4-star DT Brayden parks chooses notre dame over oregon
For nearly three years, Brayden Parks was one of the most coveted names on Notre Dame's board. On Thursday, that pursuit finally came to an end when the four-star Brother Rice defensive tackle put pen to paper — or, in this case, made his announcement on a CBS Sports special — and chose the Fighting Irish over Oregon in one of the more drawn-out recruitments of the 2027 cycle.
Speaking with Irish Breakdown afterward, Parks summed up just how long the process had felt: "Everything feels like a relief, honestly. I've been going through this recruiting process since my freshman year — coaches reaching out, trying to contact my family, all that. But now that it's over, I feel relieved. From that camp last year until now, man, it feels like it's finally come true."
But to understand why this commitment means so much to Notre Dame's program, you have to go back to where it started: a performance at Irish Invasion that first turned heads in South Bend, and a coaching relationship that very nearly didn't survive to see the finish line.
Long before Parks became a household name in recruiting circles, Notre Dame's staff had circled him as a priority target. That belief was reinforced during his showing at Irish Invasion in the summer of 2025, Notre Dame's marquee on-campus recruiting camp. Evaluators who watched him that day came away convinced that his twitch and explosiveness at his size — he was already pushing 305 pounds — put him in a different tier than most interior linemen his age. It's the kind of performance that gets internally referenced for years afterward whenever a staff needs a reminder of why a prospect was worth fighting for.
That early standout showing set the tone for what would become one of the more significant recruiting battles of the cycle, and it cemented a truth that would hold for the better part of two years: Notre Dame was not going to let Brayden Parks leave the board without a fight.
The Washington-Sebastian Connection
At the heart of Notre Dame's pursuit was the relationship Parks built with then-defensive line coach Al Washington and defensive line assistant Nick Sebastian. Washington, who joined Marcus Freeman's original 2022 staff after previously coaching linebackers at Ohio State and Michigan, built a reputation as one of the more respected recruiters in the country — he was later recognized as a top-10 recruiter nationally for his work on the 2026 class. Sebastian, who followed Washington to South Bend from Columbus that same year, became just as central to the Chicagoland pipeline, playing a lead role in landing five-star edge Rodney Dunham for the 2026 class.
For a Chicago prospect like Parks, that combination mattered. Washington and Sebastian weren't just recruiting him from a distance — they were regulars in the building at Brother Rice, familiar faces who built the kind of trust that's hard to replicate overnight. It's the kind of groundwork that had Notre Dame firmly entrenched as the perceived frontrunner for much of Parks' recruitment, well before his final decision ever became a two-team race.
Parks himself made that clear speaking with Irish Breakdown after his announcement, describing just how far back the relationship went: "I've been talking to Coach Washington since my freshman year, the first time I went out there. He's been there since I started this whole thing." When Washington's move to the NFL came up, Parks didn't hesitate to speak well of it: "I'm happy for him. It's a huge step up in his career. I'm grateful for what he did, and Coach P picked up right where he left off."
A Crack in the Foundation
Then came January.
In the span of about a week, Notre Dame's defensive staff was gutted by the NFL. Secondary coach Mike Mickens left for the Baltimore Ravens on January 25. Days later, Washington — who had just been shifted from defensive line coach to linebackers coach following Max Bullough's departure — announced he was leaving to coach linebackers for the Miami Dolphins under new head coach Jeff Hafley. It marked the third defensive assistant Notre Dame lost to the NFL in a matter of weeks, and it meant the Irish would be replacing position coaches at every level of the defense heading into 2026.
Freeman moved quickly to stabilize the room, hiring veteran defensive line coach Charlie Partridge to take over up front. But for a recruitment as relationship-driven as Parks', Washington's exit still mattered. It didn't sever the pipeline — Sebastian stayed on and remained a constant presence — but it did open a window that programs like Oregon were happy to climb through. Over the following months, the Ducks built real momentum, and at various points the industry buzz around Parks trended firmly in Oregon's direction. Ohio State and Michigan also lingered in the periphery of the process without ever fully displacing the top two.
What had once looked like it might be a formality turned into a genuine dogfight. The last several months of Parks' recruitment played out like an endurance test rather than a sprint — visits, momentum swings, and a decision date that kept extending as both Notre Dame and Oregon dug in for the long haul.
Closing the Gap
When Washington left, he didn't just leave behind a coaching vacancy — he left behind a standard. Sources close to the program had made clear that Washington and Notre Dame were prepared to do whatever it took to land Parks, and it fell on Charlie Partridge to carry that same energy into the final stretch without missing a beat.
Partridge didn't waste time trying to build something from scratch. But it wasn't a one-way effort. Rather than treating the coaching change as something that put the burden of relationship-building entirely on the new guy, Parks did his own homework on Partridge before they'd even met in person — digging into his background, his coaching stops, his track record in the NFL. It's a small detail, but it says a lot: Parks wasn't just being recruited by Notre Dame at that point, he was actively buying in. That kind of initiative from a prospect is often as telling as anything a coaching staff can do, and it's part of why the Irish never fully lost their footing even after Washington's departure.
That effort paid off in a memory Parks says he'll carry for a while. Recalling the first time the two actually met in person, he told Irish Breakdown: "The first time I actually met him, we were in my head coach's office taking a picture, and he tried to demonstrate a double-team drill — next thing you know, he slipped and busted his head open on the TV. That's one of those long-lasting memories me and Coach P will have forever."
Partridge and Sebastian didn't let the momentum stay with Oregon for long. Notre Dame hosted Parks for a pivotal official visit in June, part of a loaded weekend built around several of the program's top remaining defensive line targets for the cycle. By July, Parks had trimmed his list to two: Notre Dame and Oregon.
He set his commitment date for Thursday, July 23, and after weeks of speculation that could have gone either way, he chose the Irish.
