Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM OCT. 18, 2025 17 slot. Makes opposing teams pay for soft coverage over the middle. They're just as aligned spiritually, though, as they are disparate physically. Fields is big into his faith. So is Paul- ing. Sharing the role as one-year rentals of sorts on the Notre Dame roster, they both wanted to spend their final season as college football players somewhere that felt like home. Fields verbally made it clear that somewhere was Notre Dame when he said in September, "It's just a special, special place." In the first week of Octo- ber, Pauling echoed the sentiment that there's nowhere he'd rather be. Nowhere else he's supposed to be. "The biggest thing I've learned is just God leads me exactly where I need to be all the time," Pauling said. "And I think being here the last nine months now, he's just showing me that I'm right where I'm supposed to be, whether it's helping guys out on the field, in the locker room, doing stuff off the field with the guys. "I just know that this is where I'm supposed to be in this mo- ment in my life, and I don't take it for granted." Through the first five games of his lone season at Notre Dame, Pauling wasn't on pace to break any sea- son-long personal bests or anything as- tonishing like that. He had 9 catches for 138 yards and 2 touchdowns. At Wiscon- sin in 2023, he finished the year with 74 catches for 837 yards and 6 touchdowns. With Fields and so many other prom- inent pass catchers in the mix in South Bend this season, though, including someone who starts over him in the slot in junior Jaden Greathouse of ridiculous College Football Playoff numbers fame, Pauling wasn't ever supposed to come in and be Notre Dame's No. 1 guy. He was supposed to be a veteran presence that up- lifted everyone around him, old and young. That box? It's absolutely got a big, ole checkmark in it. Notre Dame head coach Marcus Free- man said in the offseason Pauling made a profound, instant impact on his team- mates. Sure enough, he was voted one of six 2025 Fighting Irish team captains by his peers. Typically, the only transfers who have been named team captains in Notre Dame history have been quarterbacks. Pauling shattered the status quo. It takes a special type of person to pull that off. "How does he do that? It's one, by the example he sets in terms of how he prac- tices," Freeman said. "He practices at an extremely high level with high velocity. He's a confident individual. He's a verbal leader. He encourages the group. "Guys like to be around him. And he's a spark in terms of, maybe what he says, maybe what he does, but it builds confi- dence in those guys around him." MOVING WITH URGENCY Pauling was a captain at Wisconsin, too. There, he teamed back up with Mike Brown, now Notre Dame's wide receivers coach. Pauling and Brown first connected when Pauling came out of a Chicago-area high school to begin his college career at Cincinnati. Brown was the wide receivers coach there at the time. Brown recruited Pauling. Coached him for two years at Cincy. Then for another at Wisconsin. He's got him one last time — in a collegiate capacity, anyway — at Notre Dame. If anyone knows best who Pauling is as a person and a player, it's Brown. And it's Brown, like Freeman, who can't say enough positive things about him. "He raises the people around him, I think, is the most special thing about him," Brown said. "I think the biggest difference in him is just his maturity and his leadership that you notice and his ef- fect on other people. Obviously, he's get- ting better and better as a player as well, getting more comfortable being back in this system. And so, that part's special too. But I think the most special part is who he's become as a young man." Pauling wouldn't be the player he is or the young man he is without Brown. He probably wouldn't be at Notre Dame without Brown. "Having him give me this opportu- nity to come and play here at this tre- mendous university, it means the world to me," Pauling said. "There's always areas in my game where I can improve, whether it's route running, catching the football, in the block, in the spe- cial teams, whatever it is, and Coach Brown's always been there to kind of help me navigate those different things I need to improve or things that I'm doing well that I can help other guys with. So, I think that's been big for me." Taking Notre Dame's younger players under his wing is something Pauling has taken exceptional pride in, even though he's only known them a matter of months. And it'll only be a matter of a few more before he moves on from them and focuses on a new endeavor. Hopefully, the NFL. Whether it's pro ball or something else, Pauling will have left Notre Dame better than he found it. The most influ- ential accomplishment he could have with the Irish would be that. "My advice for freshmen is just never take these opportunities for granted and just do everything with a sense of ur- gency," Pauling said. "When we did our senior speeches during the fall camp, every senior talked about how the time flies by, and even Coach Brown, he's speak- ing to our teammates and he was talking about it. Reintegrate and move with urgency. "Don't say, 'I'll do it later.' This time flies by, and you're going to be a senior before you know it. Whether you're on a scout team now, whether you're a three or a two right now, act like you're the starter, prepare like you're the starter, and then when the time comes for you to actually have a bigger role, you'll be ready to do it." That's the mentality that earned him the moniker of "a dog" from Freeman on the first day of fall camp and "Gug Rat" from his teammates, who have liter- ally seen him spend so much time at the Guglielmino Athletics Complex on Notre Dame's campus that he had no choice but to sleep there instead of trekking home at some ungodly hour of the morning. No matter the numbers Pauling fin- ishes the season with, he'll be looked back on as someone who took Notre Dame's wide receiving corps to a new level. "There's a lot of things he's done to elevate the position in a very short period of time, and you don't often see people do that," Freeman said. "He's a tremen- dous asset to this team and a tremendous asset to that wide receivers room." ✦ "He practices at an extremely high level with high velocity. He's a confident individual. He's a verbal leader. He encourages the group. Guys like to be around him." NOTRE DAME HEAD COACH MARCUS FREEMAN ON PAULING