Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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36 MARCH 2025 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED BY TYLER HORKA A s soon as Notre Dame lost the national championship game to Ohio State Jan. 20, you'd have been in your right mind to fear a mass exodus of Fighting Irish players fleeing South Bend for the transfer portal. Notre Dame kept its roster buttoned up nicely through its playoff push — the Irish didn't lose any players to the portal when it opened in mid-December. But all bets are off once the season is actually over. Mass exodus, though? Nope. There wasn't one. Even after the 2024 season officially came to a close in gut-wrenching fash- ion against the Buckeyes, Notre Dame bid farewell to only six scholarship play- ers who exited via the portal: offensive linemen Rocco Spindler, Pat Coogan, Ty Chan and Sam Pendleton, and wide re- ceivers Jayden Thomas and Deion Colzie. Among the half-dozen, only Coogan and Spindler were starters at their respec- tive positions. And even they didn't have starting jobs to begin the 2024 season; they went into the starting lineup af- ter the Irish sustained a rash of injuries along the offensive line. Would Notre Dame have liked to hold onto one or both of them for depth pur- poses in 2025? Perhaps. You could say the same about Pendleton and Chan, too. Notre Dame is thinner up front on offense considering it did not get any offensive linemen from the portal. The Irish did sign four offensive line- men from the recruiting class of 2025, though, so if you're looking at raw num- bers, four on the way out and four com- ing in is actually net even. As for the wide receivers? Notre Dame signed two from the transfer portal and three in the recruiting class. The Irish are doing just fine numbers-wise there, too, after the departures of Thomas and Colzie. The transfer portal isn't always about numbers. It's a lot of quality versus quantity. After wideouts Malachi Fields and Will Pauling, tight end Ty Washing- ton and defensive back DeVonta Smith committed to Notre Dame early in the transfer portal cycle, the Irish inked de- fensive linemen Jared Dawson and Elijah Hughes, safety Jalen Stroman and kicker Noah Burnette later on in the process. Here is a little more on those latter four players who are joining the Fight- ing Irish in their pursuit of another deep playoff run in the upcoming season. DEPTH UP FRONT Notre Dame lost two veteran defen- sive tackles to an exhaustion of eligibility when starters Howard Cross III and Ry- lie Mills played their final games in blue and gold, the former finishing out his collegiate career in the national cham- pionship game and the latter having his end sooner than he would have liked be- cause of a knee injury suffered in the first round of the College Football Playoff. Those are two unique players the Irish won't ever replicate, for better or worse. But the Irish did their due diligence in trying to replace them as best they can by securing transfer portal commit- ments from Jared Dawson from Louis- ville and Elijah Hughes from USC. Two vets go out. Two come in. Dawson and Hughes committed to Notre Dame on the same day, Jan. 11. Dawson is 6-foot-1 and 302 pounds. In 10 games with the Cardinals in 2024, in- cluding one against Notre Dame, Dawson recorded 19 total tackles, 6.5 tackles for loss, 4 sacks and 1 forced fumble. Four of those tackles came against the Irish in a 31-24 home victory for Notre Dame. Like Dawson, Hughes played against Notre Dame two times as a member of the Trojans' defensive line. He did not log a tackle in either of those match- ups, though. He's a rare underclassman transfer for Notre Dame, a program that typically recruits and signs graduate transfers like Dawson. Hughes is a rising true junior; he went to USC as a member of the high school class of 2023. The Virginia native announced on In- stagram that he was humbled and hon- ored to be transferring to Notre Dame. QUALITY VS. QUANTITY Notre Dame offsets its departures with a several key additions via the transfer portal Former Louisville defensive tackle Jared Dawson recorded 19 total tackles, 6.5 tackles for loss, 4 sacks and 1 forced fumble in 10 games during the 2024 season. PHOTO COURTESY LOUISVILLE ATHLETICS NOTRE DAME'S Comings & Goings COMING Name, Pos. ............................Previous School Noah Burnette, K ...................... North Carolina Jared Dawson, DL ............................... Louisville Malachi Fields, WR ............................... Virginia Elijah Hughes, DL........................................ USC Will Pauling, WR ............................... Wisconsin DeVonta Smith, Alabama, DB ............ Alabama Jalen Stroman, S ........................... Virginia Tech Ty Ty Washington, TE ......................... Arkansas GOING Name, Pos. ................................... New School Ty Chan, OL ...................................... Connecticut Deion Colzie, WR ........................... Miami (Ohio) Pat Coogan, C ...........................................Indiana Tyson Ford, DL ................................................ Cal Aidan Gobaira, DE ..................... James Madison Jaden Mickey, CB ............................................ Cal Benjamin Morrison, CB .....NFL Draft early entry Sam Pendleton, OL .............................Tennessee Rocco Spindler, OL ............................... Nebraska Jayden Thomas, WR ............................... Virginia