Notre Dame Recruiting: Analyzing the 2011 Class

With WR Michael Floyd coming back for his senior season, I was almost certain that Kyle Rudolph would follow in his footsteps.

But, since that is not the case, the Notre Dame offense has numerous holes to fill given the departures of Rudolph as well as senior running backs Armando Allen and Robert Hughes, and guard Chris Stewart.

Defensively, the Irish are more stacked with Manti Te'o, Harrison Smith and Gary Gray.

All together, the Irish bring in seven recruits ranked in the ESPN.com Top 150. All are ranked in the top 12 of their respective positions.

Four of the seven are defensive ends (No. 3 Aaron Lynch, No. 7 Ishaq Williams, No. 10 Stephon Tuitt and No. 12 Anthony Rabassa) and they all should adapt well to Notre Dame's 3-4 defensive front.

Don't be surprised to see two or three of these four DEs being switched to outside linebacker to help with the depth after the departures of seniors Brian Smith and Kerry Neal.

As for the offense, No. 3 offensive tackle Mathew Hegarty, No. 12 WR DaVaris Daniels and No. 3 TE Ben Koyack should receive playing time from the get go. They won't necessarily make the starting lineup, but playing time will suffice at the very least after being highly recruited and ranked coming into FBS college football.

As for other recruits, two to take note of are Everett Golson (No. 25 ATH) and Ben Councell (No. 19 OLB).

Based on the total number of recruits committed thus far, 11 of the 22 are defensive players while only seven are on offense. The remaining four are either athletes or kickers.

With all this being said, it goes to show how much head coach Brian Kelly knows about rebuilding a team and restoring a tradition.

For the most part, Charlie Weis focused on the offense, regardless of how much help was needed on defense.

Kelly has taken a more all-encompassing approach to his Irish, and has landed one of the best recruiting classes in all of college football.

Can the fall of 2011 come soon enough Irish fans?