Notre Dame Recruiting: Can the Irish Flip Five-Star Running Back Kemon Spell?

Spell, who grew up close to Penn State, was always going to have soft spot for the Nittany Lions in his recruitment with it being the prominent in-state program. He committed to them just over a year ago, on August 2, 2024, but seems to think he committed too early and is opening up his options.

Sometimes when recruits commit early it is because they got the green light from their dream school and completely shut down their recruitment. However, in other cases, the recruit simply got excited and may have felt pressure to commit to the in-state school early.

This feels like the latter.

Notre Dame is on a tremendous run recruiting the running back position over the last handful of years, and it only looks to be continuing, especially with the potential addition of Spell.

Recently, putting Kyren Williams (Los Angeles Rams) and Audric Estime (Denver Broncos) into the NFL has certainly helped the Fighting Irish on the recruiting trail. Not to mention current running backs Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price, who are set to be selected in the upcoming NFL draft.

Behind Love and Price, youngsters Aneyas Williams, Kedren Young, and Nolan James all absolutely have a chance to be drafted as well down the line, making Notre Dame a premier destination for recruits.

The Irish currently have two top-10 backs committed in the 2026 cycle with Javian Osborne and Jonaz Walton, so swinging for the fences with a five-star like Spell in 2027 makes a ton of sense.

As it stands, Notre Dame has only offered 10 running backs in the 2027 class, with Spell and recent North Carolina commit Amir Brown being the only two that the Fighting Irish were pushing for.

With Brown pledging to the Tarheels this past week, Notre Dame is pushing all of its chips in to land Spell and it starts with getting him on campus in September.

Naturally, recruiting and winning big games go hand-in-hand. Do you think Spell would be considering Notre Dame to this extent if Penn State had beaten the Fighting Irish in the Orange Bowl last season?

It probably didn't hurt.