It Looks Like It’s Time for Plan B at QB Recruiting for Notre Dame

The writing has been on the wall for a couple of months now, but it looks like an eventual decommit from long-time Notre Dame “commit” Deuce Knight might be all but a formality. After surviving a surge from Ole Miss in the spring, it appears that Auburn has all the momentum in this race and could be successful in their bid to flip Knight sooner rather than later.

On Monday, On3 reported that Knight will officially visit Auburn on August 31st for a thrilling matchup against powerhouse Alabama A&M. So while Notre Dame is in College Station with ESPN College Gameday in attendance facing off against the real A&M, Knight will be on Auburn’s campus all weekend long.

News of this official visit shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. The writing has been on the wall for a while, and it was unlikely Notre Dame would hold onto the commitment that Knight gave them over a year ago. Crystal Balls and official predictions have been coming in for Knight to land anywhere but Notre Dame for the last 4-5 months. First, there were predictions of a flip to Ole Miss and now, more recently, to Auburn as the Tigers have surged despite only recently showing interest in him after they missed on their other top targets and became desperate for a quarterback in their class of 2025.

Notre Dame has likely been planning for this and reaching out behind the scenes to gauge interest on who they might be able to flip at this point, but if they haven’t the time to do that, it appears to be now.

There wasn’t one event that led to Notre Dame’s current position, but several—most of which were their own fault. Last year’s uninspired and unimaginative offense did not excite any recruits, committed or not. Bringing in Mike Denbrock helped, but the mass exodus at wide receiver, followed by Notre Dame’s futility in landing any of their top-of-the-board receiver targets this summer, opened the door for Ole Miss and Auburn.

Had the Irish offense lit it up last year and had a couple of top-100 receivers committed for 2025 right now, maybe things would be different. However, neither of those things happened, and the Irish are still very much in a prove-it mode on offense. That could be challenging following the Irish losing their starting left tackle and looking likely to start a true freshman at the most pivotal offensive line position.

The development of true freshman CJ Carr also likely helped open the door for Auburn here, as it would be a shocker if they did not point out how impressive Carr was this spring to Knight to plant seeds of doubt that the starting QB position at Notre Dame might not be open again until 2027. That wouldn’t be a bad situation for Notre Dame at the top of the depth chart, but in the day and age of the transfer portal, the Irish must sign a signal caller capable of starting at the college level. They can’t just look to a sign as a depth chart filler.

This isn’t exactly uncharted territory for Notre Dame under Marcus Freeman. After going all-in on Dante Moore two years ago and coming up empty, the Irish were left scrambling to add a quarterback late. That pursuit ended in Notre Dame flipping long-time Pitt commit Kenny Minchey. Notre Dame could only hope to be so lucky this time around as well, assuming Knight decommits.

Now, there is still the slight chance that Notre Dame can stay in the race if the offense comes out and lights it up in September, but given all the new pieces on offense, some growing pains should be expected. They certainly will try to stay in the race, even if Knight publicly decommits, after all the time and effort they spent recruiting Knight for the last 18 months.

Regardless, Notre Dame needs to be actively, even if not publicly, turning over every rock and reaching back out to every quarterback they had their eyes in the event Knight makes things official with Auburn. One angle Notre Dame could use in their pursuit of a plan B is pointing out that Denbrock was not at Notre Dame when the Irish went all in on Knight and secured his commitment last year – former offensive coordinator Gerad Parker, whose offense last year helped create this mess, was. In fact, Notre Dame had been recruiting Knight even before Parker took over for Tommy Rees in 2023.

Whatever angle the staff uses, they to be doing something now if they are not already because they could find a very empty quarterback room in 2025 if Carr were to win the starting job and transfers happen from either Minchey or Steve Angeli (or both).