LUCEDALE, Miss. — Deuce Knight filled the door frame of head coach James Ray’s office last week, stopping by George County High School on Tuesday morning of spring break. The quarterback didn’t have to be here. But he can’t help but keep coming back.

This day was to explain how a Notre Dame commitment could grow up in a town of three stoplights and roughly 3,000 people. Some days it’s to meet Marcus Freeman, Lane Kiffin or Kalen DeBoer, perhaps at the same time. And some nights it’s to illuminate George County High School, as Knight has helped return Lucedale, tucked in Mississippi’s southeast corner, to the map.

“Lucedale is like a big family because it’s so small,” Knight said. “Everybody knows each other. You go in the Walmart, you’re not gonna see new faces. Same anywhere else you go.”

Victory dinners usually head to Waffle House. Just turn right out of the high school parking lot across from the cow pasture, head north three miles up Old Highway 63, then pull into the parking lot by Goodwill and Harbor Freight. Or go another half mile north onto Highway 26 to Sonic, next to the butcher promoting its crawfish boil and across from the food stand selling boiled peanuts. Sonic is Knight’s steady hangout, in part because there’s not much else.

He likes it that way, even as football will eventually send him elsewhere.

As Knight explained this, he wore a black QB Country hoodie and Notre Dame shorts with a Notre Dame lanyard dangling out of the pocket. The QB Country connection is new, starting with David Morris a couple of weeks ago. He’s the same trainer who’s drilled Eli Manning, Daniel Jones and Riley Leonard. The Notre Dame link is older after Knight committed to the Irish last September, five days before the Ohio State game.

Notre Dame hopes Knight takes that straight line from Lucedale to South Bend to become the next NFL quarterback in the QB Country pipeline. The Irish will get Knight back to campus this week for a recruiting event after hosting him for a junior day in January. The familiarity helps. At least that’s the Irish’s intent.

Knight said he hears from Notre Dame every day. Quarterbacks coach Gino Guidugli has attended George County basketball practice to see Knight. He’s broken down Ray’s football playbook and offered suggestions on how to enhance it. When Freeman attended one of Knight’s basketball games this winter, he stayed an hour afterward to take pictures. That group included basketball coach Terry Bradley, one of Knight’s distant cousins and among the few Notre Dame fans around here