18 Stripes Recruiting coverage is making a return now that recruiting season is gaining more steam. Summer camps have started taking place across the country and Irish commits and targets are competing with some of the best high school athletes this country has to offer. Today we’re bringing back the Big Board, starting with the quarterbacks and running backs of the 2018 class.
Quarterback
No need for a chart here. The Notre Dame staff offered one quarterback from the class of 2018, and they got their guy. Phil Jurkovec (.9826) is very close to a composite 5-star rating at #29 overall in the class. He chose the Irish other contenders such as Ohio State, Penn State, Pittsburgh, and Alabama. The 6-5/190 pounder is a dynamic dual-threat quarterback and two-sport athlete, leading Pine Richland to the state finals in basketball. Phil averaged 16 points and 8 rebounds per game during his junior season.
Running Back
| Score | Name | State | Ht./Wt. | Temperature |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| .998 | Zamir White | NC | 6-1/220 | Cold |
| .899 | Keaontay Ingram | TX | 6-1/187 | Cool |
| .878 | Lyn-J Dixon | GA | 5-10/185 | Cool |
| .867 | Christian Turner | GA | 5-11/187 | Mild |
| .847 | Jashaun Corbin | FL | 6-0/190 | Mild |
In the Fold
The Irish earned a commitment from Indianapolis Cathedral’s Markese Stepp (.9189) back in June. Markese has offers from the likes of Michigan, USC, Georgia, LSU, Wisconsin, and many others. He was likely to have a tremendous junior season last fall, but it was cut short by an injury. Markese appears to be solid in his commitment at this point in time and has been probably the most vocal of the current commits and has been working at building connections with other recruits that ND is going after.
In Play
Lyn-J Dixon has one of the better names in the 2018 class. He’ll be a tough pull out of SEC country away from the likes of Alabama, Georgia, LSU, Auburn, and others. He seems receptive of Autry Denson’s pitch so far, though.
Christian Turner added an Irish offer back at the beginning of March. Notre Dame has quickly positioned itself as one of Christian’s top teams. He’s already started to develop a relationship with Autry Denson and he should be visiting South Bend tomorrow.
Notre Dame offered Jashaun Corbin just a few weeks ago. It was an offer he was very excited to receive. Again, Autry Denson is putting in the work here and he has established himself as one of Jashaun’s favorite recruiters. This’ll be a tough pull, as other schools like Florida State, Tennessee, and Michigan got involved in this recruitment a little earlier than the Irish. Jashaun plans on visiting South Bend over the summer, though, and that’s key.
Committed Elsewhere
TJ Pledger — Oklahoma
Jaelen Gill — Ohio State
Lorenzo Lingard — Miami
Not a ton of offers, especially to top tier guys. I would have thought with Stepp in the fold they would try for some 5 star level guys.
Do you guys have any theories on what the plan of attack is for RB recruiting this year?
Well ND was in the running for top tier guys like Jaelen Gill and TJ Pledger. Had to back off Gill a while ago for academic reasons, though. And they were probably in the Top 2 or 3 for Pledger at the time of his commitment to OU.
But keep in mind this is still early in the recruiting cycle. Ratings change A LOT between now and even the end of the summer. Plus Dixon, Turner, and Corbin all have good offer lists — which, at this point, says a lot more about a player than recruiting service ratings. And Turner is a guy that got an invite to The Opening Finals recently.
I know the staff is looking to land one more guy. Will probably keep it pretty selective. I haven’t watched film on everyone yet, but I’ve seen Turner’s and Corbin’s and they seem to have a similar style of play at first look.
Rankings move a lot. But very few guys go from 3 star to 5 star. By now you know who most of those top top guys are going to be.
**I just checked the rivals RB rankings and there are only 3 prospects rated higher than Stepp that are uncommitted, one of which is White. So that could be a big part of it. Especially when you look at where these kids are from and committed, it is no longer surprising at all that we don’t have more top tier offers out there.
This is true. It’s very common to see guys move from 3-star to low or sometimes even mid 4-star range, though.
I know Stepp has been the driving force on the player-side of recruiting, so i was worried when I saw this article: http://www.ndinsider.com/recruiting/what-outside-offers-mean-for-notre-dame-commits-ademilola-stepp/article_b74dcd7a-154b-11e7-b4a1-db6334b6f63f.html
“Irish running back commit Markese Stepp shared news of a scholarship offer from USC on Monday. That’s because Stepp has known USC running backs coach Deland McCullough, in his first year with the Trojans after six seasons at Indiana, for a long time.
‘The offer means a lot, because I’ve been knowing D-Mac since I’ve been like 10 years old,’ Stepp said. ‘He and my dad played together in college (at Miami of Ohio). So the relationship is there. I was excited. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t.'”
I know it’s just recruiting and whatnot, but I’m still nervous about it.
Yeah, he seemed more excited about his USC offer than I would have liked. He says it doesn’t change anything, but of course he may not be singing the same tune if ND had another sub-par season and BK got fired.
No sense in worrying about it now, though. I’ll put on my KevinHartConcernedFace.jpg if he decides to actually visit USC.
He said something like “something really bad would have to happen for me to change my mind,” which I take to mean Kelly getting fired. Otherwise, I think he’s very solid.
Also, probably just because Tyler wrote this up yesterday, ND offered another back today – Jahmir Smith, .870, out of South Carolina. Don’t know much about him yet but his offer list includes Brown, Duke, Northwestern, Princeton, and Vandy, so admissions won’t likely be a problem, in addition to Wisconsin, Tennessee, Nebraska, and Georgia Tech, so he gets extra running back credibility from that. He tweeted that he was “extremely blessed” to get an offer from the “prestigious” Notre Dame, but we’ll have to watch and see for how much real impact it made.
It’s great to see the board updates Tyler. Y’all keep up the football articles.
I really missed these posts! Thanks!