Joe Rudolph has made a huge impact on the Notre Dame Fighting Irish's historical 2027 recruiting class
Ryan Roberts breaks down the impact Joe Rudolph has had on the Notre Dame 2027 class
Video Transcript
And I really do think that we need to take a second here because I know that there's a lot of, there's a lot of conflicting feelings about Joe Rudolph and the fan base.
I think most people would agree though, whether you think he's a good coach, a really good coach, an average coach, whatever you think that the quality is there.
I know that there's some questionable decision making in terms of where he's putting guys positionally, but there is no doubt he is an outstanding recruiter, man.
The fact that this, these players could walk into a room next year that in theory could have Charles Jaggasaw, Gerby Lambert, Will Black, like the talent in that offensive line room, you know, throw in Grayson McHugh, like the talent in that offensive line room, Tyler Merrill, so many good offensive linemen in that room.
And there's a, there's an argument that again, this could be one of the elite offensive line call, halls, excuse me, in Notre Dame history.
And then the last thing, the last thing.
There was never that, there was never that feeling that LSU was a serious contender, back to my original conversation point here, because one, they, Simeon, the Simeon household was not a pro LSU household growing up.
They didn't watch LSU football every Saturday, like it just wasn't their thing.
They're also a high academic family, so I think that always was going to go into the conversation.
And then there's a lot of pro Notre Dame on the Simeon side of things, right, for helping Albert make this decision.
I think that was big.
But we cannot understate, forget about the Texas A&M thing for a second, you cannot understate getting a five-star player out of the state of Louisiana.
Like the deep south here, being able to go and get that type of football player is huge, man.
And it's, it's huge, especially when you combine it with you went into Pennsylvania to get Abraham Cisse.
You went down to New Jersey and got Olu Olu Bolola, who you were kind of late in getting in with.
You've gotten like Xavier Hassan out of North Carolina.
You got Champ Mons, who I think is going to be one of the biggest risers in this class, a talented running back group.
Like this is just David Folarun show after a lot of back and forth, you were able to close the deal there.
The impact that we're seeing on the recruiting trail to Marcus Freeman, this is different.
And it, because someone just said, oh, I literally saw Notre Dame chat the other day that was like, oh, Charlie Weis recruited like this.
No, no, no.
Charlie Weis recruited offensively like this, sort of, but he did not recruit the defensive side of the football.
These are well-balanced, incredible recruiting classes that we are seeing.
There's going to be a fun conversation at the end, potentially, depending on how a couple of things shake out of whether 2027 or 2026 was the better recruiting class for Notre Dame.
You can't recruit at this level at Notre Dame, we were once told.
Well, Marcus Freeman has changed that.
And the Albert Simeon commitment is the latest testament to the impact that we are seeing in that recruiting.
