Notre Dame Football 2021: 25 Most Impactful Players, No. 10-6
By Jack Leniart
We continue our ranking of the top-25 most impactful players for the Notre Dame football team in 2021 with the players ranked No. 10 through No. 6.
The annual ranking of the top-25 most impactful players was started by Douglas Farmer of NBC’s Inside the Irish blog. It involves several Notre Dame football media outlets and blogs. Each voter submits a ballot with their rankings, and then all ballots were totaled to determine the final top-25.
Our writers at Slap the Sign complete that same voting process to determine the top-25 players that we will submit to Inside the Irish. For this year’s rankings, a total of four ballots were submitted by current and former Slap the Sign writers.
We are not ranking the players based on their talent. Instead, we are ranking them based on who we think will have the greatest impact on the Irish during the 2021 season. In other words: which players will help Notre Dame football win games.
Our countdown started with the four Irish players who earned honorable mention in our rankings. We have since worked our way from 25 down to 11. If you missed our previous articles (25-21, 20-16, and 15-11), here are the rankings that have been revealed thus far:
- 25. Lawrence Keys III
- 24. Jordan Botelho
- 23. Shayne Simon
- 22. Houston Griffith
- 21. Zeke Correll
- 20. Braden Lenzy
- 19. Cam Hart
- 18. Blake Fisher
- 17. Jack Kiser
- 16. Josh Lugg
- 15. Jayson Ademilola
- 14. Kurt Hinish
- 13. Kevin Austin
- 12. Chris Tyree
- 11. Avery Davis
Now, we are entering the top 10. The next five players on our list include a former walk-on at a Group of Five program, three players who were three-star prospects coming out of high school, and a popular candidate for breakout player on defense. Here are the players who are ranked 10-6 on our final list.