Where Notre Dame players appear in Lindy’s Sports, Pro Football Focus national positional rankings
Lindy’s Sports and Pro Football Focus recently revealed player rankings for every position in college football. Notre Dame was well represented with seven players who appeared in at least one of the lists.
Here’s a look at where each of those players stand.
Notre Dame players in 2024 college football positional rankings per Lindy’s Sports and Pro Football Focus
| Player | Position | Lindy’s | PFF |
| Mitchell Evans | Tight end | 2 | 2 |
| Xavier Watts | Safety | 1 | 4 |
| Benjamin Morrison | Cornerback | 3 | 2 |
| Howard Cross III | Defensive tackle | 2 | 3 |
| Jack Kiser | Linebacker | 7 | 7 |
| Rylie Mills | Defensive tackle | — | 10 |
| Riley Leonard | Quarterback | No. 11 | — |
Blue & Gold says …
Five of the seven Notre Dame players being from the Fighting Irish defense is telling. Mitchell Evans is definitively one of the best at his position in American, but beyond that the only offensive player worth a mention was Riley Leonard, a transfer in a one-year rental stint, and he was not a consensus choice across both outlets.
For a while, it’s felt like Notre Dame has only been good for a tight end or an offensive lineman in lists like these. It’s nice to have a quarterback on there, but Sam Hartman showed last year it’s not always enough just to get a preseason nod. Notre Dame wants to be in a place where people are talking about its quarterback play, for good reasons, in December. Not just speculating in June that it could be good.
It’s more than speculation for the Irish defense, meanwhile. Xavier Watts won the Bronko Nagurski Trophy as the best defensive player in college football last year. He’s a consensus top-five safety in the sport. Benjamin Morrison is a consensus top-five cornerback in the country, too. For a team to have two defensive backs among the very best at what they do in the nation, that’s the stuff national championship-caliber defensive units are made of.
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Then you add two defensive tackles and a linebacker to the mix. Rylie Mills is borderline considering he was not a consensus honoree on these lists, but Howard Cross III is legit. And Jack Kiser recently got buzz from ESPN has a sleeper candidate to play his way into first-round consideration in the 2025 NFL Draft.
Notre Dame defensive coordinator Al Golden has a wealth of riches with which to work, and Lindy’s Sports and Pro Football Focus backed that stance up with their mentions of Fighting Irish players in their annual positional rankings.
