Notre Dame’s 2023 recruiting off to particularly strong start with 8 consensus four-star commits

Notre Dame could have signed more recruits this week to wrap up its class of 2022, but instead, the Irish finished the cycle with the 21 players they signed in December. Though an offensive skill player or two popped up in the following six weeks, the reality is Notre Dame had moved onto 2023 as soon as Marcus Freeman touched base with all the offensive prospects in the brief stretch between his hiring and the early signing period.

On some of those visits, he even found time to visit with 2023 recruits already.

“When you’re going to go to an area to see a 2022 (prospect), you might as well get the work in on the guys in that area,” then-Irish recruiting coordinator Mike Elston said in December. “… We didn’t want to lose momentum in the ‘23 and the ‘24 class with where we were right now. So it’s just about looking to the future and making sure that we secure that.”

In some instances, the 2023 possibilities may be the answers to current roster questions. If a position has adequate depth at the moment but should be shored up down the line — having only one underclassman safety comes to mind — Notre Dame may forgo an influx of transfer portal imports and instead focus on that need this recruiting cycle.

“If we need to start recruiting more high school kids for the following ‘23 class, we will,” Freeman said in December. “Those are still something that’s an ongoing process in terms of our current roster, in terms of guys leaving.”

The Irish are off to an astounding start in 2023 recruiting, both in terms of quantity and quality. Eight verbal commitments at this point in the cycle is ahead of the usual pace — four in the 2020 cycle when the 2019 class concluded; six in the 2021 cycle; five in the 2022 cycle — and all eight are