Where Notre Dame stands in 2023 On3 Consensus Team Rankings after National Signing Day

Notre Dame entered National Signing Day armed with 26 commitments and the No. 5 class in the country per the 2023 On3 Consensus Football Team Recruiting Rankings.

It was expected that the number would drop to at least 25, as Lake Stevens (Wash.) High running back Jayden Limar was primed to flip to Oregon. He did just that and signed with the Ducks.

The big unknown going into the day was what Denton (Texas) Guyer safety Peyton Bowen would do. He announced his flip from Notre Dame to Oregon, but the five-star prospect hasn’t signed his letter of intent yet. It’s our understanding that Notre Dame, Oklahoma and Oregon all remain in contact with Bowen.

Limar’s impact on the class ranking was minimal with a recruit rating “score” of 90.50. Bowen, who has a score of 98.10, being removed from the commit list made the Irish fall from No. 5 to No. 7, and other schools moving up caused Notre Dame to drop to No. 8 as the day went along.

Notre Dame’s class score (more on how that works below) is 92.648, putting them ahead of Oklahoma and Florida at No. 9 and No. 10, respectively. The Sooners’ have a score of 92.330, and Florida’s is 92.091. If Bowen flips to Oklahoma, then Brent Venables‘ class will surely jump Notre Dame’s.

Bowen — and other prospects for that matter — have until midnight Friday to sign a letter of intent to be a part of the early signing period. So, there is more movement to be had. These rankings are not set in stone.

It’s a safe bet that Notre Dame signs a top-10 class, though. The Irish signed the nation’s No. 6 class in the 2022 cycle. Notre Dame hasn’t landed back-to-back top-10 classes since 2013-14.

If the Irish are able to sign Bowen, Notre Dame would likely jump above Oregon, the program that currently has Bowen on its commit list and sits one spot ahead of Notre Dame in the rankings.

Below is a look at the top 11 schools according to the 2023 On3 Consensus Football Team Recruiting Rankings, as of Thursday morning.

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Understanding On3’s team rankings system

The On3 Consensus Team Recruiting Ranking is the only ranking that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies: On3, 247Sports, Rivals and ESPN. It equally weighs the four media companies at 25 percent.

Instead of a total points system like at Rivals, the On3 Consensus ranking uses a score average of the player rankings, and it 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 used in the rankings score is 20. This means that of Notre Dame’s 24 commitments, only the 20 highest-ranked players are used for the rankings score.

To further explain that point: Notre Dame’s 24 commits have an average recruit rating of 91.51, but that is not the score used in the team ranking. With Notre Dame’s top 20 commits only being used in the On3 Consensus Team Ranking, and the Irish’s score with that group is 92.648 — and 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 weigh a team’s top three or four highest rated commits and is a more accurate representation of an entire class.