Notre Dame football: What does DL Devan Houstan bring to the Irish?
By Carlee North
The Notre Dame football program continues to stack elite defensive talent for the 2023 recruiting class, this time landing Devan Houstan.
Notre Dame football continues to add to its No. 1 recruiting class, this time with 2023 defensive lineman out of Maryland Devan Houstan. He was last on campus in February with his family and it couldn’t have gone any better, though Irish were going to be tough to beat once they offered him back in October.
They were always going to be a player for Houstan, and the addition of Al Washington as defensive line coach was big as well. He already had great relationships at a University that has the academic side he was looking for, as well as the ability to compete every year with any other school in the country.
Houstan made it official on Saturday afternoon and it wasn’t much of a surprise towards the end. A little fun fact, a lot of people pegged him to head to Michigan because his brother attends the University and is on the basketball team, along with the relationship with the Irish former Defensive line coach Mike Elston.
Obviously, he had a better feeling about Notre Dame football and also his relationships with Al Washington, Al Golden and Freeman so that’s fun. At the moment Houstan holds 19 offers from the likes of Michigan, Northwestern, Penn State and Pitt among others.
What will Houstan bring to the Notre Dame football program?
The 6’4 280-pound defensive lineman is going to be bruising strength and athleticism. Houstan is athletic enough to play multiple position along the line, wether that’s strong side, Nose, 3 tech on the interior, he can really do almost anything up front.
He’s someone who’s going to thrive on the interior though in South Bend and who will be a wall throughout the middle of the defense. We all say we want more size up front and he’s a perfect fit for that want among people throughout the country and fans. He’s someone that seems like he will easily be able to add healthy weight and get up to 300 plus down the road once he gets in the strength program.
It’s a really nice get for first year line coach Al Washington.
With Houstan making his commitment official, the 2023 class holds strong at number one in the country and now has 12 pledges with 8 on defense and 4 on offense. Houstan will be joining Boubacar Traore, Brenan Vernon and Keon Keeley in the defensive line group.
Al Washington is proving a lot of people wrong and getting it done on the recruiting trail. I don’t think the Irish have ever had this good of a group up front like this in a very long time and I don’t expect it to be over either, with a possibility of adding one more elite addition if the chips fall right for Freeman and Al Washington, making it an outstanding group of five. Another big time piece to first year head coach Marcus Freeman.