Notre Dame football wins massive recruiting victory over Ohio State for 5-star DL

It’s not often Notre Dame football gets a big win over Ohio State. In fact, the Fighting Irish haven’t beaten the Buckeyes on the field since 1936 (sure, only six career meetings), but Brian Kelly is working to change that.

On Tuesday, the Irish secured a massive win over Ohio State for one of the top prospects in the entire 2023 recruiting class as Brenan Vernon chose Notre Dame over the Buckeyes.

Vernon is a five-star defensive lineman, ranked the No. 18 overall prospect in the 2023 class. He’s also the sixth-best defensive lineman in the class and Ohio’s No. 2 recruit, according to the composite. Yes, he’s from the state of Ohio and chose Notre Dame over Ohio State which makes this recruiting victory for Kelly that much more impressive.

Ohio State held all the predictions for Vernon on 247Sports with “high” confidence levels which makes this commitment to Notre Dame that much more shocking as well.

Kelly won this recruitment over a handful of other blue bloods and Alabama actually just offered a week ago and Vernon liked the direction of Notre Dame enough to tell Nick Saban and his home-state Buckeyes “thanks, but no thanks”.

Notre Dame football trying to close that gap

In two of the past three years, Notre Dame made the College Football Playoff. And in both playoff appearances, the Irish were handled with relative ease against Alabama and Clemson, showing them that they still have a little way to go to close the gap.

Landing a national recruit like Vernon who looked like a “lock” to pick Ohio State was gigantic for the future of the program and for Kelly’s immediate future.

Notre Dame reeled in the No. 18 recruiting class in 2020, No. 9 in 2021, and currently owns the No. 2 class in 2022. The talent gap between the Irish and Alabama, Clemson, Georgia, Oklahoma, and Ohio State is slowly closing and Vernon’s commitment just proves that.