Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1535097
BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM SUMMER 2025 13 UNDER THE DOME Getting a 54-pick value is always good, but pairing Watts with Jessie Bates III is great. It gives Atlanta a ball- hawking safety duo. Watts' 13 intercep- tions in his past two seasons at Notre Dame made him one of the country's best defensive backs, and he now brings that ability to a Falcons defense that also nabbed edge rushers Jalon Walker and James Pearce Jr. in Round 1." — ESPN NFL Draft analyst Matt Miller in tabbing Notre Dame safety Xavier Watts, who he had at No. 42 on his big board, going to the Falcons at 96th overall in third round as his 31st-best pick of the 2025 NFL Draft 1 Fighting Irish women's bas- ketball player in school history compiled at least 1,700 points, 700 rebounds and 300 assists during her career — SONIA CITRON. She left South Bend after tallying 1,774 points (11th in program history), 173 three-pointers made (eighth) and a free throw percent- age of 84.3 (fifth). She set the program single-season record in the latter cat- egory in 2023-24 with a mark of 91.2. The portal losses of Ol- ivia Miles and Kate Koval were significant, not to mention the graduations of WNBA draft picks Sonia Citron, Maddy Westbeld and Liatu King. But Hannah Hi- dalgo returns, and Niele Ivey has added 6-3 Malaya Cowles (Wake Forest) and 6-4 Gisela Sanchez (Kansas State) to give the Irish some size. Ivey still has only six schol- arship players on the ros- ter, so expect some more work in the transfer portal to come." — Charlie Crème of ESPN on slot- ting Notre Dame at No. 18 in his "way too early" top 25 and as a No. 5 seed in his first bracketology for the 2025-26 season in late April after the transfer portal closed 74th Was where the Notre D a m e w a s s l o t t e d in Joe Lunardi's first men's basketball bracketology for ESPN for the 2026 NCAA Tournament, released in late April after the transfer portal closed. That put the Fighting Irish squarely on the bubble as the second team in the "Next Four Out" category. Notre Dame doesn't need to move mountains in Year 3 of Shrewsberry, but it needs to finish in the top half of the ACC and make Selection Sunday at least worth watching. Considering the first-year coaching successes at Michigan and Lou- isville this season, there's no reason for the Irish to remain this anonymous in the sport." — Pete Sampson of The Athletic on if Notre Dame men's basketball head coach Micah Shrewsberry could be on the hot seat Irish On Social Media PHOTO BY MICHAEL MILLER