Notre Dame Offer 'Huge' For Standout 2023 Cornerback

In recent weeks, Notre Dame has made it a priority to target elite talent in the 2023 recruiting class in an effort to get a head start on next year's class. An earlier start should improve the program's chances at landing top players in the class, and one of those players is Chandler (Ariz.) Hamilton cornerback Cole Martin.

Martin, who measures at 5-10.5 and 175 pounds, is ranked as the nation's No. 68 overall player and No. 4 cornerback in his class by 247Sports.com after a standout sophomore campaign for the Huskies in 2020. As a result of his success, not only in the secondary but on special teams, Martin picked up an offer from the Fighting Irish last month, his 19th of the process.

“That was huge,” Martin told Irish Breakdown. “For such a prestigious program like Notre Dame to reach out and extend a scholarship offer is really big for me. I would love to be able to play for them. I would love to be able to compete in the College Football Playoff.

"I love the coaches over there too, they're really good people," continued Martin. "We always try to get on the phone with each other and make stuff work, so it's really a good bond I have over there with them. I really love it. Notre Dame is huge for me, and I would really, really consider going over there, so it was a really big offer -- probably my biggest one as of now other than LSU.”

Based on that reaction, it is clear that the Fighting Irish made an impact on the elite 2023 prospect just by doling out an offer, but the coaching staff has also made a similarly large impact with its communication to the standout recruit. Specifically, two coaches hold the mantle as Martin's primary points of contact within the football program.

“Coach [Mike] Mickens, [does] a really good job of just building bonds,” Martin relayed. “That's huge for me. That's one thing I really want in a school is to feel like family so that when I go to a school for the next three, four years of my life that I have family there, which is huge for me. They do a really good job of making sure that I stay in contact with everybody, talk to the players, talk to anybody that I really wanted to actually. It's really special, and I really love it.”

For Martin, forming a connection with his future coaching staff is an immensely important part of his recruitment. The Hamilton standout knows that wherever he goes after high school, he will be spending countless hours working closely with his football coaches, so he wants to choose a coaching staff that will develop him as a player and a person. In addition to that factor, the No. 1 recruit in Arizona for the '23 cycle is also encouraged by several other facets of the Notre Dame program.

“They send a lot of their players to the NFL, which appeals to me,” Martin explained. “Most of their secondary from two years ago, they are all in the NFL. The list goes on and on and on. It's rare that you see a school that sends kids [to the NFL] so consistently. At the end of the day, that's the main goal as an athlete. I love what they do over there, and that's just one of the many things that they do well over there.”

Though recruiting visits have essentially reached a halt due to the NCAA-mandated dead period, Martin expressed a lot of interest in visiting as many schools as he can in the future with Notre Dame chiefly among that list.

When that time comes, Martin will have an opportunity to obtain a better feel for the programs that have offered him, but in the meantime he is committed to helping Hamilton reach the state finals this coming season.

Last year, Martin played a pivotal role as a shutdown corner on the team's defense, and he contributed to a run-heavy approach from opposing offenses, which allowed him to come up into the box and make more tackles than a defensive back typically would. In addition to his ability in the secondary, Martin is a lethal return man thanks to his vision and tackle breaking ability, and the Notre Dame target is expected to impact the game mightily in that area as well this Fall.

To comment below be sure to sign up for a FREE Disqus account, which you can get HERE.

———————

Become a premium Irish Breakdown member, which grants you access to all of our premium content, our premium message board and gets you a FREE subscription to Sports Illustrated! Click on the link below for more

BECOME A MEMBER

Be sure to stay locked into Irish Breakdown all the time!

Join the Irish Breakdown community!
Subscribe to the Irish Breakdown podcast on iTunes
Subscribe to the Irish Breakdown YouTube channel
Follow me on Twitter: @CoachD178
Like and follow Irish Breakdown on Facebook

Sign up for the FREE Irish Breakdown daily newsletter