According to Notre Dame historian Lou Somogyi, 17 members of the class became starters or regulars in an era when players played on both sides of the ball. As in most classes of the era, some freshmen were a bit older because they didn't go to college until after they served in World War II. One of those was future hall-of-famer Jim "Jungle Jim" Martin, an end/tackle who served in the Marines before coming to South Bend
We appreciate the effort to be historical, but the first guaranteed syphilis-free recruiting class seems to be a bit a bit of a low bar for a Best Recruiting Class ever. Another unfair advantage this class had was having so many World War Two veterans, who got to train for football by actually killing people with fire, bullets, and their bare hands. Besides the Tom Osborne Nebraska classes of the early '90s, no other team has had that rare privilege in such numbers since.