Notre Dame suffered a major recruiting loss in their 2025 class this week, seeing elite Lucedale (Miss.) George County quarterback Deuce Knight decommit from the Irish to flip his commitment to the Auburn Tigers. This was a move that had been talked about a lot over the last couple of months, and became official on Wednesday.

Taking a step back, this had been a very interesting recruitment from the start. It’s not every day that Notre Dame lands a commitment from a big-time signal caller from the Southeast, and even less one that is 6-5, 205 pounds, runs the forty-yard dash in the 4.5 second range, vertical jumps 40 plus inches, and has a rocket for an arm. That type of talent doesn't typically come up to South Bend, Indiana at that position.

Losing this type of talent is going to be hard for Irish fans to stomach, especially so late in the process. Notre Dame is now forced to scramble, potentially use the early portion of the season to evaluate other 2025 quarterbacks, and try to find their guy in this class. In a lot of ways, but not totally similar, this is the same situation they were in during the 2023 class before they were able to flip Kenny Minchey during the season.

As is the case in most recruitments, there is some bad information that has been out there on this one. For a player that seemed so locked in for some time, how was Auburn able to get into the fold?

Here’s the truth of the Deuce Knight situation. It was a roller coaster of a ride, which has finally come to an end.

The Notre Dame side

I’m not sure what else Notre Dame could have done differently. They won the early battle in this recruitment with Knight, showing him different. Before the Irish staff had made contact, there was almost no knowledge about Notre Dame other than the generic baseline.

Through the stellar recruitment from quarterbacks coach Gino Guidugli and a successful early visit, the Irish program made early waves with Knight. He would applaud them for how much of a priority they made him, and how unique the program and overall pitch was. After having the intention of going through his junior year with the process, Knight opted for Notre Dame in September last year.

Since then, Knight had been looked at as a pillar of the Notre Dame class. His impact both on and off the field was stellar. Knight was an active recruiter, made ten trips back to South Bend, and even spent some time with the current Irish quarterback working out in Alabama this offseason. All seemed to be in a good place.

Along the way, there was some chatter about a potential commitment flip. The prospective program that was most highlighted was Lane Kiffin and Ole Miss. As the home state school, that gave Irish fans some pause, especially with someone like Kiffin at the helm. He is known around college football as an incredible offensive mind, so seeing him going after a highly touted in-state signal caller was unsettling.

The truth of the matter is that Ole Miss was never a program I was worried about. Being the “in-state school” early on in a recruitment might matter, but they were always a school connected to Knight. He could have opted for them in the beginning, or anytime since then, and never did. There may have been some communication with the Ole Miss staff but it was clearly a school that never moved the needle far enough with Knight.

So while the talented signal caller was committed to the Irish, and Ole Miss was the school everyone was talking about as the flip destination, there was never anything to be overly worried about. Then Auburn came into the picture, a school that had been riding a lot of recruiting momentum this offseason. This is where things got interesting.

How and when did Auburn gain momentum?

It was no secret who Auburn really wanted in this quarterback class. For a long time, they were all in on Carrollton (Ga.) High School signal caller Julian “Ju Ju” Lewis. So much so, that there were several predictions out there for him to flip his commitment from USC to the Tigers. Until a couple of months ago, that felt like it was going to happen.

That potential marriage illustrates perfectly how quickly things can change in recruiting. Interest on both sides was high. Everyone and their mother thought that it was a done deal, and then a snag happened. There was just an inability to iron out the finer details, hitting some contractual complications that fractured the relationship.

Instead, Auburn chose to move on. Having never held a quarterback commit in the class, the Tiger staff had done a lot of evaluating on several guys. There were two quarterbacks who became next on the wish list, was Texas commit KJ Lacey, who was obviously an in-state product. The other was Knight. It’s believed that Auburn made a push for the other quarterback first, but to no avail. From there, it became all about the Mississippi native.

One interesting part of this situation, however, is that it appears that Auburn was not the side that initiated the first conversation between the sides. From a source, Knight, who had been open about him still talking to other schools, actually made first contact with Auburn. There apparently was intrigue from Knight, who has deep admiration for two former Auburn signal callers.

One is Cam Newton, which isn’t overly surprising. As a 6-5 dual threat quarterback from the Southeast who grew up in the 2000s, Newton is an iconic example of unique talent who can make plays with his arm and legs. That’s the style of player that Knight would aspire to be on the college level.

Funny enough, Newton has even given Knight his blessing to war No. 2. 

The other was Jason Campbell, which is a much more interesting personal favorite. Campbell was a very good player at Auburn but did Knight ever see him play? He also was an average quarterback in the NFL, taking on the role as journeyman and backup after being a first round selection by the Washington Redskins in the 2005 NFL Draft.

The connection could be that Campbell is from Mississippi, having gone to Taylorsville High School, which is about an hour and a half from Knight in Lucedale. Is there some type of relationship with Campbell growing up? Is he just a legend in the state? Someone more educated on Mississippi high school football would be a better person to ask. Regardless, there is deep admiration of both former Auburn quarterbacks from Knight.

Both of them have played a big role in this recruitment. Outside of the obvious recent visits to Auburn, there have been a lot of points of contact from the Tigers side. The efforts started well before the public knew, and it appears that Knight’s first trip to Auburn wasn’t actually his first trip to Auburn. 

In the end, despite Knight continuing to reaffirm his commitment to the Irish over the last couple of months, he was never settled. Beyond keeping a “good relationship” with the coaches that had taken the time to recruit him, he was without question shopping himself around.

Whether you hate it, like it, accept it or anything in between, this is the modern day reality of recruiting. I’m sure Knight liked Notre Dame a bunch, but he was never as locked in as he let on. The actions back that up. Now Notre Dame has been put into a less than ideal position, which would have been much more ideal if honesty was the course of action months ago.