For Notre Dame OL signee Charles Jagusah, loyalty means everything

The question posed to Coach Dieudonné was meant to be simple.

“What kind of young man is Charles Jagusah?”

The answer was unexpectedly complex.

In the summer before Jagusah’s junior year in 2021, Alleman High School football was a mess. More accurately, the entire Alleman High School community was a mess.

For reasons still being discussed, this Quad Cities Catholic school along the Mississippi River underwent a chaotic overhaul through the 2020-21 school year. The departures, dismissals and resignations included the school’s principal, the vice principal, its athletic director, guidance counselors and 12 head coaches from its 18 varsity sports, including football.

Many feared the school would close.

Through the chaos, Dieudonné recalled how the nearby program “poachers” saw an opportunity to try and lure his best player away.

“Coaches and kids were leaving our program, and kept leaving the program. It was a mass exodus,” Dieudonné shared. “[Jagusah] was being told from so many that ‘Alleman isn’t even going to have a program, you gotta get out.’”

Instead, Jagusah stayed put.

“And still, Charles stayed in the program, not even knowing who his head coach was going to be. He showed tremendous courage,” Dieudonné added. “Everybody would’ve fully supported Charles and understood if he chose to transfer. Who could’ve blamed him? But he didn’t. He stayed.”

Dieudonné arrived at his new post as the Pioneers’ head coach on June 14, 2021.

That morning, a couple of hours before his official introduction, Dieudonné summoned his players together to privately introduce himself as their new coach.

Twelve players showed up. And one was Jagusah.

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At least 12 other top Alleman players had already transferred from the program during the turmoil and turnover. Jagusah didn’t.

“I stayed at Alleman just because of how much the school meant to me,” Jagusah said. “After two years of playing for the team, I couldn’t imagine playing for another school. I wasn’t going anywhere.”

Desperate for bodies, Dieudonné instructed his one dozen holdouts to seek and find, “anybody you know that should be playing or that could help us.”

Dieudonné’s team played that 2021 season with 27 players on its roster.

“His decision to stay lifted the community and lifted the program,” Dieudonné said of his star offensive lineman. “He’s been a great leader and maybe even a better example for us.”

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Well Rounded

When asked to describe himself, Jagusah succinctly answered with “unique,” adding, “sports will always be my favorite, but I have many interests beyond football.”

Unfortunately, those other interests will come in handy for a few months after Jagusah underwent knee surgery Feb. 6 to repair a torn posterior cruciate ligament (PCL).

So, to fill some down time during rehab, Jagusah is doing what any other high school kid would do. He’s overseeing the Alleman Junior High School chess club.

“I think it will be fun,” he said, suggesting that he might even dust off the old saxophone that he played a few years ago.

Jagusah explained that his full surgical recovery could take up to nine months and last into October. But he expects to be practicing at Notre Dame sometime around the start of fall training camp in August.

Admitting to some disappointment and anxiousness to arriving on campus in June, while still in surgery rehab, Jagusah remained mature beyond his years.

“I look at this as an opportunity to focus on the technical side, get stronger with my upper body,” Jagusah said, “and just try to work more mentally than physically.”

And talk about a tough cookie, Jagusah suffered the injury in Week 2 of his senior football season. He never even realized it, played through it and still thrived. Jagusah wasn’t even made aware of the PCL tear until Notre Dame team doctors found it during a routine physical scan.

“Everyone seems to think I dodged a bullet,” Jagusah explained. “A PCL injury you can walk around and be fine with it. It’s not like an ACL tear where you can’t walk.”

Jagusah predicted he’ll be “bored and bummed” during surgical recovery, but ready for his rehab and his freshman year at Notre Dame to begin. What Jagusah will never get back, though, is his senior season of wrestling, another passion of his.

An undefeated heavyweight Illinois state champion as a junior in 2021‑22, Jagusah went 41-0 that season and pinned his way through the state tournament for a Class 1A title at 285.

“Physically in terms of football, wrestling helped me a lot with my balance and my timing, anticipation and reaction,” Jagusah said. “But I think mentally it’s even bigger, showing me how to work hard and be consistent with it.”

Fortunately for the competition, Jagusah’s knee injury stole any chance for him to defend his state title as senior this year.

Welcome To Notre Dame

In the summer of 2021, the thought of Jagusah committing to Notre Dame a year later didn’t seem likely following a lukewarm recruiting relationship with the Notre Dame staff under former head coach Brian Kelly.

“No, Notre Dame wasn’t a big school on my recruiting radar, until the new staff came in. I didn’t have a lot of contact [with the previous group],” Jagusah recalled. “With the new guys coming in, and kind of changing the culture a little bit, it showed me a different side of the school that I had never seen.”

And while recovery from surgery will delay Jagusah’s immediate development, his recruiting profile suggests all will work out just fine.

A five-star player based on On3 rankings, Jagusah earned a 98 player rating from the recruiting service, making him the highest-rated player in the Fighting Irish 2023 recruiting class.

For perspective, Jagusah’s 96.04 consensus rating is the third best for a Notre Dame offensive line recruit in the 23 years that such lists have been archived.

Only Sam Young in 2000 and Tommy Kraemer in 2016 rated higher, placing Jagusah — at least out of high school — ahead of elite former Irish NFL linemen Quenton Nelson, Ronnie Stanley, Zack Martin and current Irish starting right tackle Blake Fisher, just to highlight a few.

With those credentials, what is Notre Dame getting, Coach Dieudonné?

“What is Notre Dame getting?” Dieudonné asked back in contemplation. “As a player Charles is bigger and faster, and more athletic in person than film will ever show you.

“And the scariest part — and he probably doesn’t even realize it — is that he hasn’t even scratched the surface. That’s what Notre Dame is getting.”