other than Texas A&M and Ohio State.
It’s part of a coordinated push to rebuild the roster ahead of next offseason’s turnover, which could demand a fresh wave of talent in the trenches. And the Irish beat some of the sport’s other big spenders to assemble the class, with Texas, Texas A&M and Miami heavily involved in some of those recruitments.
Last year’s class reimagined how successful Notre Dame could be at acquiring top defensive backs out of high school, but this one might be Freeman’s favorite, based on its composition. Notre Dame’s head coach is a devotee of strong line play. And the 2027 class should guarantee the Irish have it in future seasons.
A rise in reclassifications
When Notre Dame pushed for four-star quarterback Teddy Jarrard to reclassify, skipping his senior year of high school in Georgia to back up CJ Carr this fall, it wasn’t clear if the move signaled the start of a trend. Notre Dame had never allowed a football prospect to skip an entire academic year, never mind opting out of another season of athletic development. But the Irish needed another arm, and Jarrard didn’t feel tied down to North Cobb High School in suburban Atlanta.
If reclassification was going to be a one-time thing, Jarrard felt like the right one time.
Except Notre Dame didn’t see it that way.
The Irish have three commitments in the 2027 class who reclassified: quarterback Wonderful Monds IV, defensive end Jackson Vaughn and defensive tackle Segun Alexander. The Irish weren’t desperate to add any of the three early, at least not like Jarrard. But Notre Dame is not in the business of turning away talent, no matter the timing.
By allowing reclassification, Notre Dame stretches the margins of which players the program can recruit, a list that has often been limited in comparison to other programs. Jarrard had to make up his final semester of high school in advance, taking online classes approved by Notre Dame. He withdrew from North Cobb after his junior football season, then spent last spring working at home.
Under normal circumstances, Monds, Vaughn and Alexander would have enrolled in January 2028. But being part of the 2027 team as reserves should give them a leg up on competing for a job when they reach their traditional freshman season in 2028. The situation is similar to that of Jarrard, who said he might not have reclassified had Carr been certain to return for his senior season.
Regardless, the green light for reclassification helps expand Notre Dame’s target list and allows those prospects to earn name, image and likeness money six months sooner.
Quarterback sorted for the long haul
It’s easy to forget how far behind Notre Dame appeared to be in quarterback recruiting a year ago.
A run to the national championship game meant the Irish staff couldn’t get out on the road recruiting in January 2025, which made it difficult for offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock and quarterbacks coach Gino Guidugli to read their quarterback targets. Guidugli puts every quarterback target through a football IQ test in person, asking them to grasp a Notre Dame concept and to teach him something from the QB’s high school playbook. Without time to see high school quarterbacks in person that January, Notre Dame was forced to wait until the spring contact period to fully scout Jarrard and the rest of his class.
Although the Irish would have preferred to wait again instead of missing the College Football Playoff, the value of that time has shown in their quarterback recruiting, spread across multiple classes. The Irish landed Monds on May 1, then added Class of 2028 quarterback Trey Tagliaferri less than six weeks later. Tagliaferri plays at the same Bergen Catholic program in Oradell, N.J., that produced former Irish quarterback Steve Angeli.
That means Notre Dame has set up a layered succession plan for Carr. However, whether or not the Irish got the right quarterbacks to make that plan work won’t be known until next year. Of the five quarterbacks signed or committed to the Irish, none have taken meaningful game reps. And that probably won’t change this season.
Of Tagliaferri, Monds, Jarrard, Noah Grubbs and Blake Hebert, none ranked in the top 10 quarterbacks during their recruiting cycles in the 247Sports Composite. So, does Notre Dame have the next Carr on the roster? That’s hard to say. But after landing Tagliaferri and Monds this summer, the Irish have options.
Who will commit next?
Linebacker Roman Igwebuike is the best bet, probably by a wide margin.
Igwebuike, who plays high school football at Mt. Carmel in Chicago, was high on Notre Dame before the defensive staff reshuffling last offseason. Five-star Kaden Henderson then turned into Notre Dame’s priority at the position, but the Irish never lost touch with Igwebuike, hosting him for an official visit in June. He is scheduled to announce his decision on July 11.
Clemson, Indiana, Missouri and Tennessee are the other contenders, although Notre Dame got the final official visit among those schools. If the Irish land Igwebuike, it would help offset the earlier decommitments of Ellis McGaskin (Florida) and Amarri Irvin (Virginia Tech). Igwebuike is ranked as the nation’s No. 9 linebacker and No. 123 overall prospect per the 247Sports Composite. McGaskin and Irvin both rank outside the top 300.
That would leave defensive tackle Brayden Parks as the top remaining prospect on the board, with the Chicago product torn between Notre Dame and Oregon. Parks, the godson of former Notre Dame All-American Chris Zorich, took official visits to both schools in June.