Notre Dame Football: What landing Ashton Craig means to the Irish
By Carlee North
The Notre Dame Football program continues to stockpile talent for the 2022 recruiting class, this time landing offensive lineman Ashton Craig.
On Saturday night, the Notre Dame football program landed an offensive lineman out of Indiana, Ashton Craig. Less than ten days ago, Craig camped out in South Bend and clearly impressed the staff, where they offered him right after his workout.
Obviously, once that happened, the Indiana-native had the Irish squarely at the top of his recruitment. He booked his official visit as soon as possible, and it is actually on his official visit this weekend where he committed to the staff on Saturday.
At the end of the day, academics were huge here and then you add in the offensive line history of Notre Dame, it was the best of both worlds for Craig, and being close to home is definitely a bonus as well.
At the moment, Craig holds 25 offers from the likes of Boston College, Iowa, Northwestern, and Yale to just name a few.
What does Ashton Craig mean to the Notre Dame Football program?
The 6’5 290-pound offensive lineman is going to bring big-man athleticism. He has quick feet for his size and gets to the second level very quickly. When he comes off the snap, he has great leverage and bends his knees well which helps him lock up his opponent.
The biggest consensus around the recruiting world is that he will be a solid center at the next level but also has the flexibility to play other positions. To me, I think he could develop into a stud guard for Notre Dame.
He has great arm length, which is highly sought after, and his ability to pull and get to that second level is huge especially for the Notre Dame run game scheme. It’ll be fun to see if he’s able to hold solid weight and continue building his body mass but aside from the fact that he’s a 3-star recruit he could be someone that develops into the next offensive draft pick for the Irish, that’s how much potential he could have in Blue and Gold.
With Craig making it public, there are now 16 commits that are spilt down the middle at eight on both offense and defense. Ashton Craig will be joining lineman Ty Chan and Joey Tanona in the offensive line room for this class.
This trio is built strong but I expect the Irish to add at least one more to the room, if not two more. Tackle is a big need and I expect the next guys to have the ability to play on the outside.