A Notre Dame Football Recruiting Update Before You Go To Mass

Are you in need of a recruiting update for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish? It’s actually been a quiet few weeks - mostly due to an early signing period that locked up 21 spots, but it also means that Notre Dame really isn’t in it for what’s left of the nation’s ELITE recruits.

It happens.

Despite that, there is news as we inch closer and closer to National Signing Day. We’ll keep this brief enough for you to read before you take off for Mass - or if you’re a Saturday goer, this is your morning restroom reading.

Ready? Here we go...

• 3 Star C’Bo Flemister is the hot new name at running back - a sudden need for the Irish. He is currently committed to the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, but will visit Notre Dame on January 27. The Tennessee Volunteers are also in the mix.
• 4 Star Wide Receiver Lawrence Keys III went on a visit to Notre Dame this weekend. Whatever 247 Crystal Balls weren’t predicting Keys to land in South Bend are now starting to flip for the Irish.
• 4 Star Offensive Lineman Jarrett Patterson went on a visit to Notre Dame this weekend. Notre Dame is in the mix with the Michigan Wolverines and the UCLA Bruins.
• 3 Star Defensive Tackle Moro Ojomo went on a visit to Notre Dame this weekend. Hard to see him signing with the Irish. The Texas prospect is being pursued by the Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners. Notre Dame is a bit of a longshot.
• 4 Star Linebacker Solomon Tuliaupupu probably isn’t signing with Notre Dame. I had theorized that since the USC Trojans had basically slow-played him during the recruiting process, ND would get the edge - and perhaps they did for a moment. A week in Hawaii with a thousand USC commits in his ear probably sealed the deal.isn’t sign
• 4 Star Cornerback Noah Boykin had a good in-home visit with Brian Kelly, but the Florida Gators appear to have the inside track with the Washington D.C. star.
• 4 Star Defensive Back Julius Irvin... well he was going to sign with Notre Dame in December, but emergency family matters had him pause and step back. It was a family issue that was supposed to keep him in California, so it makes perfect sense that he visited the Alabama Crimson Tide this week.
• 5 Star Offensive Tackle Nicholas Petit-Frere is a puzzle. It’s not that he’s doing a bunch of stuff to confuse anyone - it’s that he isn’t talking to anyone. Visits this month to Alabama and Florida might derail any thought he has of coming north.

SO WHO IS GOING TO COMMIT?

It doesn’t look good for the Irish in terms of its final targets. My prediction (for today) is that the Irish sign just one more recruit in this 2018 class, and that will be Lawrence Keys III.

Obviously, that fits in nicely with the scholarship chart as it stands right now - but it is well known that for the right recruits, Notre Dame would take up to 25 in this class (which leaves 3 spots open as of today).

OFD will be providing more of these small updates as we get closer to National Signing Day. Who really knows what will happen over the course of 2 and a half weeks? The possibilities are probably more vast than we know.