By the Numbers
Recruiting services have tracked Parks closely throughout his high school career, and while individual grades have varied slightly by outlet, the four-star consensus has been consistent for over a year:
247Sports: Ranked him among the top defensive linemen in the 2027 class and the No. 7 prospect in Illinois, with 247Sports' individual metric rating him even higher than the industry composite.
Rivals: Slotted him as the No. 185 overall prospect, the No. 22 defensive lineman, and the No. 7 player in the state of Illinois in its industry ranking.
ESPN: Included Parks in its national recruiting rankings as one of the top interior defensive line prospects in the cycle, maintaining a recruiting profile that tracked his offer list as it grew to more than 40 schools.
On the field, MaxPreps logged Parks with 44 total tackles, six tackles for loss and two sacks as a junior in 2025 across 13 games, helping anchor a Brother Rice defense that won the CCL/ESCC Blue title and an IHSA 7A state championship. He was named the conference's Defensive Player of the Year for his efforts — a testament to an interior presence that scouts describe as disruptive against both the run and the pass, with an advanced hand-usage package for a player his age.
The Scene at Brother Rice
The energy inside the athletic building on commitment day was hard to miss. The school's top-ranked baseball team was in the middle of a summer league game outside, and the football team had just wrapped its final practice of the summer session before the state-mandated dead period ahead of fall camp. Walking past the locker room, players were still peeling off practice gear, showering, and changing into shirts and ties for the ceremony — more than a few of them trading excited chatter about Notre Dame and Marcus Freeman as they made their way toward the school's forum.
Throughout the process, Marcus Freeman was a steadying influence for Parks, and it went beyond what the program could offer on the field. Parks pointed to what Notre Dame provides outside of football as a major factor in his decision, and Freeman stood out among the other head coaches recruiting him for the way he showed genuine care for him as a person, not just as a football player. "Coach Freeman is a great person in general. He's a player's coach — he cares more about the person than the football player. That's one of the reasons I wanted to play for a guy like that. He cares about you and your family, not just when things are good, but whatever you're going through."
By the time the forum filled with teammates, coaches, administrators and family, the moment carried a weight that went beyond recruiting. The Brother Rice community is still grieving the loss of 2026 graduate and former football player Patrick Noonan, who died in a car accident on July 18 — just days before Parks' announcement. It was the kind of backdrop that made clear this was about more than one player's decision; it was a program and a school leaning on each other.
Parks took the moment in stride, thanking God, his parents, his sister, extended family, coaches, teachers and teammates before revealing the news — unzipping his jacket to show the Notre Dame logo underneath, officially closing the book on one of the more hard-fought recruitments in recent Chicago history. Asked what Fighting Irish fans should expect from their newest commit, Parks kept it simple: "They're getting a smart, disciplined, dominant defensive lineman."
What It Means Going Forward
Parks becomes the latest piece in what's shaping up as one of the more talented defensive line hauls of the Freeman era. He also arrives with family ties to the program, adding another layer to a recruitment that, in the end, came full circle back to where it started — with the relationships Notre Dame built long before the rest of the country came calling.
Parks' commitment also puts into focus just how much ground Notre Dame has made up in Chicago under Freeman. He joins St. Patrick's David Folorunsho and Mount Carmel's Roman Igwebuike as three of the best defensive prospects to come out of the city in this cycle — all of them products of programs that compete within the same Chicago Catholic League football alignment. Landing all three gives the Irish a defensive haul that's arguably the best in the entire 2027 class, and it's the kind of local sweep Notre Dame hasn't been able to pull off in years.
That matters because Notre Dame needed exactly this kind of moment. For a stretch under Freeman, the program had drifted to the outside looking in on some of Chicago's premier talent, watching top-tier recruits build relationships elsewhere before the Irish ever got a real shot. Parks' commitment — paired with Folorunsho and Igwebuike — signals that the hard work Freeman and his staff have put in has shifted the calculus. Notre Dame is no longer playing catch-up in its own backyard; it's back to being the offer Chicago kids grow up dreaming about.
The early returns for 2028 back that up. Notre Dame is already involved with several of the top uncommitted prospects in the Chicagoland area, and the brand is shining brightest with two names that happen to be Parks' own teammates at Brother Rice: five-star edge Kameron McGee and four-star tight end Jack McNamara. Both have been building relationships with the Irish staff, and having their own guy already in South Bend only strengthens Notre Dame's hand.
And Parks doesn't plan on sitting back and watching it happen from a distance. He made clear after his announcement that he considers this a homecoming, and that recruiting his own teammates to join him at Notre Dame is very much part of the plan.
But this moment wasn't just significant for Notre Dame. It carried just as much weight back home at Brother Rice.
For years, the standard in the Chicago Catholic League has been Mt. Carmel, the program Casey Quedenfeld and the Crusaders have been chasing since he took over. Brother Rice's rise — capped by last fall's IHSA 7A state championship — has started to close that gap, and Parks has become the face of that ascension. A recruit of his caliber, drawing this level of national attention, is a signal that Brother Rice can now stand toe to toe with the league's traditional powerhouse rather than living in its shadow.
Parks is also, by a wide margin, the highest-rated recruit to come through the program in recent memory, and the reaction inside the forum made clear how much that means to the people around him. When he pulled back his jacket to reveal the Notre Dame logo, the room didn't just applaud politely — it erupted, teammates and classmates included, a reflection of just how beloved he is inside that building and how much his teammates had been waiting for this moment right alongside him.
It wasn't a clean, wire-to-wire recruitment. Washington's departure tested it, Oregon pushed it to the brink, and the final months demanded patience from a coaching staff that refused to let go. But for Notre Dame — and for Brother Rice — Brayden Parks was always worth the fight.