Champ Monds Injury Thoughts, Notre Dame Football 2028 Defensive Recruiting Class Priorities

0:00This is Belie, one network, every topic, everywhere. Welcome to the show. It is Wednesday. We've got this abbreviated week and it's just, this is only the second show this week. It's just throwing me off is what it's doing. Brian Driscoll. Is it here, shake it his head as well? What which end is up, which end is down? I don't know. Do you know? No idea. I don't even know where I am right now. Sean, this happens. This happened last year too, man. Because everything we do is based off of like day of the week post game. Yeah. And it's completely jacked everything up. Yeah. Well, just creatures of habit is what we are. Just like football coaches and football teams as well. It's recruiting day. Brian Driscoll is here to talk a little bit of team. Football recruiting. We do have a game though this week on this conglomerate, whatever kind of week that you

1:03want to, to call it in the game day show. Of course, we'll be coming your way from 11 until 230 from the linebacker this Saturday before the fighting Irish host their home and home opener against the rice. Owls. Guess this week include former fighting Irish offensive, lemon, cold, mayberry, fighting Irish. Great. We're here a couple times a week here on WSBT already Chris Zorich and members of the 1966 national championship team celebrating their 60th anniversary, 60 years since the 1966 national championship team. That just means that I am I'm creeping closer to 60 myself. I have a year and a month as of today. My birthday is one month from today. So yeah, there's, you know, I keep losing the hair and what hair I have keeps getting grayer. Driscoll's face is getting gray, but he's still dark on top still still getting it done

2:05on the baby face. That's right. That's exactly what I'm saying. He says that's what my mom says, you know, that's right. That's right. And as long as mom keeps telling you, you got to believe it. Bingo. Bingo. Yes, there you go. All right, we're going to talk some Notre Dame football recruiting today. Priorities on the defensive side of the ball for the 2028 class for the Irish. We talked the offensive side of the ball last week. And speaking of which, before we jump into these defensive guys, I wanted to ask you a question about champ Mons because he's of course a quarterback in the 2027 class. He reclassified, moved up from 2028 to 27. Unfortunately, he injured his arm and his high school game last week, non throwing arm. But he did announce on social media that he's done for the season, which means his high school career is over. And this was only his junior year because of the fact that he reclassified. You know, so like, I guess when you look at it from that perspective, Brian is there,

3:07you know, with the reclassification and the whole like, is there any concern that you would have on Notre Dame's part, you know, a guy who's only played in 18 high school games coming in next year? I don't want to speak for Notre Dame because I haven't talked anybody about that. But it would for me. It would for me. It would for me just from number one and experiencing point of number two. He said to back to back season ending injuries. And some of the things I've heard like this wasn't a football related injury. Like how do you, how are you not concerned about that? Look, and I think champ Mons has elite talent. And I'm not questioning, do you bring him in or no, you get champ Mons. My question would be is, do you have a conversation with the family about maybe going back to the 28 class where he originally was because basically he would have started his whole freshman year. Then he had three starts as a sophomore and then two starts as a, essentially junior. And then he's done. We saw how that impact the Tyler Buckner, that lack of experience in the injuries because

4:10remember Tyler lost his sophomore year due to an injury and then lost his senior year due to COVID. Right. And that lack of experience really hurt me plus hurt him plus you look at the fact that he's now going to miss like important development time as a player. So I would, I would, I think you should at least have a conversation with the family. Unless you know Notre Dame is fine with it and you never know maybe they are, maybe they are fine with it. You know, it could be a scenario where they say, hey, look, we're willing to take that chance. He can come in, learn behind Teddy and Noah for a year and then go play that perhaps that perhaps that's, that's where they are. Sean, I just, it would, for me, it's a little, it's a little concerning. Yeah. And the other part of this is because he's reclassifying and he's a junior right now. He's already, he already has to accelerate things in the spring, which means he can't be here in this kind of like Teddy Gerard last year. He can't be here in the spring to get that developmental time.

