Not long after news started to break that current Notre Dame commitment David Abiara was contemplating opening up his recruitment and flipping to Oklahoma, the Irish staff offered 4-star DE TJ Bollers. The Rivals Top-100 overall recruit is reportedly open to Notre Dame despite the late offer and has already “virtually” visited Notre Dame this week.
Bollers announced he had his virtual visit with Notre Dame on Twitter on Friday.
Had a great virtual visit with @NDFootball today! Thank you @CoachMikeElston @BrianPolian and @Coach_Lea for setting this up! #GOLDRUSH21 pic.twitter.com/7I0WRAJCya
— TJ Bollers (@tj35ballin) May 29, 2020
So far, David Abiara is still committed to Notre Dame. Still, it seems pretty clear that Notre Dame is covering its bases here and working on a contingency should Abiara end up flipping.
Bollers shouldn’t be looked at as any sort of consolation prize, though. Rivals ranks him as the #98 overall prospect in the country, and his 247Sports composite ranking is #147 overall – both rankings are significantly higher than Abiara’s for whatever recruiting rankings are worth. He also has offers from Alabama, Texas A&M, Florida, Penn State, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
As a late offer, Notre Dame has a lot of challenges in getting back involved in this race, but Bollers seems open to Notre Dame at this point and may even push his recruiting timeline back further after initially planning to commit somewhere in June.
Notre Dame is not entirely new to Bollers. He has camped at Notre Dame in the past and has been on campus before, so the lack of in-person on-campus visits through July isn’t as much of a hurdle in this case as it would be with a recruit who has never set foot on campus before.
Notre Dame just offered Bollers on Tuesday, and he’s already done whatever is involved in these new virtual visits. He is also interacting with some Notre Dame commitments on Twitter already, such as Gabriel Rubio.
My man!!??? https://t.co/ZSlpjrt3u1
— TJ Bollers (@tj35ballin) May 28, 2020
It will be interesting to see how this all plays out with both Abiara and Bollers since it appears that Notre Dame has at least weathered some of the storm with Abiara for now and that Bollers has some legit interest in the Irish.
Anyone who’s offered by Bama and can qualify academically is good enough for me.