Notre Dame’s 2021 recruiting class started off with a bang today when elite quarterback Tyler Buchner pledged to the Irish. The 6’2″, 200-pound Californian was reportedly one of the staff’s top targets regardless of position in this class, which makes this an especially excellent way to kick it off. He didn’t playt much in his sophomore year after suffering an ACL injury, but he showed enough as a freshman and in his post-injury rehab to still be considered a top prospect. It probably doesn’t hurt that his athletic director is none other than our own Shane Walton, either…
Buchner committed shortly after visiting Notre Dame, and even more shortly after visiting Stanford. Stanford hasn’t offered, and to some degree they lurk, but all signs point to Buchner being settled in his decision. Walton isn’t the only person in his circle who likes Notre Dame, either.
God, Country, Notre Dame …
C O M M I T T E D#GoIrish☘️#GoldRush21☘️ pic.twitter.com/uvXLE04GF7
— Tyler Buchner (@tylerbuchner) March 8, 2019
Recruiting Service Rankings
247Sports — 4 star (91 rating), #49 overall, #2 PRO, #2 in CA
Irish Sports Daily — 4 star (91 rating)
Cohort
In addition to Notre Dame, Tyler Buchner holds offers from Alabama, Arizona, Arizona State, Georgia, Michigan, Nebraska, Oregon, San Diego State, TCU, UCLA, USC, Utah, and Wazzu. Oh, and also from Columbia, Penn, and Yale. So, yeah. He’s pretty good, in several ways.
Highlights
Naturally I’m grading on a curve here since this is freshman film, but… Man, I can’t find much to complain about. Buchner shows a quick release, above average arm strength and remarkably good footwork for his age, and plus athleticism. And damn, does he throw a pretty ball – whatever else he might do, he can really spin it and his ball placement is excellent. In support of the athleticism, check the play at 2:12 – he absolutely jukes a guy out of his jock strap and then outruns two guys who have an angle.
If the staff recruited him at receiver and I saw just his plays at that position, I would be stoked about this commitment. Tyler Buchner has all the tools to be an exceptional talent at the next level – his upside is through the roof.
Impact
By the time Tyler arrives on campus, Notre Dame will probably still have Phil Jurkovec, Brendon Clark, and Drew Pyne in place with multiple years of eligibility left. If – and, given his developmental stage, it’s a big if – he fulfills his potential, I could absolutely see him pushing for the QB2 role immediately and, if there’s no returning starter in 2022, possibly for the starting role that quickly. His potential is that, well, potent.
In terms of non-football impact, it’s also worth noting that Buchner is half Korean; with Justin Yoon moving on, it’s great to maintain Korean representation on the team. In fact, our very own 4pointshooter, who happens to be a Korean alum, is over the moon at this commitment, likening Buchner’s potential future to Linsanity 2.0. We can only hope…
Welcome to the Irish family, Tyler!
I’ll take it. This makes my day.
Elite first name.
I mean, it’s all right.
Nice! first recruit of the class is top 50!
Waaaaaay to early to be this excited.
Seems like this could be really good… or not worth this level of excitement. E.g., it turns out Drew Pyne may have been overrated when he committed; he just got downgraded to a 3-star. But, hopefully this guy goes the other way and he’s our first five-star QB since ? Gunner Kiel?
Pyne is still a 0.9378 Composite recruit, no slouch at all. Although it’s interesting to see the “oh no our early commits are going to drop in the rankings” thing become a big worry now.
In regards to Buchner sticking with Notre Dame, the recent history seems overwhelming. The program has record low decommits (can anyone name the last 5 off the top of their head?) and a quick scan of the first commits in the recent classes is promising.
Jurkovec committed on May 16, 2016 or 10 weeks later than Buchner in the process, FWIW. The 2021 aspect to it makes it seem like it’s super far away but it’s really not.
QB commits this far out to me seem wishy-washy. Blake Barnett as a a decommit being one. And Cade McNamara. That could be a wrong perception but I’m never really comfortable with a way high-end QB until they sign.
That said, all circumstances and personal situations are different, of course, and I’m sure everyone who commits always intends in that moment to fulfill it (otherwise why do it) it’s just like in the past 5 years that they’ve had a two QBs drop them for whatever reason. Stands out when you’re only targeting that one player per cycle. But I guess that’s the QB position these days anyways, a lot of movement.
I think we have enough evidence by now that Barnett was a bit of a flake to consider him an edge case, and the reason McNamara decommitted was because he was worried about Jurkovec, who committed at about the same point in his recruiting timetable as Buchner, before Jurkovec was even on campus. Barnett and McNamara are the only QB decommits of the Kelly era.
To your second point, I think that’s the main takeaway, that each situation is different and QB prospects look at things differently than they used to. And it goes both ways, of course; in the Kelly era, we’ve flipped Golson from UNC, Kiel from LSU, Wimbush from Penn State, Book from Wazzu, and Clark from Virginia. Zaire, Kizer, Davis, and PJ all committed and stuck. From what I know of this kid I doubt he’ll flip, but if he does history says we’ll end up working it out.
I do think that, if health isn’t an issue, he’s going to be really good. He’ll be at the Opening Regional in Oakland in May, I think; very interested to see how that goes.
Yeah, I mean I’m fine with it overall, I know it will work out, my point was more just that the QB culture these days feels like nothing is really settled with a verbal commitment at that position. I will take your and Eric’s word if in this case you guys are pretty confident that he will stick to it, I’m just more of the “wait and see” mindset at this position.
Buchner is totally not signing with Notre Dame now.
Totally fair on those two QB’s, although like your second paragraph mentions personal situations are all different.
We upgraded after losing McNamara so that’s fine. We also took his commitment way, way too early for his status, although Jurkovec had something to do with that.
Barnett didn’t actually commit super early, Tillery beat him by 5 months. He came from completely off the radar as a junior and blew up quickly in November 2013. Blake committed to ND at that time, red flags popped up immediately as his national profile increased, and he was gone in June 2014.
I actually like that Buchner is comfortably an elite prospect this early, that will help. There shouldn’t be a ton of drama but we’ll see.
Nobody has explained it explicitly, but I think Pyne’s drop is mostly related too his failure to fill out physically and concerns about consistency on his junior film. I think 247 dropped him way too far, but I wouldn’t think of arguing that he’s a top 50 or even top 100 kid based on the most recent film. We’ll see how this fall goes – he knows what he has to do, and supposedly he’s put on about 15 good pounds already.
Buchner is different. Pyne is 6-0/190(ish), Buchner is a year behind him and 6-2/200. His competition is also much stronger, and while he’s only seen limited action what we have seen of him is really good. It’s pretty impressive for a sophomore to hold offers from Alabama, Georgia, Michigan, and USC. And he’s also an elite lacrosse player, so we know his athleticism is unquestionable. This fall is obviously a big season for him too; if he looks like he did pre-injury, he could be one of the top-rated QBs in the class.
Oh I agree – personally, I think this appears to be a pretty good early take, especially given his size. Plus the ACL is a recoverable-from injury. The point I was inelegantly trying to make is you *can* take a guy too early, as we may have done with Pyne. Then again, it seems like if you identify a guy early and get him, it can be to your significant benefit, a la Wisconsin and Mertz (who was the only guy I saw during the all-star games this year that looked really, really good).
Also if Pyne does well at summer all-star camps he’ll go right back up the rankings.
So, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