5:13He has to wait until the summer to arrive. No, I, I have heard that there's some talk about trying to that he may actually be able to reclassify and get here early, but that's still a, a TBD. That's to be a real fast graduation. So I'm not holding my breath on that. But I, some of the people I have talked to that there is some, some talk about, you know, that, that may be happening. So I don't know if that's still the case, but it was the case at least initially with him. All right. Well, obviously, hopefully, you know, he, he gets healthy first and foremost. And we know what kind of athlete and you know, what kind of, you know, just physical, physically he is, but there is the developmental side of things as well. Which is important. Yeah. It's very important. Yes, very important. You get C.J. Car like that developmental side means a lot to C.J. Car, right? So I agree. All right. So let's talk about some priorities defensively for Notre Dame in the 2028 class starting off. They've got three overall commitments. One is a kicker and then they've got two, the other, the two position player commitments

6:18that they've got are on the defensive side of the ball. Andre Jones and Darien Prescott. Yeah. It's a great start to the class. Obviously, Andre Jones is the brother of Julius Jones Jr. and the son of Julius Jones. So there's obviously Notre Dame connection and they committed on the same day. They committed during the same ceremony, which was kind of pretty cool to see. You know, Andre is a different player than his brother. Julius is fast and explosive and dynamic and Andre is more like a Don Schuller, you know, not an elite athlete, but a smart kid, tough kid plays downhill, has played a little bit this year in the slot, also play safety. He's the teammate of Zaden Gamble, who's the 27 safety committed for Notre Dame as well. But you know, he's a young man that you look at. It's okay. He's got his footballs ahead of him. He's not as highly ranked as his brother is yet, but he's got a chance to be a real good player for Notre Dame. And then of course, the prize of the class right now, and it's going to be hard to get a better prize from him now until signing day than Darien Prescott. They're stand out defensive linemen from Bowling, Brooklyn, Illinois. Look, Sean, we've talked a lot about how low did Illinois is in 27 and 28.

7:20We talked about it on the offensive side of the ball and the same thing is true on the defensive side of the ball. And in landing, Darien Prescott, this early was huge for Notre Dame. And he's huge. I mean, he's listening anywhere between 64 and 66. He's around 250 pounds. He's long. He's explosive. He's powerful. And he's the kind of guy that's there's going to be a lot of debate over the next two years. Is he, does he stay on the edge? Does he move inside? Because he's got such a big frame. I don't know. Don't care. At this point, time, Sean, it's like if he can keep his body, you know, sort of in that bright shung, maybe even like a, you know, Stefan, to it type of bigger, body kid, but maintains his athleticism, then you've got a 275 pound stud collid careem with maybe more twitch type of end. I can live with that. Yeah. But maybe he's Chris Burgess and by the time his freshman year is over, just naturally, he's up to 295 and 300 and maybe you turn him into a powerful penetrating and teary defensive lineman. That's a debate to have for another day. The debate net, they're what, where there's no debate is, is this a huge pick up?

8:25And the answer is yes. And you've got plenty of times you're putting this class together to determine whether or not he's going to be inside or outside. I think right now, Notre Dame, for everything I've been told, Notre Dame views him as an edge player. And so you're looking at him as an edge player. Now if something happens and maybe he's, by the time he's a senior, he's 285, then you could say, look, let's have that conversation. And we've seen that with recruits in the past, Sean, where guys maybe were early on recruited his ends. Jason O'Neill was initially recruited as an end in his senior year. He kind of filled out and you were projected him to be an interior player. But the fact is, Sean, he's a five star talent elite player. One of the best defensive lineman prospects in all of the 2028 class. And for Notre Dame to get him early was huge. But also not a surprise. He's ranked as the number seven player in the country by 247 sports. He's number 23 overall by rivals on three. He's a big time player. And now you've got an elite player from down the street for a second year in a row.

9:25It's the second year in a row. You've got a five star defensive lineman out of Chicago. I think that part was huge. But he's been high on Notre Dame from the jump. I mean, this, Sean Davis and I had talked about this several times, Sean. Darren Prescott was more of a, for us, a win, not if type of pick up because he's such a great fit for Notre Dame. It's like, how does that kid not go to Notre Dame? And that was kind of always our, ours talking point on it. That's a great way to kick off to class. Absolutely. He was, he was a big splash. And, you know, like you said, Andre Jones, when they got Julius Jones, junior, they, they committed at the same time. That was kind of a, you know, little additional surprise for everybody. So you got a couple of legacies there. And then you know, it was, you know, immense talent, obviously, you get this, this big dude on the defensive line. We're Notre Dame. These last couple of cycles has really started to, to make some, hey, so that's the starting point with a guy like Prescott. What, what do you see as some of the, the priorities going forward, I guess, it, you know, like

10:30when you look at the defensive line for the Irish. Look, I think at this point in time with the 26th class you had where you had Rodney Dunham, Ebeneezu, Tadeh on the edge, you had Tiki Hola, Elijah Golden on the inside. He's very pleased with what they've seen from three of those four guys. Obviously Tiki Hola is a bit of an unknown. He hasn't practiced a whole lot yet. As he comes back from the, knee injury suffered in high school. And then you, you double that up with an even bigger and deeper and even better class in the 2027 cycle, getting three edge players in Abraham, C.C. and Jackson Vaughan and Adoniel on the edge. And then David Follerant, you break in parks and say, good, now, Alexander on the inside. So where Notre Dame is here, Sean, it's where you want to be as a defensive line staff. You want to be in, okay, now we're just reloading with impact players. We don't need to go out there looking at it from their standpoint. We don't need to go out there and get six guys. You don't have to get, you know, three each. We can kind of be, be choosy with our numbers. And then if we have to load up because we've got elite players and then we'll load up. But, you know, barring a mass exit is from the current roster.

