Notre Dame jumps into top 10 of 2026 team rankings after Ebenezer Ewetade’s commitment

On Saturday, Notre Dame landed a pledge from Garner (N.C.) South Garner EDGE Ebenezer Ewetade, who ESPN, Rivals and 247 Sports rank in the 200s of their national rankings, but On3 sees as the No. 36 overall player and No. 6 EDGE in the country. Ewetade pledged to the Irish over Alabama, Georgia and others Saturday.

Between the addition of Ewetade and recruit rankings updates Monday from both Rivals and ESPN, Notre Dame moved into the top 10 of the 2026 Industry Ranking Football Team Recruiting Rankings. The Fighting Irish currently rank No. 8 in the country. Notre Dame had been bouncing between the No. 10-12 spot for the past few weeks.

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 recruiting (more on that later) is meant to try to give an more accurate picture on what the rankings could look like at the end of the cycle, rather than be a ranking that favors who has the most commitments.

If Notre Dame is able to land Charlotte (N.C.) Myers Park’s Rodney Dunham on Thursday, then the Irish will be in an even better spot in many facets, including a team rankings one. Dunham is a five-star who ranks as the No. 19 player and No. 3 EDGE in the land according to the On3 Industry Ranking, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies.

The Fighting Irish currently have eight commitments in the 2026 cycle, six of whom rank as a four-star prospect and two are three-star recruits.

Mechanicsburg (Pa.) Cumberland Valley’s Tyler Merrill currently ranks as the player in Notre Dame’s 2026 class as the No. 115 overall prospect and No. 5 interior lineman in America per the On3 Industry Ranking.

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.

Below is a look at the top 13 schools according to the 2026 Industry Team Recruiting Rankings, as of Monday evening.

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 eight commitments, only the six highest-ranked players are used for the rankings score.

To further explain that point: Notre Dame’s eight commits have an average recruit rating of 90.28, 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 91.144 — 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.