Notre Dame makes big move in 2026 team recruiting rankings after run of commitments
After a couple months without a new commitment, Notre Dame is on a hot streak. In the past 10 days, the Irish have landed four new players to their 2026 class, highlighted by five-star EDGE Rodney Dunham from Charlotte (N.C.) Myers Park.
Portage (Mich.) Northern offensive lineman Gregory Patrick and Garner (N.C.) South Garner EDGE Ebenezer Ewetade committed to Notre Dame as well and rank as top-100 overall players per On3. And speedy wideout Bubba Frazier out of Savannah (Ga.) Benedictine Military School pledged to the Irish on Monday afternoon.
Before this run of commitments, the Irish were outside the top 10 of the 2026 Industry Ranking Football Team Recruiting Rankings. Between the addition of Ewetade and recruit rankings updates last Monday from both Rivals and ESPN, Notre Dame jumped up to No. 8.
And the additions of Dunham, Frazier and Patrick slot Notre Dame into the No. 5 spot in the country. LSU, USC, Ohio State and Oregon are the schools above the Irish, respectively.
Notre Dame has one five-star pledge, seven four-stars committed and a trio of three-stars in the class. The blue-chip ratio for the class sits at 73 percent.
It’s obviously very early in the 2026 cycle with around eight months until National Signing Day in December. But the way On3 does its team rankings (more on that later) is meant to try to give an more accurate picture on what it all could look like at the end of the cycle, rather than have a ranking that favors who has the most commitments.
This is Marcus Freeman’s fourth full recruiting class as Notre Dame head coach. In 2023, the Irish signed the No. 10 class, and Notre Dame had the No. 11 group in America back in the 2024 cycle. And for the 2025 class, the slight downward rankings trend continued, as Notre Dame signed the No. 12 group.
For what it’s worth, Freeman was the defensive coordinator for the 2022 cycle and then head coach for the last few weeks before signing day. The Irish signed the No. 6 class that year.
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Below is a look at the top 10 schools according to the 2026 Industry Team Recruiting Rankings, as of Tuesday 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 in the 2026 class used in the rankings score is 6. This means that of Notre Dame’s 11 commitments, only the six highest-ranked players are used for the rankings score.
To further explain that point: Notre Dame’s 11 commits have an average recruit rating of 90.74, but that is not the score used in the team ranking. Only Notre Dame’s top six commits are being used in the Industry Team Ranking, and the Irish’s score with that group is 92.440 — 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.