11:33And they're still very young. Chris Burr, just as a red shirt fresh, well, technically now sophomore in the new scale. Joe Reef and Dom Hewlack are still just sophomores. We got a very young D line, Sean's Sevalano still has three years of eligible left, including this year. Dave Young, Dixon's got four years of eligible left. So give a very young defensive line still. And so 28's about, okay, go out and get elite players. And the good news is there's, this is an elite D line class, especially on the edge. And so I think where you begin first is now that you have Darren Prescott in the class, you can put more attention to some of the elite players. A couple guys at the top of their board are Cam McGee, who's a stud at a Chicago. He's a brother rice. He's a teammate of Braden Parks. You know, right now he's more wide open. He likes Ohio State a lot. He's looking at a lot of SEC schools. There is interest in Notre Dame, but I would not call Notre Dame like his top school. Do I think it's a school he likes, but not a top school? And I think I think their chances are maybe a little better than some people think, but there's a lot of work to do there. Mainly because he's so, he's so far away from being in a decision making mode.

12:34I think that's something where some people read his lack of being as excited about Notre Dame as Darren Prescott is lack of interest. And I think it's more of he's just not even thinking right now about where am I going to go? It's he's still like playing out the process. So Notre Dame just needs to be patient there, continue to recruit him. He's a big time player, five star caliber player. There's also another defensive in there and on named Asher Giado, who's a high school team made of Xander Edwards at Jacksonville Bulls. And he's a guy that I think most likely stays down South, Sean, but he's been on campus a couple of times. I believe he's going to be here for the Miami game as well. So he's another guy to keep you in Ireland. And there's there also have already have visits scheduled with several prospects that are on the board. There's a very underrated couple underrated kids that I like, Sean. There's a six foot six, two and a 30 pound Dan from Georgia named Merrick Ham. And then a kind of skinny, kind of like an Ebeneezu Tade type of guy, but Jeremiah Fagaro from Massachusetts is an under the radar kid that Notre Dame seems to like a lot.

13:35And they're certainly evaluating right now and he'll be on campus. I believe for the Michigan State game, I'm going to have to go look at that one, Sean, but he's expected to be on campus again here soon. And he's been on campus several times. He actually be here this weekend for the rice game. Excuse me. So yeah, he will be on campus for that game. So you'll get him on campus this weekend. And then Aissa Birch is a really talented player from Ohio on the edge, but his dad went to play to Michigan, Alfie Birch. And I know Michigan's all over him. So that's where I'm feeling on that one, but on the edge, it's a, it's a talented group. There's a lot of kids I can mention and I, those are some of my favorite guys, but you know, Cam Tumey's another guy to keep an eye on from New York, but it's a deep, deep class. But now with Prescott in the class and how well you did the last two years, they can be patient for some of those top guys. They don't need to hustle to try to fill out this defensive end class. I think linebacker is kind of an interesting one because as we've talked a lot about, it's this 2027 class that'll be here next year is Thinit linebacker and you've talked

14:38about, you know, like if maybe they can still add one, they would obviously like to need to be the right kind of guy. And if, if not, maybe that, you know, they'll probably go to the transfer portal, you know, to, to have somebody for next year. Feels like 2028 is very important along those lines that, you know, with everything that's kind of, you know, in this current cycle, you know, getting, getting some, some guys there at that linebacking position. It is. It's a, it's a very important class right now, though, Sean. The interesting thing is I don't know of any linebackers that right now, I'd say, oh, yeah, they're going to probably get that guy. I think it's very much a, a work in progress, partly because unlike a lot of other assistant coaches, Brian John Maries had to spend a lot of time still on the 27 class. So he hasn't been able to kind of get the head start, but there's a lot of kids on the board. I already had to have visit schedules, Sean. There's two four star kids that'll be on campus for the, the game against Michigan State on the 19th. So in a couple of weeks, you got Jameer Miles, who's another standout four star defensive player from Illinois.

