Notre Dame Picks Up Lineman Chase Hounshell

Notre Dame’s recruiting class of 2011 is quickly becoming an embarrassment of riches in the trenches after the Irish picked up another lineman Monday.   Former Florida commitment Chase Hounshell flipped to Notre Dame giving the Irish yet another quality lineman in this class.

Florida recruited Hounshell as an offensive tackle, while Notre Dame recruited the Ohio native as a defensive end. Hounshell originally committed to Florida while Urban Meyer was still the head coach.  When Meyer retired in December, Hounshell began to rethink his commitment.

Hounshell was originally planning on enrolling early at Florida, but in January [intlink id=”7523″ type=”post”]he decided against enrolling early [/intlink]because he was not sure if he still wanted to go to Florida.  On Monday defensive coordinator Bob Diaco and defensive line coach Mike Elston made an in-home visit with Hounshell that ended up sealing the deal.

Hounshell told Irish Illustrated that he was not planning on committing today, but the visit changed his mind.

“I didn’t know I was going to do it,” Hounshell said of his commitment. “They came in today and we talked for two or three hours about me coming to Notre Dame and being a good fit there and how they could use me. I told them I’d visit this weekend and I’d give them an answer after that.

“They were OK with that and told me to take my time. As they were walking out the door I got a gut felling and said Notre Dame was the place I wanted to go for sure.”

With Hounshell’s commitment, Notre Dame has five linemen capable of playing defensive end with Hounshell joining Aaron Lynch, Stephon Tuitt, Brad Carrico, and Tony Springmann.  Of that gorup, Hounshell, Carrico, and Springmann are all capable of playing along the offensive line.  With only three offensive linemen in this class so far, it’s possible there could be some shuffling of the deck here.

Hounshell’s commitment caps off a pretty impressive four day stretch for Diaco.  On Friday Diaco visited Ishaq Williams at 4:30 AM before he had planned on leaving for an official visit Penn State and ended up leaving Brooklyn with a commitment from the pass rushing terror.

Notre Dame is up to 23 commitments with Hounshell on board and likely has only one or two spots left in this class and could be done on the defensive side of the ball.

After years of struggling to land defensive linemen, Notre Dame has hit a grand slam this year.