{"id":69787,"date":"2024-12-06T11:00:44","date_gmt":"2024-12-06T16:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=69787"},"modified":"2025-09-20T14:14:16","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T18:14:16","slug":"notre-dame-lands-four-star-linebacker-madden-faraimo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2024\/12\/06\/notre-dame-lands-four-star-linebacker-madden-faraimo\/","title":{"rendered":"Notre Dame Lands Four-Star Linebacker Madden Faraimo"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 2025 recruiting class for Notre Dame received a significant boost and a slight surprise on National Signing Day on Wednesday, landing four-star linebacker Madden Faraimo. The JSerra Catholic standout is a top-100 prospect and he could have stayed home in Southern California with an offer from USC. In the 247Sports Composite<\/em>, Faraimo, who is 6-3, 230 pounds, is the No. 2 player in Notre Dame\u2019s class. Just Offensive tackle Will Black is ranked higher. This year Faraimo recorded 43 solo tackles, 113 total tackles, and a sack in nine games for JSerra.<\/p>\n

Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman addressed the signing of Faraimo at a press conference on Wednesday. Freeman indicated that he spoke with Faraimo the night before signing day and he had not yet made up his mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s some truth to the recruiting rankings, but I think more important is that we still have to trust our evaluation and our eyes in terms of bringing in the right guys to this program,\u201d Freeman said. \u201cObviously, you\u2019ve heard me say this before. We can\u2019t recruit everybody. We\u2019ve got to recruit the guys that fit this place, but we want to get the best players in the country that do.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was funny; I was talking to him and said, \u2018Man, choose hard, choose hard.\u2019 That\u2019s what we use around here. He said, \u2018Coach, I chose God.\u2019 And I thought that was a powerful statement and speaks volumes about the young man and his family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Madden Faraimo: An Impact Player From Day One<\/h3>\n

Faraimo\u2019s recruitment mirrors that of freshman linebacker Kyngstonn Villamu-Asa, who also made his final decision to attend Notre Dame on signing day. The two players have been friends since high school.<\/p>\n

Greg Biggins, national recruiting analyst for 247Sports<\/em>, wrote of Faraimo, \u201cPlayed much of the year with a giant club on his left arm but still played very effectively. Played safety as a freshman and sophomore before growing into a linebacker as a junior and that\u2019s where he\u2019ll play in college as well. Brings a lot of positional versatility to the table and could play any of the \u2018backer positions or grow into a full-time edge rusher in college. Plays with plenty of quick twitch, moves well laterally, and shows good instincts. With his frame, toughness, and athleticism, his upside is very high, and he has the ability to be an impact player from day one in college.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rivals.com<\/em> ranked Notre Dame\u2019s 2025 recruiting class as the 12th<\/sup>-best in the country as of Wednesday. Other key recruits signed include Mark Zackery<\/a>, Jerome Bettis Jr.<\/a>, Dallas Golden, Blake Hebert, and Ethan Long, to name a few. Faraimo joins fellow elite linebackers Anthony Sacca and Josiah Kia in Notre Dame\u2019s 2025 class, giving Freeman strength at the position for years to come.<\/p>\n

\"Madden
Photo courtesy: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 2025 recruiting class for Notre Dame received a significant boost and a slight surprise on National Signing Day on Wednesday, landing four-star linebacker Madden Faraimo. The JSerra Catholic standout is a top-100 prospect and he could have stayed home in Southern California with an offer from USC. In the 247Sports Composite, Faraimo, who is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4854,"featured_media":69799,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,10906,8,11,35676,7316],"tags":[34491,34490,33604,33606,34492,33141,6850,259],"class_list":["post-69787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-cfb","category-fbs","category-independents","category-notre-dame-fighting-irish","category-recruiting","tag-anthony-sacca","tag-blake-hebert","tag-dallas-golden","tag-ethan-long","tag-josiah-kia","tag-kyngstonn-viliamu-asa","tag-marcus-freeman","tag-notre-dame-fighting-irish"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4854"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69787"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69802,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69787\/revisions\/69802"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}