Notre Dame Football: 3-star WR Michael Young joins huge class of 2017
By Greg Hadley
Notre Dame football’s top-rated recruiting class of 2017 added yet another talent Wednesday night, as three-star wide receiver Michael Young picked the Irish ahead of Oregon and Texas A&M.
Young, a native of Destrehan, Louisiana, is the second receiver of the 2017 class to commit to Notre Dame and is rated as the 75th best wideout in the nation by 247Sports. He brings Notre Dame’s overall haul for this class to 17.
As a receiver, Young is a relatively undersized at just 5-foot-11 and 175 pounds, but he possesses decent speed and is shifty on the edge, with the ability to make defenders miss. He’s also a pretty decent blocker on the outside.
But while Young has the potential to be a threat for the Irish in the years to come, the significance of his commitment is really less about his own individual skills and more about the overall recruiting change that’s taken place in South Bend under Brian Kelly.
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Simply put, Kelly has elevated Notre Dame’s recruiting game to the next level in the past few years. Whereas before the Irish were always a surefire bet for a good but not great class, somewhere in the range of 15th-30th in the nation, now they rank inside the top 5 in the FBS for 2017. And they’ve done it without a single five-star recruit.
Kelly’s success can be traced back to one simple thing: the calendar.
Amazing change in recruiting calendars in past decade. Tomorrow Irish should get their 17th commit this cycle. In ’04 they still had on one.
— Pete Sampson (@PeteSampson_) July 20, 2016
Granted, some of that change can be attributed to the overall culture of recruiting and how that’s changed over the past decade, but there’s one key difference that makes Notre Dame stand out. While young players are committing earlier and earlier nowadays, only to then back out later and reopen the process, the Irish have the ability to snag top players as quickly as everyone else and keep them firmly in their camp.
Just take a look at 247Sports’s list of ND recruits. They’re all considered solidly committed to the Irish, even with National Signing Day more than six months away.
A big part of that has been the Irish Invasion, a recruiting event Kelly and his staff have held the past few years to get young players on campus earlier and earlier. Young attended the Invasion after almost committing to Oregon last spring, and it played a big role in swaying his decision to Notre Dame.
With 17 already committed in the class of 2017, Kelly doesn’t have very many roster spots left to offer to some top prospects who are still considering their options, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see Notre Dame’s current No. 2 rating by Scout dip slightly as other top programs make late charges.
Now, if the question is if Notre Dame can finish Top 5, in the last 10 years just once has a team finished Top 5 w/o a five-star prospect.
— Pete Sampson (@PeteSampson_) July 20, 2016
Still, the Irish are stocked up on four- and three-star recruits with a whole lot of talent. My guess is Kelly values the security of so many very good players over the high-risk potential of the five-star players. That’s not a bad decision either. The Irish have had five-star talent in the past, and it’s worked out for them with varying degrees of success (Max Redfield and Devonte Neal).
Next: 2017 shaping up to be Brian Kelly's best recruiting class yet
At this rate, Kelly and his staff could almost afford to start focusing on the class of 2018.