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Notre Dame football: 10 Key targets in the 2023 class

By Daniel Morrison

Sep 18, 2021; South Bend, Indiana, USA; Notre Dame Fighting Irish defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman leaves the field after Notre Dame defeated the Purdue Boilermakers at Notre Dame Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Matt Cashore-USA TODAY Sports
Sep 18, 2021; South Bend, Indiana, USA; Notre Dame Fighting Irish defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman leaves the field after Notre Dame defeated the Purdue Boilermakers at Notre Dame Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Matt Cashore-USA TODAY Sports /
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Oct 2, 2021; South Bend, Indiana, USA; Notre Dame football Defensive Coordinator Marcus Freeman enters Notre Dame Stadium before the game against the Cincinnati Bearcats. Mandatory Credit: Matt Cashore-USA TODAY Sports /

By now, we’ve had just enough time to get our thoughts assorted on Notre Dame football 2022 recruiting class. That was Marcus Freeman’s first class, and it went pretty well all things considered. Notre Dame finished 7th in the country in recruiting, even though Freeman was only head coach for a couple of weeks before players needed to sign. Oftentimes, with coaching turnover, classes fail.

That didn’t happen. A 7th ranked recruiting class is higher than all but one of Brian Kelly’s classes. That one came in 2013, immediately following Notre Dame’s trip to the BCS National Championship Game.

Now, it’s going to be important for Marcus Freeman to build on this early recruiting success. After all, Freeman was hired as a defensive coordinator in large part for his recruiting ability. That, along with his ability to manage people and scheme a defense, combined to help land him a promotion to head coach.

The Class of 2023 will be his first complete class. It will be the first one where he recruits every player through the entire process. In other words, it will be the first to tell us how effective Freeman can be as a recruiter.

For what its’ worth, and expect things to change quickly, Notre Dame currently has the 2nd ranked recruiting class in 2023.

At this stage, the amount of recruits that a program targets is staggering. They all will have been targeting hundreds, if not thousands of players. That includes offering tons of scholarships. Some of those are to compete with other programs, knowing that you only have a shot at so many recruits.

Others are what is referred to as a non-committable offer, in which the word offer is a bit of a misnomer. Really, they’re used to gauge interest and get the recruit on-campus or to camps. That way they can be further evaluated and potentially offered a scholarship later.

In other words, at this stage, things are complex. So, let’s break things down to be a bit simpler by looking into key prospects who Notre Dame football is targeting.

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