Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM APRIL 2025 37 "The minute I stepped on campus for the first time, I just fell in love with it," Evans said in Indianapolis Feb. 27. "It was during COVID, so I couldn't do any official recruiting. I just did it with my family. It was in June. Beautiful cam- pus, beautiful atmosphere, beautiful weather, and I just fell in love. You could just feel the presence, the history that Notre Dame had. "And I knew one day football was go- ing to end, and I wanted to be set up for post-football. I felt like Notre Dame was the best situation for that. They set you up for life after football." Life after football is not now. Evans has a whole professional career ahead of him if he has it his way. That brings us to question No. 2 — what kind of activities did he partake in during the combine? "I'm doing everything," he said. "I feel good. I came out of the season pretty unscathed for playing 16 games." He went into the season, though, scathed. And by way of that, recover- ing from an ACL injury from the prior October, Evans didn't have the senior season many expected him to numbers- wise. He led Notre Dame with 43 catches and took those receptions for 421 yards and 3 touchdowns, but those statistics were not on par with the pace and stan- dard he set for himself in eight games as a junior before suffering the knee set- back. He had 29 catches for 422 yards and 1 touchdown in that two-thirds of a regular season. Subsequently, Evans had a lot to prove in Indy. He did not arrive there with the persona of, say, a Michael Mayer, who entered his NFL Draft year coming off a record-setting Notre Dame career that included 67 catches for 809 yards and 9 touchdowns in his junior season, his final one in South Bend. Evans said he's been hard at work, emphasizing improvement in combine drills, with personal trainer Jeremy Holt in Nashville since Notre Dame's loss in the national championship game Jan. 20. He's taking the pre-draft pro- cess as seriously as possible. Mayer slipped to the early picks of the sec- ond round in 2023, and there was some shock value that came with his slide. Evans? He might not hear his name called until the third day of the draft. Whoever picks Evans, though, is get- ting a player who led the national run- ner-up in receptions while also priding himself the most in blocking for a rush- ing attack that was one of the most suc- cessful in college football. That doesn't go unnoticed by NFL scouts. "I feel like that was one national cri- tique that I always got — 'Can he run- block, can he do well in the run game?'" Evans said. "I feel like at the end of the season when we started playing better teams consistently in the playoff, I feel like I put my best film on tape and a lot of that was run blocking. "We had that stretch against Georgia when we just ran the ball for a full quar- ter. I feel like that kind of solidified the doubts in people's minds. Like, 'Hey, this guy, we don't need to worry about that. He's an all-around solid player.'" There are players like Evans' Notre Dame teammate, safety Xavier Watts, who did not have to put anything out there for prospective pickers in In- dianapolis. Then there's Evans, who is locked in on doing all he can to be viewed in a similar light as Mayer, Watts or any other surefire pick out of South Bend from any side of the ball. "My goal coming out of this is to es- tablish a great relationship with all the coaches, one, and all of the support staffs for the teams," Evans said. "But personally a goal of mine is to look ath- letic and smooth and not look rough out there. Just be confident and show the teams my stuff." THE TOTAL PACKAGE Watts could have found himself at an NFL Scouting Combine media day podium in 2024. He chose to return to Notre Dame for his final season of colle- giate eligibility, though, and it paid off. If he didn't go back, he wouldn't have been able to detail a specific play he made during the 2024 season as the one that proved he's ready for the next level. It was senior day in South Bend with Notre Dame hosting Virginia in late No- vember, and Watts capped off a dom- inant 28-0 first half for the Fighting Irish with what he'll tell you was one of the smoothest interceptions of his col- lege career. He has 13 of those to choose from in his time at Notre Dame. When asked at the combine in In- dianapolis, he picked that one as quickly as he picked off the particular pass — which was ironically intended for new Notre Dame wide receiver Malachi Fields, who Watts apparently read like a book before and immediately following the snap. "I broke before the receiver had bro- ken for the ball," Watts said. "It was third down. I knew the guy was go- ing to be running the dig. I have really good instincts. I trust [myself]. When I feel something, I'm just going to do it. I trusted he was going to run the dig, I broke on the dig, he ran the dig and I got a pick." Tight end Mitchell Evans led Notre Dame with 43 catches last season, but he also took great pride in his run-blocking as well. PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER