UHND.com - Notre Dame Football, Basketball, & Recruiting

1. Of the four playoff teams this season, Alabama has signed the most ESPN 300 recruits from 2016 to 2020 with 92. Ohio State is next with 73, followed by Clemson (60) and Notre Dame (47).

The Crimson Tide have actually signed more top-100 recruits in that time span -- 49 -- than Notre Dame has ESPN 300 recruits. Diving further into those numbers, Alabama signed 31 top-50 recruits, nine ranked as five-stars.

2. Class rankings

It shouldn't be a surprise to learn Alabama has not signed a class lower than No. 6 in the rankings over the past five cycles. In fact, the program has signed the No. 1 class twice (2017 and 2019), the No. 2 class in 2016, the No. 3 class in 2020 and the No. 6 class in 2018.

The program has an average class ranking of 2.6 from 2016 to 2020.

3. ESPN 300 recruits

Of the four playoff teams, Notre Dame has had the fewest ESPN 300 recruits over the past five cycles. With 47 of the top 300 prospects, Notre Dame is bucking a trend where teams that lead the way in landing top prospects have made the playoff.

The Irish have signed only 10 top-100 prospects over the past five recruiting cycles, compared to 49 for Alabama, 34 for Ohio State and 30 for Clemson.

4. Compared to Alabama's nine five-star signees, Notre Dame hasn't had any in the same span, but has built a stout defense and used its strength along the offensive line to move its offense forward.

Of the 47 ESPN 300 recruits Notre Dame signed, 12 were along the offensive line, which shows the success the Irish have had at recruiting the position group and the emphasis up front to ensure great line play throughout the past few years.

5.The Irish are also the lowest of all the playoff teams in average class ranking over the past five cycles. Alabama averaged a ranking of 2.6, Ohio State had an average ranking of 6.0 and Clemson was not far behind at 6.8.

Notre Dame has averaged a class ranking of 13.8 from 2016 to 2020, with its highest-ranked class coming in 2018 at No. 9 overall. The staff has had two classes ranked 16th and two at No. 14.

No team has won the national championship in the playoff era without landing at least one top-five recruiting class in the four years prior to winning, and every winner has averaged better than a top-10 class ranking for those four years. The question becomes if Notre Dame can break that trend and become the first, or if the talent acquired over the past five recruiting cycles by Alabama will be too much and eliminate Notre Dame from contention.
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I'm posting this to show that ND is/has over-achieved in recent years, relative to the talent. And to demonstrate that, in my opinion, ND needs more talent, not necessarily another coach. Although, if Kelly can't manage to bring in more top-level players, then maybe he does need to be shown the door.


Link: Bama vs ND from ESPN