With Notre Dame already set in the 2015 recruiting class with Blake Barnett, the Irish coaching staff has begun making offers to rising juniors in the 2016 cycle. One of those is to Irish legacy Jacob Eason, the son of former Notre Dame wide receiver Tony Eason.
Notre Dame is hardly alone chasing this Seattle area prospect. At 6-foot-5, 205 pounds, Eason has offers from Alabama, Florida, Florida State, Georgia, Texas and a handful of other top programs already.
He’s being recruited by new quarterback coach Matt LaFleur, and Irish Illustrated’s Pete Sampson caught up with the elder Eason, who gave a nice insight into the thought process behind his son’s recruitment.
It’ll be interesting to see how the Irish coaching staff decides to recruit quarterbacks going forward. After Gunner Kiel’s decision to transfer, it appears that this staff has focused on dual-threat prospects, with a depth chart of Everett Golson, Malik Zaire, DeShone Kizer and soon Barnett.
Eason clearly has skills that this staff appreciates (and ranked as the No. 1 QB in 2016, they are hardly alone), and Notre Dame offered other pro-style QBs in the 2015 cycle before landing Barnett. While Kelly has shown with quarterbacks like Tony Pike that his offense can thrive, it’s an interesting wrinkle as the staff moves forward with life post-Tommy Rees.
Of course, just because his father played receiver for Notre Dame doesn’t mean Eason is heading to South Bend. But as the Irish do more and more work on the current recruiting cycle, getting out in front and evaluation the next fleet of players remains a priority.