Notre Dame makes major jump in 2026 team recruiting rankings after massive commitments

June 20 will go down as one of the greatest days in modern Notre Dame football recruiting history, as the Irish landed Towson (Md.) Loyola Blakefield’s Khary Adams and Wyndmoor (Pa.) La Salle College’s Joey O’Brien.

Notre Dame may only have two or three top-100 overall recruits in some past recruiting classes as a whole. But for this 2026 cycle, the Irish added two to their commit list on the same day.

Adams is the No. 67 overall player and No. 8 cornerback nationally per the 2026 On3 Industry Ranking, and O’Brien checks in as the No. 40 overall player and No. 5 safety in America per the same metric.

As you’d imagine, these commitments gave Notre Dame a big boost in the 2026 Industry Ranking football Team Recruiting Rankings.

The Irish entered Friday with a class “score” of 92.127 and ranked No. 6 in America. USC, LSU, Ohio State, Texas A&M and Georgia ranked ahead of the Irish, in that order.

But now that Adams and O’Brien are in the class, Notre Dame jumped all the way up to No. 2. And the class score now sits at 92.868.

Earlier in the week, O’Brien’s teammate at La Salle College, committed to the Irish as well, which also helped the class rating. Grayson McKeogh is the No. 278 overall prospect and No. 21 offensive tackle in the land.

Notre Dame has one five-star pledge, 16 four-stars committed and two three-stars in the class. The blue-chip ratio for the class sits at a very strong 89.5 percent.

Among the schools in the top 15 of the national rankings, Notre Dame is the only program without an in-state commitment. The Irish also don’t have any verbals from players in Illinois, either.

This cycle marks 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. For the 2025 class, the slight downward 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.

Below is a look at the top 10 schools according to the 2026 Industry Team Recruiting Rankings, as of Saturday 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 12. This means that of Notre Dame’s 19 commitments, only the 12 highest-ranked players are used for the rankings score.

To further explain: Notre Dame’s 19 commits have an average recruit rating of 91.48, but that is not the score used in the team ranking. Only Notre Dame’s top 12 commits are being used in the Industry Team Ranking, and the Irish’s score with that group is 92.868 — 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.