Notre Dame Football: Tyler Buchner’s senior season delayed in California
By Ben Belden
On Monday, the California Interscholastic Federation announced that all fall high school sports will be delayed until at least December. How will that affect Notre Dame football commit, Tyler Buchner?
Notre Dame football has long had a pipeline of talented players from California, particularly at the quarterback position. Highly-touted recruits Dayne Crist and Jimmy Clausen are among Irish alumni that hailed from the state of California. Of course, Ian Book is the latest in the installment of quarterbacks to come to South Bend from the The Golden State.
On Monday, the California Interscholastic Federation, the organization that governs high school athletics in the state, announced that high school sports will be delayed when the school year starts. The earliest fall sport competitions will take place in December 2020 or January 2021, at the earliest.
For Notre Dame football, this throws another wrench in the system of what has been a turbulent year for athletics, in general, as the COVID-19 pandemic rages on.
When this news broke, the most significant story pertaining to the Irish involves talent quarterback commitment, Tyler Buchner.
Buchner — who hails from La Jolla, California — is dual-threat quarterback who has put up gaudy numbers in high school. In 2020, Buchner was slated to transfer from The Bishop’s School to Helix High School in search of better competition for his senior season. The move was supposed to give Irish fans more of a sense of whether the hype for the future Irish signal-caller was warranted.
With the news so fresh, it’s hard to tell how this will affect Buchner, personally. Could the star recruit decide to sit out his senior year of high school? How would a further delay affect that decision? From a recruiting standpoint, it shouldn’t have any affect on Buchner’s decision to come to Notre Dame. The Irish are super high on Buchner and Buchner is high on Notre Dame.
Next. Could Notre Dame add an SEC team to 2020's schedule?. dark
While Buchner is really the only hard commitment in the class of 2021 affected by the decision in California, the 2022 class likely will be the one that is the most affected. In particular, Chance Tucker, a 3-star cornerback target out of Encino, CA and Tetairoa McMillan, a 5-star wide receiver target out of Anaheim, CA are two guys the Irish are high on who will feel the hit of this decision.