Notre Dame football takes gut punch as in-state WR chooses rival program

The Notre Dame football team has been having a downturn in recruiting recently. That’s especially true for recruiting wide receivers.

There was some hope that JonAnthony Hall would turn that streak around. For a while, it looked like he was going to be one of the best wide receiver commits the Irish have gotten in some time.

After the Notre Dame football team offered Hall, things looked good at first. It looked like they’d won him over just by offering. He set up an official visit and headed to South Bend. However, it looks like Marcus Freeman and company couldn’t quite pull off what they thought they could.

Notre Dame football loses 4-star wide receiver prospect to rival program

On Friday afternoon, Hall took to social media to announce where he plans to go to school next year. In what can only be called an insult to injury type call, he announced he’s head to the Stanford Cardinal.

The Top 100 prospect is headed from Fishers, Indiana to Palo Alto, California.

In picking the new ACC school over a school closer to home, Jon Anthony Hall has raised some real questions about Notre Dame's approach to recruiting for the position. 

The Irish have been players for some of the best wide receivers in the class. They are, in fact, still players for guys like Derek Meadows, who would certainly lessen this frustration significantly.

However, there’s still questions about just what the Irish are doing that isn’t resonating. Especially with a kid from the state of Indiana. 

While Stanford is a good school, it’s certainly not like Notre Dame doesn’t have it’s own heft academically. In fact, there’s very little difference in both schools' academic standards when they’re closely examined. 

So while the reputation of Stanford might have carried a bit of weight, it shouldn’t have beaten Notre Dame football. This begs the question as to what is really at play here. And can Marcus Freeman turn it around?