{"id":74614,"date":"2025-06-19T19:15:45","date_gmt":"2025-06-19T23:15:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=74614"},"modified":"2025-09-20T14:13:50","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T18:13:50","slug":"four-star-ot-grayson-mckeogh-commits-to-notre-dame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2025\/06\/19\/four-star-ot-grayson-mckeogh-commits-to-notre-dame\/","title":{"rendered":"Four-Star OT Grayson McKeogh Commits to Notre Dame"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Four-star offensive tackle Grayson McKeogh verbally committed to Notre Dame on Wednesday. McKeogh made the announcement ahead of schedule and is the fifth offensive lineman in the 2026 class to commit to the Irish. He was planning to announce his decision on July 1. But made the announcement early following an official visit to South Bend last weekend.<\/p>\n<p>The 6\u2019-8,\u201d 285-pound tackle hails from La Salle College High School in Pennsylvania. He selected Notre Dame over Texas, Penn State, Ohio State, and Alabama. And he joins previously committed Tyler Merrill, Ben Nichols, Gregory Patrick, and Sullivan Garvin in the 2026 class of offensive linemen. All five are four-star prospects.<\/p>\n<p>Notre Dame\u2019s offensive line is poised to be a dominant force this season. Spearheading the unit are sophomore left tackle <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cfb\/players\/anthonie-knapp-1.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Anthonie Knapp<\/a> and right tackle <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cfb\/players\/aamil-wagner-1.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Aamil Wagner<\/a>. Knapp was a Freshman All-American in 2024 after stepping into a starting role. Wagner emerged as a top-tier tackle last year as well, receiving high praise for his pass-blocking prowess and steady improvement throughout the 2024 campaign.<\/p>\n<h3>A High Ceiling for Grayson McKeogh<\/h3>\n<p>Having drawn comparisons to<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2024\/04\/26\/notre-dames-joe-alt-drafted-by-the-chargers\/\" target=\"_self\"> former Notre Dame standout Joe Alt<\/a> (a first-round draft pick of the San Diego Chargers in 2024), McKeogh has a high ceiling. The athletic McKeogh played tight end as a high school freshman and defensive end as a sophomore. He switched to left offensive tackle at the encouragement of Brett Gordon, who took over the head coaching job at LaSalle College High in 2024.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_63003\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-63003\" style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-63003 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2024\/08\/USATSI_22191279_168400542_lowres-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"Grayson McKeogh\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2024\/08\/USATSI_22191279_168400542_lowres-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2024\/08\/USATSI_22191279_168400542_lowres-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2024\/08\/USATSI_22191279_168400542_lowres-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2024\/08\/USATSI_22191279_168400542_lowres-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2024\/08\/USATSI_22191279_168400542_lowres-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2024\/08\/USATSI_22191279_168400542_lowres.jpg 1266w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-63003\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo courtesy: GABY VELASQUEZ\/ EL PASO TIMES \/ USA TODAY NETWORK<\/p>\n<p><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Following a visit to Notre Dame in April, McKeogh told <em>Irish Illustrated<\/em>, \u201cThe Notre Dame campus was awesome, everything was personalized and directed towards the football program. You can tell how much they respect the football program with all of the football-only facilities and such. Coach (Marcus) Freeman\u2019s vision relates a lot towards the player-coach relationship and honesty. He believes last year wasn\u2019t just a good year, it was a start to something greater.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to <em>Rivals.com<\/em>, McKeogh is the 23<sup>rd<\/sup>-ranked offensive tackle and the No. 4 recruit in Pennsylvania. McKeogh\u2019s commitment vaulted Notre Dame\u2019s 2026 class to the No. 2 spot in the Rivals recruiting team rankings. Previously, the Irish were tied at No. 5 with Texas, with USC at No. 1.<\/p>\n<h3>Irish Eyeing Grayson McKeogh\u2019s Teammate<\/h3>\n<p>While landing McKeogh was a big get for the program, the Irish are also pursuing McKeogh\u2019s high school teammate, four-star safety Joey O\u2019Brien. The highly recruited safety is expected to announce a commitment on Friday. O\u2019Brien is the No. 3 prospect (136<sup>th<\/sup> overall). His programs have been narrowed down to Notre Dame, Penn State, Clemson, and Oregon.<\/p>\n<p>Main Image: Syndication: The Indianapolis Star<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Four-star offensive tackle Grayson McKeogh verbally committed to Notre Dame on Wednesday. McKeogh made the announcement ahead of schedule and is the fifth offensive lineman in the 2026 class to commit to the Irish. He was planning to announce his decision on July 1. But made the announcement early following an official visit to South [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4854,"featured_media":73920,"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":[2,10906,17,35676,7316],"tags":[35210,35213,35211,6850,259,35212,35209],"class_list":["post-74614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-cfb","category-news","category-notre-dame-fighting-irish","category-recruiting","tag-ben-nichols","tag-brett-gordon","tag-gregory-patrick","tag-marcus-freeman","tag-notre-dame-fighting-irish","tag-sullivan-garvin","tag-tyler-merrill"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74614","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=74614"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74617,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74614\/revisions\/74617"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}