Notre Dame Football: Irish land elite offensive lineman

Notre Dame football has made yet another splash in the the 2020 recruiting class, landing Tosh Baker out of Arizona.

Notre Dame football has landed another top target this week for the 2020 recruiting class. This time, it’s All-American offensive tackle out of Arizona, Tosh Baker who committed on Wednesday.

Baker was last on campus for a unofficial visit at the end of March and I think that visit was more focused on a bonding experience with his future teammates and coaches. Let’s be real, I think Baker has been Irish for awhile. It all seemed to just be waiting for him to officially announce it publicly.

Baker has visited South Bend numerous times, and he’s also been to plenty of other top programs around the country, but Notre Dame was always above the rest. Notre Dame’s academics and the program’s history was just icing on the cake for the Baker family.

At the moment, Baker holds 30 offers from the likes of Ohio State, Oklahoma, Alabama and many more top programs.

What will Tosh bring to South Bend?

The 6’8″ 280-pound offensive tackle is exactly the type of player you want on the offensive line. He’s big, has great length, is very athletic for his size, has really good footwork, and moves extremely well from side to side. Good luck trying to get around the edge on Baker. He will swallow you up and won’t let anyone get around him or near the backfield. He is definitely an elite pass blocker.

Once he gets into the Notre Dame system and scheme, the run blocking will fall into place for him. You can’t forget either that Baker is massive at 6’8″ so he does have to work on bending his knees a little more and also not waiting for contact to come to him during run blocking. He will learn a ton more about his technique which will benefit him when going up against the run. I’d say that’s the only knock to his game as a senior but Baker has all the upside in the world to be the next elite tackle for Notre Dame.

With Baker added to the class, he’s the first offensive lineman to commit as the Irish now have 10 commitments. Six of those are on offense while the other four are on defense. I would still expect the Irish to add 2-3 more along the offensive line but they got their number one priority in Baker and the staff should absolutely ecstatic. I fully expect the staff will continue adding to the tradition of Notre Dame being “OLineU” in the near future but this was a great start.