Decision day: Where does Notre Dame stand with Ohio safety Ben Minich?
It’s decision day for Cincinnati Lakota West class of 2023 safety Ben Minich, a top Notre Dame target. After Minich’s announcement, make sure to stay locked in at BlueandGold.com for extensive coverage regardless of his school of choice.
Date: August 5
Time: 6:00 p.m. ET
Watch: 247 Sports YouTube page
Finalists: Cincinnati, Kentucky, Notre Dame, Oklahoma and Stanford
Discussion: The Lou Somogyi Board
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Who leads for Minich?
According to the On3 Recruiting Prediction Machine (RPM), Notre Dame is trending as the heavy favorite at 91.8 percent.
On3’s RPM was released to the public in early December. The On3 engineering group teamed up with Spiny.ai to create the industry’s first algorithm and machine learning-based product to predict where athletes will attend college. It factors in machine learning, expert predictions, social sentiment, visits and historical trends.
Minich took three official visits in June: Cincinnati, Duke and Wake Forest. The latter two schools didn’t make his final cut. The 5-11.5, 185-pounder took a couple trips to Notre Dame over the summer. Kentucky, Oklahoma and Stanford offered Minich in June.
His first trip to South Bend was June 21 as he participated in an Irish prospect camp, and it was a few weeks later that he picked up an offer from Notre Dame. He visited campus about a week after receiving the good news of a scholarship. The timing of these events looks good for Notre Dame, but that’s just reading the tea leaves. Where Minich ultimately ends up remains to be seen, but we’ll know this evening.
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Minich ranks as the No. 529 overall player and No. 50 safety per the 2023 On3 Consensus, plus the No. 15 prospect from his home state of Ohio. On3’s own rankings list Minich as the No. 33 safety nationally and No. 13 prospect in Ohio.
Notre Dame currently has 21 commitments in its 2023 class — 11 of whom play on the defensive side of the ball. If Minich does team up with the Irish, he’d be the third safety of the cycle, joining Denton (Texas) Guyer’s Peyton Bowen and Irvington (N.J.) High’s Adon Shuler.
On Thursday evening, the Irish picked up a pledge from Baton Rouge (La.) University Lab linebacker Jaiden Ausberry, and on Saturday, Derby (Kan.) High running back Dylan Edwards will be coming off the board. It would be a great three days for the Irish if they are able to land all three prospects.
