Class Impact: DE Jason Onye To Notre Dame

Notre Dame has picked up another long and talented end, landing a commitment from Warwick (R.I.) Bishop Hendricken defensive end Jason Onye.

The 6-5, 245-pound end earned a four-star grade on the Irish Breakdown board after racking up 76 tackles and 15 sacks as a junior, which was just his second season playing football.

Onye earned scholarship offers from Penn State, Michigan, Tennessee, Pittsburgh, Virginia Tech, Virginia, West Virginia, Boston College, Syracuse, Kentucky, Duke, Vanderbilt, Arizona and Rutgers.

Let’s take a look at what Onye’s commitment means for Notre Dame:

CLASS IMPACT

Notre Dame has recruited the defensive end position well in recent seasons. Notre Dame landed two ends in the 2018 class (Justin Ademilola, Ovie Oghoufo), two in the 2019 class (Isaiah Foskey, NaNa Osafo-Mensah) and two more in the 2020 class (Jordan Botelho, Alexander Ehrensberger).

The quality of that group is high, which put Notre Dame in position to focus on impact talent at defensive end in the 2021 class. Despite other “higher ranked” players being on the board, defensive line coach Mike Elston made the choice to go after Onye and Mansfield (Texas) Legacy end David Abiara.

If your focus is on recruiting rankings then you might view it as a mistake for Elston to prioritize Onye and Abiara over higher ranked players like Cade Denhoff, Aaron Armitage and George Rooks. Denhoff ranks #85 nationally on the 247Sports Composite ranking, Rooks ranks #202 and Armitage ranks #203.

Onye ranks #442 and Abiara ranks #334.

But Elston clearly made his decision based on traits and based on film, and I’m of the opinion that Elston clearly made the right decision to prioritize the two ends Notre Dame now has in the class. Onye has tremendous upside, and landing him for the strong side end position is significant for the Irish.

When you consider his elite frame and the fact he’s so raw at football, it becomes clear that Onye has a lot of room for growth and development. On film he reminds me quite a bit of current Irish end Adetokunbo Ogundeji when he was a junior in high school, but Onye is bigger and stronger at the same age.

Notre Dame has now met its needs from both a depth and impact talent standpoint at defensive end. It would be smart to keep recruiting other high-upside ends like Zaire Patterson and Kechaun Bennett, but if Elston can’t land either player the two they now have is a big recruiting success for Notre Dame.

NOTRE DAME FIT

Onye fits into the strong side end position in the Notre Dame defense, which is the position manned by Khalid Kareem and Ogundeji the last two seasons. His combination of size, length, power and quickness are ideal for that spot.

Elston seems to favor players like Onye, young projects with great frames, incredibly long arms and untapped explosiveness, and that is Onye. In my film analysis of the Bishop Hendricken standout, I pointed out how he has plenty of room to not only improve his technique, but also his power and explosiveness.

Now it will be up to Elston to help the young standout develop the necessary fundamentals to turn his incredible raw tools into consistent production. Due to his size and frame, Onye likely won’t need as much time to develop the necessary physical size and strength to play as did Ogundeji.

Right now Onye is more of a dominant run defender that does damage in the pass game with his raw tools, but with improved technique he has a chance to be a strong all-around defender in the Irish defense.

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