Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1496419
8 MAY 2023 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED BY PATRICK ENGEL T he final chapter of Kaleb Smith's col- lege career will, in a way, resemble what he thought would be the plot to his first. Notre Dame, where the sixth-year wide receiver has chosen to spend his fi- nal season, is the main difference. It's no small one compared to the foot- ball life in the ACC he planned and lived for five years. It does, though, come with the quarterback once slated to be his roommate. Back in 2017, Smith and Sam Hartman were Wake Forest commits taking recruit- ing visits together and sharing visions of shredding ACC secondaries. They knew of each other even before then. Chad Grier, Hartman's coach at Mount Pleasant (S.C.) Oceanside Collegiate, was teammates with Smith's dad, James, at Richmond in the 1980s. They never shared a room or a field at Wake Forest, though. Smith planned to be an early enrollee, but that option fell through. He circled back to in-state school Virginia Tech, which told him he could walk on for the spring and earn a scholarship after his freshman year. He pounced. He went from walk-on in 2018 to the Hokies' leading receiver (674 yards) in 2022. Hartman, meanwhile, started 45 games for the Demon Deacons and set the ACC record for career touchdown passes (110). Five years later, the transfer portal led both to Notre Dame, though not by coor- dinated effort. Smith hopped in the portal in late No- vember looking for a new challenge for his last year. Notre Dame, at first, was an il- lustrious option but also a foreign one. He felt the warmth during his December visit in the cold, but he headed into it solo. Two months later, it's anything but daunting. Hartman is a reason for the fast comfort, but not the only one. "It was kind of refreshing," Smith said. "It's scary taking that next step. I'm leaving somewhere that I've been for five years. I'm a captain. Obviously, I'm a well-established name there. Then seeing somebody that I had a future with earlier commit here, OK, now it's meant to be." Smith's Dec. 21 commitment preceded the rumblings about Hartman and Notre Dame only by a couple days. He watched Wake Forest's Gasparilla Bowl win Dec. 23 aware of those murmurs, but not wanting to interfere with Hartman's process. "I'm like 'Wait, this actually is a pos- sibility?'" Smith said. "But I know how I felt when I hit the portal. I wouldn't want anybody reaching out, trying to get a little insight here and there. "I let him make his decision. I had a good feeling that's what his decision would be." Once it happened, he and Hartman put old dreams into action mere days after they stepped on campus in January. They went to the Irish Athletic Center, laced up the cleats and tossed the ball around, a sight years in the making and one they hope is common this fall. That throwing session or anything since hasn't made Smith second-guess old decisions. He overlapped with his older brother, Justice, at Virginia Tech. He met his fiancée there. He became a starter and a captain. Now, his year at Notre Dame will let him live out the origi- nal plan anyway. "I feel like it came around full circle, and we're right where we're supposed to be," Smith said. UNDER THE DOME 'FULL CIRCLE' Notre Dame leads graduate transfer receiver Kaleb Smith to a reunion with Sam Hartman Smith transferred to Notre Dame after five years at Virginia Tech, where he went from a walk-on to the Hokies' leading receiver with 674 yards in 2022. PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER