ND’s did great last year but that’s not been the norm. That was an aberration on an otherwise very poor position group when it comes to recruiting. I do think with Terry Joseph they’ll have a better shot at some more but we’ll see. So far this cycle they’ve not done well at all.
To go into the 2020 cycle needing 5 and quite possibly 6 DB’a and to have 3 3*’s with some upside is not exactly a banner cycle in recruiting, especially coming off a Playoff appearance. There have been some head scratchers in these recruitments of some of these 4 stars where contact has waned, interest has dipped and visits have been cancelled. That’s going to happen with many position groups but it was tough for it to happen with ND’s DB group this cycle. Kimber and Watts had interest in ND, Eric Reed has tons of interest and never made it to campus, Enzo Jennings loved ND but something didn’t work there for whatever reason, Kristian Story never made it back, Lathan Ransom and Clark Phillips were just straight up L’s to OSU, Jordan Morant came from a pipeline area (for Michigan too) and we could only get a quick midweek visit in the spring, RJ Moten is another NJ guy and he’s not getting to campus, Cameron Martinez, Makari Paige and Dontae Manning all live within several hour drives of ND and they couldn’t get on board with any of them. There seemed to be lots and lots of opportunities to gain some traction with a lot of these dudes but the staff wasn’t able to get much going. Now ND’s gonna have to hope for bodies to even get to 5 DB’s. I do think there’s a solid chance that ND pops back up on the radar for a 4 star or two come the fall during flipping season but right now the DB group is probably getting the worst recruiting rating out of any group this cycle for me (other than whiffing on LBer but that was intentional).
