Notre Dame football received unsurprising recruiting news on Monday that took absolutely nobody by surprise, but did raise some questions
Notre Dame football has been gaining nothing but good recruiting momentum recently, but they were met with some unfortunate news on Monday. It was announced that 2026 Kahuku (Hawaii) High School linebacker Talanoa Ili was cancelling his official visit with the Fighting Irish this week. Ili also announced his finalists, the USC Trojans and UCLA […]
Notre Dame football has been gaining nothing but good recruiting momentum recently, but they were met with some unfortunate news on Monday. It was announced that 2026 Kahuku (Hawaii) High School linebacker Talanoa Ili was cancelling his official visit with the Fighting Irish this week. Ili also announced his finalists, the USC Trojans and UCLA Bruins
The visit being cancelled wasn’t much of a surprise for Fighting Irish fans. The recruitment of Ili has been a bit of an odd one to keep tabs on overall. The 6-3, 215-pound defender is a tremendous football player, and rated inside the top 100 overall players in the 2026 recruiting class by multiple platforms. He is a player Notre Dame has valued very highly for years.
There was some interest from Ili, who previously played at Orange (Calif.) Lutheran, at least for a while. Over the last several months, it was extremely quiet on that front, and it became very apparent that Notre Dame had faded. Getting Ili away from the West Coast was going to be a nearly impossible task.
While the news about Ili cancelling the visit wasn’t a major surprise, it does add some important questions for head coach Marcus Freeman and the Fighting Irish staff to answer. They center around a position that has been recruited at a tremendous level the last couple of years, the linebacker position.
Notre Dame currently holds two linebacker commitments in the 2026 class from Weddington (N.C.) High School star Thomas Davis Jr. and Cincinnati (Ohio) St. Xavier standout Jakobe Clapper. That is a good foundation to build on, but there doesn’t appear to be any other realistic targets left on the board. It looks like they could stop at two.
If the Irish do stop at two, that is totally fine. With the quality of linebackers they have attracted over the last several years, there isn’t necessarily a need for volume. The only unsettling thing to watch is the commitment status of Davis Jr.
With his father being a legacy for the Georgia Bulldogs, it was troubling to see him the talented defender make an official visit to Athens recently. While he maintains that he is solid to Notre Dame, taking visits is never nothing. Everyone is hoping that they can keep him in the class long term.
If Notre Dame isn’t able to keep Davis in the fold, where do they go from there? Clapper is a solid talent, but a one-man linebacker class is not ideal for the long term. Realistic options are absent from the board right now outside of maybe Tank King, and losing anyone from the thin class would be less than ideal.
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