Davonte Neal Signs With Notre Dame

Notre Dame's 2012 class is finally done with the announcement that 5 star prospect Davonte Neal has signed after a day full of drama. Earlier today a press conference was scheduled inside Neal's elementary school where he was expected to announce his decision between Notre Dame and the home state Arizona Wildcats. Neal never showed up. FoxSportsArizona.com scrambled to give some good explanation of Neal's absence and the best they could come up with 3 weeks after National Signing Day is that Neal still had not made up his mind. Rumors surfaced there was a struggle between Neal's father who wanted him to go to Notre Dame and Davonte who wanted to stay close to home and go to Tucson.

At this point who knows what the truth is?

What we do know is Notre Dame just picked up a tremendous playmaker on offense who has the chance to make an immediate impact in the fall. On tape Neal reminds me a lot of Golden Tate when he came out of high school in Nashville. Both are around the 5'9, have good balance, great speed, and can break tackles with tremendous leg strength and are special teams standouts. For my money I think Neal will be the best player in Notre Dame's 2012 class. The kid has superstar written all over him and I would expect head coach Brian Kelly to use him immediately in much the same way he used Marty Gilyard at Cincinnati.