Welcome back to the 18S Big Board for Fighting Irish football. Today we’re taking a look at Notre Dame’s targets along the offensive line — a position where it just might be time to find new prospects.
| Score | Name | State | Ht./Wt. | Temperature |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| .994 | Foster Sarell | WA | 6-6/320 | Mild |
| .985 | Austin Jackson | AZ | 6-5/260 | Cold |
| .978 | Jedrick Wills | KY | 6-5/315 | Mild |
| .973 | Trey Smith | TN | 6-5/300 | Mild |
| .930 | Aaron Banks | CA | 6-7/345 | Cool |
Entering the Field
Massive OT Aaron Banks added his offer a little over a month ago, possibly signaling that Harry Hiestand hasn’t been too confident in where he’s at with most of his targets. Things have been pretty quiet concerning Aaron and the Irish lately, but he did recently put Notre Dame in his Top 16 (for whatever that’s worth).
BLESSED and really excited to receive an offer from The University of Notre Dame‼️🙏🏽🙌🏾 #Goirish #IRISHEL17E #Dirty30 pic.twitter.com/D1oU6wdggs
— BANKSofAMERICA™ (@bigaaronbanks) June 22, 2016
In Play
Foster Sarell is now officially the #1 OT in the 247 Composite, and 247 Sports has him rated as the #1 overall player in the class after his dominant performance at The Opening. He continues to be really impressed by Notre Dame and Harry Hiestand, but distance concerns could play a factor here. If that is the case, look for Stanford or Washington to earn his pledge. Otherwise, there’s a good chance he ends up in South Bend.
Austin Jackson is still not a realistic option for Notre Dame at this point in time. USC continues to look good for him, with Arizona State, Texas A&M, and Oregon also in the mix.
Notre Dame was probably in the lead for Jedrick Wills heading into his recent visit to Alabama, but reports are that the Tide made a huge move on him. The Irish may not be in the driver’s seat anymore.
Trey Smith is looking more and more like a long shot as the days go by. Things could definitely turn around for the Irish, but it’s not looking too good right now. Even the ever-optimistic Tom Loy recently changed his crystal ball from Notre Dame to Tennessee.
Off the Board
Robert Hainsey committed to Notre Dame at the Opening.
Andrew Thomas committed to Georgia at the Opening.
Wyatt Davis committed to Ohio State.
This wraps up the offensive line. As you can see, pickings might be getting slim from the current crop of targets. Right now it looks unlikely that the Irish land any of their top targets along the offensive line. Of course, this could change, but it’s safer not to bet on that happening. Hiestand is likely in the process of evaluating new talent right now, and I expect a couple more names to be on this list when we get to the next Big Board update. We do have a decent haul now already — Robert Hainsey, Josh Lugg, and Dillan Gibbons make up a pretty good class. But the staff is looking to land at least one more, preferably two more guys. A wider net may be required for that to happen.
________________________________________________________________
p.s. — The tight end Big Board would normally be included in this update as well. However, I didn’t see the point in adding an empty table as I did for the QB position. As many of you are aware, the Irish only offered two tight ends this cycle and ended up landing them both. Brock Wright and Cole Kmet are both composite 4-stars and will likely end up giving Notre Dame the best duo of tight ends in the country for the Class of 2017.
Don’t we have other OL besides Hainey (and he’s a OL/DL guy, right?) committed? For those of us that don’t have all this committed to memory (hey, cut me some slack, I just got back from 2 semesters worth of classical Japanese condensed into 6 weeks), it would probably help talk us off the ledge to have that info. As it stands, the article reads like we’ve got Hainey, and oh boy no one else better get cracking on the 2-stars, but I know that’s not what you mean.
Yup, yup:
OG Robert Hainsey .962, OT Josh Lugg .920, and OT (projected to guard for us I believe) Dylan Gibbons .879 are our commits.
Whew!
The OL/DL guy you are thinking of KG I believe is Ewell. Here he has been presented as only DL though I think at OFD someone in the comments said he was listed by (some?) recruiting services as an OL – that might be what you were thinking of.
Must be it.
Ewell is indeed rated as an OL by some of the services, but we recruited him purely as a DT. Barring some kind of unforeseen circumstance (knock on wood), don’t expect us to move him.
I’ve now stepped back 3 steps…. That was close.
But honestly. I’d have to see 2 bad classes to lose faith in this area for recruiting. But by that time we’d be in trouble…
Eric is right.
Thanks for saying something, KG. In hindsight, I should have mentioned the other commits.
I added another couple sentences to the end of the OL portion to fix it.
Would Sarell be the highest rated OL that Harry has recruited? Would he be able to start as a Frosh or is our depth that so good that he’d have to wait his turn? Kraemer is supposed to be great too right? Haha could we even imagine talking about a 5 star OL perhaps not even able to start until his junior year (after Bars graduates) a few years ago?
Assuming his ranking holds, yes to the first question – Sarrell is #6 overall in the composite rankings, Kraemer ended up #27. Most of the top OTs in the recruiting rankings have ended up playing right away – best comparison I can think of is Cam Robinson starting at Bama even though they have similar depth/talent accumulated. From what I’ve heard, he’d be one of our 5 best linemen next year, and they’d find a way to make that work.
Hopefully a great season and an OV free of travel stress will convince Sarell to come.
I don’t get the distance thing. It sounds like Stanford is the real competition, which is still a 13 hour drive from Seattle. That is the same as Boston to ND. Side Note: I have driven from Stanford to Seattle and Boston to ND, the Boston <-> ND trip is easier.
Both ND and Stanford will require flights. While the Stanford trip is a few hours less and a bit cheaper (save 3-4 hours, $100 per person), it hardly seems like a prohibitive difference.
Is it some sort of West Coast mentality? Where things feel closer just because they are on the same coast?
You beat me to it – I was about to make the same point. The flight difference is actually smaller, according to Google – Seattle to Palo Alto comes up as a 2 hour flight starting at $203 per person, while Seattle to Chicago is 3 hours 40 minutes at $236 per person. I’m assuming rental car, hotel, etc. is about a wash, which might actually be favorable to Stanford. I mean… I’m not going to tell people what the value of their time is, but that doesn’t really seem like it should be enough to make a difference if he really feels like Notre Dame is the right place.
They might be able to see him play on the road more often if he goes to Stanford, with games against Washington, Washington State, Oregon, and Oregon State, which are all within a six-hour drive. So that could have something to do with it.
All that said, maybe he doesn’t really feel like Notre Dame is the right place. Like Burger said, maybe he’s just not that into you. Maybe it’s easier to tell Notre Dame reporters that he’s concerned about distance than that he likes Stanford better. Who knows? Hiestand definitely made a big impression on the whole family, though, as did the camaraderie of the current linemen. So I believe we’re in it, but I don’t know what to make of it beyond that.