Notre Dame Recruiting: Available Scholarships 58+10+10=78

You can stay on top of the targets and all other Notre Dame recruiting updates via our Recruiting Central hub.

You all are familiar with our eligibility chart so I will get right to it. Players in Blue are expected to be jockeying for position in the two deep heading into fall camp. Players in Red were injured in some capacity during the spring. We will update them as appropriate once fall camp gets going at the end of the summer.

As you know we treat this as a living document and will continue to update it throughout the year. If you have any questions about that or anything else don't hesitate to bring them up in the comments.

2013 ND Roster Breakdown (6 June)

Below is a quick breakdown of the roster changes that have taken place since we last took a look at the numbers in the spring.

Attrition

Davonte Neal

Justin Ferguson

Everett Golson (*Expected to return in the spring of 2014)

Eddie Vanderdoes

New Commitments

Coach Kelly and the staff have also received 6 additional verbal commitments bringing the total number of commitments for this cycle to 10.

The current math is below.

23 Freshmen

14 Sophomores

21 Juniors

10 Seniors that will be eligible to apply for a 5th year

10 Verbal Commitments

78 Total

There are 17 Total scholarships available for new recruits if all 10 of the 5th year options are utilized. Of those 17 scholarships 10 have already been claimed by verbal commitments.

After the remaining 7 scholarships are claimed there are a maximum of 10 additional spots available as a 1 for 1 replacement for 5th year options. There obviously won't be 10 of them but this class is definitely going to be bigger than we thought it was going to be a couple of months ago.

Based on the current state of the roster I expect that the staff will utilize 4 to 5 of those 5th year options which will put the total number in the 2014 signing class at 22 or 23. Any further attrition will obviously free up additional scholarships for this cycle.

Let's take a quick look the 10 players with a 5th year option.

NFL Draft

Louis Nix III- Irish Chocolate is a lock for the bigs.

Likely to return

Christian Lombard- With Nix going to the draft I still think that Lombard will be priority #1 to keep for a 5th year. That is assuming of course that he doesn't play himself into the draft.

Kendall Moore- The roster is thin at inside linebacker. Even if the staff locks on a couple of high quality recruits in this cycle I think it would make sense to keep Moore for a 5th year.

Justin Utopo- This one most likely depends on where he actually ends up playing this fall. If he can provide quality reps at NG he may earn himself a 5th year.

Austin Collinsworth- I think Austin will stick around. He's a solid safety and a great special teams contributor.

On the bubble

Lo Wood- With all of the young depth at corner sticking around could be difficult for Wood.

Andrew Hendrix- With Kiel gone and Golson TBD this scenario an interesting one for Hendrix. He wants to go to med school so does it benefit him in any way to stick around for another year?

Luke Massa- Will Massa move back to Quarterback? If he does could he be another option to stick around for a 5th year to shore up the depth chart?

Alex Welch- Welch might be contingent on how quickly Heuerman and Smythe come along this fall.

Unlikely to return

Bruce Heggie

What do you all think?