Notre Dame Football's rising star: A potential draft steal emerges

As the calendar ticks closer and closer to the 2024 NFL Draft, Notre Dame Football fans wonder how many former Fighting Irish stars will get drafted. More accurately, fans might wonder when they’ll get drafted since it seems a sure bet for some of the guys to be selected

Joe Alt, for instance, is a consensus Top 10 pick. He’s creeping ever closer to being a consensus Top 5 pick. But at the moment, there aren’t many other Notre Dame Football players who are expected to join Alt in the first round.

One player who is getting a bit more buzz than he was earlier in the year is Audric Estime. Part of the reason his buzz wasn’t great was because he had himself a pretty terrible NFL Combine. In fact, his 40-yard-dash time was among the worst of anyone who was hoping to get drafted at running back.

Notre Dame Football has a steal of the draft in Audric Estime

The buzz surrounding Estime lately has a lot more to do with the fact that he’s better than some scouts are giving him credit for. That includes one analyst who believes he’s going to end up as one of the steals of the draft. Of course, he’s going to be a steal because of how late he’s expected to be picked.

“Some team is going to get a steal in Notre Dame running back Audric Estime based on where I'm hearing he's likely to be drafted,” ESPN Draft Analyst Matt Miller wrote on X. “Save this post. Dude has starter talent, and he'll be drafted outside the top 120 picks.”

If Miller is correct in his assessment, that means Estime isn’t getting picked until the middle of the fourth round at the earliest. That’s despite the fact that more and more analysts are realizing that the former Notre Dame Football running back doesn’t offer blazing speed, he does have the ability to run through and over defenders.

As Audric Estime gets a bit more buzz, it will be interesting to see just where he goes in the 2024 NFL Draft.