Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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12 AUGUST 2021 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED UNDER THE DOME Barring a surprise, Notre Dame's August training camp roster appears set after some June movement. The Fighting Irish made one major addition — a 2020 second-team As- sociated Press All-American — from the transfer portal this summer. They also had a couple players enter it. Cain Madden, a three-year starting guard at Marshall, announced June 4 he will play his final college football season at Notre Dame. He started 31 career games for the Thundering Herd and will be a sixth-year senior in 2021. He is using the NCAA's CO- VID-19 blanket waiver that gave all 2020 fall sport athletes an extra sea- son of eligibility and will play this season at 24 years old. In addition to the AP recognition, Pro Football Focus named Madden a 2020 first-team All-American at right guard and gave him a 93.0 run- blocking grade in 2020. That mark was nearly five points higher than any other Football Bowl Subdivision guard. He allowed no sacks, no quar- terback hits and just six pressures in nine games. All but eight of Madden's 2,139 ca- reer snaps have come at right guard. The player nicknamed "Dump Truck" broke into the starting lineup early in the 2018 season due to an injury to a teammate and didn't leave it until announcing his transfer. In his time as a starter, he has allowed just two sacks and 23 total pressures. He initially came to Marshall in 2016 as a walk-on out of South Webster (Ohio) Minford High School. Madden announced his decision at the end of an official visit to Notre Dame. He had previously visited Florida State. He entered the transfer portal May 19. Later in June, Notre Dame saw two underclassmen depart the program when freshman defensive end Devin Aupiu and sophomore wide receiver Jay Brunelle put their names in the transfer portal. Brunelle has since landed at Yale, while Aupiu has not announced a destination as of press time. Brunelle's first three semesters at Notre Dame were spent battling inju- ries — taking away from his opportu- nity to compete for playing time. A January 2020 enrollee, Brunelle was slated to miss that year's spring practice due to injury before COVID-19 wiped out spring drills after one ses- sion. He dealt with nagging injuries this spring, but practiced and dressed for the Blue-Gold Game despite them. Brunelle committed to Notre Dame in June 2019 over Michigan and UCLA. He was a three-star recruit out of Paxton (Mass.) St. John's High School and was ranked as the No. 8 player in Massachusetts in 2020 by Rivals. Notre Dame offered him after he impressed at a camp in 2019. With Brunelle's exit, Notre Dame has just one receiver — sophomore Xavier Watts — on the roster from its 2019 and 2020 recruiting classes. Jor- dan Johnson, the 2020 class' highest- ranked member, transferred to UCF shortly after the spring game. Notre Dame signed receivers Kendall Ab- dur-Rahman and Cam Hart in 2019, but the former transferred to Western Kentucky in April while the latter is now a potential starting cornerback. Aupiu was a three-star recruit and an early enrollee from Oxnard (Ca- lif.) Pacifica who made the transition from defensive end to linebacker for the Irish during the spring. He en- rolled at Notre Dame without ever officially visiting the campus because of the recruiting dead period. The No. 39 weak-side defensive end in the class of 2021 per Rivals, Aupiu was originally committed to UCLA before flipping his pledge to Notre Dame in December. Notre Dame has 85 scholarship players, though graduate students Jonathan Doerer and Kurt Hinish don't count toward the 85-player scholarship cap because they came back for an extra season using the COVID-19 blanket waiver. All told, 13 Notre Dame players have entered the transfer portal since the end of the 2020 season, though senior safety Houston Griffith's re- turn to the program means only 12 will not return. — Patrick Engel NOTRE DAME HIRES ANOTHER RECRUITING COORDINATOR Notre Dame has finally filled a new position on its recruiting opera- tions staff. The Irish hired Tennessee recruit- ing coordinator and 2015-19 Illinois running back Dre Brown as the direc- tor of recruiting on offense in July. He comes to South Bend after about four months on the Volunteers' staff. Brown's role will be similar to what Chad Bowden has been doing on defense. Bowden's title is defen- sive recruiting director, and he helps aid operations and has daily contact with targets on that side of the ball. A relationship Brown had with Tennessee offensive coordinator Alex Golesh helped him break into the coaching profession. Golesh was an assistant coach at Illinois during Brown's freshman year there. A DeKalb, Ill., native, Brown ran for 902 yards and seven touchdowns in his career with the Illini. He earned a bachelor 's degree in recreation, sport and tourism in December 2018. — Patrick Engel and Tyler Horka MORE KICKOFF TIMES, TICKET POLICIES ANNOUNCED Notre Dame's season will begin in a standalone primetime slot. ESPN announced in May the Irish's season opener at Florida State Sept. 5 will kick off at 7:30 p.m. ET on ABC. It's the lone Sunday game of the open- ing weekend and the third primetime slot on the schedule so far. Notre Dame will also host USC (Oct. 23) and North Carolina (Oct. 30) for night games. A Sept. 25 neutral-site meeting with Wis- consin at Soldier Field in Chicago will be a noon ET kickoff, FOX announced. F o r m e r M a r s h a l l g u a r d C a i n M a d d e n , a three-year starter and 2020 PFF first-team All-American, joined the Notre Dame football program in June. PHOTO COURTESY MARSHALL ATHLETICS Notre Dame's Fall Camp Roster Taking Shape