The Islands gave another gift to Notre Dame today when blue-chip WDE Jordan Botelho announced his commitment to the Irish. The 6-3, 230-pound Hawaiian profiles perfectly to the drop end position that Julian Okwara rather magnificently occupies today; we’ll get into this more below, but position isn’t close to the only thing Okwara and Botelho could have in common. Botelho is an exceptional athlete at a position of constant need, which should have Irish fans pretty jazzed about his commitment.
Botelho’s recruitment heated up in a hurry. He had expressed some interest in Notre Dame for a while, but at a level that seemed more akin to curiosity than desire. That changed when he took an official visit with his parents and sister for the Blue-Gold game. The Irish clearly made a big impression, reportedly on the entire family, and it accelerated very quickly from there. Mike Elston and Brian Polian deserve a ton of credit for working hard on this recruitment and showing Botelho how he would fit on the team and on campus.
Notre Dame Football’s Growing Polynesian Hawaiian* Presence
Brian Polian cemented his recruiting legend with the Manti Te’o recruitment way back in 2008/09, and picked up where he left off when he returned to campus a couple of years ago. You’re already familiar with Alohi Gilman and Myron Tagavailoa-Amosa. Marist Liufau is most likely coming in this season as well. Botelho said before his visit that a campus Poly presence wasn’t that important to him, but he also said it was good to have MTA as his host. It probably also doesn’t hurt that Notre Dame’s new DL grad assistant is Keli’i Kekuewa; Kekuewa went to Kamehameha High, which is within a 20 minute drive of both Punahou, where Te’o and Robby Toma went (and Toma now coaches), and St. Louis, where Botelho goes. Obviously there’s a strong self-interest element to Notre Dame recruiting the Islands, but I think there’s also something about Notre Dame, about its spirituality and family atmosphere, that speaks to Hawaiian kids. Kudos to the staff for finding a better way to communicate that message than we’ve seen in quite some time.
Recruiting Service Rankings
247 Composite — 4 star (0.9477 rating), #105 overall, #3 ILB, #1 in HI
247 Sports — 4 star (96 rating), #34 overall, #2 ILB, #1 in HI
Rivals — 4 star (5.8 rating), NR overall, #24 OLB, #1 in HI
ESPN — 4 star (82 rating), #132 overall, #7 OLB, #1 in HI
ISD — 4 star (95 rating), #38 overall, #4 LB, #1 in HI
Cohort
In addition to Notre Dame, Jordan Botelho holds offers from Arizona State, Cal, Georgia, Kansas State, LSU, Nebraska, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, UCLA, USC, and Wisconsin, among others.
Highlights
I think Botelho lets blockers get into his body a little too easily, but I’m sure Elston can coach that out of him pretty quickly. I’d also like to see more of an initial punch; on a number of his pass rushes, he jumps off the line but doesn’t engage the tackle right away. At the next level he’ll get eaten up doing that, but again, it’s a pretty correctable technique point.
Now, with those very minor negatives out of the way… Wow, can this kid move. He’s an absolute terror off the edge, whether he’s bending around a tackle or looping inside to shoot past a guard. His agility, acceleration, and motor are excellent. When he uses his hands, he’s violent with them. He looked pretty good in run support too; slides his feet well, takes on blocks, keeps his head up and on the ball carrier. He closes quickly and is a sure tackler. And when he gets a guy lined up, man, his hits change people’s direction. Drool.
I mentioned above that Botelho and Okwara share more than a position. Watching this film, Botelho is a little thicker but reminds me a lot of Okwara coming out of high school. Similar frames, similar athleticism… and similar ceiling.
