If we end up with a 300 class score, i don't really care how "hard" or "impressive" it is to get there. There's been plenty of "obvious" elite ND guys that we've missed on over the years.
I do, because when contextualized, it represents a small miss in a cycle in which ND was structutally setup to do well and failed to capitalize in some of ways they built last year's class outside of their comfort zone.
In the 2026 class Rodney Dunham, Khary Adams, Ayden Pouncey and Elijah Golden were all examples of guys that were highly coveted nationally, who don't usually profile for ND, that Irish won hotly contested recruiting battles for. If you're "challenging everything" to paraphrase Marcus Freeman, I want to see you build on 2026 by landing a similar number of those types, while simultaneously taking advantage of an excellent year in your traditional recruiting footprint.
I don't have a gripe with your point about a class at 299 on the class calculator, if I look at the group without context. But when I factor in the banner year in ND's recruiting hotbeds, thd momentum the program has built and the large investment in additions to the recruiting department headed up by Marcus Freeman, arguably the nation's best recruiter, I don't think it would be a stretch to ask for a class similar to the one below:
QB: Kamden Lopati
RB: Isaiah Rogers
RB: Lathan Whisenton
WR: Julius Jones Jr
WR: Cade Cooper
WR: Osani Gayles or Xavier Sabb or Julian Caldwell
TE: Jaxon Dollar
TE: Cooper Terwilliger
OL: James Halter
OL: Layton Von Brandt
OL: Richie Flanigan
OL: Cameron Wagner or Luke Starcevic
OL: Oluwasemilore Olubobola or Albert Simien
DE: Abraham Sesay
DE: Mekai Brown
DE: Aiden O'Neil or Ifeanyi Emedobi
DT: David Folorunsho
DT: Brayden Parks
LB: Amri Irvin
LB: Tate Wallace or Roman Igwebuike
LB: Noah Glover or Sean Fox
CB: Xavier Hasan
CB: Ace Alston
CB / S: Tavares Harington
S: Khalil Terry
S: Zayden Gamble
S: Gavin Williams
LS: Sean Craft
For the record, if I plug in the LOWEST rated version of that group I get a score of: 310.12