Rockne's Roundtable

Didn't he have like a stretch of 3 '91 to '93?

ScanlonIrish,

You're pretty much right on the button. The 1984 class, though, definitely was not No. 1, and close to not even top 10. At the time it had only 17 players signed (when you could take 25 to 30). Four of them were QBs (Terry Andrysiak, Tom Byrne, Pat Pasavento and Duke St. Pierre (Pasavento eventually started in baseball, Byrne moved to tight end and St. Pierre transferred to Boston College before the season began, I believe), and only one lineman. it featured Tim Brown and also had people like Franks Stams and Cedric Figaro, but this class wasn't strong all around, and some bad years under Faust may have begun the process of people shying away from ND a little more.

Tom Lemming had the 1992 class No. 1, but everyone else considered more between 3 to 7. The class with Powlus in 1993 was generally considered top 5. Bob Davie also had back-to-back top-4 classes in 1998-1999, and Ty's 2002 and 2003 (Brady Quinn and Co.) were also in the top 10.

From the time recruiting rankings became mainstream in 1978 until 2001 (Davie's last year), Notre Dame finished in the top 10 of at least one recruiting service every year. It's the exception rather than the rule when ND isn't in the top 10 of at least one service, and almost always in the top 15.

The exceptions were 2004 (17 recruits) and 2005 (15 recruits) — and the results showed with a 3-9 record in 2007, when those classes were juniors and seniors and had a total of 17 players left.