Recruiting Comparison: Notre Dame vs Navy
Notre Dame usually dominates its opponents when looking at the matchup from a recruiting standpoint, and there is no better example than when they go up against Navy. Season openers can always be tricky but there’s no question who the more talented team is. There are several areas that really illustrated that talent gap.
Let's take a look at how Notre Dame stacks up against the Midshipmen from a recruiting standpoint. All rankings are 247Sports composite rankings.
Notre Dame Offense vs Navy Defense
Notre Dame certainly dominates this matchup from a recruiting standpoint, with the Irish putting eight players in the starting lineup that were four-star recruits, including four former Top 100 recruits. There are also another seven former four-stars who are key reserves off the bench. Notre Dame’s highest rated player on the offense is Blake Fisher at right tackle. He is one of four former four-star recruits up front for the Irish, including three that ranked as top 100 recruits.
The wide receiver room is especially filled with former four-star talent, which could count for their top five to six wide receivers on the depth chart depending. Walk-on Matt Salerno is the only healthy scholarship wide receiver that wasn't a former four-star recruit.
Funny enough, the Irish’s lowest ranked player on the offense was quarterback Sam Hartman. His 127 total touchdowns in his career is a perfect illustration that stars can be very overrated.
The Navy defense only boasts two players who were rated as recruits coming out of high school. That includes linebacker Xavier McDonald and cornerback Mbiti Williams Jr. McDonald was pegged as a three-star and Williams was a two-star.
McDonald will need to be extra disruptive in the front seven, which will hope to challenge what should be one of the top offensive lines in college football this season.
Notre Dame Defense vs Navy Offense
The matchup doesn’t improve much for Navy’s sake in this particular matchup. In fact, it gets even worse for the Midshipmen. They only have three players who were ranked coming out of high school, including running backs Amin Hassan and Anton Hall Jr. and offensive lineman Joshua Pena. Hall considered three-star players on the ranking.
With two of their rated players coming at running back, they will hope to do their damage against an extremely deep and talented front seven for the Irish.
On Notre Dame’s side, there are also eight starters that were ranked as four-star recruits. The highest overall recruit of the starters is pass rusher Jordan Botelho, who is entering his first season as a starter for the Irish. Botelho was ranked as the No. 120 overall player in the country in the 2020 class, and Rylie Mills (No. 159) was right behind him.
Notre Dame's backup defensive linemen have even more impressive rankings. Four players that are expected to receive a lot of snaps on the defensive line behind the starters were four-star recruits, including Josh Burnham (No. 109 overall), Gabriel Rubio (No. 117 overall) and Junior Tuihalamaka (No. 159 overall).
Coming off the bench, linebacker Jaylen Sneed is the top recruit overall. He is the only player who ranked inside the Top 100 of the Industry ranking of the full time contributors for the Irish on defense.
CLASS RANKINGS
Here are the class rankings of the two programs from the last five seasons. (247 Composite Ranking)
NOTRE DAME
2023 - 12
2022 - 7
2021 - 9
2020 - 18
2019 - 14
NAVY
2023 - 121
2022 - 124
2021 - 109
2020 - 125
2019 - 120
Advantage: Notre Dame
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Irish Breakdown Content
2023 Scholarship Chart
2023 Football Schedule
Notre Dame 2024 Scholarship Offers
2024 Commit Rankings - Offense
2024 Commit Rankings - Defense
2023 Recruiting Class Grades - Offense
2023 Recruiting Class Grades - Defense
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