Notre Dame Has Absolutely Improved Its Recruiting Under Marcus Freeman
Any fan of Notre Dame is familiar with outsiders making statements about the program that are misguided or inaccurate. If I replied to every article or podcast that said something negative about Notre Dame, or incorrect about Notre Dame, it's all I would do. I tend to ignore much of it, but a recent comment made at 247Sports has seemed to fire up a lot of my followers, so I wanted to address some things.
The comment was made by someone named Cooper Petagna of 247Sports. In a look at the Top 25 programs, Petagna made the following comment about the recruiting of Marcus Freeman compared to that of Brian Kelly. He also made comments about Notre Dame's chances at making the College Football Playoff in its current format.
"I don't think it's very different than how Brian Kelly recruited at Notre Dame," Petagna stated. "High level, multi-year starters with limited upside."
Petagna walked back an absurd claim about Notre Dame not producing NFL talent, which was wise. Petagna went on to make this comment ....
"They're recruiting good players, they're going to be in the national spotlight," he stated. "College Football Playoff as in its current format, I don't think so."
What a bizarre statement, especially considering Notre Dame has already made two College Football Playoff appearances in the past five years, and that five programs ahead of Notre Dame (who ranked 12th) have never made a single playoff berth.
Now let's get specifically to the comment about Notre Dame not recruiting better under Freeman than it did under Kelly. Well, simply put, it's an absurd statement. Let's look at the numbers. Here is a look at Notre Dame's recruiting results according to 247Sports' own composite rankings.
This graph includes the number of signees in each class, the total number of points, the average per player signed, the number of 4-5 stars in a class and the number of 3-stars in a class.
It's quite obvious that Notre Dame's recruiting has without question improved since Freeman arrived, and significantly so.
Freeman was the driver of Notre Dame's 2022 class success, with three of the top four ranked recruits in the 2022 class being defensive players. If you look at recruiting since Freeman has arrived, Notre Dame has had two of its three best total points classes and two of its three best points per player averages. Notre Dame's 2024 class currently has a 91.85 per player average.
No number tells the story of Notre Dame's improved recruiting than the number of 4-5 star players that have signed compared to the number of 3-star recruits.
Over the last two years, Notre Dame has landed 37 four and five-star recruits while landing just 8 three-star recruits.
Only one of Kelly's 12 recruiting classes had 4 or fewer three-star recruits, and that was the class Notre Dame built on its way to the 2012 national title game. Kelly never landed 37 four and five-star recruits in a two-year period, which is exactly what Freeman has done. His best stretch was 35 back in 2013-14. His next best two-year stretch was just 30.
Kelly's last two full classes had 23 four and five-star recruits and 21 three-star recruits. His 2016-17 classes had 20 combined four and five-star recruits, but those classes combined for 24 three-star recruits.
Kelly's first two classes - which included a partial in 2010 and a full class in 2011 - had just 18 four and five-star recruits and 27 three-star recruits. Freeman's first two classes - which includes a partial in 2022 and a full class in 2023 - landed 37 four and five-star recruits and just 8 three-star recruits.
Four times Kelly had classes with more three-stars than four and five stars (2010, 2011, 2016, 2017), and three other classes had just one more four and five-stars than three-stars (2018, 2020, 2021), including his final two full classes at Notre Dame.
Let's look at it another way.
Marcus Freeman's first two classes signed 45 total players. Of that group, 82.2% were four or five-star recruits.
In Brian Kelly's five seven classes, only 54.4% of the signees were four or five-star recruits.
I'm simply going by numbers. If we were to get into more subjective evaluations about things like balance, fit, need, recruiting premium positions, etc. the argument gets even stronger in Freeman's favor.
I'm struggling to find any justification whatsoever to argue that Notre Dame's recruiting hasn't taken a significant jump since Marcus Freeman and Chad Bowden arrived in South Bend. To argue otherwise is a fool's errand.
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2023 Recruiting Class Grades - Offense
2023 Recruiting Class Grades - Defense
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