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Rodney Dunham: 5-Star Notre Dame Defensive End Recruit | 2026 Class
Apr 14, 2025
Ryan Roberts and Joe DeLeone of A to Z Sports Film Room do a player breakdown of recent 5-star Notre Dame commit Rodney Dunham, a top-20 player in the country. *5-Star EDGE Rodney Dunham Brings A TON To Notre Dame's Defense: Player Breakdown* For More Notre Dame coverage follow us here: Facebook: Twitter: Instagram: TikTok: #notredame #notredamefightingirish #notredamefootball
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Notre Dame just landed a massive 2026 commitment in five-star defensive end Ronnie Dunham
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Folks, forget the recruiting rankings, forget the stats. Let's talk about what makes Dunham so special next
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Ryan Roberts from A to Z Sports breaking down everything Notre Dame football. Folks, Notre Dame just landed a huge commitment in the 2026 class of five-star defensive end
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Ronnie Dunham ranked as number 19 overall player on the on three industry ranking
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ranked as high as number 14 overall player nationally. on 247 Sports. I didn't want to break this one down myself. I have my co-host from the A to Z
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Sports Film Room, Joe DeLeon, here to break down why this is so important. Joe, five-star defensive
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end out of the state of North Carolina. How excited are you about the Rodney Dunn pickup for Notre Dame
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Well, incredibly, and I think that this is now pushing Notre Dame into a completely different
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category that they're able to attract five-star pass rushers. That is what separates the premier
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teams in college football from just the simple great ones that are at the conversation of the
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top 10 it's how you enter that upper echelon and it has been a criticism of Notre Dame
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under the Brian Kelly era early on under Marcus Freeman that they were getting attractive players
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at various positions we're used to seeing good offensive linemen we're used to seeing good
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running backs but those future first round pass rushers have always been missed by Notre Dame
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now they've got a guy like Dunham who has the tools and the traits to go on to be not only
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very productive in college, and if he develops, could be a future first-rounder
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This is what helps Notre Dame go from becoming a national championship conversation team
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to an actual national championship winning one. So we're going to watch some film here in a second, folks
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A little bit of the background. Like I said, five-star defensive end, 6'4", 227 pounds
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listed between 227 and 230 depending on what recruiting platform you look at Joe this is also a pretty cool one He also a dynamic baseball player from Myers Park I interested to see if he explores playing baseball on the college level
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because he throws over 90 miles per hour on the mound. So he's a pretty dang good pitcher, just a good baseball player overall
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But Joe, I did some background research. We know how big Keon Keely was as far as an overall commitment to Notre Dame
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before he ended up flipping to Alabama. but this would be if Rodney Dunham's ranking stays the same and he signs with Notre Dame
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this would be the highest ranked defensive lineman to sign with Notre Dame since Aaron Lynch in the 2011 recruiting class
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I know some of you are saying, what about Bryce Young just a couple years ago
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Bryce Young was ranked in the 20s. He was ranked as a five-star by at least one platform
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But let's be honest, getting Bryant's young son to come play football at Notre Dame was not this just incredibly huge moment as far as making a statement nationally
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You just took in Ronnie Dunham. And again, we're going to consider that he was going to sign with Notre Dame because anything could happen
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But if he does, you just stole one of the premier pass rushers in all of college in all of high school recruiting out of the state of North Carolina
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By the way, among his finalists, Georgia, Tennessee, a lot of SEC schools were hot on the trail
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But Joseph, the highest ranked recruit Notre Dame has had on the defensive line in the last 15 years
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Yeah, you just mentioned there that getting Bryant Young's son, Bryce Young, was huge because he ended up finishing as a five-star on some platforms
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But I would have been stunned if Bryce Young didn't pick Notre Dame because of that family connection
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We know that Notre Dame has not only done a good job of recruiting former Notre Dame players sons but just NFL players in general They trust Marcus Freeman I think overall what makes this just so massive that you going and getting a player like Dunham and if you able to keep him and his final commitment is that you able to then prove to the rest of the recruiting community
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that hey this is a destination to get developed get on the field early get playing time and go on
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to become one of the better players in college football that was a big talking point for me
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during the national championship run is that this did so much for marketing for Marcus Freeman and
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for Notre Dame. A lot of people were saying how Notre Dame is now cool to go play for
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and some people scoff at that, but that's the reality now. It is not the same stuffy institution that it was described as under Brian Kelly
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This is now a unique destination for players that are incredibly gifted
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that can take that next step forward and get great coaching from the entire Notre Dame coaching staff and from Marcus Freeman
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And if you don't trust the recruiting rankings, you don't trust the offer list, you don't trust our ysis
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let's roll some film right now. As you can see, 6'4", 227 pounds, Joe
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The thing that first pops off about Dunham for me is his first step explosiveness
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is something truly to behold. Now, obviously, he has the prototypical frame, right
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He's 6'4", he's got pretty long arms, but that first step explosiveness
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that closing speed to be able to finish on plays, those are a few of the things that really pop to me when we really take a deep dive
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into what Rodney Dunham is such a special football player. I think outside of that first step, which that immediately caught my attention
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there's two other things that make him a premier player. The length shows up on film constantly
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He doesn't have the pass rush moveset that we look for in a prospect
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but he's a high school recruit. He doesn't need it. He's able to win with his athleticism. But the length shows up as he's able to get extension
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on these smaller, undersized offensive linemen, easily win, press them completely off of him
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But the other thing that I was just enamored by was the motor. getting a motor in a five recruit is something that sometimes can be hard to come by Some guys just don have that internal clock if you will to know that like hey I got to keep going until this whistle
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I got to keep playing until after the play is over. There are so many plays on his highlights that show he chases down running backs
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He falls. He stumbles. He maybe doesn't win off the initial rip
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And then he tracks down a quarterback as the play develops, and that quarterback tries to evade pressure
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So that motor is exactly what Notre Dame needs and something that Notre Dame naturally covets in its prospects
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And this is a player also that I think some context is needed out there as we wrap this guy up
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He was kind of banged up as a junior as well. So if we're just looking at the highlights for what they were, the big time plays that he was able to make in 2024
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we do need to understand that we may not even have seen Rodney Dunham at 100% for the majority of this season
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So we're talking about five-star upside. I also must say, Joe, as we wrap up this film
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this is huge for Notre Dame to continue to tap into the state of North Carolina
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a state that puts out a lot of talent regularly, especially recently. They got, obviously, Bryce Young out of the state of North Carolina
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They got Jack Larson out of the state of North Carolina. They got Micah Gilbert in the 2024 class out of the state of North Carolina
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2026 right now, you just got a commitment from Ebenezer Ewutade. You also are trying to get Akini Oboko, the star offensive lineman
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in the 2026 class out of the state of North Carolina, Rodney Dunham really tapping into that North Carolina pipeline
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that Marcus Freeman and the staff is really trying to tap into. Folks, if you liked this breakdown
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make sure to go join me and Joe over at A to Z Film Room. You can find that on YouTube right now
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Go search it. We obviously stay more into the NFL draft space
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but as we get after this 2025 NFL draft class, we're going to start really tapping into some high school recruiting as well
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breaking down some big commitments, official visitors and everything in between make sure you hit that like button subscribe to the
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channel and as always go irish
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