Notre Dame football once again whiffs badly in early battle for elite WR prospect

Notre Dame football fails to crack a top 7 list filled with beatable rivals, deepening concerns over receiver recruiting.
Michael C. Johnson-Imagn Images

If there has been a weakness for Notre Dame football recruiting over the last few years, it’s been the inability to land many top-rated high school receivers

The struggles were pronounced last season but they’re already expanding into 2025. In fact, the Irish have already lost some recruiting battles to rival schools this winter. And earlier this week, the Blue and Gold lost out on a wide receiver prospect before they really got into the fight.

Texas wide receiver Zion Robinson announced his Top 7 schools. And it turns out the Notre Dame football team wasn’t even on the list. It’s one thing to lose out after a wide out takes several visits and then eventually signs on the bottom line in December. It’s another for the Fighting Irish to not make a Top 7 this early in the process. Especially when the other schools on the list are TCU, Baylor, Stanford, Miami, Illinois, Arizona, and Texas Tech.

Notre Dame football suffers embarrassing Zion Robinson recruiting loss

Those schools are Power 4 programs obviously, but they’re not on a level that is the same as Notre Dame. Despite the 4-star wide receiver being among the best in the class, he’s not wanting to go to one of the teams that played for the national championship.

Robinson is indeed a massive loss, at least for now. 247Sports has him ranked as the No. 71 player in the 2026 cycle. How the Notre Dame football team wasn’t able to land on his finalist list is a big question. The only piece of good news here is that they could still correct that before December.

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