ADVERTISEMENT

Football Notre Dame's Xavier Watts, Joe Alt amend history as unanimous All-Americans

Safety Xavier Watts and left tackle Joe Alt landed on the AFCA All-America first team, which makes them unanimous All-Americans for the 2023 season.

They become the 31st and 32nd players to do so in Notre Dame program history.

Story from @Eric Hansen:


NOTRE DAME UNANIMOUS ALL-AMERICANS

1929-30 Frank Carideo, QB, (Vernon, N.Y.)

1932 Joe Kurth, T, (Madison, Wis.)

1938 Ed Beinor, T, (Harvey, Ill.)

1946-47 John Lujack, QB, (Connellsville, Pa.)

1949 Leon Hart, E, (Turtle Creek, Pa.)

1949 Emil Sitko, FB, (Fort Wayne, Ind.)

1952-53 John Lattner, HB, (Chicago, Ill.)

1954 Ralph Guglielmi, QB, (Columbus, Ohio)

1965 Dick Arrington, OG, (Erie, Pa.)

1966 Nick Eddy, HB, (Lafayette, Calif.)

1966 Jim Lynch, LB, (Lima, Ohio)

1969 Mike McCoy, DT, (Erie, Pa.)

1971 Walt Patulski, DE, (Liverpool, N.Y.)

1972 Greg Marx, DT, (Redford, Mich.)

1975 Steve Niehaus, DT, (Cincinnati, Ohio)

1976-77 Ross Browner, DE, (Warren, Ohio)

1977 Ken MacAfee, TE, (Brockton, Mass.)

1978 Bob Golic, LB, (Willowick, Ohio)

1980 John Scully, C, (Huntington, N.Y.)

1987 Tim Brown, FL, (Dallas, Texas)

1989 Todd Lyght, CB, (Flint, Mich.)

1990 Raghib Ismail, FL, (Wilkes-Barre, Pa.)

1990 Michael Stonebreaker, LB, (River Ridge, La.)

1990 Chris Zorich, DT, (Chicago, Ill.)

1993 Aaron Taylor, OT, (Concord, Calif.)

2002 Shane Walton, CB, (San Diego, Calif.)

2009 Golden Tate, WR, (Hendersonville, Tenn.)

2012 Manti Te’o, LB, (Laie, Hawaii)

2017 Quenton Nelson, OG, (Holmdel, N.J.)

2020 Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah, LB, (Hampton, Va.)

2023 Joe Alt, OT, (North Oaks, Minn.)

2023 Xavier Watts, S, (Omaha, Neb.)

Recruiting 2025 four-star ATH Nick Townsend shares excitement after Notre Dame offer

Login to view embedded media
Notre Dame offered 2025 athlete Nick Townsend on Thursday. He is a recruit out of Houston (Tex.) DeKaney.

Per Rivals, he is a four-star recruit and the No. 169 overall player in the 2025 recruiting class. He is listed as an athlete, a designation given for a multi-positional prospect. He plays tight end, defensive end and outside linebacker for DeKaney.

The 6-foot-3, 225-pound Townsend has 20 total offers including Alabama, Ole Miss, Nebraska, Purdue, Texas, Texas Tech and USC.

Link to full story:


Login to view embedded media
Login to view embedded media

Recruiting 2025 four-star DE target Damien Shanklin sets visit for Sat.

Login to view embedded media
I can confirm 2025 DE target Damien Shanklin plans on visiting Notre Dame this Saturday.

The Irish target has 19 offers including Iowa, Louisville, Michigan, Tennessee and USC. He originally planned to announce a list of top 10 schools in March but has since deleted the tweet and told me directly that is no longer the plan.

Shanklin visited Notre Dame twice this season for the USC and Pittsburgh games after picking up an offer in August.

He attends Indianapolis Warren Central, the same school that produced Sheldon Day. He had 66 tackles including 17 for loss, three sacks and one interception this season.

