Notre Dame’s 2024 class holding steady in top 10 of Industry Team Recruiting Rankings

After Notre Dame landed a commitment Sept. 19 from West Roxbury (Mass.) Catholic Memorial’s Guerby Lambert, the nation’s No. 51 overall player and No. 4 offensive tackle according to the 2024 On3 Industry Ranking, the Irish jumped from No. 14 to No. 8 in the 2024 Industry Ranking Football Team Recruiting Rankings.

In the past month since Lambert gave his pledge to the Irish, Notre Dame has not added any additional class of 2024 commitments. One would think that Notre Dame may have slid down a spot or two in the team rankings during this period because other programs would surely have added new pledges and passed up the Irish.

But that’s not the case. Notre Dame currently has the No. 7 class in America.

This is partly thanks to the way On3 sets up their team rankings (more on that shortly), which is superior in the market in this writer’s opinion. But it’s also due to the various rankings websites updating their rankings and them being mostly positive for Notre Dame’s commits.

A couple weeks ago, Glen Ellyn (Ill.) Glenbard South class of 2024 wide receiver and Notre Dame commit Cam Williams had five-star status attached to his name.

247 Sports updated its 2024 recruiting rankings, and although Williams moved up just five spots in the national list, it was enough to raise his spot in the On3 Industry Ranking to have him become a five-star prospect.

Williams is the nation’s No. 28 overall prospect and No. 8 wide receiver according to the On3 Industry Ranking. On3’s own rankings have Williams as the No. 28 prospect and No. 5 wide receiver in America. This is the highest ranking among the individual websites. Each of the other websites have Williams as the No. 10 or 11 receiver in the land and between No. 47-49 in the national rankings.

Georgia, Ohio State, Florida, Florida State, Alabama and Texas A&M are ahead of Notre Dame in the team recruiting rankings, respectively. Oregon, Tennessee and Oklahoma round out the top 10, in that order.

If Notre Dame’s current No. 7 position holds on signing day, it would mark three straight classes inside the top-10 of the team rankings, which the Irish have not done since 2006-08.

Notre Dame has 23 commitments. Williams is a five-star, 14 of the verbals rank as four-star players and eight are three-star prospects per the On3 Industry Ranking.

Of the programs in the top 10 of the recruiting rankings, only Notre Dame is in the single digits when it comes to percentage of in-state commitments. Only 9 percent of the Irish’s class is from the Hoosier State (Tae Johnson and Styles Prescod). Meanwhile, half of Florida State’s class hails from the Sunshine State.

Below is a look at the top 10 schools according to the 2024 On3 Industry Team Recruiting Rankings, as of Wednesday morning.

Understanding On3’s team rankings system

The On3 Industry Team Recruiting Ranking utilizes all four major recruiting media companies: On3, 247Sports, Rivals and ESPN.

Instead of a total points system like at Rivals, the On3 Industry Team Ranking uses a score average of the player rankings, which solves the problem of varying class sizes during the recruiting cycle. It compiles the highest-rated commits for each team up to a total based on a rolling average of current total commitments among Power Five schools.

The current average number of commits used in the rankings score is 17. This means that of Notre Dame’s 23 commitments, only the 17 highest-ranked players are used for the rankings score.

To further explain that point: Notre Dame’s 23 commits have an average recruit rating of 90.65, but that is not the score used in the team ranking. Notre Dame’s top 17 commits are only being used in the On3 Industry Team Ranking, and the Irish’s score with that group is 91.619 — this is the number used for the class ranking, as seen in the image above.

With this model, there are no bonus points for having more commitments than other teams, and only small deductions occur when a team has fewer commitments than the rolling average. Unlike distribution (bell) curves, this model doesn’t disproportionately weight a team’s top three or four highest-rated commits and is a more accurate representation of an entire class.