Marcus Freeman took last season’s loss personally. Now, rival coaches accuse him of stealing. The Notre Dame head coach continues to raid recruiting boards nationwide, locking down elite talent at every position. In his latest coup, Freeman snatched five-star offensive tackle Oluwasemilore Olubobola away from Miami and Texas, cementing the Irish as college football’s hottest recruiting destination.
This is not just talk. Notre Dame finished with the No. 2 recruiting class in the entire country for 2026, signing 27 players without a single player backing out. Not one. That kind of loyalty in recruiting is rare, and it is the reason rival coaches are watching South Bend with wide, worried eyes.
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“I can’t stand them. Not only do they beat us on the field, but they also steal all our best players and recruits… I’m just getting really sick of them,” read the statement by an anonymous ACC head coach.
The frustration of this entity is understandable. Olubobola ranked as the No. 3 offensive tackle and a top-100 overall player, and the competitors were Miami, Texas A&M, and LSU, followed by Penn State and Nebraska. When asked during his commitment why he chose the Irish, he delivered a simple yet powerful answer that reflected his confidence in the program and his future with the team.
“The strong culture they have. You know, Coach Freeman is a great coach. I believe in him a lot. Coach Rudolph is a great offensive line coach, and I just believe they can make me the best athlete I could be,” he expressed during the commitment ceremony.
What makes it more remarkable is the timing. These were not decisions made over months of courtship. Recruits were visiting Notre Dame, seeing what it offers, and walking away with their minds made up. One visit. That is all it took, and rival programs were left scrambling to respond.
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Days later, Freeman landed another flip. Offensive tackle Jackson Hill backed off from his commitment to UCLA and chose Notre Dame instead. The flip surprised many because the Irish never publicly offered Hill a scholarship. It took just one visit to South Bend to change his mind.
Recruiting is fun again for the Irish. They won several major recruiting battles in just one week. On Friday, five-star defensive lineman David Folorunsho committed to Marcus Freeman, boosting the defense to the ceiling. This time, the rival teams were Miami, Michigan, and Georgia. The selling point for David to seal the deal was Head Coach Freeman.
“I feel like it was the community aspect,” Folorunsho told Rivals. “The staff, Coach Freeman, Coach Partridge, and the overall community aspect, and life after football. You can tell he’s a true developer. He develops his players into the best versions of themselves. The relationship we’ve made over a short time together has been a great experience so far.”
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Freeman is not stealing players, but attracting players with an atmosphere of trust, culture, and long-term growth that they have built. Since Marcus Freeman entered Notre Dame, the trajectory of the Fighting Irish has changed drastically.
Freeman single-handedly managed to take Notre Dame on the best recruitment drive for the class of 2026 and is on the right track to achieving the same outcome next year.
What more surprises can we expect from Notre Dame?
The Fighting Irish now have to focus on Marcus Fakatou, who is considered one of the best defensive lineman prospects for the class of 2028 coming out of the state of California. But things had changed, and now he was going to be entering college a year sooner than before. This young man has been making headlines for some time now, but that is because he is the second-best defensive lineman in the country. Some colleges that are after him include the USC Trojans, Michigan Wolverines, Ohio State Buckeyes, Texas Longhorns, and the Oregon Ducks.
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“Notre Dame moved way up for me,” he said. “I would put them in my top two right now. It’s them and Ohio State. Ohio State is probably a slight leader, but Notre Dame is right there, and this trip really showed me why I had them leading in the first place.”
The 4-star WR Julius Jones Jr., from St. Thomas Aquinas in Florida, has become one of the most important recruiting targets for Notre Dame in the 2027 class. One of the major reasons behind the interest is his speed, as he has a record of running the 100-meter race in just 10.5 seconds.
Julius Jr.’s father played for the Fighting Irish football team from 1999 until 2003 as a running back, making Julius Jr. a legacy prospect and an interesting target for Notre Dame.
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