Notre Dame Fighting Irish have top-5 recruiting class after landing 5-star DL

Notre Dame Fighting Irish

Notre Dame‘s huge spring on the recruiting trail continues, with the Fighting Irish vaunting into the top-5 nationally in the Rivals Industry Team Recruiting Rankings on Friday.

Marcus Freeman and Co. entered the week with the No. 10 group in the country and an impressive 14 commits early in the cycle. What they lacked, however, was the kind of star power to elevate a very good recruiting class to an elite one.

No longer.

Earlier in the week, they beat out Miami and Texas A&M, as well as more than 20 other Power 4 offers, for five-star offensive tackle Oluwasemilore Olubobola out of St. Peter’s (NJ). That pledge pushed them up to No. 8 in the rankings, but they were far from done.

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Thursday saw the addition of touted offensive tackle Jackson Hill, and Friday capped off an enormous week when Rivals five-star defensive lineman David Folorunsho donned a Notre Dame hat and committed to the Irish. His addition pushed them past Miami into the No. 5 spot in the team rankings.

Should that hold, it would mark the first time in the modern recruiting era that ND signed back-to-back top-5 classes.

Rivals’ No. 9 overall player and No. 2 defensive lineman in the class, Folorunsho chose the Fighting Irish over Texas Tech, , Georgia, Miami and dozens of other offers. He was one of the country’s biggest rankings risers this spring, but Notre Dame’s early identification and offer won out. He visited the Irish campus twice in the fall and his high school head coach Tom Zbikowski, the president of his school Dan Santucci and his personal trainer Kerry Neal all played football in South Bend.