Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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4 MARCH 2026 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED I rish head coach Marcus Freeman keeps his preferred and simple recipe for roster building no secret. It's primarily to identify and de- velop high school recruits. Then, use the transfer portal to fill any remaining needs or unexpected deficiencies. Freeman calls it "ma- joring " in high school recruiting and "supplementing" through the transfer portal. The formula is both art and sci- ence, and Freeman and his staff were masterful at each during the 2026 roster reload cycle. Once the recruiting dust settled, Notre Dame's 30-man 2026 high school class ranked No. 2 nation- ally, making it the first top-five Irish class since 2013 when future NFL players Jaylon Smith, Isaac Rochell, Will Fuller and Mike McGlinchey head- lined that fourth-ranked group. "It's our highest-ranked class since they really started keeping rankings," Freeman said in celebration of his 2026 haul, the highest-ranked Irish class in more than 20 years. "We signed a lot of high school football players and really good high school football players. And we have to be committed to developing those guys." According to a story in The Athletic, 27 of the 28 prep recruits who took cam- pus visits to Notre Dame during this roster reload cycle became Fighting Irish, a telling testament to the kind of culture and appeal Freeman has built within his program. But even with one of the best high school recruiting classes in program history signed, sealed and delivered, roster construction still remained. Graduations and outgoing transfers left the Irish roster with gaps to fill, and Freeman again hit a grand slam with seven portal signees that mainly come from power programs, including Ohio State, Oregon, Alabama and Michigan. "We weren't looking for a whole bunch of guys [from the portal]," Free- man said. "So, we had to be very strate- gic, very intentional about our process and who we were targeting." After a slow start to transfer shop- ping, Notre Dame finished strong and ended up with the No. 9 ranked portal class in the country per On3, making Freeman's program one of only three schools in the nation (Texas A&M and Texas were the others) to compile a top- 10 class in both high school recruiting and portal pursuits. "The guys we signed, those guys were as wanted as anybody else in the coun- try in the portal," Freeman explained of his transfer class. "And for those guys to choose Notre Dame for the values that this place entails, it's bigger than foot- ball. If you're coming here just to play football, it's not going to work." MANY LAYERS And while recruiting rankings and portal prowess will forever remain the preferred way to measure the quality of a program's roster, player retention might carry equal importance in this "here today gone tomorrow" world of college athletics. And that's another area where Free- man shines. Yes, 19 Irish players from last year en- tered the transfer portal this cycle. But that list was largely made up of deep reserves, walk-ons and those with little or no path to meaningful playing time. "The job we did in retaining our ros- ter speaks to the culture," Freeman ex- plained. "Those guys want to be here and they want to be part of what we're building and what's ahead for us." Based on past production, senior defensive lineman Joshua Burnham is the only departing Irish player who negatively impacts the depth chart. And Burnham was replaced by in- coming transfer Keon Keeley from Alabama, a junior who was ranked as the No. 2 overall player in the 2023 recruiting class behind Texas quarterback Arch Manning. "It's a challenge for young stu- dent-athletes right now. The transfer portal is enticing," Freeman added. "It's hard because there's so many voices pulling at these young people from agents, from parents, from their coaches about what's the right decision." Freeman also mentioned university cooperation as another factor to building and maintaining a playoff-caliber roster. For years, the Notre Dame adminis- tration was reluctant, and even unwill- ing, to accept undergraduate transfers. And the Irish coaches obliged by pri- marily bringing in only graduate trans- fers for one plug-and-play season. This year, six of the seven incoming transfers will bring multiple years of eligibility with them. "We had strategic, intentional con- versations with admissions of under- standing the landscape of college foot- ball has changed, college athletics has changed, and there's going to be some student-athletes that we have to get admitted into Notre Dame that maybe haven't graduated." From high school recruiting, portal pursuits, and roster retention — all the way up to university support — building and maintaining a roster is a complex undertaking. And there's clear evidence that no coach in the country did it better during the 2026 recruiting cycle than Marcus Freeman at Notre Dame. ✦ Under Freeman's leadership, Notre Dame is one of only three schools in the nation (Texas A&M and Texas being the others) to compile a top-10 class in high school recruiting and the trans- fer portal per On3 this year. PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER Todd D. Burlage has been a writer for Blue & Gold Illustrated since July 2005. He can be reached at tburlage@blueandgold.com. UPON FURTHER REVIEW TODD D. BURLAGE Irish, Marcus Freeman On A Recruiting Roll