FloridaDame has been a fun slogan for the Notre Dame football program to lean on for the 2027 class. It's been a signal that the Fighting Irish are working hard to pull in some of the Sunshine State's best players. But according to safety commit Zayden Gamble, it's not just a slogan. It's more like a declaration of destiny. At least it was for one of Florida's top safety prospects.
Gamble recently spoke with Florida-based reporter Isabella Navas about what led to his commitment to the Fighting Irish and how close he came to pledging elsewhere. According to the defensive back, there wasn't really any chance of another school once he visited South Bend and saw what the school had to offer. He added that any amount of NIL wasn't even enough to pull him away.
"I didn't talk to anybody else besides Notre Dame because I knew I was going to Notre Dame," Gamble explained. "What Notre Dame has for you outside of football, the academics, the people, the connections, the programs. I mean, that's far more than, it's priceless to be honest. So once I, I didn't really care about the number. I just knew I wanted to be at Notre Dame."
All the best programs in Florida pursued the 5-foot-11, 190-pound 4-star safety from St. Thomas Aquinas High School. He's ranked as the No. 144 player in the 2027 class, the No. 10 player at his position, and the No. 15 player in the state of Florida, according to the Rivals Industry Rankings, and it was hardly the Fighting Irish and Florida schools angling for his services.
Zayden Gamble says Notre Dame football’s FloridaDame pipeline is real
Gamble has offers from Auburn, Colorado, FIU, Florida, Florida Atlantic, Florida State, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, LSU, Miami, Michigan, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Florida, Texas A&M, and UCF, among many others. And yet, the defensive back made it clear there is zero chance any of those schools will pry him away from Notre Dame.
That's obvious when he talks about the visit that convinced him to commit to the Irish: "It was emotional at some points because it's like that's where I'm going to spend my next life. My next brothers are going to be there. My next father figures are going to be there. The next people I'm going to spend life with are at Notre Dame."
Gamble then laid out how the FloridaDame slogan grew into a mantra for himself and many of his future teammates.
"It came down to the recruits. Let's make FloridaDame, let's make it a pipeline. It's not just a saying anymore. Like, I think we have five or six commits already. Just in Florida, I mean, it goes. To show that once you say something, you're going to eventually proclaim it."
When combining the 2027 and 2028 classes, Gamble is right. There are five commits from Florida and they are indeed all from the same general area.
"So we said FloridaDame, we said it, and we now have five to six recruits just from... From South Florida itself, so that's just to show you that I mean we're not just gonna say something that we don't believe."
He then went on to deliver a message that should put a scare into Sunshine State teams.
"We're gonna really make this a pipeline from from Florida to Notre Dame, and we're going to get your favorite player. I mean, sorry to the schools in Florida, but we're going to grab all the recruits that we can, and we will. We will do that."
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