15:38And then you've got Alan Kennett Jr. Or the fifth, excuse me, Alan Kennett, Alan Kennett, the fifth from California, who will also be on campus for the Michigan State game. So the board is still evolving a little bit. There's a, there's a player that's at Dale a Sal. If you remember, Taylor Sal was where Aaron Taylor win, it's where they're Clandery went. Notre Dame hasn't had a lot of success at Dale a Sal, but the kids they've got from Dale a Sal have been pretty good players. Isaiah Foskey, Cooper Flanagan. So they don't get a ton of kids there, but it's worked out pretty well for him so far. But there's a, a little bit of an undersized kind of like a, you know, maybe a little bigger version of Jack Heiser kid at Dale a Sal named Landon Miller that I, that I would tell people to keep my eye on. Notre Dame is starting to show a lot more interest in him. He's a very good football player. But yeah, that board's still evolving and I'm very interested to see who they get on campus for the Michigan State and Miami games at that position. Right now there's just, there's really only two guys that they've been able to, that I'm, that I can confirm in the 28th class. What's interesting, Sean, is there have been a lot of, there've been a lot of 29, there's

16:46been a lot of 29 linebacker movement in this class. And there's a couple other kids visiting in the 28 class, but they're, they're not guys that Notre Dame is, is necessarily making a hard push for at the present moment, but there's been a lot of 29 movement, which I thought has been pretty interesting. And so I'm very curious to see kind of how this linebacker board develops moving forward. Interesting. Taco Notre Dame football recruiting with Brian Driscoll, Irish Breakdown.com. And we're looking at the defensive side of the ball today, some of the priorities for Notre Dame and recruiting for that 2028 class. And that just leaves us with the secondary now. And as we mentioned, you've got Andre Jones as the loan commit so far for the Notre Dame secondary. So what else potentially is out there now? Same deals we've been before, Sean, it's, it's numbers is not as important as other positions except for one spot. I think safety is a position where Notre Dame should be willing to go to three. Okay.

17:46So if you're looking at the class, when you look at the fact that, you know, they're probably not going to have a donchooler after this year, depending on how many games he's going to miss with this injury, I've always felt like as long as it, Brian Tejons could avoid a big injury, I've always felt he's probably going to go the NFL as well. Luke Talich is a senior. So by the time this class shows up, he's gone anyway, Brian, and even if Brian, it comes back next year, he's definitely not going to be at Notre Dame when this class shows up. So over half of your roster is going to be gone by the time this class shows up and you got two safeties in the 2027 class, but one of them in John, John Gay, the third is kind of a nickel safety. He's not even a pure safety and you have two safeties from last year's class. So that's a position where I think Notre Dame needs to load up a little bit. When you look at corner back, they're kind of big game hunting a little bit, Sean. And that's why the board is, you know, pretty small. They got two kids scheduled for visits. There's a really good player from Maryland, Langston, Prydgin, who's going to be on campus again. And then they're also recruiting Dion Fleming, who's committed to Penn State, who's a

18:47really talented player. He's scheduled to visit a belief of the Miami game. Yeah, they have the Miami game. But there's several talented players there after grade and read is a six foot three, really talented quarterback from Kentucky. You know that Notre Dame, they love their tall corners. The Langston, Prydgin, I just talked about from Maryland is almost six three. So they're going to, it looks like they're going to continue like, hey, we like some tall corners, Keaton Fields is a very talented corner from Arizona that Notre Dame is on. They're trying to get him on campus. And to see Richard Sin is another talented player from a belief jersey that Notre Dame is looking to get on campus as well. Those are some of the early names to know. And then there's a set of twins that are looking at that Notre Dame's looking at as well. A mere woodward is the one that plays corner back for them. So those are some early names to keep an eye on. But it's a very, it's a, it's a pretty talented corner back class nationally. And same thing with D line, Notre Dame can take their time, but there's already some big name kids that, that this staff is, is making a hard push for.