Impact
Botelho will likely walk into a fairly favorable situation regarding the depth chart in 2020. Julian Okwara will be gone, and the drop end position will most likely rest with Justin Ademilola and Ovie Oghoufo; 2019 signees NaNa Osafo-Mensah and Isaiah Foskey both seem more likely to eventually end up on the strong side. I certainly wouldn’t predict that Botelho would be able to beat out either of the then-juniors at drop, but with just them ahead of him he’ll have a great chance to at least contribute. Much will depend on how he develops physically during his senior season. Looking further down the road, he has an extremely high ceiling and could very well terrorize college tackles like he does high schoolers now. This is a big, big get for the Irish.
Welcome to the Irish family, Jordan!
Kid looks like a beast. ND really does seem to have some kind of appeal to Hawaiian kids.
> Botelho said before his visit that a campus Poly presence wasn’t that important to him, but he also said it was good to have MTA as his host.
One minor comment here, from having lived in Hawaii: a “Poly” presence probably isn’t that big a deal to him because he’s not “Poly.” Assuming those are his parents, dad appears Caucasian and mom appears very Hawaiian-Asian, probably 3-4th generation. “Botelho” sounds vaguely Portuguese, and there’s a decent size Portuguese population on Oahu, so maybe that’s part of his roots.
That’s really neither here nor there in terms of how comfortable he’d be with fellow Hawaiians around him in South Bend. Polynesian vs. Asian vs. whatever wouldn’t be an issue. Certain detours into the wrong neighborhood on Oahu, on the other hand, it would. The Samoan and Tongan communities in particular can be very…insular. But in South Bend, they’d all be “Hawaiian” and share that common bond.
More Hawaiian players, please! Especially if it frees up some space on the island for me to go back.
Thanks for the insight! You’re absolutely right, I shouldn’t have equated Hawaiian with Polynesian – that’s the mainland in me. Those are indeed his parents.
This kid looks like a stud but wow that’s a significant difference in his 247 ranking and where Rivals and ESPN has this kid.
While I defer to the true recruitniks, I think current rankings in most systems are still subject to some significant rejiggering, particularly after the summer camps happen. They tend to more closely coalesce after that, I think.
ND’S D-line recruiting is so impressive lately. I remember when I was just baffled by their inability to sign quality linemen. Is it just, yet another, Vangorder issue?
Surely his “efforts” couldn’t have helped. Scheme probably wasn’t great either, even back in the Diaco days running a 3-4 which means more DE for eating blocks/occupying space and they never really drafted/developed good OLB/edge rusher types for that system which also hurts.
Definitely seems like the system they switched to now is much better, since they couldn’t recruit very many Tuitt-types that you need to run a 3-4.
Yeah, you’ve nailed it. VanGorder was garbage. And then there are so few Tuitt’s and Nix’s out there to be recruited, that it would have been absolutely unreal if Diaco had been able to keep his D-Line recruiting at that level. But there are a lot more freak athletes out there that you can just let run after a QB. They don’t need to be NFL-sized players by their Sophomore seasons like with Tuitt and Nix.
It seems like more dumb luck than anything based on every other year but the 2016 class has given us Okwara, Kareem, Hayes plus love and Elliott. But otherwise yeah vangorder and even disco were not getting it done
This is already the most top 50 talent we’ve had in a class since 2013. Even if we don’t sign 5 stars getting high ranked 4 stars is just as important.
From what I can tell we don’t necessarily lead for other top 50 talent but there’s reasonable hope for tyree, McGregor and Baker
They better pull out some magic on Tyree. Real good case for Lance Taylor to hit the ground running. That’s a win they really need.
Confidence is pretty high on Baker.
For Tyree, he has to make his official visit. He looked like he was ND-bound until he visited OU last weekend. If he doesn’t get back to South Bend for that OV he’s definitely a Sooner.
We’re neck and neck with Michigan for McGregor. UM probably has the edge at this point but it’s not like they have him locked down yet.
We also have a slight lead over Ohio State for CB Clark Phillips III (#37 in the 247 Composite). There’s a long way to go for this one, though.
D-line recruiting is in the best place it has been in… how long? Elston is doing a fantastic job the last few years.