Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM APRIL 2025 19 28 passes. He truly did it all. The lasting images of Love racing down the sideline on a 98-yard touchdown run against Indiana and stretching across the goal line after breaking four tackles for a touchdown against Penn State will live in Notre Dame lore forever. 7. LB JACK KISER No one has played more games in a Notre Dame uniform than Kiser, and few were more valuable to its national title game run. Kiser rarely missed tackles, and he led all linebackers with 35 de- fensive stops and 18 quarterback pres- sures. He conceded snaps to the young group of linebackers behind him, but as defensive coordinator Al Golden put it, he played on the most important downs. Kiser's sixth season in a Notre Dame uniform was his best, and his leader- ship helped guide the Irish through good times and bad. He will be drafted in April after a prolific career. 6. OT CHARLES JAGUSAH Jagusah's 2024-25 season arc was as strange as anyone's. He was expected to miss all of it after tearing his right pectoral muscle in fall camp, but he was available by the Sugar Bowl and he stepped into the lineup during the Or- ange Bowl. At right guard then and left tackle 10 days later, Jagusah looked ter- rific and made a significant difference for Notre Dame's offense. Obviously, if we knew Jagusah would get hurt, we would not have ranked him this high. But his performance in the postseason validated the sentiment in South Bend that he was Notre Dame's best offensive tackle. 5. TE MITCHELL EVANS It took Evans a long time — more than half the season, by some accounts — to return to his 2023 form after tearing his ACL in October of that year. He never made quite as big a splash as he did be- fore he got hurt, but when he had his full movement skills back, the Irish were a much better offensive football team. Despite his underwhelming num- bers (43 receptions for 421 yards and 3 touchdowns), Evans is a likely Day 3 pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. Blue & Gold Illustrated underestimated the time it would take him to reach full strength, but the impact he made on the offense when healthy was bigger than the stats indicate. 4. DT HOWARD CROSS III Cross had a slow start to the season, turned it on a bit, then missed most of November with an ankle injury. He was definitely better in 2023 than he was in 2024, but he still ranked third among all Notre Dame players in quarterback hurries with 17. His missed tackle per- centage of 4.0 was the best on the team among all Irish players who logged at least 2 tackles, too. Cross will go down as pound for pound one of the most productive play- ers Notre Dame has had in the middle of the defensive line in quite some time. 3. S XAVIER WATTS Watts backed up his 2023 Bronko Na- gurski Trophy-winning season with ar- guably a better individual year in 2024, even though he did not take home the same hardware. He was an All-Ameri- can again, though, and he had 6 inter- ceptions compared to the 7 he reeled in the prior year. Especially with Morrison missing so much time with his hip injury, it was very clear during Notre Dame's run to the national championship game who was the best and most important player from a stout Fighting Irish defense. Watts. Period. 2. CB BENJAMIN MORRISON Morrison went out with a bit of a whimper compared to the way in which he came in. A 2022 Freshman All-Amer- ican for intercepting 6 passes that sea- son, Morrison had 3 interceptions the rest of his career. He didn't have any in a junior season that was cut short at six games because of a hip injury. Morrison will still likely be a top-end NFL Draft pick after just three seasons (two and a half, really) of college ball. He'll be looked back upon as one of the ringleaders of the Irish's movement to becoming one of the elite defensive back factories in the country. 1. QB RILEY LEONARD There might not have been another quarterback in college football who had a more up-and-down season in 2024 than Leonard. The lows were low. He was a major reason Notre Dame lost at home to Northern Illinois, throwing 2 interceptions in that game. The highs were high. He set the Notre Dame sin- gle-season rushing touchdown record and was a major reason the Irish ended up in the national championship game. Say what you will about Leonard, but he was indeed Notre Dame's most im- portant player — for better or worse. ✦ Riley Leonard set the Notre Dame single-season rushing touchdown record and was a major reason the Irish advanced to the College Football Playoff national championship game. PHOTO BY MICHAEL MILLER