Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM PRESEASON 2025 39 Of that group, including Logan, Schmidt probably has the best chance to surface in a meaningful role in 2025. History tells us someone likely will emerge from that group. With that, here's a countdown of the 10 biggest summer surprises of the past 10 years. Keep in mind that excludes all the early enrollees, excludes five-stars, ex- cludes Rivals250 prospects unless there are extraordinary circumstances for them to overcome. Also, this only takes into account what those players became as freshmen, not who and what they became in subsequent seasons. So, one- hit wonders are welcome. 10. CHARLES JAGUSAH, OT (2023) Jagusah is the anomaly in this group, because he was a Rivals250 player who was so clearly talented enough to chal- lenge for a spot in the two-deeps early, but he had future pros Joe Alt and Blake Fisher among those in front of him. Not only that, the former Illinois high school wrestling champion suppos- edly had a one-year recovery timetable from February 2023 surgery to repair a torn ACL and essentially replace a torn PCL, both in his right knee. That was four months before he arrived on Notre Dame's campus and after playing six games of his high school senior season with those injuries. Jagusah started practicing in mid- November of his freshman season, made a five-play cameo at guard against Stanford later that month, then shocked those from the outside looking in by becoming opt-out starter Joe Alt's replacement at left tackle for the Sun Bowl in late December. Jagusah beat out Aamil Wagner and Tosh Baker to do so during the Decem- ber team workouts and became just the 10th freshman to make a start on the offense line for the Irish in more than five decades. 9. KURT HINISH, DT (2017) Just keeping his commitment and signing with the Irish in February 2017 in itself was significant, given the mul- tiple defections in that recruiting cycle coaxed by a 4-8 bottom line in 2016 and the in-season firing that year of defen- sive coordinator Brian VanGorder. But to kickstart the head coach Brian Kelly reboot/renaissance, the Irish needed some freshmen defensive line- men to at least provide quality rota- tional depth in 2017. The hope was that it would come from four-star prospect Darnell Ewell. Instead, Hinish was one of the unheralded linemen to rise to the occasion. He ended up seeing action in 12 games and collected 8 tackles, including a sea- son-high 3 at USC, all while his father, Kurt Sr., was battling Stage 4 colon can- cer back home in Pittsburgh. In fact, in the days leading up to the Irish playing in the Citrus Bowl against LSU at the end of that season, each Notre Dame player was given a $500 Best Buy gift card to spend however they wanted, as a perk from the Citrus Bowl folks. When Hinish went home for Christ- mas for four days just ahead of the team's trip to Orlando, Fla., he noticed the family's dishwasher was broken, and all his family members were washing dishes by hand. So, he decided to spend his bowl gift on a new dishwasher for the family. "We're not the richest family in the world," he would explain a few months later. "But when I called my dad to get the measurements for the dishwasher, I think he knew what I was up to and he wouldn't give them to me. So, I wasn't able to get them one. "I ended up buying him a drone in- stead, and he has a lot of fun with that." 8. LOGAN DIGGS, RB (2021) Perhaps Diggs' most significant long- term contribution during his freshman season was keeping fellow freshman running back Audric Estimé from getting so discouraged that he'd transfer when both of them weren't playing and again when Diggs finally cracked the two-deep and Estimé continued to ferment. Before developing into a unanimous All-American and a first-round pick in the NFL Draft, offensive tackle Joe Alt arrived in South Bend in 2021 as a Rivals three-star prospect that received just nine recruiting offers. PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER