Notre Dame’s Brandon Joseph ranked the No. 4 defensive transfer in the nation
This article originally appeared in the Blue & Gold Illustrated recruiting magazine that covered the 2022 class. Click here to order your copy!
Notre Dame identified a weakness in its secondary and used the transfer portal accordingly.
In January, the Irish landed Northwestern transfer safety Brandon Joseph, just its third undergraduate transfer since 2010. The move was formally announced on National Signing Day on Feb. 2.
According to On3’s senior national college football reporter Matt Zenitz, Joseph was the No. 4 defensive player available on the transfer list, and he is No. 16 overall.
On the defensive side of the ball, Joseph trails EDGE Ochaun Mathis, who is headed to Texas from TCU; cornerback Eli Ricks, who is making the move from LSU to rival Alabama; and EDGE Jared Verse who will continue his career at Florida State after starting at Albany. Just behind Joseph in the No. 5 spot is cornerback Dwight McGlovern, who started his college career at LSU but is headed to Arkansas next year.
The On3 transfer rankings provide an up-to-date look at the status and rankings for available and committed athletes.
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The Texas native earned a four-star transfer ranking for his performance over two full years of seeing the field at Northwestern. He was just a three-star recruit out of high school, and the only in-state Power Five offer he held was from Texas Tech. According to On3 Consensus, Joseph was the No. 1037 player nationally, the No. 132 player from Texas and the No. 103 safety in the 2019 class.
Joseph accumulated 79 tackles, four pass breakups, three interceptions, a sack and a fumble recovery in 2021. He earned All-American status in 2020, notching six interceptions in just nine games, which led Power Five players. The 6-foot-1 safety also had 52 tackles and a couple of defended passes. In addition to All-American status, Joseph was named first-team all-Big Ten and Big Ten Newcomer of the Year.
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The defensive back brings elite talent and a wealth of experience to South Bend following the departure of safety Kyle Hamilton, and he will make an immediate impact for an Irish secondary in desperate need of a leader after struggling down the stretch at the end of the 2021 season.
Joseph boasts an NIL valuation in excess of $20,000
The On3 NIL Valuation is an index that looks to set the stand market value for both high school and college-level athletes. The metric does not act as a tracker of the value of NIL deals an athlete has completed to date; it signifies an athlete’s value at a certain moment in time.
Joseph enters his fourth season of college football and first season at Notre Dame with an NIL valuation of $23,000, which ranks No. 1,479 among active college football players. He ranks fifth among Irish defensive players on the 2021-22 roster.
Joseph has approximately 7,800 followers on Instagram, and each of his posts is worth $128. With around 4,900 Twitter followers, the defensive back’s tweets sit around $72 per tweet.