Per Rivals, Shanklin is a four-star and the No. 203 overall player in the 2025 recruiting class. His primary recruiters with Notre Dame have been defensive line coach Al Washington and defensive assistant Nick Sebastian.

Login to view embedded media

Recruiting Trail Tracks: Following Notre Dame's coaches on the recruiting trail in Dec.

Last Friday morning, Inside ND Sports published an article detailing where head coach Marcus Freeman, director of recruiting Chad Bowden and the rest of the Irish coaching staff were expected that day. You can read that story here.

Moving forward, we will use this thread to post all information regarding Notre Dame's staff and its activity with in-home visits with commits, school visits with targets and more. You can see pictures of in-home visits from Sunday for 2024 OL commit Anthonie Knapp here and 2024 DE commit Cole Mullins here.

Login to view embedded media
On Monday, Freeman visited 2025 safety target JaDon Blair at Winston Salem (N.C.) Mount Tabor.

Blair visited ND for its game against Ohio State in Sept. and also saw the Irish while on recruiting visits to Duke and Louisville in the two weeks after. He also visited Florida State in Nov.

In previous interviews, Blair has said safeties coach Chris O'Leary believes he holds similarities to former Irish standout Kyle Hamilton.

Login to view embedded media
Blair's junior season highlights are below:

Login to view embedded media

Recruiting 2026 QB Brady Hart high on Irish after Notre Dame football offer

Login to view embedded media
Notre Dame offered 2026 quarterback Brady Hart on Wednesday.

Link to full story:


The 6-foot-5, 185-pound recruit attends Cocoa (Fla.) High and also has notable offers from Arkansas, Iowa State, Penn State, Pittsburgh and Texas A&M.

Login to view embedded media
Login to view embedded media

Football Duke QB Riley Leonard commits to Notre Dame

He announced this morning with a video on Instagram.

Story from @Eric Hansen:


Login to view embedded media

Recruiting New 2025 WR offer in Tex.

Login to view embedded media
Notre Dame offered 2025 wide receiver Tanook Hines on Thursday.

New wide receivers coach Mike Brown recruited Hines while at Wisconsin. Hines attends Houston (Tex.) DeKaney and is a four-star recruit according to Rivals. He is the No. 54 wide receiver in the 2025 recruiting class.

Hines has 31 total offers including Alabama, Arkansas, LSU, Miami (Fla.), Tennessee, Texas, Texas A&M, Wisconsin and USC.

Login to view embedded media
Login to view embedded media

Recruiting New 2026 WR offer in Fla.

Login to view embedded media
Notre Dame football has extended its first offer to a wide receiver with new position coach Mike Brown on the coaching staff.

Naeem Burroughs reported an offer from the Irish on Thursday. He visited Brown at Wisconsin in September and received his Badgers offer last December.

The 6-foot, 165-pound wide receiver attends Jacksonville (Fla.) Bolles. He has 17 total offers including Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, LSU, Michigan, Penn State and Tennessee. He also received an offer from Cincinnati in August 2022, and Irish quarterbacks coach Gino Guidugli was the Cincinnati staff member to offer him.

Per Rivals, Burroughs is a four-star and the No. 65 overall player in the 2026 recruiting class.

Login to view embedded media
Burrough’s sophomore highlights are below. He had 47 receptions for 1,019 yards and 15 touchdowns.

Login to view embedded media

Tomorrow should be another good morning. Update: R.J. Oben commits to ND

No one skip breakfast on Wednesday.

Hot Tea Cheers GIF by ALLBLK


Update:

Ugh. I apologize, gang. I was told an announcement would be coming between 10-11 a.m. EST this morning. I've just been told it should happen at 2 p.m.

I have egg on my face and don't love it. Just wanted to keep you guys in the loop.

Another update:

This is turning into some kind of sick joke now. Latest text message informs me it will be at 7 p.m.

Another update!

12:30 p.m. now. I think I'm starting to get dizzy.
ADVERTISEMENT

Filter

ADVERTISEMENT