Notre Dame Just Had ANOTHER Wide Receiver Recruiting Blunder...

AtoZ Sports

Ryan Roberts talks about the state of Notre Dame wide receiver recruiting, as the Irish had another blunder recently.

Transcript

00:00Notre Dame wide receiver recruiting has another blunder in the 2026 class. Let's talk about

00:06the state of wide receiver recruiting Mike Brown and what needs to change in a conversation

00:11that needs to be had next.

00:17Ryan Roberts from A to Z sports, breaking down everything. Notre Dame football folks.

00:20We are just a few days now, a couple of weeks until spring football, but as we know, recruiting

00:26never stops for the Notre Dame football team coming off a 14 win season. We were hoping

00:30for a lot of recruiting momentum. And while there has been a lot of positive conversations

00:36and remarks on that side, we are still fighting the uphill battle of wide receiver recruiting

00:42under Mike Brown. Now we've talked about this a lot in the past about how Mike Brown was

00:48not set up for success immediately from a recruiting perspective at Notre Dame, former

00:54wide receiver coach, Chansey Stuckey left the 2025 board in a very bad position and

00:59a lot of disarray. So Mike Brown had an uphill battle immediately. And we saw the results

01:06of that. We saw three pretty rough losses in a couple of weeks span last off season

01:12when they missed out on Dylan Robinson, who eventually committed to Washington. They lost

01:17out on Derek Meadows, who of course eventually ended up committing to LSU, but eventually

01:22flipping to Alabama before national signing day. And then they lost out on two new kinds

01:26who chose USC. So you were over three on your top wide receiver recruits in that class.

01:33You also passed in John Anthony Hall and you had to kind of reshuffle the board. Eventually

01:37you get Antavious Richardson into the fall, but it was a very tough process to have confidence

01:43in wide receiver recruiting moving forward. But what do we do as Notre Dame fans? We gave

01:47it a mulligan, right? 2025, there was a lot going against coach Brown. You had to pick

01:52up that board where it was. 2026 is where we're actually going to get a full scope understanding

01:59of what he can be as a recruiter at Notre Dame. Cool. Let's take a step back. Let's

02:04give him some time. Well, folks, there was a lot of positive conversations and remarks

02:09and feedback early in 2026, but I am sitting here now in March and a long way from natural

02:15signing day, of course, but we know that Notre Dame typically likes to get recruits

02:19in early and kind of hold on for dear life. They don't typically flip a lot of guys late.

02:23That's just not in the Notre Dame nature, but we are sitting here now. And so far this

02:29off season, there's been more negativity and more missteps in Notre Dame recruiting. The

02:37most recent obviously was Maryland wide receiver, 2026 class Connor Salmon, 10, 400 meter guy,

02:44a four one nine GPA as well. So high academic kid who spoke glowingly about Notre Dame

02:49in the past, Notre Dame had been his perceived leader for a bit of a time. At this point,

02:54high academic kid who talked about how the educational aspect is very important to him

02:59has been in Notre Dame several times. So it all looked like it was lining up. Unfortunately,

03:04Notre Dame missed out on Connor Salmon. Salmon ended up picking Clemson this weekend, this

03:10past weekend. And it was a tough blow, especially because it was only a couple of days removed

03:14from Naeem Burrows, Florida wide receiver in the 2026 class, also picking Clemson. Now

03:20Burrows was a player that Notre Dame had high on their board, but wasn't a guy that was

03:23necessarily a realistic target. It was just a guy that they really liked, but kind of

03:28had some feelings that Notre Dame wasn't going to be the pick in the end. But either way,

03:32you miss out on two of your top of the board targets guys that you really liked. And then

03:37also the recent prediction was put in from Steve Wolfong for Trent Moseley, who obviously

03:42his dad was Emmett Moseley played, uh, played at Notre Dame during the golden era of football.

03:50And they have now lost out on back to back and Emmett Moseley, the, the son and Trent

03:57Moseley, his younger brother, most likely Trent Moseley was put in a future cast prescription

04:02or on three prediction to end up with USC. So barring anything last minute, it appears

04:08that you are now going to go Oh, for three early on in your wide receiver recruiting

04:12when Trent Moseley ends up picking most likely not Notre Dame. Now that all being said, Notre

04:18Dame does have some pretty good targets on the board and they have momentum with guys

04:22like Caden Finley out of Texas, Brayden Robinson out of Texas. There's a couple of glimmering

04:27hopes there. And if honestly, if you get Finley and Robinson, this is kind of a moot point,

04:31but guys, we said that last year in the summer, right? You missed out on the, on this one

04:37guy, but Hey, you still got these targets on the board. And then Notre Dame wasn't able

04:40to close. And then you had to completely flip your board and reconfigure it and try to make

04:45it a good class in the end. And honestly, the 2025 class ended up being an underrate

04:50under whelming under, I would say below average class overall wide receivers. And you also

04:57had a really questionable process to get to that final group of receivers. So far in 2026,

05:03you heard decent things early on, but we're feeling the same things here. Starting to

05:07feel a little bit anxious about what 2026 wide receiver recruiting is. And at some points,

05:12and I want this to be clear, I put this in an article at agency sports. This is not a

05:16call to action of termination or anything. I am not sitting here saying Mike Brown stinks.

05:22He's not the guy, get him out of town. But what I am saying here is that something needs

05:26to change with wide receiver recruiting. I don't know if it's something with Mike Brown

05:30specifically. I don't know if it's something behind the scenes. I don't know if it's people

05:33helping in the recruiting a little bit more of coach Freeman has to step in. I don't know

05:37the answer that is well above my pay grade, but all I know is the process seems inconsistent

05:43and the results obviously have not been great. So something needs to change there because

05:48my biggest worry here is that you have a similar trudging to the end of 2026 and wide receiver

05:55development is about the same. We are hoping that Jaden Greathouse takes the next step.

06:01I think he can. We're hoping that Malachi Fields is a seamless transition. I think he

06:05can be, but we don't know. There's more unknowns about wide receiver developments. Hopefully

06:10it's good. But right now, wide receiver recruiting has been one of the Achilles heel of this

06:14team. It's defense tackle recruiting. It's wide receiver recruiting. This has to get

06:19better. Has to get better. I hope Mike Brown figures it out. I hope he goes down the stretch

06:24and he gets guys like Caden Finley and Brayden Robinson and maybe adds another guy to the

06:29board and they close and we look back on this conversation and say, wow, Ryan overreacted,

06:35right? But I have had nothing and no track record here so far of Mike Brown recruiting

06:41wide receivers at Notre Dame that tells me that I am overreacting. No action has led

06:47me to believe that. If it does, then we'll retract this conversation. Belief will be

06:51added. But until then, I'm a little bit troubled and unsettled about wide receiver recruiting.

06:57Folks, put it in the chat. Tell me I'm overreacting. Tell me I'm over, I'm off my rocker. Put in

07:03your confidence level. Who do you think Notre Dame has a good chance in in 2026? Can they

07:08turn around wide receiver recruiting? And regardless of that conversation, that discord,

07:14you know, the final result here, folks, go Irish.

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