Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1541906
8 JANUARY 2026 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED BY JACK SOBLE N otre Dame traveled to SEC country and beat Georgia, delivered the knockout blow against Penn State and brought the national championship game within one score against Ohio State during the 2024‑25 College Football Playoff. It did all of that with college football fans around the coun‑ try watching and noticing, "The Irish are for real." And they weren't the only ones. Recruits in the 2026 class recognized that, too. Twenty‑ one of them — not including the six who were already com‑ mitted to the Irish before their run to the national champi‑ onship game — signed with Notre Dame Dec. 3. The dif‑ ference between "We believe we can win a national cham‑ pionship" and "We just came within 11 points of the national cham‑ pionship" mattered, and it helped build the No. 2 class in the country. "We've always said that you come here and aspire to win national cham‑ pionships," Irish head coach Marcus Freeman said. "A lot of young people watched the run we made last year. They saw it with their own eyes." For years, Notre Dame had a negative reputation as a true title con‑ tender. It was still a proud and pres‑ tigious program, but in the three opportunities to return to glory it had in the 21st century — 2012, 2018 and 2020 — it got smoked each time. If recruits really valued competing for national championships, if choosing the Irish over an SEC powerhouse was a difficult case to make, that changed in January. "We were able to sort of ride the mo‑ mentum of last year, and we were able to reach certain players consistently that we may not have been able to get in the past," Notre Dame general manager Mike Martin said. "It's not maybe their parents that said, 'Oh, yeah, I remember when Notre Dame was winning national championships or was on that type of level,'" Freeman said. "These young people are seeing it and believe they can reach that type of indi‑ vidual goal and team goal in the current landscape of college football." Martin did not want to sin‑ gle out any players he believes would have gone elsewhere if not for the playoff run. You can make a reasonable guess based on geography — Notre Dame signed 10 players from SEC strongholds in Texas, Florida, Georgia and Tennes‑ see — but anyone could have watched the Sugar or Orange Bowls and thought, "That's the type of football I want to play." What Martin did say, though, is the Irish signed many players whom they targeted at the top of their board. Most of them were likely top‑of‑the‑board targets at other schools around the country, too. The Irish also won recruit‑ ing battles for several commits over their in‑state schools, including five‑star tight end Ian Premer (Kansas State), five‑star safety Joey O'Brien (Penn State), f o u r ‑ s t a r o f f e n ‑ sive tackle Grayson McKeogh (also Penn State) and four‑star wide receiver Kaydon Finley (Texas). "There are certainly some guys that I'm sure that are still getting calls that could have gone a bunch of different places," Martin said. "But we're glad that they chose the Irish." That might not have happened if Notre Dame didn't show proof of con‑ cept in the playoff. Throughout the year, the Irish reaped the recruiting reward. "This is my first recruiting class, but even in the [NFL] Draft, it's like, 'OK, these are the guys we want to tar‑ get,' but later on, there's a little bit of a, 'Well, we'll settle for this,'" Martin said. "I don't really feel like we settled anywhere." ✦ UNDER THE DOME 'RIDE THE MOMENTUM' Notre Dame's run to national title game helped build its outstanding 2026 class "We've always said that you come here and aspire to win national championships. A lot of young people watched the run we made last year. They saw it with their own eyes." IRISH HEAD COACH MARCUS FREEMAN Head coach Marcus Freeman said it was important for recruits to see Notre Dame's run to the national championship game to believe the Irish could com- pete at that level in the current landscape of college football. PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER