Notre Dame Battling In-State Badgers For The Nation's Top Center

Notre Dame is heavily pursuing offensive lineman Carson Hinzman to potentially play center for the Fighting Irish down the road

Notre Dame needs another strong offensive line haul, and the Irish coaches are pushing for a number of the nation's best blockers, which includes Hammond (Wis.) Saint Croix Central lineman Carson Hinzman.

Notre Dame already has two blockers committed, having landed Joey Tanona and Ty Chan over the last year. Notre Dame needs more tackles in the class, but it also needs to find its center of the future, and that's where Hinzman could ultimately end up at the next level.

“I was talking to Notre Dame, and they say center,” Hinzman told Irish Breakdown. “[At Wisconsin], they say interior, but I guess all of them say, 'we will see once you get there.' I was talking with Miami, and they were thinking tackle. It's all over. I always tell coaches, 'I'll play center to safety for you, whatever helps the team.' I would be guessing interior lineman.”

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Hinzman is listed as the No. 1 center in the country by Rivals and the No. 4 guard by 247Sports.com, but his ability to slide all across the offensive line would provide the Fighting Irish with some extra flexibility depending on how the depth chart shakes out before even taking potential injuries into consideration. As a result, Hinzman has been receiving a lot of attention from the staff and actually hopped on the phone with ND offensive coordinator Tommy Rees last night.

“I've been talking to Coach [Jeff] Quinn along with the offensive coordinator, Coach Rees,” Hinzman said. “I've been talking to him as well along with a couple other people. Coach [Brian] Kelly reached out a little while ago, and I've been talking to him. I'm just trying to keep in contact. Obviously they are really, really good at recruiting, so they're doing a great job.”

Like most recruits, Hinzman hasn't been able to take as many visits as he would've liked to over the past several months, but luckily Notre Dame hosted the highly coveted prospect multiple times before the dead period was instituted.

“Before the dead period I went down there twice,” Hinzman added. “It's a really, really beautiful campus with really great people down there. It was a lot of fun. We went there for the Army game, so that was really fun. Then we went down there again for another visit.”

Along with Notre Dame, Hinzman is a priority target for the Wisconsin Badgers, and he also totes offers from programs such as Alabama, Auburn, Iowa, LSU, Miami, Michigan, Oregon and Penn State for a grand total of 22 Division 1 scholarships. With so many college football powerhouses in the hunt for his commitment, Hinzman is looking to chop his list down to a group of top schools before June rolls around, and his tentative timeline is to commit before the start of his senior season at Saint Croix Central.

Hinzman would like to take as many visits as possible before issuing his commitment, so he's still in the process of whittling down which schools he would ideally like to take officials to. On top of that, Hinzman, a four-sport athlete, just finished his basketball season and is now in the middle of wrestling before his track and field season starts later this Spring. 

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