Notre Dame football loses ground to Georgia for 5-star OT prospect

The Notre Dame football team has had a bit of a tough stretch in recruiting of late. Most of the struggles have focused on the quarterback position. However, it now looks like the Irish might be losing out on one of the best offensive line prospects in the 2025 class.

While losing a recruiting battle to Georgia is hardly something to be embarrassed about, it’s still not a great look for a program that’s had a tough June and July. If they lose Jackson Cantwell, it would be another big loss in what has been quite the string of late.

Notre Dame football outshone by SEC power in battle for OT prospect

Cantwell visited Athens over the weekend and definitely felt as though he was on of their top targets. In fact, he told On3 that the Bulldogs staff made him feel like a “priority.” That’s obviously not great news for Notre Dame football.

“I got to have a closer look at off-season workouts, and meetings and I got to experience a true recruiting-based event at Georgia,” Cantwell said. “Getting to keep building relationships and learning from Coach Searels and the rest of the offensive line staff made it special.”

The good news here is that while the Irish are looking like also-rans to Georgia at the moment, it doesn’t appear as though Cantwell is getting any closer to choosing a school. The 5-star offensive lineman narrowed his list to 14 a few weeks back.

Since then, there hasn’t been much mention of when he’s going to shrink his list again. And even when he does, it feels like the Irish have a chance to get in the race again. 

The next step is going to be convincing him he needs to come back to South Bend and see what Notre Dame football really has to offer.