Notre Dame’s recruiting class took a big hit on Wednesday when quarterback Deuce Knight flipped his commitment to Auburn, delivering a major win to Hugh Freeze and the Tigers amid their 2-3 start to the 2024 season.
Knight, a five-star Class of 2025 prospect from Lucedale, Miss., committed to Notre Dame in September 2023, but there had been months of speculation about a possible flip amid flirtations with Auburn, Ole Miss and Alabama. Notre Dame had been working to hold onto Knight, the highest-ranked prospect in a Class of 2025 haul that will now have a difficult time finishing in the top 10. It fell to 13th in the 247Sports Composite.
Knight is now the top-rated recruit in Auburn’s 25-member 2025 class, which has moved up to No. 3.
AU it’s up🦅 https://t.co/JUbPUIuLgK
— Deuce Knight (@DeuceKnight) October 2, 2024
What does this mean for Notre Dame?
Losing Knight is arguably bigger than Notre Dame’s two most recent high-profile decommitments, defensive end Keon Keeley (Alabama) and safety Peyton Bowen (Oklahoma) from the 2023 cycle. The Irish knew both were trending away for months in advance, enough time to find alternatives at their positions. Replacing a quarterback at this stage of the recruiting cycle is harder, given the scarcity of blue-chip prospects, nearly all of whom have made their college choices. Knight, even with advanced notice of his potential decommitment and the decision coming two months before the early signing period, will be hard to replace.
Of the top 65 ranked quarterbacks in the 247Sports Composite, 64 of them have already made verbal commitments. That leaves Notre Dame to attempt to create its own flip, which it did two years ago with Kenny Minchey after pulling out of the Dante Moore sweepstakes.
That’s hardly an enviable recruiting playbook to run back. Notre Dame offered Minchey in July before his senior season when he was already committed to Pittsburgh, but his recruitment didn’t publicly heat up with the Irish until November. Within a nine-day span, Minchey decommitted from Pittsburgh (Nov. 14), visited Notre Dame (Nov. 18) and then committed to the Irish (Nov. 22).
On paper, that means Notre Dame doesn’t need to rush its next move at quarterback. But expect the Irish to make one, as the program intends to take a signal caller this cycle despite signing high-end four-star CJ Carr last cycle.
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What does this mean for Auburn?
Auburn may be struggling to get a win on the field these days, but the Tigers got the win they needed on the recruiting trail to inspire some hope for the future at quarterback under Freeze.
Freeze’s quarterback situation has been a mess this year between senior Payton Thorne and redshirt freshman Hank Brown. Thorne, the Michigan State transfer, began the season as the starter but was benched for Brown — a former three-star recruit — before taking back over. The duo has combined for 16 touchdowns against nine interceptions and has struggled to generate momentum for Freeze’s offense. Auburn ranks 132nd in turnover margin and has lost three games by 10 points or less.
Knight has been openly flirting with Auburn for weeks now and visited multiple times, including last week for an official visit during a loss to Oklahoma. It felt like only a matter of time until he flipped, especially given how early he committed to Notre Dame.
With his commitment, Auburn now has former four-star Walker White and Knight waiting in the wings as potential quarterbacks of the future. The Tigers have plenty of wide receiver talent already in the system, starting with former five-star Cam Coleman and four-star Malcolm Simmons. Knight is proof Freeze still has cachet with top recruits, and he could help turn Auburn around in the years to come.
What happened with Knight?
It’s hard to find fault with Notre Dame’s pursuit, considering the investment in unofficial visits to South Bend, combined with Irish assistants traveling to George County High School and Knight working out with Riley Leonard and CJ Carr this summer in Alabama. If Notre Dame could pull a lever on Knight’s recruitment, it pulled it.
However, even from the start, signing Knight was always going to be more difficult than getting him to commit.
Notre Dame had signed just one prospect from Mississippi in the modern era in cornerback Caleb Offord (2020), who lasted two seasons with the Irish before transferring to Buffalo and then Alabama State. The rural South has hardly been a hotbed of Notre Dame success either, with the majority of Irish prospects signed in SEC country from metro areas of Atlanta, Tampa and Miami.
For what it’s worth, Knight had already been pulled in multiple directions before, transferring out of George County on the eve of preseason practices of his junior year, decamping for Lipscomb Academy in Nashville. That move proved to be a disaster, with Knight transferring back to George County after just three games in Tennessee and the prep program later going on probation.
That saga taught Knight a few lessons about looking out for his own interests and how to manage expectations from the outside.
“Not to have a closed mind, but you can’t listen to what everybody says about a lot of things,” Knight told The Athletic earlier this year. “Half the people wanted me to succeed, half the people wanted me to fail. That’s leaving and coming back, you just gotta keep going.
“I hear it from everybody, I hear it walking down the hall. ‘Hey Deuce, why don’t you go here?’ I don’t know. I do what I want to do.”
Switching to an SEC school would seem to offer Knight a more comfortable fit closer to home.
Who might the Irish target?
Eight other quarterbacks listed Irish offers earlier in their recruitments, with all eight now committed elsewhere. From that group, Notre Dame was closest with four-star Bear Bachmeier, a four-star prospect from Murrieta, Calif., who committed to Stanford in February. Bachmeier also listed offers from Alabama, Oregon, Texas A&M and Michigan.
Considering the state of Stanford football, with its move to the ACC and three consecutive 3-9 seasons, could Notre Dame push its way back into Bachmeier’s recruitment?
Notre Dame could also take its time in reevaluating its quarterback board, then bet on the rest of its season to move the needle with prospects committed elsewhere. Would a run to the College Football Playoff with improvement from Riley Leonard make other quarterbacks think twice about the Irish?
Regardless, Notre Dame will have to flip a quarterback from another program if it wants to sign one this cycle.
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(Photo: Barbara Gauntt / USA Today Network / Imagn Images)
