New Rivals rankings clearly show Notre Dame’s return to being an elite recruiting program

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Rivals just released its updated Top 300 football recruiting rankings, and expanded its 5-Star rankings. The Notre Dame Fighting Irish are well represented here with its 2027 class now with four 5-Stars in the current Rivals rankings.

No. 9 David Folorunsho DL
No. 10 Albert Simien OL
No. 16 Abraham Sesay DE
No. 20 Oluwasemilore Olubobola OL

Rivals only has 23 5-Stars at the moment (I’m not sure why they wait to hand out the 5th star until later despite ranking position but they do). When the entire 32 player field is finally given that 5th star, Irish safety commit, Xavier Hasan, could be one of them as he is now currently ranked No. 32.

None of this should surprise any Notre Dame fans that pays even a little attention to recruiting. Marcus Freeman has transformed Notre Dame football from being a good recruiting school into an elute recruiting school. It took some time, and with major new shifts in CFB like the transfer portal and NIL, it took a little more time than originally predicted — but here we are.

Notre Dame’s 2026 class was its best in the internet era, and 2027 is going to be better — and maybe even a lot better than what it is currently. The combination of both classes clearly shows the return of Notre Dame’s recruiting dominance — a dominance we haven’t seen since the days of Lou Holtz (and this might be better when it’s all said and done).

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