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Notre Dame signed a five-star Pacific Coast linebacker on Wednesday. That’s happened before.
The Irish pulled in arguably the best quarterback on the market this offseason. Did that just last winter, too. And they are already watching a consensus four-star recruit in practices, also true last spring with current freshman Kenny Minchey.
Notre Dame landed at No. 9 in the rivals.com class of 2024 rankings, its fourth straight cycle in the top 11. And 18 of 23 signees are four- or five-stars, 78.3 percent. In the last three cycles, 54 of 68 recruits signing with the Irish have been blue-chip recruits, 79.4 percent, using rivals.com rankings simply for consistency’s sake.
The one thing to set this winter’s roster additions apart from past years is the one position Notre Dame has most needed to improve, the one position that has capped the Irish success each of the last three seasons, logically costing Notre Dame at least one Playoff appearance in the process.
The Irish have added five receivers this month, quite literally doubling the size of the receivers room in 2024.
No greater folly has doomed Notre Dame’s postseason hopes the last three years than its lack of quality receivers, a deficiency compounded by a literal lack of bodies in the room. Even in 2021, when the 11-1 Irish came one upset away from reaching the College Football Playoff for a third time in four years under Brian Kelly, only Kevin Austin and Braden Lenzy caught more than 25 passes among players recruited as receivers.
Lenzy memorably ran 70 pass routes in the Fiesta Bowl loss, showing clear exhaustion as the game wound down. He had to line up for every play, the Irish were down to three receivers.
In 2022, Notre Dame consistently played exactly four players recruited as receivers — Lorenzo Styles, Jayden Thomas, Braden Lenzy and…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/landing-five-receivers-month-including-114732142.html
Author : NBC Sports
Publish date : 2023-12-21 11:47:32
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