Notre Dame Loses Top-Ranked Recruit Deuce Knight to Auburn

Notre Dame's top-ranked player in the 2025 class has officially decommited

Sep 14, 2024; West Lafayette, Indiana, USA; Notre Dame Fighting Irish head coach Marcus Freeman walks the line of warm ups before a game against the Purdue Boilermakers at Ross-Ade Stadium. / Marc Lebryk-Imagn Images

It's been since late July that rumors have been swirling about Notre Dame's top ranked 2025 recruiting commitment flipping to another school.

Whether it was Ole Miss or Auburn, the feeling has been shaky for sometime about top-five 2025 quarterback Deuce Knight ending up at Notre Dame. On Wednesday night the fear became reality for Notre Dame as Knight made his commitment to Auburn official.

AU it’s up🦅 https://t.co/JUbPUIuLgK

— Deuce Knight (@DeuceKnight) October 2, 2024

Knight originally committed to Notre Dame in late September of 2023 and made several visits to campus before and following that commitment. Everything changed in late July however when Knight made a surprise visit to Auburn.

That would become the norm as Knight was seen at Auburn several times since then, seeing head coach Hugh Freeze and the Tigers in-person several times already this season. Despite Auburn's struggles this year, Knight made his decision to stay closer to home.

Deuce Knight Departs Class: Now What for Notre Dame?

This has felt like it has been a long time coming for all Knight, Auburn, and Notre Dame.

Perhaps the slow start to the season for Auburn delayed the process a bit, but when the one-time voice of Notre Dame's 2025 recruiting class started being seen in Auburn gear and stopped making the trek to South Bend, the writing was clearly on the wall.

In August, over very own Nathan Erbach explored the routes Notre Dame could go if and when Knight decommitted. Washington commitment Dash Beierly and California commitment Jaron Keawe Sagapolutele were the top two names Erbach mentioned.

"If Notre Dame is seeking a natural replacement for Knight, Sagapolutele might be the closest match" is how Erbach described the quarterback situation just over a month ago.

Stay tuned to Notre Dame on Sports Illustrated for all the latest on the Deuce Knight saga, that has finally come to an end for the Fighting Irish.

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