Davonte Neal: Why Star CB Will Pick Notre Dame over Ohio State

We are now less than a week away from National Signing Day, which means that we are just that much closer from finding out where some of the nation's top prospects will end up. 

One of those players is cornerback Davonte Neal. He's a 4-star player, but is one of the top players at his position and is a difference-maker on the defensive side of the ball. He's a versatile player who can also play wide receiver as he runs fantastic routes. With his speed, he can be a great return man as well.

He has offers from nearly every top program in the country, but schools like Notre Dame and Ohio State appear to be the front-runners for his services.

Here are a few reasons why he'll end up picking Notre Dame over the Buckeyes.

He'll contribute right away

If you're a top defensive player and you would like to see quality minutes right away, Notre Dame is the school for you. At least this season it is. This is a school that's losing nearly their entire secondary from a year ago and has plenty of holes that need to be filled. Neal could step in right away and contribute on either side of the ball.

We can't say the same for Ohio State, a team that is young on defense and will be returning majority of their starters on the defensive side of the ball. Top players want to play as much as possible, not sit on the bench, at Notre Dame he could very well become a starter from Day 1.

Cornerback tandem

While Notre Dame may have a few holes to fill on defense, they do have a great young corner already by the name of Tee Shepard. You pair Neal up with him, and you're going to make things extremely difficult on opposing quarterbacks the next few years. We already saw what it was like with Morris Claiborne and Tyrann Mathieu, and they ended up nearly winning the BCS National Championship together.

It won't exactly fix the entire defense, but it will give the Irish two solid players to build around. There are not too many teams that will have two shutdown corners like Notre Dame have the potential of landing. If I'm Neal, I think it'd be extremely hard to turn something like that down.

It's Notre Dame

You can say what you will about Notre Dame and the way the team has performed over the last couple of years, but it's still Notre Dame. The history, the tradition, the academics—all of that remains and will likely never go away.

Speaking of the books, that's something that really impressed Neal who wants to pursue a career in sports broadcasting when he's done with football.

“They told me tonight it’s now a 100 percent graduation rate,” Neal said. “When I talked to them the first time it was 97, 98 (percent), but it went up. That’s what we talked about.”

Many schools have been competing with the Irish lately on the gridiron, but very few can compete with them in the classroom.

Randy Chambers is a B/R Featured Columnist that covers College Football and the NFL. You can contact him @Randy_Chambers or [e-mail]