Notre Dame Set to Land Multiple Five Stars in 2026 Recruiting Class

Whether you are a believer in the high school rankings system or someone that thinks it is all a sham, landing five stars is always cool. They are hard to come by, only 32 per recruiting cycle, and traditionally Notre Dame has struggled to recruit them for one reason or another.

This cycle, however, Notre Dame is absolutely crushing it on the trail and may end up with more five stars than we have ever seen it bring in during the modern recruiting era. It is important to emphasize that because it seems likely that Lou Holtz or Ara Parseghian would have landed about a dozen five-star players each class back in the day with how great those teams were.

.@Rivals updated its 2026 rankings today, so surely, a bunch of Notre Dame commits dropped, right? Isn't that how it works?

Notre Dame has the most players ranked inside the top-32 nationally with 6⃣. Ohio State and Georgia are the next closest with three apiece.

Joey O'Brien… pic.twitter.com/a2nXfwQ1x8
— Mike Singer (@MikeTSinger) November 17, 2025

This tweet from Blue and Gold Illustrated recruiting analyst Mike Singer perfectly encapsulates the kind of talent that Notre Dame is bringing in this cycle. In a "normal" cycle, bringing in even one or two of the top-32 recruits in a given cycle is a great achievement for Notre Dame.

Bringing in SIX is absolutely unheard of. The top SEC schools don't even bring six of the top 32 recruits per cycle. Alabama, Georgia, etc. would be elated with this cycle, though they are bringing in studs of their own too, of course.

Now in his fourth year at the helm of the program as Notre Dame's head coach, Marcus Freeman is hitting his groove in a big way as a recruiter and head coach. Freeman has been able to bring in a few five stars in his time with the Fighting Irish (2025 OT Will Black, 2024 EDGE Bryce Young) to name a few, but bringing in multiple five stars has not happened yet.

The 247Sports Composite, which takes into account the 247, Rivals and ESPN rankings, lists Notre Dame with four current five-star talents, with even more just on the cusp of making it in.

As it stands, the 247Sports Composite has the following Fighting Irish commits as five-stars:

EDGE Rodney Dunham
TE Ian Premer
CB Khary Adams
S Joey O'Brien

Rivals actually has Notre Dame with two other five-star talents, with OT Grayson McKeough and EDGE Ebenezer Ewetade. We will have to see if 247 and ESPN catch up to the Rivals rankings for McKeough and Ewetade.

Either way bringing in four industry five-stars is RIDICULOUS!

Notre Dame is proving Brian Kelly wrong year in and year out. He said you must "shop down a different aisle" when it comes to recruiting at Notre Dame. WRONG!

Then, he left Notre Dame for LSU because he said you can not win a national championship at Notre Dame - wrong again! Just wait until Freeman continues to stack these classes on top of one another.