Notre Dame football keeps climbing in 2026 team recruiting rankings

Those who were worried about Notre Dame recruiting after a dry spell of commitments in February and March certainly don’t have good reason to be upset now.

That dry spell ended April 5 when four-star pass rusher Ebenezer Ewetade committed to the Irish, and four other players joined the class this month. And four of the Irish’s top five ranked verbals in this class committed to Notre Dame in April.

Prior to the run of commits, Notre Dame’s class ranked outside the top 10 nationally. And following the Saturday commitment of Winter Park (Fla.) High’s Ayden Pouncey, the No. 138 overall player and No. 12 safety in the 2026 class per the On3 Industry Ranking, the Irish have the No. 4 class in the country. Only LSU, USC and Ohio State rank ahead of Notre Dame, respectively.

Rounding out the top 10 behind Notre Dame is Texas A&M, Alabama, Oregon, Clemson, Penn State and Miami, in that order. Michigan has the No. 26 class in the country.

Notre Dame has one five-star pledge, eight four-stars committed and a trio of three-stars in the class. The blue-chip ratio for the class sits at a strong 75 percent.

It’s obviously very early in the 2026 cycle with less than eight 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 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. 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.

Below is a look at the top 10 schools according to the 2026 Industry Team Recruiting Rankings, as of Sunday 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 12 commitments, only the six highest-ranked players are used for the rankings score.

To further explain that point: Notre Dame’s 12 commits have an average recruit rating of 90.94, 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 92.669 — 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.