Don't Get Confused About Why Eli Bowen Was Offered By Notre Dame

Notre Dame offered 2024 defensive back Eli Bowen, whose older brother Peyton is committed to the Fighting Irish

I know what some of you were thinking yesterday when you saw that Denton (Texas) Guyer sophomore defensive back Eli Bowen was offered a scholarship by Notre Dame and cornerbacks coach Mike Mickens.

Eli is the younger brother of Notre Dame commit Peyton Bowen, who is the one player in the 2023 Irish class that fans are most concerned about leaving the class. Bowen has already visited Oklahoma multiple times and he plans on taking many more visits, and the older Bowen hasn't always sounded like a guy who is 100% certain to sign with the Irish.

So offer Eli and try to use that to convince Peyton to stay in the class, right?

Maybe that's the end result, but it doesn't take much film study to realize that Eli Bowen's scholarship is about Eli Bowen's talent as a football player.

The younger Bowen lacks ideal size that teams look for on the edge these days, checking in between 5-9 and 5-10. But that's where the "negatives" about his game end. Beyond that there is a lot to not only like, but to love about Bowen's game.

Guyer has his older brother, a consensus Top 100 recruit, in the secondary and there is also Ryan Yaites in the secondary. Yaites was also offered by Notre Dame and he's a four-star recruit with an impressive offer list. Then there is Eli, who is the smallest and youngest guy in the secondary.

It appears that teams looked at the Guyer secondary and said, "Let's throw at the young guy."

Eli Bowen made a lot of teams pay for that decision, as the talented sophomore picked off an outstanding 10 passes for the 14-2 Wildcats to go with 54 tackles and five more break ups. Bowen returned three of those interceptions for touchdowns.

What Bowen possesses is a combination of outstanding foot quickness, speed and his football IQ is outstanding. A case could be made that the younger Bowen is even more instinctive than Peyton, who was a tremendous two-way player for Guyer last season. 

Bowen's change of direction ability it top-notch, his acceleration is already really good and the when you combine that with the fact he is advanced from a technical standpoint you can easily see why he makes so many plays on the football. Bowen shows a great feel for angles in coverage, he's more than willing to come down and be physical against the run/perimeter screens and his ball skills are outstanding.

When you look at his projection, the only concern about Bowen is the height aspect, which I mentioned earlier. Assuming he doesn't grow over his final two years in high school, Bowen is already similar in statute as current Irish cornerback TaRiq Bracy. One difference between the two is Bracy was more of an athlete that needed to learn to play corner, whereas Bowen already has a great feel for the position. He's just as comfortable playing man as he is playing in the zone. He does a great job of reading routes in man and he reads the quarterbacks eyes extremely well in zone situations.

At the very least the younger Bowen projects as an outstanding slot corner, and if he can either grow and inch or two, or learn to minimize the negative impact of his size, he has all the other tools/skills you want in a top notch perimeter cover player.

Change his name to Eli Jones or Eli Smith and just look at the film and look at his background and look at his academic profile and it becomes clear, this offer was about Eli's talent, and his recruitment will be about his talent and potential. 

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