19:49All right. Good stuff. Sloppy Joe, a couple comments from the YouTube chat. Sloppy Joe is going to tell the chat is eligibility he does. He's got this year and next year remaining. So yeah, after this. But we're taught, this was so crazy about what, we're talking about the 28 class. Right. Because it won't be on campus until two more seasons. Yeah. Which is just, so the guys we're talking about now, I think as you said, would be, wouldn't get here until after Luke tallotry. Right. Exactly. Exactly. It's a little nuts. Yes. Exactly. It's a little nuts. Finding Irish warrior asking if there is ever a worry to have prospects at bigger games like Miami, especially if they lose the game for turning them off to Notre Dame. No. I mean, you can't, that's like coach and scared. You know what I mean? Like not bring a kid on campus because maybe you might lose the game. Like what, what kind of mentality is that for a coaching staff to have? Number one, like, you know, you, you plan on winning a football game, especially this Notre Dame team. Like, I don't know if we should bring kids from, no, hey, we're going to beat Miami and

20:51we want kids there. But Sean, we've seen this over the years. We've seen kids visit campus for games they've lost and still commit to Notre Dame. As long as it's a competitive game. Guys, Matt Taito visited in 2008 when, when Notre Dame played Syracuse who had fired their coach beat Notre Dame. Notre Dame students were throwing snowballs at Notre Dame. He was so cold that he went into the locker room for the second half of the game and he still picked Notre Dame. Don't pick Notre Dame. Yes. Prior to this 27 class, the best recruiting class Notre Dame has ever had in the rivals area, which goes back to 02 was the 08 class. Michael Floyd, Dane Chris, Kyle Rudolph, Therese Fleming, that Robert Blanton, that great class. That class got put together during the 2007 season when they went three and nine. So that stuff just doesn't matter a whole lot to me. The 2017 class had Robert Haynesian, Aaron Banks and that got put together then the 2016 season. So the kids don't care about that stuff as much as fans do. I've said this before, they don't, they don't react as emotionally to stuff as fans

21:54because they're not fans. Some of the kids are, but most of them aren't. And sometimes like, hey, look, you've been to a game, Sean. You're like, yeah, I didn't work out for the team. I remember for what a tremendous environment that that was. Well, that can impact you. Especially because Miami will be a night game. So you know, they're going to have a lot of visitors in for a night game and just the environment for the night games, or probably over the last five years has just ascended so much. It is. Yeah. The players eat it up. The light shows and the music. Yeah. You know, everything else going on out there, plus the game obviously. And sloppy Joe just pointed out the Jeremiah love visited for the Marshall game. He committed on our channel for the Stanford game. And then flip, you know, it's just actually was there for. For a little. No. Terrible two worst losses. The Marcus Freeman error arguably. Yeah. But the point is again, Notre Dame prospects look at things a little bit differently than we do as fans.

22:54And that's okay. I mean, that's, it's not bad that you look at it that way, but Notre Dame can't look at that way. And the time you know, Notre Dame game is going to be electric and you want them inside of that regardless. Because here's the thing, if you're a good recruiter and you lose a game like that, your sales point is that's why we need you, right? You can help us. If we had you, we don't lose that game, right? You know, I think that's kind of part of it that. That yeah, I mean, there's been so many games where like kids visited for losses or bad games, still pick Notre Dame. And there's been the games where Notre Dame played a phenomenal game and they don't get many to kids that visited. It just doesn't work. It doesn't quite work like that. And you know, again, I think when you look at the, you know, like the, the connections that this staff is making with, with so many players is just a completely different sort of mindset. Yeah. Now, I don't say it can't help or hurt. I mean, I'm not saying it's completely like a non, like non point. I'm just, it's just not that thing where the kid was like 90% leaning towards Notre Dame and they lose to Miami's. I'm like, screw Notre Dame. I'm going to, you know, Michigan.

23:56Yeah. I can think of my fifth kids close and he's not sure. And maybe it isn't Notre Dame Miami battle and the, you know, watch that game and it could maybe could in fact, that way. But, but if you're a kid, like, okay, yeah, I know Miami won the game, but Notre Dame has a greater need in my position. I mean, you know what I mean? What's he going to do? It's, you know, you don't make it, that would be making an emotional decision. And I'm not saying that critically, but you usually don't want kids to make these decisions from an emotional standpoint. You want to be more of a practical, rational, thoughtful process. And the law, the law, the kids, the picnic name, do that, which is why you've seen so many kids over the years committing their name even when their visits didn't necessarily go, you know, according to plan based on how games play out. Brian Driscoll, Irishbreakdown.com, here with his every Wednesday to talk some Notre Dame football recruiting. Good stuff. As always, Brian will be out there, of course, this Saturday. So I'll see you out there. Sounds good. Thanks, Sean. All right. I'll be back next Wednesday with more Notre Dame football talk.

24:58Vince Diderio coming in next. We're going to talk more Notre Dame football. And here's some comments from Marcus Freeman discuss some of the Wisconsin game look forward a little bit as well. That's coming up next weekday sports beat with Irishbreakdown.com. If you liked the show, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe.

26:07It really does help the show to grow. Thank you for listening.