Notre Dame football loses key wide receiver recruit to SMU, reevaluates strategy

The Notre Dame football team has to go back to the drawing board when it comes to recruiting wide receivers. That’s because while the Irish thought they might be able to steal a commit from another school, it turns out they lost that battle. One has to wonder if a focus on the run game wasn’t part of the reason why.

The Fighting Irish lost the battle to SMU of all teams. While the Mustangs are now in the ACC and are having a very good season, it’s not all that great to lose a recruiting battle to a program that was a G5 school just last year.

However, the Notre Dame football team did lose that battle on Monday night. Jalen Cooper took to social media to let everyone know he was staying put. That’s after visiting the Blue and Gold in the last few weeks.

Notre Dame football loses recruiting battle to SMU

“1000% committed go ponies,” Cooper wrote on his post. “(Recruitment is closed)”

That marks yet another loss on the wide receiver recruiting front. It’s been a rough summer and fall. Even with the addition of Antavious Richardson. It’s still been a rough go to land some big time wide receivers.

It also seems as though the loss of Cooper is where the Notre Dame football team calls it quits. There aren’t a ton of prospects out there at this point that the Irish want to land. Richardson could be the last wide receiver they get. And that’s going to require them to look at what they did at the end of this cycle, so that it doesn’t happen again in 2025.