This is crazy...

by BillyGoat , At Thanksgiving with Joe Bethersontin, Monday, July 27, 2026, 11:24 (21 hours, 54 minutes ago) @ HumanRobot

And the way we are stacking guys in 3 straight classes now is what is truly unprecedented.

I remember in the 2008 class, we were pretty thrilled to have Ethan Johnson, Cwynar, KLM, Newman, and Hafis Williams. And Darius Fleming was also poised to be essentially a DE at ND. Obviously, not the same profile as our recent run. But I'm looking at the prior high points of DL recruiting that I can remember.

Not only did plenty of those guys not pan out (to put it mildly), but it came on the heels of a 1-man DL class in 2027 in Ian Williams. I guess 2 if you count Kerry Neal as a DE, but still. And the following 2009 class saw us add only Tyler Stockton at DL.

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Then there was the 2011 class of Lynch, Tuitt, and Ishaq. Plus Ben Councell, Rabasa, Springmann, and Hounshell. There was a LOT to like there as of signing day.

The prior class actually wasn't bad by the standards of ND DL classes over the last 20 years, with Nix, Utupo, and Shembo (plus Heggie). But we followed up with only Sheldon Day and Jarron Jones.

This is so far into uncharted territory, it's impossible to comprehend.