Notre Dame football sets up as the beneficiary to Lane Kiffin’s very bad day

While it’s been a while since the Notre Dame football team got a big time recruiting win directly, it’s possible there are signs pointing towards the downfall of an opponent. Sometimes that can be even better.

Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin has been coming after Fighting Irish commit Deuce Knight for quite a while now. Like a pesky fly buzzing around Marcus Freeman’s head, he won’t go away, even when it feels like the Irish have swatted down one rumor after another.

But young Mr. Kiffin - no stranger to benefitting from the downfall of his rivals - had himself a very bad Monday. And that could be very good news for the Notre Dame football program, especially when it comes to where it stands with Deuce Knight.

Notre Dame football sets up as the beneficiary to Lane Kiffin’s very bad day

While Kiffin and his Rebels have been on quite the run the last few years, Monday was a reversal of a ton of that momentum. Ole Miss started the day with 12 commitments in the 2025 recruiting cycle and ended with just nine.

Four-star wide receiver Jerome Myles, three-star linebacker Corey Amos, and four-star wide receiver Dillon Alfred each announced on Monday that they were no longer committed to Ole Miss. It’s the loss of two wide receivers thaat might stand out the most to those following the Deuce Knight soap opera.

While the Fighting Irish are having their own problems luring top rated receivers in the 2025 class to South Bend, it’s not seeing the kind of exodus that Kiffin’s crew saw this week. With Ole Miss begin the school that could be the only one to pull Knight away from the Golden Domers, these recruiting losses are only a good thing.

Certainly, this isn’t the end of the recruiting battle between the two schools. There are going to be many more shots fired. But for now, Notre Dame football supporters have to feel as though their program is standing on more solid ground.